Innholdsfortegnelse for 09-Jan-2019 i Shooting Times & Country

“Do you shoot the geese,” I asked a Dumfriesshire farmer whose land has always been hoaching with greylags. “When my father passed on the farm he made me promise that I wouldn’t hassle them,” he replied. “He saw it as their refuge. I sometimes go out in the evenings just to hear the sound of them descending in their thousands.” The man in question is hardly sentimental; I had just watched him pluck two high snipe out the air with the sort of elegant efficiency you expect of a former Guards officer. Clearly, though, his geese are much loved. There are some people, outwith our world, who don’t understand how those who shoot birds can possibly cherish them. Yet, among the fieldsports community, feelings like those exhibited by the farmer…

21 JANUARY JOHN RIGBY & CO RIFLE RANGE OPENING West London Shooting School www.shootingschool.co.uk 29 JANUARY ANGLING TRUST FUNDRAISING DINNER Fishmongers Hall, London po.st/ATdinner 1 FEBRUARY GWCT JOCKEY CLUB EVENING Newmarket, Suffolk neilgraham2@hotmail.com 18-20 FEBRUARY GUNDOG TRAINING FOR PET DOG TRAINERS Oxfordshire/ Gloucestershire www.gundogtrainersacademy.co.uk 26 FEBRUARY STAG COURSE: MENTAL HEALTH & RESILIENCE Swincoe, Derbyshire enquiries@thegamekeepers welfaretrust.com 21 MARCH WOODCOCK CLUB DINNER Mayfair, London po.st/STwoodcock…

Christmas turkey for rescue dogs Dogs in rescue centres throughout the UK enjoyed a suitably festive meal at Christmas thanks to a £10,000 pet food donation by Skinner’s. Each rescue centre received a pallet of Turkey & Rice dinner from the company’s Field & Trial range. Will Delamore of Skinner’s commented: “Christmas is a special time to many people, and this should be no different for dogs in rescue centres.” Conservation boost for the New Year A record-breaking £152,841 has been raised by the North Yorkshire GWCT in a fundraising programme encompassing two charity clay shoots, a pub quiz, partridge shoot raffle, river walk, sweepstakes, dinner and donations. Regional GWCT organiser Sophie Dingwall commented: “The record amount of money raised will aid the vital conservation work the GWCT carries out…

My shoot in Berwickshire has been within my control for nearly 50 years. In the 1980s wild game prevailed and, to avoid spooking the pheasants and grey partridges, I fed the woods and turnips in darkness. On 21 December 1988, as I fed very late into the evening, I became aware of an unusual odour. I am now retired but back then I was an environmental regulator employed by the Tweed River Purification Board and had a natural instinct that was triggered when something was clearly wrong. The odour was similar to kerosene but it was not until I returned home to Galashiels around midnight that the true enormity of what I sensed came vividly into focus. What I had experienced was the aftermath of the bombing of Pan Am…

Fold-up decoys — FUDs for short — are ideal for use on a splash at flight and much easier to carry than whole-body ones. Half-believing the advertising hype, I bought a few of these some years ago. Yes, they float, but in any sort of wind they toss about rather scarily, and if the tide and wind are not working together they look very unnatural to me. But set up to stand or swim in shallow water, they look much better than simple silhouettes and are just as easy to carry, so are perfect for No.1 Splash.…

Winter may be in full swing but in some areas, the temperature is unseasonable. When ferreting in such balmy climates I must change tack for the good of my whole team. The weather affects the animals, the clothing I wear and the land on which I work. At the moment, in parts the undergrowth is still annoyingly high. The fresh greenness may have subsided but the skeletons of the nettles and hedge flailings still hamper a good day’s ferreting if I am working in those areas. Getting around the foliage problem has been made a lot easier with the array of quick-set long-nets on offer. These at least can be managed in such a way that most cover can be safely ferreted, without rabbits and ferrets slipping away. They instil…

All the leaves are off the trees and much of the woodland cover is now flat. Luckily, the woods have plenty of old laurels and rhododendrons that were planted for game cover many years ago by the estate. They haven’t really been touched since being planted so have created a jungle, which makes beating through them rather a nightmare. They hold the birds well, though, and act as perfect roosting and flushing cover for the pheasants. One of the many jobs on my list after the season has finished will be to cut rides through them to allow easier access for the beaters. The birds know that they can run rings around us and flush in the wrong direction if not pushed through sufficiently. These bushes, due to being non-native…

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 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 JEREMY HUNT Runs Fenway Labradors and a professional gundog trainer TIM MADDAMS Former head chef at River Cottage and runs a shoot in Devon SIMON WHITEHEAD Author, professional ferreter and rabbit controller IAIN WATSON Keen stalker and senior…

On a warm and wet January day, in the west of Britain, don’t be surprised if you see buzzards stomping around a field on the hunt for worms. With no thermals and damp feathers, it is probably easier to try to find several beetles and worms than to waste a lot of time and energy finding one rabbit. Different individuals specialise in different prey, with some radio-tagged birds spending almost all of their time feeding on the ground. Buzzards are remarkably sedentary so individuals will know their local patches — and the good fields for worms. A blanket of snow will make life much harder, of course, with worms becoming inaccessible, but these conditions are rarer than they used to be. The buzzard is now the UK’s most numerous bird…

Semi-wild ponies have ranged on Dartmoor since the Middle Ages: today a mixture of ponies of different types and colours can be seen on the moor, but most are of unknown breeding. There is, however, a breed standard. The accepted colours are bay, brown, black, grey, chestnut and roan; piebalds, skewbalds and spotted are not allowed. Excessive white markings are frowned upon, so while a white star is acceptable, a blaze is not. The height should not exceed 12.2hh. The ideal Dartmoor pony should be a sturdy, good-looking animal with the appearance of a scaled-down hunter. Popular as a children’s pony, the Dartmoor has a remarkable ability to carry weight, while its toughness and ability to thrive on poor pasture has made it popular for conservation grazing. Today the breed…

Talk about rewilding tends to divide people into two camps; those who worship at the altar of “leaving it to nature” and those who regard conservation as a matter of using natural resources wisely and sustainably. It is Utopia versus reality. This polarisation is a pity because, as hunters, we of all people appreciate the spiritual nourishment provided by the concept of “wilderness”. We are the people who relish going out to meet our quarry in its own habitat, sharing the weather and other patterns of nature, while others are slumped indoors with their PlayStation. But there is nobody quite so illiberal as a liberal on a mission. Those who earn their livelihoods in such places as grouse moors and deer forests feel threatened by the rewilding movement. And the…

See how your stalking trophies compare with other hunters’ by having them measured by experts. CIC is offering a trophy measuring service on the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation stand at the Great British Shooting Show at Birmingham’s NEC on 15-17 February. Book your tickets now at po.st/shootingshowtickets. Send your used cartridges to Agri.Cycle, which recycles spent shotgun cartridges and turns them into useful products such as outdoor furniture and flooring. The company recycles 100 per cent of the shotgun cartridges received (below), preventing them from going to landfill or being burned. The company has received a Royal Warrant for its work and has been applauded by BASC and the Countryside Alliance. For more information, visit www.agri-cycle.uk.com.…

1 Impact Sport electronic ear defenders RRP £82.20 www.brownells.co.uk These compact, lightweight ear defenders allow you to hear conversations while blocking out the noise of your gun. They automatically shut off after four hours to preserve battery life. The bottom half of the low-profile ear cups angle in sharply to ensure plenty of clearance when shouldering long guns. 2 Charleston shirt RRP £75 www.chevalier.se This classic checked shirt is suitable for almost any occasion. In traditional country colours, it is a shooting shirt to be proud of and for others to envy. It is available in a range of sizes from XS-4XL. 3 Härkila Orton waterproof packable jacket RRP £199.99 www.harkila.com This classically cut jacket packs down into its own pocket bag, then is quick to unpack and put on…

On rough shoots such as ours, every bird that we find is cherished, whether it gets shot at or not. On our second shoot of the season, we started the day by blanking-in two long belts of beech trees that converge on an exposed hilltop where Jerusalem artichokes grow. The original tubers were randomly spread and ploughed into this “awkward” piece of ground almost a decade ago, but they have proven a real asset to the shoot. We thank regular guest Dan Symons for gifting us the sack of tubers that were surplus to requirements on his Cornish farming enterprise. When the farm was managed under its Higher-Level Stewardship agreement, which has now drawn to a close, this thin-soiled and partly shaded spot refused to grow much of the various…

My brief note regarding the sudden influx of woodpigeons into west Surrey — a phenomenon on which I expanded the following week — has elicited a rather plaintive letter from a Mr A. Collier of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. Mr Collier writes: “I read with interest about the sudden influx of pigeons into your area. We have been equally puzzled by the absence of pigeons in our particular piece of woodland, which usually holds some hundreds and at times thousands. “In recent months, though, I have seldom seen more than a dozen in a bunch and then not very often. So if you would perhaps expend a few extra cartridges and push them back our way we would be very grateful.” Well, whether they have gone to High Wycombe or…

Latin name: Poa annua Common name: Annual meadow-grass Other names: Bluegrass (US), low spear grass, Suffolk grass How to spot it and where to find it: When the ground is largely bare in deep winter, you may still see coarse tufts of short, light-green grass, poking through disturbed ground or paving slabs and widely spread across wasteland. As its name suggests, annual meadow-grass flowers throughout the year, but is most prolific in spring. It does its growing in the first months of the year when competition from other plants is limited. Because it is so vigorous it is, like many other grasses, considered a weed and a nuisance. It invades lawns, where it appears as round paler patches, and is often found on arable land, particularly on acid soils. Its…

There are times in the year when the “lure of the basket”, as I call it, is very hard to resist; the age-old pull to go and gather the wild harvest. A good example is when spring is in the air, the wild garlic is in full growth, three-cornered leeks are up and tasty, crunchy and full of promise. The seashore offers almost as many treats as the hedgerow and all this helps the kitchen burst into life, way ahead of the market garden’s asparagus and spring greens. Mid-October is another such time. Wild mushrooms, berries and nuts are all out there shouting for your attention, vying to be the next thing in the basket. These are times of the year when it is easier to pick up the basket…

One of my Christmas presents was a chunky paperback entitled The Hermitage Dogs. Its 200 pages are heavily illustrated with paintings, drawings, etchings and even a few photographs from the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, which houses the largest collection of paintings in the world. I have been to the Hermitage but can’t recall seeing any paintings of dogs. The book has a long chapter devoted to hunting dogs. Its illustrations include one of hare hunting from ancient Greece, circa 515BC, a reminder that dogs and man have been partners in the chase for a very long time. I was fascinated to read that King Cyrus, who ruled Persia from circa 558-530BC, spent the taxes from four large towns on the upkeep of his hunting kennels. Sensible chap. However,…

Water-friendly Labrador GUNDOG TRAINING Q I am a keen wildfowler and have a Labrador bitch. She is an athletic type but has never been the best of swimmers. I have always thought that she could do with a thicker coat because she shivers a lot. I want to have a litter from her but if I keep a puppy it needs to be more suited to wildfowling. What’s your advice? A The Labrador originally came to the UK with one job in mind — to retrieve game from water. In many countries that is still considered to be its main function as a shooting dog but the physical traits needed to fulfil that role are often sadly missing in a lot of modern working Labs we now see in the…