Innholdsfortegnelse for 01-Nov-2017 i Shooting Times & Country

I do wonder how old you have to be before you feel capable of dealing with the sadness of shooting trips being cancelled. A few weeks ago, due to unfavourable tides, the kibosh was put on a long-awaited morning of wildfowling in Wells. The extra hours in bed followed by a slow breakfast were very welcome — but no amount of sleep, I thought, as I thumbed through the Saturday papers, ever makes you feel quite as alive as a blustery dawn in a muddy creek. Two days later, as the sun was rising, I sat in a sweet little wooden boat, watching the seals in Morston harbour, waiting for some bacon to cook. As three wigeon flew overhead, I considered what a uselessly calm morning it would have been…

8 NOVEMBER ONE-DAY GAME SEMINAR Westminster Kingsway College, London Tel 020 7963 4181 9 NOVEMBER BASC LADIES GAME DAY Sherbourne Farm Road, Sherbourne, Warwickshire Tel 01283 810910 14-15 NOVEMBER KENNEL CLUB HPR CHAMPIONSHIP 2017 Elveden estate, Thetford, Norfolk www.thekennelclub.org.uk/HPRChampionship 15 NOVEMBER NITESITE DEMO EVENING York Guns, York, North Yorkshire Tel 01904 487180 17 NOVEMBER THE NOVEMBER MEETING, COUNTRYSIDE DAY Cheltenham Racecourse, Gloucestershire http://cheltenham tickets.thejockeyclub.co.uk/online 22 NOVEMBER GWCT MACNAB BALL The Dorchester Hotel, Mayfair, London Tel 020 7290 0110…

Kent young Shots try game shooting Ten youngsters, aged between nine and 16, tried driven shooting for the first time at Whitehill, near Canterbury, last month. More than 70 people turned out to be a part of the day as the children received instruction in safety, game management and respect for quarry. Shotgun coach of the year named Kelvin Pettitt has been crowned BASCaccredited shotgun coach of the year. Mr Pettitt, who has coached for 25 years, was nominated for his “long service, invaluable advice, experience and excellent problem-solving abilities”. He was presented with a perpetual shield by BASC’s director of operations, Steve Bloomfield, last month. Junior fowlers head out on the Severn Gloucestershire Wildfowlers Association (GWA) recently held an afternoon of instruction followed by an evening flight for its…

Making an open and shut case Referring to a shooting day that we organised (Danish dogs bring home the bacon, 27 September), R. Simpson commented about cartridges being left in an open gun (Letters, 4 October). I run many shoots and would far rather see Guns holding a loaded open gun than have them closed when no one — often not even the owner — has any idea whether or not the gun is loaded or on safe, not that I’d rely on “safe”. A loaded/open gun is far safer than one closed, however it is carried. I also note that the Editor agreed somewhat with Mr Simpson’s comment, suggesting rather obliquely — and disparagingly in general of Italians — that we in Britain are among the safest when it…

 AMID ALL the affl ictions a working gundog can suffer, there is arguably nothing worse than being gun-shy. Peter Moxon, Shooting Times’s kennel editor for many years, believed that a gun-shy dog was a hopeless case, best given away as a pet or put down, “for his life will be a misery to himself and his master”. “Trainers initially fire a starting pistol inside their game bag so that it muffl es the shot” Moxon didn’t think that there was a cure for a gun-shy dog, though he did believe that there was a big difference between one that was gun-shy and one that was gun-nervous. “The latter can, with understanding on the part of the trainer, be completely cured and turned into a useful worker with the gun,” he…

It is fair to say that a gundog can never be classed as “fully trained” until it has got at least one full shooting season under its belt. You can put all the components in place, but nothing excites and stimulates a young gundog like a “proper” shoot day. Regular readers will recall that last month the small syndicate shoot I run at Twistmount had a “stir-up” day (Putting it all to the test, 4 October), and this gave me the chance to see how Remy the Labrador would cope with the hustle and bustle of Guns, beaters and, of course, dogs that he hadn’t met before. He did really well but once, as he was sent for a retrieve of a dead pheasant, he got a little hot-headed when…

Red deer: no sign of the rut STALKING Q When does the rut take place and how long does it last? I was out for stags at the end of September and had expected to see some rutting activity and hear some roaring, but there was no sign of it at all — is this normal? A The timing of the rut can be likened to the proverbial piece of string and its length. With certainty it takes place in the autumn, and regardless of how gloomy stalkers get about its intensity, we can be sure that it takes place reliably — otherwise we would not have the expanding red deer populations that we do. Stags can often be heard roaring after the middle of September, and different areas have…

There are dozens of different breeds of cattle in Europe, most of which were developed in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today a number have become extinct, while others are seriously endangered. However, in recent years there has been a growing appreciation of how well certain breeds are adapted to the environment in which they evolved, and as a result several of these breeds have grown in popularity, helped by dedicated breeding programmes. The Estonian native cow is a tough breed, valued for its milk, ease of calving and its longevity. Medium-sized, it is a polled breed, but fierce enough to protect its calves from wolves. It fell from favour during the Soviet occupation of Estonia, coming close to extinction. The breed society was restarted in 1989, and today the…

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE, ISSN 0037-4164, is published weekly, incorporating Shooting Magazine, Shooting Life, British Sportsman,The Angler’s News & Sea Fisher’s Journal and Field Sport, by Time Inc. (UK) Ltd, 3rd floor, 161 Marsh Wall, London, England E14 9AP, United Kingdom. © 2017 Time Inc. (UK) Ltd. Contributions are welcome but must be accompanied by a suitable stamped addressed envelope. Publication of accepted articles is not guaranteed, and the publishers will not be held liable for any manuscripts, photographs or other materials lost or damaged while in their possession, though every care will be taken. The Editor reserves the right to amend any such articles as necessary. Distributed by Marketforce (UK) Ltd, a Time Inc. (UK) Ltd company, 2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HU Tel:…

BOOK MacFarlane Pheasants, the largest pheasant producer in North America, is hosting its 11th biannual International Pheasant Management Seminar at its farm in Janesville, Wisconsin, US, next year. The event, held between 4-7 March 2018, will give attendees the chance to exchange information and ideas, and MacFarlane Pheasants will share its own successful management techniques. Some of the planned topics include biosecurity, egg storage and impact on hatchability, movement of birds and managing vegetative cover. Speakers include experts from the universities of Minnesota, Arkansas and Georgia. For more information and to register a place at the three-day seminar, visit www.pheasant.com. NOMINATE Time is running out to put someone forward for the next Countryside Alliance Awards. Better known as the Rural Oscars, this annual event gives you the chance to nominate…

1 ShooterKing Performance gilet £29.95 www.thomasjacks.co.uk The first item on our budget kit list is a real bargain, with an RRP less than £30 for a stylish and warm fleece suitable for everyday wear. Featuring two large cartridge pockets, it is available in a variety of colours and in sizes S-5XL. 2 Seeland Bolton fleece waistcoat RRP £59.99 www.seeland.com Keep warm in the field without breaking the bank this winter with this gilet, made with hollow-fibre insulation yarn to give exceptional heat retention. It features two spacious zipped front pockets and will work well as an extra layer in cold weather or as outerwear on warmer days. It also has an elasticated hem for a good fit and is trimmed with artificial leather for extra reinforcement on the hard-wear areas.…

Gun-shy dogs may not be any use for shooting but they are fine for falconry. One of the great attractions of falconry, or hawking, is that it is a silent sport, causing little or no disturbance in the countryside. Usually the only noisy moment is the cheer of encouragement from the falconer when he slips the bird after its quarry. I usually go hawking with friends and their goshawks once or twice a season. It is very much back-to-basics hunting, as there is no more challenging way of catching wild game. If you are lucky enough to come home with a bird or two in the game bag, you have done brilliantly. Goshawks may be extraordinarily efficient killers but to set them up so that they can take their quarry…

BILL HARRIMAN BASC’s head of firearms and global authority on guns MAT MANNING Airgunner and Journalist from the West Country BRUCE POTTS Shooting Times rifl e reviewer and stalker DAVID TOMLINSON Highly regarded writer and ornithologist LIAM BELL NGO chairman, Shropshire gamekeeper and keen wildfowler GRAHAM DOWNING Shooting consultant and sporting author PAUL RAWLINGS Gundog expert and A-panel spaniel Judge CHRIS DE CANI Riverkeeper, with specialist knowledge of chalkstreams TONY BUCKWELL Veterinary surgeon with a special interest in gundogs TONY JACKSON A game Shot, keen stalker and former editor of Shooting Times TOM PAYNE Professional shooting instructor and avid pigeon shooter SIMON WHITEHEAD Author, professional ferreter and rabbit controller IAIN WATSON Keen stalker and senior CIC international trophy Judge…

AN OWL FOUL-UP Shooting is not helped when one of its most famous journals cannot apparently correctly identify Britain’s commonest owl species, the tawny (Contents, 18 October). To anyone with a knowledge of birds but from outside the shooting world casually picking up a copy of Shooting Times, this kind of shoddy editing undermines the claims of the shooting world to be knowledgable about the countryside and its wildlife. C. Reader, Norfolk The Editor responds: You are quite right. I hold my hands up. I simply failed to proofread the contents page with due diligence. Mistakes do happen but the onus is on me, of course, to make sure that they are corrected before the magazine hits the shelves. THE FUTURE IS IN OUR HANDS I am under no illusions…

“Many would look forward to eating these delicious low-fat, high-protein foods” The poults are well on their way to being ready to shoot and I have been garnering the help of my pickers-up to come and walk the hedges back towards the centre of our ground. This allows some of the hyper spaniels to get rid of their energy and become a wee bit steadier for the handler. It’s a never-ending job — a bit how painting the Forth Bridge used to be like. The buzzard predation has not stopped and I am still losing roughly one pheasant a day, which is frustrating. I was even going to film myself shouting at a buzzard that kept flying around my head as if it were attached by some huge leash. Round…

“The working life of a gundog is brief and may be cut short through mishap or illness” I am writing this a few days before my first day’s driven shooting of the season and have decided that I will be dogless on this occasion as, for once, I will not be picking-up. For the greater part of the season I work my yellow Labradors on another shoot, where I organise the picking-up team. This season, in order to clarify a delicate situation touched on by my colleague David Tomlinson (Top rules for the field, 11 October) — relating to Guns who wish to bring their own dogs — a carefully worded directive has suggested that if Guns wish to pick any birds around their peg they are welcome to do…

The TV programme Eden was originally announced as a “social experiment” by Channel 4. The series looked at how 23 individuals (below), isolated on the Ardnamurchan peninsula on the west coast of Scotland, could build a functioning community from scratch. Supplied with basic shelter, a few supplies and some livestock, the group would fend for themselves by farming, fishing and hunting for a year with no access to the outside world. They would be filmed by an embedded crew and personal cameras. The participants included a doctor, vet, carpenter and shepherdess, with Glenn billed as the community’s hunter. Only four episodes were broadcast, showing the start of the project in March 2016, and then, without the group’s knowledge, the series was discontinued while they lived on in isolation. One by…

Latin name: Fistulina hepatica Common name: Beefsteak fungus Other names: Ox-tongue fungus How to spot it and where to find it: This parasitic bracket — so called because it produces bracket-shaped fruiting bodies on the trunk or main branches of a tree — is found widely across Britain and Ireland. It is usually found on oak or sweet chestnut and is easily identified by its tongue-shaped semicircular bracket, with an inflated edge that flattens with age. The flesh is red with white “veins”, and really does resemble raw meat, and oozes drops of a blood-like liquid. Interesting facts: Fistulina hepatica is the only known species of the genus in Britain and Europe, but other Fistulina — the name means “of little pipes and tubes” — have been recorded in tropical…

“When wild animals and unarmed humans collide, the latter tend to come off worse” Four wild boar recently went on the rampage through the German town of Heide, in the northern province of Schleswig-Holstein. Four people were injured. One man’s fingertip was torn off. Others suffered leg injuries after being rammed by the panicking boar’s razor-sharp tusks. One eyewitness saw a woman lying on the ground, screaming, after her trousers had been torn, according to a local radio station. Another said they were “completely bewildered” and that the boar had come “out of nowhere”. After a large-scale operation, one errant hog was killed by a rifle fired by a local hunter. The rest of the herd departed the scene, as the police might say. This isn’t the first time such…