Innholdsfortegnelse for 17-Jul-2019 i Shooting Times & Country

It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that the phone has become an integral part of modern life. Smartphones can do almost anything, yet their original purpose is still the best. Some weeks ago, driving back from Hampshire where I’d been shooting clays, I got a call (hands-free) from a long-time reader who was pleased to note, in my editorial column, that I’d been to the Isle of Sheppey. For the next 15 minutes he recalled in fine detail many decades of rough shooting in that rugged part of Kent. A few days ago my phone rang again. It was Peter Wildgoose, an aptly named Hebridean wildfowler of some renown, who had called to tell me about a Greener harpoon gun in a Shetland museum. Our conversation turned to the spare…

Eagles sighted in Northumberland Eagle-eyed gamekeepers in Northumberland have noticed some new additions to the county’s bird life. A golden eagle has been repeatedly spotted in the county after crossing the border from Scotland. Dr Cat Barlow at the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project confirmed that the bird is one of those relocated to the Moffat area to try to boost the local eagle population. An Irish eagle project has also published data showing that one of its eagles has moved into the county. The one year-old white-tailed eagle, which hatched in Connemara in western Ireland, was tracked as it crossed the Irish Sea and headed east, before taking up residence near Linhope in the Cheviot Hills. Youngsters get a taste of venison Children in the east of England…

June has been the lunar equivalent of an annus horribilis. The price of beef plumbed new depths just as the bulls came fat, egged on no doubt by the vegan popular front. The holiday cottage booking system caused my blood pressure to reach new heights, exacerbated by algorithms created by Californian dotcoms, but worse, much worse, my father died. It was his pipe that got him in the end. That and the fags, which caused his lungs to give up the unequal struggle — a medical fact that I impress on his 11 grandchildren. I suppose you could say that it was an occupational hazard, given that for years it had warded off the midges on evenings spent fishing on the river Borgie, and latterly the Nith, or waiting for…

I don’t barbecue as much fresh game as I’d like to, mainly because most game seasons here are confined to months with less clement weather. Not so the humble goat, which can be taken all year round, and these simple, spicy wild goat kebabs make a tasty addition to the grill. If you are preparing the goat meat yourself, be sure to remove as much sinew and silverskin as possible. If the animal is particularly lean, replace 100g of goat meat with pork belly or fat bacon. THE METHOD Serves 4 1 Place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and combine well by hand before adding to a food processor. Pulse to a fine texture. 2 If you have time, leave the mixture in the fridge for a few…

AS A STUDENT OF canine behaviour, I’m always interested in seeing how dogs cope when temperatures rise. Many years ago I made a Tuly visit to the Northwest Territories of Canada, in the Arctic. Here all the Inuit settlements around the Beaufort sea had working sled dogs. The dogs are unemployed in the summer and are simply left chained on the tundra, neatly spaced so they can’t interact with each other. During my visit the temperature was a remarkable 30ºC (winter temperatures go below -40ºC). The dogs cope by digging themselves deep holes they can almost disappear into, relying on the permafrost to keep them cool. Huskies have thick fur that insulates them from the cold so they are well equipped for survival in such an unforgiving environment. In southern…

Mark Hix is a good friend, a keen Shot and a vocal advocate of game meat, and has been kind enough to provide this recipe for the Country Food Trust’s Game Recipes for Charity Chefs project. It may well be July but lots of us still have pheasant in the back of the freezer that needs using up before the season rolls round. If you have never heard of Mark, he’s worth a few words. Mark grew up in West Bay, near Bridport, Dorset, and after training at Weymouth College, moved to London where he worked under chef and restaurateur Anton Mosimann. He shot to fame cooking at Le Caprice and The Ivy in London before starting a whole host of top cooking enterprises and eateries, and was a regular…

Latin name: Centaurea cyanus Common name: Cornflower Other names: Batchelor’s buttons, blaver, blue poppy, break-your-spectacles, corn-blinks, happy skies, hurtsickle, ragged sailor, witches’ bells How to spot it and where to find it: An upright annual of bright, unfussy beauty, the cobalt-blue cornflower was once common in Britain’s cornfields, but it has declined rapidly in the past 60 years. Meadows full of cornflowers were last seen between the World Wars. It flowers from June to August. Interesting facts: So beautiful is the cornflower that its name is a recognised shade of blue. The most valuable sapphires are a medium-dark violet blue, called cornflower blue. Cornflowers were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt and, despite being more than 3,000 years old, they retained their colour. The cornflower has had many medical uses.…

1 Highland Gore-Tex Lite jacket RRP: £400 (£300 in summer sale)  www.musto.com An ideal jacket for mild to cold temperatures in changeable weather. The Highland jacket features cutting-edge GORE-TEX technology in the drop liner. This makes the jacket waterproof and windproof, as well as lightweight and durable. 2 Ptarmigan Waistcoat II in Buckingham tweed RRP: £299.95  www.schoffelcountry.com This is a great waistcoat for the shooting field. This quality tweed features a moisture- and stain-repellent finish to ensure durability. Scoop cartridge pockets ensure maximum cartridge holding while two internal zip pockets ensure valuables are kept safe. The waistcoat is finished with a four-button closure to ensure a perfect fit. 3 Lotus grill RRP: £225  www.lotusgrill.co.uk The Lotus grill’s lightweight design allows you to take it anywhere you feel…

FISH A string of feathers or a cheap spinner are all that is needed for a great fishing experience and a tasty dinner as hot weather and warmer water bring mackerel shoals to British shores. Mackerel are highly aggressive, predatory fish and can be caught by a range of simple methods, including the classic string of brightly coloured feathers. For fly anglers a gaudy trout lure can be used to hook the fish, which put up a spectacular fight on light tackle. CLEAN Drinkers put out for game birds are a potential source of disease and should be kept clean and hygienic. Proprietary sanitisers such as CiD Clean can help prevent the build-up of bio-films and the spread of disease. Consult your equipment supplier and ensure any chemicals used are…

It does not really matter whether you are a believer or a Trump regarding the old chestnut of global warming; the fact is that it has been an extraordinary 18 months for weather. For the up-and-coming generation of moorland gamekeepers who had become used to a more than adequate surplus of grouse, those who practise their art in the northern Pennines received a nasty shock last season when stocks crashed following the “Beast from the East”. Though it may seem harsh, it was probably more of a good thing than bad because it cleared out an awful lot of birds that were, to be blunt, not in great shape. The plus side is that there is almost always a bounce in the population following an event like last year. The…

It’s that time of year again, but this year has been very different from last, especially in terms of the weather. The rain showers and heavy storms in Tune were a total contrast to the 30°C heat of 2018. This year has found me with a huge amount of winter barley to keep an eye on. With the increased costs of growing winter oilseed rape, there has been a definite swing in cropping choices. The storms resulted in a lot of barley going down and, with straw costs high, farmers have grown strains that are taller in the stem. As a result, I have found myself shooting laid crops of old. Not small patches going over but acres going flat. You have to always weigh up your options shooting laid…

I have been fishing for some time now, having started at 10 or 11. My grandfather taught me to cast and I would spend hours on the lawn with his old 9ft split-cane rod, trying to land my fly on his flat cap placed 20 or so yards away. Seventeen years on and I am still learning — many a fish has been spooked or missed over the years by a wrong cast. I was recently sitting on a sunny riverbank in Devon with a couple of fishing muckers, cursing another shoddy cast that had resulted in another missed opportunity. Freddie suggested, in a rather crafty tone, that maybe I should try tenkara fi shing, a much simpler and easier version of our traditional flyfishing. Unwilling to admit I had…

THE FIRST TIME I pulled away I became very aware that you do have to push this vehicle. The first couple of “gears” in the CVT box are a bit long and for towing you’d need the two-litre, which has a few more horses — 155. That said, once you get up to 30 or 40mph things do improve. It’s not lightning quick, but enough to cruise along nicely. The ride feels comfortable and, after fine-tuning the seat and column, I feel ready for an escapade, though a lumbar support adjustment would be nice. It feels very stable and car-like, holding the road well. It ticks the boxes nicely. Venturing off-road, I put it in low and push that X-Mode button. Driving uphill on a sand and gravel track I…

You know you’re in rural Scotland when, upon mentioning the longest day has just passed, the immediate — usually gleeful — reply is: “Aye, the nights will be drawing in again now.” While this is technically true, we still have half a year before the longest night, so I’m not too stressed. There’s much to be done between now and then anyway; habitat surveying, Moy Game Fair — the Highland social event of the year — deer counts, the stag season, the start of the hind season, school group visits and the odd deer management qualification assessment. Habitat monitoring is playing an ever increasing part of the Highland deer stalker’s role, with practitioners on the ground best placed to record the impact of herbivores. The method we use is based…

Reader Caroline Caines was prompted by my article on canine teeth (Viewpoint, 26 June) to email me the following fascinating story. She has several working golden retrievers, all with the sound temperaments we expect. However, on one occasion two of her dogs had a minor disagreement in the stable yard over a piece of horse dung. The dispute was brief, but their jaws momentarily came into contact before Caroline intervened. She was astonished afterwards to find a canine tooth on the concrete, lost by Gigi, its six-year-old owner. It came out cleanly, complete with root but with very minimal bleeding. Caroline was fascinated to find that the root was nearly twice the size of the tooth. Gigi was taken to the vet for inspection. The vet was amazed and said…

Disappearing roebuck STALKING Q I have only been stalking for three years but have the good fortune to have access to mixed woodland, which seems to hold a reasonable number of roe as well as the odd muntjac. I have found, however, that shortly after the roe rut has come to an end, the roebuck seem to disappear for several weeks. Is this normal behaviour and, if so, what is the reason for their disappearance? A It all comes down to sex! During the rut, the bucks are in a state of excitement as they seek does. As a result, they have little time to feed and will expend a considerable amount of energy. They then retire to rest and recuperate. In addition, tall bracken at this time of the…

If you delve back into the history of our spaniels it won’t be long before you come across a breed known as the water spaniel. According to Taplin, writing in his book Sporting Dictionary and Rural Repository (1803), “there are four different kinds of dogs passing under this [spaniel] denomination — the large Water Spaniel, and a smaller kind of the same sort. Of land Spaniels there are two kinds also...” It’s difficult to find a good description of a water spaniel, for it seems that there were many different types, some with curly coats, others looking more like English springers. There’s an undated print of a water spaniel reproduced in The Sporting Spaniel (1920) that shows a distinctly springer-like, though possibly somewhat curly, spaniel, running-in to retrieve a falling…

Few 13-year-olds know what they want to do in life. But for Paul Cockings there was never any doubt — he left school and went straight to learn to be a keeper on an estate in Bedfordshire six miles away. “I used to bike backwards and forwards every day,” he recalls. “It made me grow up pretty quickly. I was under one of the old-school gamekeepers called Ted Lavender. He told me he would show me how to do a job once, and if I hadn’t picked it up, I would have to teach myself.” After five years, Ted decided he had taught Paul all he could; it was time he moved on. Paul went to Studley Royal in North Yorkshire in the harsh winter of 1963. “There was deep…

As the Conservative leadership contest nears its climax, it is clear that neither candidate will support fox hunting. I predicted this a month ago (Sharpshooter, 19 June), when I pointed out that the commitment to a free vote on hunting in the Conservatives’ ill-fated 2017 election manifesto had been an own goal. I wrote that it “proved to be a monumental mistake… effectively tarnishing all fieldsports in the eyes of ambitious politicians”. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think hunting was a major vote-influencing factor in the 2017 election. Yet, unfortunately, it has gone down in post-election mythology as a policy that sent all the wrong signals to the wider electorate. More recently, we have seen both final candidates body-swerve on hunting in the Tory leadership race. At one point,…

20 JULY DOGS FOR DEER BASC Scottish Centre, Trochy, basc.org.uk 26-28 JULY THE GAME FAIR HATFIELD HOUSE Great North Road, Hatfield thegamefair.org 27 JULY YOUNG SHOTS ACTIVITY DAY North Antrim Rifle & Pistol Club, Bellisle Road, Dervock basc.org.uk 30 JULY-1 AUG NEW FOREST SHOW New Forest Show, New Park, Brockenhurst, newforestshow.co.uk 1-4 AUGUST COUNTRYFILE LIVE Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire countryfilelive.com 02 AUGUST HIGHLAND FIELD SPORTS FAIR Moy Estate, Inverness-shire moyfieldsportsfair.co.uk Tel 01217 804141 25-26 AUG FENLAND COUNTRY FAIR Stow-cum-Quy Park fenlandfairs.com…

As the days lengthened towards midsummer, County Kerry experienced a rare run of fine, dry weather. This meteorological boon was made doubly satisfying by frequent messages from my sister informing me that it was raining heavily in Sussex. You must allow those of us on the Emerald Isle these vanishingly rare chances at weather oneupmanship. All was less harmonious in the “locavore” kitchen, however. The fields around us were awaiting their first cut for silage, leaving the grass plenty long enough to conceal the rabbits, and I had returned from recent attempts to bag a bunny embarrassingly light-handed. Deer stalking wouldn’t start until September and even the boat was laid-up with engine trouble, so fishing would have to wait. Yet the forecast remained stunning, presenting a problem — barbecue weather…

Shot size has been debated for as long as guns have been throwing clusters of small lead balls at flying birds. Everyone has a pet theory and fashions wax and wane, but when we break the conundrum down to its basic components we have two key issues to address. We choose shot to produce an acceptable compromise for the shooting we do and the gun we use. The ideal we seek is a killing pattern that covers the target and individual pellets in that pattern that hit with sufficient force to impart shock and do lethal damage. In 1833 Lieutenant Colonel Peter Hawker told readers: “A common-sized gun will shoot No. 7 shot better than any other shot… I am confident that had you, for a whole season, no other…

The Game Fair 2019 takes place at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire from Friday, 26 to Sunday, 28 July. Early-bird tickets for the Game Fair 2019 are on sale now at www.thegamefair.org or by calling 0844 8 586759. On the gate, adult tickets cost £34 and child tickets £10 for one day. Accompanied children aged eight and under are free. Members of the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation, Countryside Alliance, Country Land and Business Association and the Kennel Club are entitled to a promotional rate. All members of the BASC are entitled to complimentary entry on all three days — guest tickets can be bought at a discounted rate. Upgrade your ticket to include exclusive access to hospitality areas as well as luxury food and drinks. Advance premium parking costs £20 per day, while…

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 Montagu’s harrier is a rare cousin of the hen harrier. Even in a good year, only a dozen or so pairs will attempt to breed in Britain, with birds tending to nest in tall vegetation, such as lowland cereal fields. Britain lies at the very edge of a breeding distribution that stretches east into Asia. Recent tracking studies have given insights into their migratory journeys. Our birds cross the Sahara in the autumn, to spend the winter in the Sahel. This semi-arid grassland fringe of the desert is part of a winter range that extends from western Africa to eastern India. The wings of male Montagu’s harriers are more marked than those of hen harriers but it is harder to separate juveniles and females. In flight, a Montagu’s harrier…