Innholdsfortegnelse for 25-Apr-2018 i Shooting Times & Country

Last week, after much thought and a long year of frugality, which even involved a switch to drinking half pints, I parted with cold hard cash and bought a new gun. My first outing with the shiny bit of kit, a Blaser F16, was uplifting; I broke clay after clay and smiled all the way home. The following day I picked it up again and went out to some East Anglian woods, in pursuit of roosting pigeons. Regrettably, I shot appallingly, but I did emerge victorious after ambushing a mighty squirrel. The plan is to roast him in butter then pot him in a Kilner jar. The next day, I drove back to London and placed my new gun in the cabinet next to my beloved Beretta. Suddenly, I was…

2 MAY NGO LINCOLNSHIRE AUCTION OF PROMISES Skillington Village Hall, Grantham, Lincolnshire Tel 07821 032667 3-10 MAY ARUNDELL ART WEEK The Arundell Arms Hotel, Lifton, Devon Tel 01566 784666 12 MAY WEST LONDON SHOOTING SCHOOL DEER STALKING COURSE Showell Farm, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire Tel 020 8845 1377 6-7 MAY BROADLANDS COUNTRY SHOW Broadlands estate, Hampshire www.broadlandscountryshow.co.uk 12-13 MAY SPORTFISH READING SHOW Sportfish Game Fishing Centre, Theale, Reading, Berkshire Tel 0118 930 3860 19 MAY BASC COUNTRYSIDE CLAY SHOOT Six Mile Bottom estate, Newmarket, Cambridgeshire Tel 01283 810910…

CA: Stay calm over Alabama rot rise The Countryside Alliance (CA) has urged dog owners to remain “calm yet vigilant” following reports that cases of the lethal Alabama rot have doubled over the past year. More properly known as cutaneous and renal glomerular vasculopathy, this rare disease is often fatal in dogs, with initial symptoms including skin lesions on the legs, chest and abdomen. There were 40 recorded cases in the UK in 2017, more than twice as many as the 19 reported in 2016 and this number appears to have risen substantially, with 30 cases already reported in 2018, as of 5 March. The CA suggests that dog owners keep up to date with confirmed outbreaks of Alabama rot and to report any abnormal symptoms such as skin lesions…

BASC says the Offensive Weapons Bill will need close scrutiny (News, 11 April). I did not really intend making any comments on this subject but I feel exasperated. There is no doubt we will face further draconian restrictions. I have lost a little faith that our organisations have the power or the will to defend our rights. Remember we were told we would not have to pay GPs for their “time” — what happened there then? As the most law-abiding section of the community we are always going to be seen as easy targets. Excuse the pun. We and our organisations will not object too strongly just in case. Why should any firearms need to be banned or restricted? Put all of them on the floor and guess what? They…

“Some of the goats are wary, calling for tough stalks and challenging shots” Galloway has some famous wild goat herds living in the high hills. Many are descended from medieval livestock and they have been living in the deep back-country for centuries. They are true survivors and are hardy enough to handle the most extreme weather conditions. On the hill farms near where I work, the goats read the weather and descend from the high ground hours before the snow comes. The sudden descent of goats is a sure sign that bad weather is coming in. Weather is not the only challenge the goats face; they have been subject to intensive human persecution over the past 50 years. Some ancient herds were totally annihilated by foresters when the moors were…

Planting game cover is one of the areas where shoots, large and small, can make a big contribution to conserving wildlife. But all crops are not equal, so understanding what the different choices have to offer is essential. This is one of many areas where the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s (GWCT) science can help. Fifteen or 20 years ago the GWCT, with the British Trust for Ornithology, launched an investigation into which birds used which crops. The results were fascinating and they have been used to inform Countryside Stewardship prescriptions and GWCT advice ever since. It is probably fair to say that maize has become the backbone of pheasant and partridge driving cover in southern Britain, but what else is it good for? Precious little actually, bar rooks and…

How to perfect your swing SHOOTING TECHNIQUE Q I have the bad habit of stopping my swing after I pull the trigger, especially after the first shot. Is there a technique that I can practise to prevent this? A Stopping your swing is common and often misunderstood. Also known as checking your swing, it happens when you look at your muzzles rather than focusing on your target. You must remember that the gun is stationary and if you look at a stationary object, it doesn’t go anywhere. The reason your gun moves is because you are focusing on a moving bird so your gun moves with your eyesight, if gun mount and technique are correct. Many people try to measure lead by using the end of the gun off the…

Latin name: Pyrus cordata Common name: Plymouth pear How to spot it and where to find it: As its name suggests, the Plymouth pear — one of Great Britain’s rarest trees — is found in only two known West Country hedgerows, one near Plymouth itself and the other in Truro. It is a small deciduous tree that grows no higher than 10m. Its twigs are purplish and, in the words of its discoverer T. R. Archer Briggs, “plentifully furnished with spines”. It produces clusters of pale cream to pink flowers in late April and early May, which give off a faint but unpleasant odour that has been described as like a “decaying swamp”. The fruit is smaller and harder than other pear varieties. It is inedible to us but provides…

Of the many different breeds of chicken, few have achieved the worldwide success of the Rhode Island red. It was developed as a breed on the east coast of the US in the late 19th century, with breeders crossing a variety of different hens, from red Malay to buff cochins and leghorns. Two features secured its success: it is a prolific layer of attractive brown eggs, while the chicks can be sexed as day-olds by the colour of their wing. Though more modern hybrid chickens dominate commercial chicken production today, the Rhode Island red remains one of the most popular breeds of hen in the world, especially with smallholders and noncommercial keepers. They are one of the healthiest of breeds, require little in the way of care and are exceptionally…

SHOOT With the sun out and shining, farmers are catching up with their spring drilling, so now is the time to grab your hide and pigeon decoys and head out to the fields. Shooting pigeons over spring drillings has many benefits: it gives the crops a chance of survival by taking out flocks of hungry diners, and also helps out the farmers by reducing pigeon numbers in their area. It is vital, however, to ask for permission from the farmer before you turn up with your gun, kit bag and camouflage net. CALL BASC is asking members to get in touch if they are having any problems with police forces or GPs requesting a fee contrary to Home Office guidance. While proposals to change the medical involvement in firearms licensing…

Shooters can now receive an eight-week extension to expiring firearm and shotgun certificates under certain circumstances, in a move that it is hoped will reduce the existing backlog in renewals. The new extension, brought in through the Policing and Crime Act 2017, will allow licensing departments to take extra time to ensure that they have made an informed decision about an applicant’s ability to hold a certificate, without having to issue a Section 7 temporary permit. The extension will apply only when applications for a certificate renewal are made to the police at least eight weeks before it is due to expire, but when police are unable to decide on the application before the certificate expires. This will allow those who need to use their firearms on a daily basis,…

1 Laksen Ludlow quilted shooting vest £185 www.farlows.co.uk Soft and lightweight shooting vest with Primaloft insulation offering warmth without bulk. Water resistant and breathable, it is ideal for the warmer weather and will keep you comfortable without the risk of overheating. It also features two large front pockets and reinforcements to both shoulders. 2 Tikka CTR rifle £1,175 www.gmk.co.uk Now available in .223 calibre with a choice of 20in and 24in barrels, this is a compact multi-purpose rifle and a reliable tool for all training and hunting purposes. Features a Picatinny rail and a Teflon bolt, as well as a durable aluminum trigger-guard and a magazine release lever that enables rapid changes for the 10-round steel magazine. 3 Härkila rifle sling £44.99 www.bushwear.co.uk Dark brown leather canvas sling, measuring 93cm,…

The Chris Packhams of this world would argue that you don’t have to kill wild animals to appreciate them. But to me mere wildlife watching is like seeing a play from the back of the theatre, whereas pursuing fieldsports is to be up on the stage, stirring the birds from their trees and the roe deer from their hiding places, feeling the excitement and adrenalin and interacting with the quarry species in a very personal way. A good day’s hunting is the sporting equivalent of performing grand opera or headlining at Glastonbury. Of course, hunting in its purest form is now illegal, at least until the compositions of the two Parliaments more accurately reflect the views of our large but democratically nullified rural minorities. “Hunting is the equivalent of performing…

THIS WINTER THE Kennel Club’s Field Trials Committee made a subtle but important change to its rules — any club applying for a licence to run a field trial next season has to agree that the trial ground conforms to the Code of Good Shooting Practice. This is a timely and sensible requirement, as trialling is now firmly in the sights of the antis. At last December’s International Gundog League (IGL) Retriever Championship, “a small group of hunt saboteurs headed to the area to gather valuable information and formulate a plan about how to sabotage next year’s championships”. These words come from the Hunt Saboteurs Association’s (HSA) website, which also warns that “the organisers of next year’s event should certainly expect mass sabotage”. According to the HSA, “the IGL has…

“If we don’t manage how we shoot, some external body most certainly will” We’ve taken a broad look at the history of clubs (Wildfowling, 11 April) so now let’s examine an oft-neglected aspect of the sport — its ethics. Pure coastal wildfowling occupies a different niche from game shooting. Locally reared mallard often end up on the coast and many clubs rear their own in concert with those bred on inland game shoots. However, mallard and feral geese apart, all the other fowlers’ quarry species are wild and most breed in distant lands. Wigeon, teal and pintail all nest in the great sweep of land from the far north of Europe through Arctic Russia and into northern Asia. Pink-footed geese nest in Iceland and beyond. To get to our estuaries…

“Grouse shooting can survive with a number of raptors, but will not survive without them” I have lost count of the number of letters, comments and articles that I have read regarding the size of bags and disposal of game. My fellow contributor Laurence Catlow’s analysis of the videos of pheasant after pheasant being shot was one of the most comprehensive I have seen (First impressions going down the tube, 14 March). His take on the sad affair was superb and should give those who make such films, then put them out into the public domain, serious food for thought. There is no point in the sport beating itself up in the press when we continue to act as though what we do is of little consequence. I was taught…

It does depend on what equipment the syndicate has access to and the accessibility and size of the game cover plots. If a syndicate member is a farmer they will be able to drill, spray and fertilize the plots. That means your choice of crop is only limited by the soil type and aspect of the plot. You should be able to grow most straights — maize, sorghum and so on — or preferably crops with more conservation benefits, such as mixes including brassicas, quinoa and millet linseed. However, assuming access to equipment is limited, I would advise many DIY syndicates to go for longer-term crops such as chicory, canary grass and fennel or, if you have the budget, planting some strips of miscanthus. Taking care of them in the…

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 rifle 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 Contact the team Email: stanswers@timeinc.com By post: Shooting Times,…

Russet-brown reed warblers, newly arrived from their wintering grounds in Africa, will be starting to weave their nests around last year’s standing reeds. As they do this, any local cuckoos will keep a close eye on operations. The reed warblers will be focusing on creating a safe home in which to raise their chicks but a female cuckoo sees the nest as an opportunity. The relationship between reed warblers and cuckoos is one of the most well studied in the bird world, particularly by Professor Nick Davies of Cambridge University. He has shown that female reed warblers are more likely to reject a cuckoo’s egg if the local “neighbourhood watch” of breeding reed warblers alert her to the presence of a female cuckoo. If she misses the larger egg of…

“While drying this rejected powder it ignited, causing a terrible explosion” Gunpowder is a mechanical mixture of saltpetre — potassium or sodium nitrate — carbon and sulphur. Over the years there were various processes devised to make this mixture and its ingredients purer and more efficient. However, try as they may, those scientists who worked to refine gunpowder could never get away from its basic failing — it absorbed water from the atmosphere, a process known as hygroscopy. No matter what was done to it, gunpowder would always take up atmospheric moisture and become less efficient as a propellant as a result. Consequently, instruments were invented that allowed the gunpowder user to test a small sample to see how it would be likely to perform. The devices are known as…

Years ago, I attended a let day at a big driven shoot in Northumberland’s Cheviot Hills. The Guns had been recruited by my wife’s uncle, a well-known lawyer. At dinner the night before the shoot, he stood up to make a brief speech. He started off by pointing out that we all came from different walks of life, but we had one thing in common. “We’ve all lied to our other halves about how much this is actually costing.” The laughter that erupted gave an indication that the allegation contained more than an element of truth. Let’s face it, driven game shooting is expensive. I am amazed by the sums of money some people spend on it. Don’t get me wrong — I am always very grateful for an invitation.…

While the golden retriever was developed as a breed in the 19th century, it wasn’t until 1913 that it was officially recognised by the Kennel Club, though it was still known as a retriever (golden or yellow). Seven years later the yellow was dropped and it became the retriever (golden). However, breed historians regard 1868 as the most important date in the breed’s history. In 1854, Sir Dudley Coutts MarJoribanks (later to become Lord Tweedmouth) bought a 20,000-acre estate at Guisachan in the Scottish Highlands. He wanted to establish his own line of shooting dogs here, and had acquired Nous, a yellow wavycoated retriever, as his founding sire. In 1868 Nous was mated to a bitch called Belle, a Tweed water spaniel, and she gave birth to four yellow puppies,…

“If you shoot an adult fox or pick up a lactating vixen in a snare, do everything in your power to track down the cubs” I was talking to a couple of gamekeeper friends the other day about foxes, and we were debating whether fox numbers were up, or whether they were down and we were just getting better at dealing with them. It is hard to tell, and while most surveys point to a countrywide reduction in foxes, the people on the ground who are controlling them seem to be shooting and catching just as many. Getting better at it or not, local reductions or not, what really matters is how many foxes you have got on your particular patch of ground at any one time, and how you…

“Spending a few extra pounds at the start of the season will mean you will have better shoot days” Almost all lowland shoots grow game cover, from the smallest DIY syndicate to the largest commercial shoot. The only things that vary are the size of the plots and the acreage grown. Cover crops can do many things to enhance our shoot; they can provide options for early-season drives when the woods might have too much leaf on the trees to push pheasants out; they can link areas of land where there are no natural transfer points such as hedges or ditches; and they can give us more options in terms of areas we can shoot by, for example, transforming that massive hill field into a haven for game to be…