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

Last week, while scrolling through social media after stalking hinds, I noticed a number of people were up in arms about Bird Watching, the UK’s bestselling twitching title. Many were ‘appalled’, some threatened to cancel their subscriptions and the vice-president of the RSPB branded the whole thing ‘bizarre’. The cause of all the unrest was a double-page spread advertising lamps, bipods and thermal equipment. It’s inclusion, according to the magazine’s Twitter page, was “the result of a mistake at the production stage” and it stressed that it “in no way supports the shooting of any wildlife”. In the real world, it is almost universally recognised that culling predators — as the RSPB is known to do — is the only way to ensure that ground-nesting birds have a future. On…

PEG DOGS I have long heard experienced trainers comment that such and such a dog would never be a great trialling/workingtest/picking-up dog but would make a perfectly good peg dog. This season is the first I have spent with a dog on the peg with me. I note with interest that he is required to be as steady, keen and precise as any competition retriever. The difference is that he does it in full view of the entire field while his master is paying him no heed and concentrating entirely on the shooting. Perhaps it is time we revisited the pecking order — does anyone agree with me that finding and training a good peg dog is the greatest challenge of them all? It is also the first season I…

In this supercharged political climate it’s tempting to choose our enemies and lash out at those groups who do us wrong and do down our way of life. Social media provides the worst examples of this human nature. Clever people have tweaked algorithms that feed our sense of outrage, while simultaneously reinforcing the bubble of voices that we agree with. This is all to keep us scrolling and looking at an advert for long enough to earn the internet moguls another £1billion. The wise advice for a Gun facing an incoming covey of partridges or grouse is to pick an individual target. They must then stick on that one bird with concentration and precision right through to the moment of the kill. We must be careful not to fall into…

What would be your dream sporting day? The highest driven birds? A red deer stalked across Highlands peaks? Salmon caught on a fly? It’s the kind of question that can fuel many happy hours of debate over a good Scotch. I decided this winter to stop dreaming and start doing. This is the tale of my day. Starting early in a pre-dawn gale, three friends and I met outside the village butcher’s. Charlie Hutley is a farmer, Michael Scarfe and Tohn English are engineers. They are keen and accomplished Shots. The excitement was palpable, even though the hour was decidedly anti-social. Through the Essex lanes we drove to link up with friend and keeper Liam Fearis, who was to be our host for the day. After a strong coffee and…

Now here’s a dilemma. Over the years I have worked hard to try to reduce the rate at which rats and grey squirrels can pinch the grub that I put out for my pheasants and partridges. Using 25-litre metal drums with narrow slots in the base, and hanging them from low branches or a tripod of upside-down fence posts, has all but eliminated their scavenging. This is great. It saves food, means we have fewer squirrels to damage our growing trees and, most importantly, there are far fewer rats. I hardly need point out why having fewer rats is a good thing but, aside from reduced predation on nesting game, it also means we use less rat poison. This again saves money, and it also reduces the amount of rodenticide…

I am currently house sitting for a friend whose Victorian house is large and comfortable and comes with an AGA and 16-month-old black Labrador called Flora. I mention AGA and Flora in the same sentence, as the latter has a close relationship with the former. She spends much of the day sprawled in front of the oven, the warmest place in the house. An athletic animal of working stock, Flora is a pet and unlikely ever to venture into the shooting field. The fact that she won’t ever be asked to work is a real pity, for I’ve little doubt that she has a great deal of potential. Despite having only received basic pet training, she is impressively obedient and responds speedily to the whistle. Like most Labradors she is…

Having spent many years in the Christmas kitchen, I like to have to hand what I call festive picnic foods. As far as I’m concerned once the big roast has gone on to the table, it will be the last foray into cooking. After that, we hunter-gather in fridge and larder, eating whatever we find. I like to make a rich and smooth chicken liver mousse, topped with melted, cooled butter, to eat with brioche toast. I make it a few days in advance, along with a game terrine. When they see it sliced and ready to eat, your guests will gasp in admiration but once you have mastered the building process, it is easy to do. Think of terrines as a larder investment — once cooked and cooled, they…

Latin name: Cardamine hirsuta Common name: Hairy bittercress Other names: Lambs cress, land cress, spring cress, hoary bittercress, shot weed, flick weed How to spot it and where to find it: This common plant will grow pretty much anywhere and needs little light. You see it on bare soil, patchy grass, cracks in paths and clinging to walls. It has small, round leaves that grow in opposite pairs along the leaf stem, with one single, usually larger, ‘terminal’ leaf at the end. The stems and upper surfaces of the leaves are sparsely hairy. A hardy annual, it stays green for most of the year, producing delicate pale flowers from March to August. Thereafter it forms seed heads that disperse explosively, spreading the seeds as far as possible. Interesting facts: Hairy…

1 Memory foam couch dog bed RRP: From £229 Orvis.co.uk The supportive memory foam cushion in this dog bed is calibrated and designed specifically for canines — promising to reduce pressure on joints, support muscles and improve circulation. Available in small, medium or large. 2 Dunmoor fleece jacket RRP: £179 Sportarm.com An absolute essential for the keen sportsman seeking clothing with functionality and style. This handsome fleece protects you from every element and has Alcantara patches on the shoulders for extra durability. Whether your shoot days are in Devon or Durham, the Dunmoor is an ideal, versatile choice. Available in sizes S-XXL. 3 Fleece boot liners RRP: £35 Lechameau.com These boot liners will keep your feet warm and comfortable on even the coldest winter days. They are…

A friend of mine was on his quad bike, following the horses of the local hunt as they clattered along a rural lane, when he was assailed by middle-aged woman. “Every year you come along here, taking up the whole of the public road,” she complained. “It’s disgusting. I’m going to call the police.” “My vehicle is road legal, taxed and insured,” countered my friend. “I am perfectly entitled to be on this road — and so are the horses.” Mrs Angry scowled and went back into her house, slamming the door. Her own car, parked on the verge, was itself causing a partial blockage of the highway. The hunt squeezed past and moved on. People on horseback can unwittingly come across as aloof, especially when they are in a…

BASC and curlew conservationist Mary Colwell want your pictures. BASC is calling on people to send in their photographs as part of a newly launched competition celebrating all that is special about shooting and the British countryside.The competition has four categories: Wildlife; In the Field; Working Dogs; and Field to Fork. Mary is looking for high-quality pictures of curlews that her new charity, Curlew Action, can use. STALK Now that the stag season has closed, north of the Border hind stalking can offer brilliant value for money and a truly memorable hunting experience. Though it is traditionally undertaken by estate stalkers and gamekeepers, more and more estates are letting hind stalking to paying guests, often at a fraction of the cost of stalking stags. While the sport is excellent,…

I much enjoyed Nick Fisher’s article (So delicious they’ll make you cry, 13 November) because my grandfather used to visit the same fish stall he described on Norwich cattle market every Saturday after the pig auction. He would always buy some Cromer crabs, winkles and brown shrimps for the family’s Sunday evening tea. By the time I was six I had been taught to prepare shrimps by first twisting and removing the head, then the casing that covered the body. Therefore the mere thought of the ‘crunch’ described by Nick as he ate the shrimp heads filled me with revulsion. Still, Nick was not alone. A retired drover friend of my grandfather’s didn’t waste the heads of shrimps either, as he had been brought up in the back streets of…

I was fortunate enough to visit a small but ambitious wild game project in central Belgium during Remembrance weekend. It was hard not to be reminded of the raging conflicts that claimed so many lives because, as we walked the farmland, overgrown defence systems had been shaped into extraordinary yet viable wildlife habitat. I have never visited anywhere like it. I was on a fact-finding mission to help the owner make some rational decisions about his management for wild game. As we walked across I could not help but think about the young British keepers who had walked these now peaceful tracks and lanes during the two world wars. Some had left a homeland landscape that was the ultimate habitat for wild grey partridge. They were living, though they never…

Whatever your stance on Brexit, the UK’s association with the EU has not been good for legitimate firearms ownership, as Brussels has inspired some awful anti-gun laws. In 1992, the UK Government passed legislation that reclassified any firearm “disguised as another object” into the prohibited weapon category. The inspiration for this nonsense was an MP for the German Green Party, who was horrified to hear that the Soviet KGB had armed its agents with small four-barrelled pistols disguised as packets of cigarettes. Using the standard, inherently flawed reasoning beloved of politicians the world over, she concluded that EU citizens would be much safer if these dastardly Slavic devices were outlawed. Quite why she thought that the KGB would give any heed to the domestic law of the countries in which…

What is a 15-pointer called? STALKING Q I was lucky enough to take a stag with 15 points during a recent trip to the Highlands. Back at the lodge there was a discussion about the proper term for such a beast. If a 12-pointer is a Royal and a 14-pointer is an Imperial, what’s the correct term for one with 15? Congratulations on grassing an excellent example of a Scottish hill stag. This question often pops up. Stags with an even 12-point head are called Royals. To secure this status, they should have three points present on the beams, plus three crown tines on each side. From the coronets up, the points are named as the brow, the bez and the trez. Not all stags have bez tines, sometimes they…

Some guillemots on the Isle of May, in the Firth of Forth, and at other colonies, such as Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire, are already preparing for the next breeding season. These sleek auks start coming ashore in October, with visits getting more frequent and longer as November turns to December. It is assumed that these returning adults are laying claim to their bits of ledge, for the next breeding season, when space will be at a premium. East coast adults spend a lot of their time in the North Sea, but ringing reveals that lots of guillemots from breeding sites in western Britain and Ireland spend much of the winter between Cornwall and Portugal. In these busy shipping lanes, they are susceptible to oil spills and other pollution incidents, sometimes…

A hunter is facing threats and online abuse after posting pictures of herself alongside animals she has shot. Lucy Rose Jaine, a 29-year-old mother of two, is from Wanaka on New Zealand’s South Island, posted a series of pictures on Instagram showing her with non-native wild pigs, goats, tahr, red deer and wallabies she had shot to feed her family. On newshub.co.nz, Ms Rose Jaine said: “I’ve received death threats, comments saying I shouldn’t have children, that I should be skinned like a pig. Comments in languages I don’t understand and vomiting emojis.” But she is unruffled by the abuse: “I think it’s mainly from non-hunters who find hunting quite shocking.” Ms Rose Jaine’s choice of hunting attire — she is often pictured in a bikini alongside animals she has…

Small fall during ‘woodcock moon’ The predicted mass influx of woodcock during the November full moon does not appear to have been realised. While birds have been arriving steadily, the ‘woodcock moon’ hasn’t had its usual effect with no spike in woodcock sightings for the week beginning 11 November. Weather conditions in eastern Europe and around the Baltic have remained stubbornly warm, with both Moscow and Helsinki recording well above average temperatures, which may be holding birds back. African swine fever reaches Belgium African swine fever is continuing to spread across Europe, according to Defra. New outbreaks have been recorded in domestic pigs and wild boar. Most cases have been found in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Ukraine and Russia but there have been new outbreaks in Belgium. The disease threatens to…

We were huddled together in an old Dumfriesshire farmhouse kitchen, with rain bouncing off the windows. “Whether we hit 10 birds today or 100 matters not,” announced 14-year-old Charlie Hattam, who was standing at the front with a broken arm, “but what does matter is safety.” Dotted round the room, hanging on every word of the shoot briefing, were children as young as 11. The Lagg Farm shoot, which was started only five years ago, is the sort of thing lots of us dream of creating but, for one reason or another, most of us never quite find the time or the energy. When Charlie’s father, Chris, bought Lagg Farm, it consisted of 60 acres; admittedly a much smaller plot than most shoots are run on. But having worked alongside…

Last year, I took a case that was a humdinger. The defendant had been pinched with a walking-stick gun that he had owned for some 50 years but was unaware that he needed the special certificate condition. Not only did his gun have a fixed trigger and external safety, it was also fitted with a trigger-guard and detachable skeleton stock. On that basis, I considered we had a strong case, as it was readily apparent from these features that this was designed as a gun and not as an aid to perambulation. The case went to trial, but the prosecutor realised she had an uphill struggle and the Crown offered no evidence. A grateful client presented me with the gun for my collection (above). This type of walking-stick gun was…

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 TONY BUCKWELL Veterinary surgeon with a special interest in gundogs 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 CIC international trophy judge…

STEEL YOURSELF FOR THE FUTURE According to figures gleaned from BASC, of the 600,000 people who shoot in this country, approximately 1.6 per cent describe themselves as ‘wildfowlers’. This means that about 10,000 people must by law, shoot something other than lead at live quarry. The vast majority use steel. Early steel shot has been endlessly denigrated, but thanks to recent developments in cartridge design, it is now widely regarded as holding its own against lead. Increasingly more game Shots are now moving to steel shot, for environmental and ethical reasons. However, until very recently, each time we pulled a trigger we not only sent out a battue of steel, but also a lump of plastic shot cup and wadding. It was a state of affairs that all right-thinking Guns…