Innholdsfortegnelse for 27-Mar-2019 i Shooting Times & Country

Last Wednesday I made a flask of tea, packed a Bakewell tart and drove to Essex to shoot pigeons. After an hour of reconnaissance, we pitched our hide beneath a stand of firs in a far corner of a rape field, rigged up our flappers, plugged in two magnets and waited. On arrival the field was alive with pigeons, but it soon became clear they were ambivalent about returning. Over the course of the day, a small number were seduced by the decoys but, as is often the case, I was enjoying the tart when they put in their appearances. The main issue seemed to be that we were too close to their roosting wood and that, as far as the eye could see, there were plenty of other feeding…

11 APRIL PROPERTY GUN & PUNT CLUB INTER-REGION SHOOT E.J. Churchill, Buckinghamshire chris@warman properties.com 21-22 APRIL KELMARSH COUNTRY SHOW Kelmarsh Hall, Northamptonshire www.kelmarsh countryshow.co.uk 26 APRIL RED SQUIRREL CONFERENCE University of Exeter, Devon www.redsquirrel conference.co.uk 28 APRIL GAMEKEEPERS’ WELFARE TRUST CHARITY CLAY SHOOT Selkirk, Scottish Borders braidwood@ bisleyshooting.co.uk 4-5 MAY WHITFIELD CHARITY CLAY SHOOT Whitfi eld, Northumberland www.whitfi eld clays.co.uk…

Speedier firearms certificate service Shooters have praised the efficiency of an online system introduced by several police forces to speed up the processing of firearms certificate variations. Lincolnshire reader Mathew Leyman said: “I have just had cause to request a variation on my firearms certificate from Lincolnshire Police and used the new online portal. The service was great. My certificate was returned to me, variation complete, six days later.” Three other forces — Thames Valley, Metropolitan and Hampshire — have introduced an online licensing system recently and all have reduced the time taken to process applications. Medical marijuana and firearms The US state of Ohio has banned ownership and purchase of firearms by registered users of medical marijuana. Using or possessing marijuana and firearms at the same time is illegal.…

Salt the pigeon, ideally a day prior to smoking (12g salt per kilogram of meat). Place the pigeon breasts on a cooling rack in an aluminium foil bag with a handful of apple wood shavings, seal the bag, then place it in a large old frying pan on the heat. The pigeon breasts cook and smoke simultaneously in about eight to 10 minutes. They are best served pink. The flavour does develop over a couple of days, so it pays to be organised. To serve, thinly slice the pigeon breast and serve with salad. You can buy stove-top smokers to be used in the kitchen or out in the field on a gas stove.…

THE METHOD Serves 2 to 4 Pheasant is a well-flavoured meat and fantastically versatile. With the right approach and a sure hand, it rivals chicken any day of the week. If you are a fan of classic chicken or fish goujons then you have to try these “pheasant fingers”. They are one of my favourite things to prepare if I have some lovely fresh pheasant breasts to hand. They are perfect on a Friday night with a few beers and a film. 1 For the tartar sauce, mix together all the ingredients in a small bowl and place in the fridge until needed. 2 Set the pheasant breasts down on a board and cut them into long finger-sized pieces. Season them all over with salt and pepper. 3…

All control of crows and magpies is under open general licence. These licences are issued by the devolved administrations, so they are different between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. You do not need to hold a licence, nor apply for one, though in Scotland Larsen users must be registered with the police. Wherever you are, you are legally obliged to abide by the licence conditions, so I strongly suggest that you download a copy of the relevant licence from the relevant government website and read it carefully. To be extra sure, go on one of the GWCT’s half-day training courses — you will learn some new tips in the process.…

HAS THE DOG-BUYING British public gone barking mad? Last year, as was widely predicted, the French bulldog became Britain’s most popular pedigree breed, ousting the Labrador from the top spot it has held for many years. According to the Kennel Club 36,785 French bulldogs were registered in 2018, compared with 36,526 Labradors. Curiously, registrations for both Labradors and third-placed cockers (23,927) were slightly up in 2018 compared with 2017. The English bulldog appeared in the top five for the first time in 2018 with 10,665 registered, outnumbering the fifth-placed English springer on 10,152. Not far behind, on 9,742, comes another flat-faced breed, the pug. For anyone with the slightest interest in dog welfare, the remarkable rise in popularity of the brachycephalic (flat-faced) breeds is deeply worrying. These dogs, especially as…

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…

The Belgian blue is a beef breed noted for its rapid growth and its extreme double muscling, producing an abundance of lean meat. The double muscling is the result of a natural genetic mutation: a mature bull looks as if it has been on a bodybuilding course. The muscling is a gross enlargement of individual muscle fibres and was once regarded as a deformity. Butchers favour the carcases, but pure-bred cows have great difficulty calving, so most calves have to be delivered by caesarean section. Though known as the Belgian blue, the coat can be white, blue, pied or blue roan. In the 19th century British shorthorn bulls were imported to Belgium to improve the quality of the cattle. There is now a well-established British type of Belgian blue, with…

GET SETT Owners of Gordon setters should put Sunday, 19 May in their diary because Gordon Castle is organising what will hopefully be the largest Gordon setter gathering ever. The purpose of the event is to draw attention to the fact that the Gordon setter is at risk of disappearing. Indeed, the Kennel Club has described a decline of 60 per cent in breed registrations in Scotland as “deeply concerning”. Shooting Times spoke to working Gordon setter breeder Fran Toulson of Warrenfell kennels in County Durham about why numbers were in decline and whether shooters should consider the breed. She advised: “Spaniels and Labradors are, of course, more versatile — they are suitable for picking-up and shooting game birds all over the UK. With Gordons it is more limited; they…

Police in Lincolnshire and its surrounding counties are noticing a rise in nocturnal deer-poaching activity. It is thought that dry ground, which allows dogs to go into the fields, combined with the large group sizes of deer, could be behind the rise. Shooting Times spoke to PC Nick Willey, wildlife and rural crime officer at Lincolnshire Police, who advised: “There are two types of deer poacher: gangs who will poach the deer for the venison; and those who are just happy to run dogs at night on anything that moves — mainly deer, but sometimes badgers or foxes. They have large bull breed dogs crossed with longdogs, giving them dogs with great running ability and the head and neck of a bull breed, which can bring down large deer.” Social…

1 Combrook men’s field coat RRP £359.95  www.alanpaine.co.uk This tweed field coat is designed to keep you comfortable in the most testing of weather conditions. Boasting a tailored fit, the coat includes an action back pleat to aid your swing when a high partridge hurtles over. The Combrook range also includes breeks, a flat cap and shooting waistcoat. 2 Beretta Light St James vest RRP £210  www.yorkguns.com This tweed vest is specially designed for driven shooting enthusiasts, standing out with its exclusive materials and traditional style. It is made in linen and wool, with water-repellent Teflon treatment and suede details on the shoulders. 3 Pigeon Triple Motion hub RRP £29.99  www.bushwear.co.uk An innovative spinning hub that gives your decoys a new lease of life. As the hub…

One of the most damning indictments of London living is how those who work there flee it so determinedly on Friday nights. Normal, nice people become animals: bloodthirsty, pushy, hurried and devoid of all manners. Within five minutes of arriving at Victoria station I’d had my water bottle slapped out of my hand and been bullied through the automatic ticket barrier. However, I soon found four seats for my companions and me. After a quick gin and tonic from a tin, peace returned while the Friday night “full moon” passed and the werewolf commuters were returned to normality. Some of them, at least. “Persistence is key, as drey poking is a pursuit with many peaks and troughs” I was heading to Kent to take on the most nimble and cunning…

When the Shooting Times Editor has a brainwave, I often end up in a sticky situation. This time, I found myself on a surprisingly warm day, without a cloud in the sky and not a breath of wind, on a mission to take a talented chef out for his first experience of roost shooting. The plan was to have him produce a sumptuous meal, at the end of the day, if the pigeons obliged. The countdown to dusk was ticking but I had wisely assembled a crack team of long-suffering friends to stack the odds slightly in my favour: Mick Stead is a stalwart of my ever-evolving wild bird shoot and Richard MacNair is another sporting friend. Both are handy Shots and, most importantly they are unerringly positive. Added to…

The fields that, God willing, will be hidden by dense crops in a matter of weeks are bare. They are not even striped by the roller yet, especially where the geese are taunting me by grazing through the day. Driving around, seeing the first sprays of blackthorn in the hedges and a reassuring crop of catkins for the birds, I stop and search some of our bigger fields for hares. There used to be at least half-a-dozen in each field when I was a child. But that was when the whole place was intensively keepered and we still had a few coveys of grey partridges knocking about in the early 1970s. We still see hares most days but they are much rarer now. If you drew two graphs and had…

Every year in May I receive calls from people who are fed up watching magpies hammering the nesting songbirds in their garden. They have heard that a Larsen trap is the answer, and they want to know how it works and where to get a decoy. This is my moment to disappoint a succession of people, as I try gently to explain that they have missed the boat. By mid-May the worst of the damage is done and there is also the dilemma of leaving magpie chicks to starve if you trap their parents. One of the key points in Larsen trapping is that a late March start allows you to mop up your resident pairs before they start to nest. The incomers that follow are non-breeders looking for a…

For years Crufts was simply Britain’s biggest dog show but the introduction of pet passports — allowing dogs from around the world to compete — has changed it into a major international event. The fact that this year’s best in show was a Belgian-owned dog chosen by a Swedish judge says it all. If you read some of the gloomy post-Brexit forecasts it seems that everything will change by 2020, with no dogs from EU countries allowed to take part, but I doubt this will happen. The best in show dog was, for the first time, a papillon, a toy breed that has its origins in Belgium and France — both countries claim it as a native. It is often called a toy spaniel but its pricked ears don’t make…

Latin name: Coprinellus micaceus Common name: Glistening inkcap Other names: Mica inkcap How to spot it and where to find it: This common mushroom really does glisten; the egg-shaped caps are pleated and covered in tiny white granules — the remains of a veil — that look like flakes of salt. The caps are yellowish brown when young, turning a greyish brown as they age and open out. They are also hygrophanous, meaning they change colour when they are wet. The stem is white and delicate with no ring. They grow in the spring in large clusters around the base of trees. Interesting facts: When the white gills of this mushroom mature, they deliquesce, turning the underside of the cap into inky black goo — hence the name. The inkcap…

The history of firearms technology is littered with short-lived ideas that some bright spark thought would catch on and make their fortune. All too often, these thoughts never came to fruition and those ideas were eventually consigned to history. One such firearm was the needlefire rook-and-rabbit rifle that enjoyed a brief flowering for about two decades in mid-19th century Britain. The needlefire system was one of the first breechloaders to use a cartridge that combined all four elements that constitute ammunition: bullet, gunpowder, cartridge case and primer. It differed from a conventional breechloader in that the case was made of paper, which was consumed on firing. The breech either had a mechanical seal or an expanding rubber or leather washer. Rather than using a normal firing pin, needle guns used…

My son James (right) is seven years old and has autism. Many people with this condition don’t like loud noise or getting mucky so you can imagine my concern when he said he wanted to come shooting with me. After much discussion with my wife, I decided I would take him and see how he got on. We arrived at our local shoot and, with James wearing ear defenders and waterproofs, we began on the duck drive where I was picking-up. It’s a walk one, stand one and when a Gun shot a duck, I sent my dog Max for it. As he came back, another Gun shot one so I started to walk and point Max in the right direction to retrieve it. I looked around to see where…

No one was expecting the revised heather management news that came from Natural England (NE) a few weeks ago. Over the past decade or more, there have been countless meetings, scores of site visits, and enough hot air to launch any number of very large balloons. Then the owners, keepers and agents thought they had reached some sort of working arrangement that would allow them to manage the heather in a manner which, though not ideal, did at least take account of grazing, as well as summer fires and breeding birds. It would now appear that NE has pulled out the rug from under everyone’s feet with one swift tug. Had this been planned for some years, or is it an opportunistic move because of the position the whole carbon…

RECIPE BY MARK HARTSTONE Pigeons are versatile and are best butchered into breast, fillets and wings. If you have a big bag, use all the fillets in a stir fry, quickly cooked and marinated in an Asian sauce. Or you can pan fry breasts quickly, wrap them in cured ham to keep them moist and serve pink, as part of a salad or hearty main course. When I worked in a Michelin-starred restaurant in France, we’d save the legs to put in a fricassé for a staff dinner at the end of the week.…

Recipe kindly donated by Gill Meller A chef, food writer, author, food stylist and cookery teacher living near the small fishing town of Lyme Regis, in Dorset, Gill Meller has been part of the River Cottage team for 11 years, working closely with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall across the whole business. Ingredients FOR THE PHEASANT 4 PHEASANT BREASTS SALT AND FRESHLY GROUND BLACK PEPPER 50G PLAIN FLOUR 2 EGGS, BEATEN 100G FRESH WHITE BREADCRUMBS OIL FOR FRYING FOR THE TARTAR SAUCE 4 TBSP GOOD-QUALITY MAYONNAISE 3 TBSP CAPERS, DRAINED AND CHOPPED 3 TBSP GHERKINS, DRAINED AND CHOPPED 1 SHALLOT OR HALF AN ONION, FINELY CHOPPED A SQUEEZE OF LEMON JUICE 3 TBSP FRESH PARSLEY, CHOPPED 1 TBSP DILL, CHOPPED SEA SALT AND FRESHLY GROUND BLACK PEPPER This month’s game cookery recipe has…

With the exception of triticale and some other spring cereals — which can be drilled as soon as the ground is dry enough to work without making a mess — there aren’t really any game crops to be planted for at least another five to six weeks. Having said that, before the pre-planting rush there is stuff that you can do now, which can make a difference to how your crop grows, matures and ultimately holds birds. Any hedge cutting you had to do should have been done by the end of February for you to stay within the law. Don’t be tempted to do otherwise. We cut ours every second year. Cutting yearly seems a bit unnecessary and is more expensive, and three years a little long between cuts.…

The mysterious dunbird WILDFOWLING Q Looking through a Victorian game book, I came across several references to diving wigeon or dunbirds. Do you have any idea of what species these birds might have been? A Wildfowlers had their own regional names for the various species of duck they bagged and these can be confusing, to say the least. However, a diving wigeon or dunbird is almost certainly a pochard. The pochard’s colouring is not dissimilar to that of a wigeon, hence the name diving wigeon. Dunbird was used for the pochard in a number of regions, but it was also a name used indiscriminately by many old fowlers for any small duck that they couldn’t identify specifically. The diaries of Colonel Peter Hawker record the fact that he shot 64…

As the new breeding season approaches, jays melt away. No longer are they the busy acorn collectors of the autumn, boldly flying hither and yon to store their finds. Now it is their time to be furtive; working the hedgerows and woodlands on the hunt for birds’ eggs and chicks. Their own nests are usually well hidden, tucked neatly into the fork of a tree or up against the trunk in something like a clump of ivy. Clutch size can be variable, with sometimes as many as eight eggs, though four to six is more common. Pairs of jays are highly territorial and there is quite a lot of noise at the nest-building stage, before all goes quiet once incubation starts. Adults sit tightly even when the nest is approached,…

Women are vital to the future of shooting. Only a small proportion of certificate holders are female, but they represent a growing part of the shooting community. Their participation is essential — not least for the “normalisation” of shooting; opening it up as a sport for all. Today, there are unprecedented opportunities for women to take up shooting. But it is interesting to note that certain women made their mark in shooting sports back in the days when it really was seen as a man’s sport. Take the Marchioness of Breadalbane, for example. In late Victorian times she was a dauntless deer stalker, who once despatched six stags with six consecutive shots. Her book about her exploits on her family’s Scottish deer forest — The High Tops of Black Mount,…