Innholdsfortegnelse for 06-Mar-2019 i Shooting Times & Country

On Saturday evening, I stood in a snowdrop-covered dell, looking skyward. I have always enjoyed the merriment of driven days, but sometimes it is nice to be alone. Beyond the wood, across the fields, the cry of geese sounded. Darkness was falling and it was time for them to head back to the safety of the mudflats for the night. I never have much luck roost shooting and, much as I love duck flighting, I often return home empty-handed. Yet I’m at my happiest when out with a gun at gloaming. When we shoot at dusk, as Alasdair Mitchell wrote last week (Sharpshooter, 27 February), our senses are heightened. What we struggle to see, our ears strain to hear. Through the trees I watched an owl gliding a few feet…

16-17 MARCH WEST OF ENGLAND GAME FAIR Royal Bath & West Showground, Shepton Mallet, Somerset www.westofenglandgamefair.co.uk 22-23 MARCH THE LONDON SHOOTING FAIR Business Design Centre, Islington, London www.thelondonshootingfair.co.uk/ 3 APRIL YOUNG SHOTS COURSE West London Shooting School, Northolt Tel 020 8845 1377 www.shootingschool.co.uk 28 APRIL GAMEKEEPERS’ WELFARE TRUST CHARITY CLAY SHOOT Selkirk, Scottish Borders braidwood@bisleyshooting.co.uk 25 MAY COUNTRYSIDE CHARITY CLAY SHOOT West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire hayley.williams@basc.org.uk…

RBSS ditches plastic The Royal Berkshire Shooting School (RBSS) has banned plastic wad cartridges with effect from 1 March 2019 and is now a fibre-wad-only shooting ground. Visitors who arrive without the correct loads will be able to buy suitable cartridges at the ground. A spokesman for the RBSS said: “Please respect and support our decision by not knowingly attempting to use plastic wad cartridges when you come to shoot.” E. J. Churchill has also made a move away from plastic wads. A spokesman said the ground has been “fibre only for the past two years, with plastic only for competitions”. It’s time to count up those greys The GWCT is once again calling for farmers, land managers and gamekeepers to do their bit for conservation by taking part in…

After the sudden and premature passing of my mother last October, I found myself left with her 18-month-old yellow Labrador, Lizzie. I was at a complete loss until my husband’s uncle invited me — and the dog — to join him as a beater on a shoot. Following that initial introduction, I became completely infatuated with the sport. On the day, everyone was incredibly welcoming and supportive and they have continued to be so throughout the season, even referring to me as “part of the furniture”. Though this has my been my first ever season, I am completely in love with the sport and hoping to join the shoot next season — if I can match them. It has provided me not only with a distraction from my loss but…

With the shooting season behind us and the dogs now fully rested, it is time to look ahead to the spring. One bitch sadly broke her foot towards the end of the season, but fortunately she has had the cast off and seems to be recovering well. Keepa and the other dogs have gained some much-needed weight and condition, and they all seem to be bored with resting and ready to get back to work. It is a good idea to let your dogs decide when they are ready to start work again. They do need a good rest, both physically and mentally, and pushing them back into work before they are ready can cause problems. I am therefore going to bring them back into work slowly. It is important…

The interest in “odd” animals never seems to lessen and a number of perruque trophies were accounted for over the year. These came from a variety of locations including Sutherland — where a large animal was culled on welfare grounds in the opening months of the year — down to the Scottish Borders, where animals were reported on two occasions. A large female perruque was shown at the Scottish Game Fair, making it the second very large doe we have seen. The far north of Scotland has, in the past decade, produced some unusual animals — both male and female perruques, as well as multi-hoofed deer — along with more than its fair share of high-quality trophies.…

Ingredients 100G THINLY SLICED, SUPER-FRESH DEER LIVER SALT AND FRESHLY GROUND WHITE PEPPER 1 TBSP PLAIN FLOUR 50G BUTTER 2 SAGE LEAVES 1 GOOD FREE-RANGE EGG THE METHOD Serves 1 1 Remove the sliced liver from the fridge well in advance so that it is not fridge cold. Warm a plate. 2 Place a frying pan on a moderate heat and let it get charged with plenty of heat energy, so that it will remain hot when you begin to cook. 3 Season the liver slices well with salt and pepper and then lightly dust them with flour. 4 Put half the butter in the pan and, once it starts to foam, gently lay the liver slices in the pan and leave them alone. If the liver is sliced quite…

Well-managed flightponds are havens for all wildlife and should be part of the landscape. I am bemused when I see huge amounts of work put in to control vegetation, build islands, provide feeding stations and trap pests, only to add four piles of painted pallets to act as hides. It is not only the aesthetics that jar; it is the missed opportunity of building your own living hide. Willow is one of nature’s wonders (Weaving the wondrous willow, 20 February). The merest twig of it will grow if thrust into damp ground. Many varieties can grow over 10m in one year. To plant your own living willow duck hide is a joyous winter task. You can make it as fancy or as functional as your skills allow and you are…

IF YOU READ ANY of the old dog books, you will be reminded that distemper was once the most feared of canine illnesses. A highly contagious virus, it was commonly called hard pad because one of the most obvious symptoms was hardening of the pads. With no known cure, it was responsible for a huge number of deaths, even wiping out entire kennels. Nearly a century ago an Italian researcher, Dr Puntoni, developed the first vaccine against canine distemper, though he received little credit at the time. To make his vaccine, he ground up the brain of a dog with distemper, suspended it in a saline mix and added formalin. It worked. “A major outbreak of distemper in Finland was a reminder that we should never get complacent” Today distemper…

Latin name: Gagea lutea Common name: Yellow starof-Bethlehem How to spot it and where to find it: A member of the lily family, yellow star-of-Bethlehem tends to get lost amid the more showy woodland plants, despite its bright and pretty flowers. But it blooms early, usually around now, so keep an eye open next time you are in the woods, on a riverbank or by a hedgerow. It seems to prefer broadleaved woods and likes moist, limestone soil. From the bulb, it grows low on a slender stem, with a single blade-like leaf at the base. It produces one to seven six-petalled flowers in an umbrella cluster from March to April. Towards the end of their natural life, the flowers fade to yellowish green. Interesting facts: Yellow star-of-Bethlehem is considered…

Irish wolfhounds are giants of the dog world, with males standing up to 35in tall, and weighing as much as 180lb, making them bigger than that other canine giant, the great Dane. Despite their size and name, it is unlikely that a wolfhound could, by itself, kill a wolf. An adult male wolf can weigh as much as a wolfhound, and while it may not be as tall, in a fight it would be more than a match for the domesticated dog. Only in packs were the wolfhounds able to take wolves, and legend has it that wolfhounds killed the last Irish wolf in County Carlow in 1786. Historically, Irish wolfhounds could only be owned in Ireland by the nobility, which for many years meant the British rulers. These sighthounds…

The months following the shooting season are among the busiest times in the gamekeeping year. The estate I have taken over needs a huge amount of work to get the pens, woodlands and predators under control. The list of jobs is endless and sometimes it is a struggle to work out what tasks need attention straight away and what can be left for a few months. Gamekeeping is very much a job in which you get out what you put in. And without putting in the effort before the birds arrive to improve the shoot, you will struggle to better last year’s results. We are outlining plans for next season. Meeting with my employer and estate manager to discuss the previous season — and where we can improve — has…

We are experiencing a spell of unseasonably warm weather. It feels more like May. Up here, we don’t start lambing for another month. Yet some of you may recall me writing that in the 16 years I have owned this farm, we have never had a lambing season without white stuff twirling out of the sky at some point. Will this lambing season be a snowless first? Perhaps. But I trust spring weather about as much as I trust an EU negotiator. Anybody who lives in the uplands knows that our weather is both more unpredictable and much more severe — in terms of observed temperature, wind speed and precipitation — than mainstream forecasts predict. This is because such forecasts are designed to be applicable to the lowlands, where most…

PEST CONTROL Early spring is a great time to use feeding stations to lure grey squirrels within range of your air rifle, says Shooting Times expert Mat Manning. You will need a squirrel-proof feed hopper with a reasonable capacity and a feed tray with a front board low enough to get a clear shot. Put the feeding station in a place where greys have set up home — scan treetops for dreys. Fill the feeder and leave it for a few days before you return to refill and leave for a fortnight before you start shooting. WIN Buy a ticket in the 2019 GWCT Gun Draw and you could win a day’s driven grouse shooting, a new pair of William Powell shotguns, a three-hour fitting session and 500 game cartridges,…

KEEPA: BACK TO WORK FOR KEEPA, I am going to keep the initial training extremely simple. Going from game back to dummies can be dull — I know some dogs that show little interest in training on canvas, and others that refuse it altogether. This isn’t an issue when working on game but can cause problems when attempting to train over the summer, as unless you have regular access to pigeons and rabbits — which are, of course, legal to shoot all year round — it can be difficult to motivate the dog. Fortunately, having had this break, Keepa is keen to get busy again and is working nicely on canvas. All I have done to begin with is some marked retrieves, as I simply want to get him running…

Looking to the coming season, the cottish CIC team has been strengthened by the appointment of Alastair Troup as a senior international trophy judge — who now takes his place on the International Trophy Evaluation Board — and of two new judges, Colin Johnston in Fife and Laurie Littlejohn in South Lanarkshire. Both Colin and Laurie completed their training at CIC headquarters in Budapest in December 2018 alongside some German and Swedish colleagues. We will be measuring at the Deerstalking Fair in March as well as the Scottish Game Fair in July and the Highland Field Sports Fair in August. This year we hope to secure formal CIC event status for some of these fairs and, as always, look forward to meeting up with old and new friends at these…

The return of the wheatears is one of the most significant dates of the year and, with the exception of 2013, it takes place with surprising regularity. With all the snow that year, the little birds didn’t return until 14 April but they would usually have been back between 14 and 16 March. I was delighted to watch three of the little blighters ducking and peeping on a vast slope of tumbled granite scree on a recent afternoon in the warm sunshine. Two cocks and a hen were flashing their white rumps among the stones, while buzzards and kestrels hung motionless overhead, static in the southerly breeze. With the last few days of the doe season now upon us, I wanted to take one more off the hill before the…

One illness we hear little about is tetanus and there is a good reason for this: it is rare in dogs as they are relatively resistant to tetanus toxins. It is much more of a danger to humans and horses, and if you have a bad cut then you will almost certainly be advised to have an anti-tetanus jab. I remember having one in my youth after skidding off my bike on gravel. I’ve always been aware of the danger of tetanus as my first dog, a cocker spaniel, died of the disease just before his sixth birthday. This was many years ago. I recall that our vet was slow to diagnose the problem because he had never seen a case of tetanus in a dog before. We never worked…

Aleutian disease in ferrets VETERINARY CARE Q Knowing that ferrets can get flu from humans and distemper from dogs, is there a risk of ferrets getting parvo from dogs and if so do I need to get them vaccinated? A Ferrets cannot be infected with canine parvovirus so there is no risk of infection from dogs. They do, however, have their own parvovirus, which is the cause of Aleutian disease in mink, ferrets and other members of the mustelidae family. First recognised in mink, the virus is known as Aleutian mink disease virus (ADV). A parvovirus, it is hardy and can live outside the body of a host. To kill it, you must use a parvocide or a 10 per cent bleach solution. It can also mutate and there are…

Our winter mallard are a mixture of homegrown birds and others from as far away as Russia and Iceland. Wildfowlers I have been speaking to tell me that British mallard seem to have had a good breeding season in 2018 so there is will be even more competition for matings and resources this spring. Things seem so much more civilised when we encounter pairs of mallard in Iceland in April, where birds are spread thinly across the lowland landscape. They behave more like other species, having paired up before migrating north and then keeping to themselves. When they return to Norfolk in May, some female mallard will have broods of ducklings but others will have lost first nests and still be subject to the unwanted attentions of marauding packs of…

Liver is the body’s laboratory and is a sizeable piece of meat. In the distant pre-refrigeration past, all offal — but especially the liver — of any animal would be the parts eaten first of any kill. Offal goes off quickly and, aside from blood, there is nothing faster to do so than the liver. Super-fresh liver is among the sweetest, most irresistible pieces of meat you are ever likely to encounter. Leave it to go stale, though, and within 48 hours it will be a very different proposition; bitterness will pervade and as time goes by this character will only continue to dominate. A stalker’s breakfast is food fit for the gods but, far more than that, it is a mark of respect for your quarry, the respect of…

The other evening, shortly after the end of the season, I was drinking a glass of sherry while my pheasant casserole simmered gently in the oven. It may have been the influence of the sherry (second glass), it might just have been the fragrance of the casserole; whatever it was, I suddenly realised that I like absolutely everything to do with pheasants. Apart, perhaps, from missing them when they fly over me. I also realised that I almost always stick up for pheasants when someone speaks of them disparagingly, by claiming that they are stupid creatures and far too easy to kill. I shall come back to these false assertions but the first thing I want to say about pheasants is that I like the look of them. I like…

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…