Innholdsfortegnelse for 28-Sep-2016 i Shooting Times & Country

THE SUN SHONE on the Midland Game Fair this year and the shooting community was out in force. In the stunning setting of Weston Park, crowds enjoyed music and good food and there were plenty of great bargains to be had for the shooter stocking up for the season ahead. It is a special game fair and I thoroughly recommend it. This is, sadly, my last editor’s letter. I remember as a boy growing up in Devon buying The Shooting Man’s Bible from the village shop, little thinking that I would one day work on it. It has been an honour to edit a title that has such an illustrious history and which plays so important a role in the life of the shooting community. Our sporting press is vital.…

Country sports auction Sculptor Geoffrey Dashwood has donated a bronze kingfisher (below) to Salmon & Trout Conservation UK’s annual charity auction. The piece was sculpted from a real-life regular visitor to Geoffrey’s garden pond in the New Forest in Hampshire. The online auction runs until 16 October and Geoffrey’s piece is one of the remarkable lots on offer, with exclusive fishing, stunning works of art, fishing and feasting packages and special shoot days also up for grabs. To bid, visit www.salmon-trout.org/auction. Rodenticide use Farmers, gamekeepers and pest controllers are reminded that from Saturday, 1 October, they will not be able to buy professional rodenticide packs for use outdoors without first showing an approved certificate of competence or proof of membership of an approved farm assurance scheme. Dr Alan Buckle, chairman…

“The phrase ‘Guardians of the countryside’ may be an overused cliché, but it remains a fact of life where modern agriculture is concerned” The publication of the State of Nature 2016, compiled by 53 wildlife organisations, does not make hip-hip-hooray reading. Leading professionals from the aforementioned organisations have pooled their knowledge and expertise to present a clear, unambiguous picture of the status of creatures native to this country across land and sea. The bleak report discloses that some 56 per cent of UK species assessed have declined since 1970, while 1,199 species of the nearly 8,000 species assessed are under threat of becoming extinct in the British Isles. There are, in mitigation, targeted conservation success stories, but these are inevitably fragmented and piecemeal. In my lifetime I have witnessed a…

Tim Maddams is a private chef who has worked with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall at River Cottage. His first book, Game, is the 15th handbook in the River Cottage series. www.timmaddams.com I get a bit giddy about grouse. I’ve never shot one but I have seen a few drives in action and I’d love one day to walk-up a few. You need to know your young birds from your old or you will find yourself sitting at the dinner table, surrounded by polite, but clearly forced and non-committal murmurings of “It’s quite a strong flavour, isn’t it?” and possibly subtle comments. If you are planning on roasting red grouse ask your gamedealer, butcher or loader to get you a few brace of young birds. Old grouse are delicious but require more hanging,…

A couple of months ago I bought a classic English shotgun that is well made, widely available and was picked up for a song. This marvel is a single-barrelled Webley 100. British gunmakers had realised that there was a market for a well-made single-barrel gun, intended for the “working” man — the allotment holder, vermin shooter and agricultural labourer. The trade had always made singles, and from the percussion era onwards, singles have tended to be of cheaper quality, on the basis that a dyed-in-the-wool sportsman would always go for a double gun. It was for this “working man” market that Webley & Scott launched the Model 100 in 1910. The company was only 13 years old when it did this, having been the happy union of the revolver and…

Look out for flocks of tits at this time of year and you might find other species, such as goldcrests, late warblers and treecreepers, moving around woodland or hedgerows with them. A treecreeper is a delightful little bird, working its way up the trunk of a tree and along branches, probing its down-curved beak into cracks and under loose bark to find insects and spiders. Watch carefully and you’ll see that the tail is used as a third point of contact. The feathers are much stiffer than those of other birds, which means that the tail can be used like a shooting stick, providing a stable platform for their industrious activities. By travelling around together, mixed flocks share lookout duties. When it hears the distinctive alarm calls of a tit,…

EAT You probably don’t need us to tell you that duck is currently in season, so why not pair some duck breasts with sweet potato for a healthy and tasty salad with a raspberry vinaigrette? Visit Shooting UK at po.st/ducksalad for the recipe. ATTEND Guy’s Thatched Hamlet at Bilsborrow in Lancashire is hosting a shoot quiz on Tuesday, 4 October, from 7pm. All local shoots are being invited to enter a team of up to eight people, with an entry fee of £30 per team. The evening will also include a raffle and charity auction, with proceeds going to the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation. Tel 01995 640010 for more information. WATCH Episode three of A Year in the Wild is available to watch on BBC iPlayer until Thursday, 6 October. Originally…

Angus gamekeepers have reunited a missing cocker spaniel, Jazz, with her owner Karen de Rosa, after the dog went missing while picking-up game at a grouse shoot on Invermark estate. The keepers later found and retrieved the adventurous dog from a pipe hole on the moor. German gunmaker J. P. Sauer & Sohn has teamed up with Norwegian hunter Kristoffer Clausen to offer one lucky person a place on an exclusive two-day roe and foxhunting trip to Poland using a .308 Sauer rifle. For further information, visit www.sauer.de by 30 September. A fourth case of chronic wasting disease has been detected in Norway. A caribou in the region Sogn og Fjordane has been diagnosed with the fatal condition. Norwegian animal health officials have recommended that meat from infected animals is…

PIECE OF CAKE We recently attended our friends Karl and Mia’s wedding ceremony in the glorious Sussex countryside. Their appropriate wedding cake (below) shows all their dogs and countryside interests, which is how they first met. We wish them every happiness in the future together. E. J. Jeffery, Kent IN THE WIND Could the many wind generators not be responsible for raptor disappearances in the Monadhliath mountains (News, 24 and 31 August)? The RSPB has stopped wind farm developments off the east coast of Scotland because of potential bird impacts. It does not, however, acknowledge what impact a rotor blade would have on a satellite transmitter at, say, 200mph over land. If we have to have the generators, they would be far less intrusive (visually) over the sea and spare…

“It is by imposing strict safety criteria that we run hundreds of these shoot days without any mishaps” With the grouse season in full swing few will realise just how close we all came to a major shift in how we run our driven grouse shoot days. Following an accident on a moor in Yorkshire last season, when a flanker lost the sight in one eye, I understand the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) came very close to stating that the use of flankers should not be allowed. This would, of course, have made driving grouse, or partridge for that matter, much more difficult, as the ability to steer the birds over the line would have been hugely compromised. I doubt there are many readers of Shooting Times who do…

IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Retriever Championship — the pinnacle of the field trial year for retrievers and their handlers — was organised by the Kennel Club. It’s not, because it has always been the responsibility of the International Gundog League (IGL). The League was founded in 1895 under the leadership of William Arkwright. It amalgamated with the Sporting Spaniel Club in 1899, and became known as the IGL Retriever Society in 1900, its aim “the breeding of pure retrievers”. At the time there was no recognised breed called a Labrador, let alone a golden retriever, while Arkwright himself was famous as a pointer enthusiast. He is best remembered today as the author of The Pointer and His Predecessors: An Illustrated History of…

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 rifl e 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 PAUL RAWLINGS Gundog expert and A-panel spaniel judge 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 SIMON WHITEHEAD Author, professional ferreter and rabbit controller IAIN WATSON Keen stalker and senior CIC international trophy judge Contact the team Email: stanswers@timeinc.com By post: Shooting…

Arab blood introduced into them at some stage. Apart from good looks, the most valued of the breed’s traits are its toughness and stamina. Today, Arab horse racing is popular, but the sport that the breed dominates is endurance riding, where the top competitors will cover 160km in a day. who traditionally shared their tents with them. This intimacy with humans helped develop the modern Arab: a handsome, high-spirited horse that is remarkably docile. Unlike most stallions, Arab stallions make good riding horses. There are few breeds of horse in the world today that haven’t had No breed of horse has a longer history than the Arabian: there is evidence that horses resembling the modern Arab were to be found in the Middle East more than 4,000 years ago. This…

That fatuous online survey run by the Campaign for National Parks (CNP) backfired spectacularly, didn’t it (News, 31 August)? The yoghurt-knitters listed shooting as something the public might want banned in national parks, only for the public to respond by citing shooting as the third most popular pastime in the parks. Oh dear. Mind you, this splendid result might have had something to do with the fact that the Countryside Alliance and BASC, outraged by the blatant bias of the survey, alerted their members to its existence. But then, the whole thing was a silly stunt in the first place, so the CNP can hardly object. I live in Northumberland National Park. For about eight years, I served on that park’s governing authority. I was one of very few members…

Five-year-old springer spaniel Tilly and owner Lee Barlow, a Lancastrian plumber, won the Chudleys Gundog Championship at the Midland Game Fair earlier this month. The winning duo took home £2,000, a rosette and an engraved trophy after beating 38 other hopefuls. Mr Barlow said he was absolutely delighted to claim the top spot. “Tilly made it to the semi-finals last year, so I am so pleased that we made it all the way through this year and improved on our previous score,” he told Shooting Times. “I have had Tilly since she was a puppy and trained her myself along with my friend Chris Holden. I will be spending my winnings on some new gundog gear — in particular, a dummy launcher.”…

30 SEPTEMBER GWCT CLAY DAY SHOOT Cefntilla Court, Usk, Monmouthshire Tel 07768 232334 1 OCTOBER SHOTGUN & CHELSEA BUN CLUB FIFTH ANNIVERSARY BALL & AWARDS Chesford Grange Hotel, Kenilworth, Warwickshire Tel 07742 793977 11 OCTOBER SCOTTISH LAND & ESTATES BRACKEN CONTROL DEMONSTRATION Atholl estates, Pitlochry, Perthshire Tel 01316 535400 13 OCTOBER GWCT PARTRIDGE FARM WALK Fridlington Farms, North Yorkshire Tel 01425 651013 23 OCTOBER THE COUNTRYSIDE DAY Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool, Merseyside Tel 020 7840 9207 27-28 OCTOBER NORTHERN WILDLIFE ART EXHIBITION Mowden Hall School, Stocksfield, Northumberland Tel 07925 597676…

Mobile operators should be legally required to provide coverage for the whole of rural Britain, according to the CLA. The landowners organisation called on phone networks to extend their reach in remote areas as MPs gathered to debate the Digital Economy Bill in the House of Commons this month. The bill sets out provisions for a new legal right to super-fast broadband for all home and business premises by 2020. However, the CLA is concerned that it does not require a similar commitment to universal mobile phone coverage. CLA president Ross Murray said: “Mobile devices are a vital part of modern life. The access they provide to voice and data services can transform the opportunities for people who live and work across our countryside. That potential continues to be stifled…

I feel well qualified to comment on the question regarding shooting from a wheelchair (Sporting Answers, 14 September), following a disabling cycling accident 25 years ago. Your expert panelist gave some very sound advice but there was another thing that I found exceedingly useful — an office-style swivel seat. I discovered the joys of this piece of equipment after falling from a rigid, four-legged shooting seat while inland goose flighting. “You could do with a swivel seat,” declared my friend, as he picked me up. On the way home we called at an office surplus equipment store and bought a five-footed 360° typist’s chair for £5. With the castors removed it was perfect for any terrain. The splayed feet made it untippable and, constructed of tough, lightweight plastic, it also…

I received a good response about dogs that stretch out with their hind legs behind them (Gundogs, 10 August). Dave Seaborn from Abenhall Gundogs was one of several people who suggested dogs do this to chill out. Stretching out on a hard surface such as concrete after exercise “allows them to cool off as quickly as possible as their core temperature increases when they stop (remember they don’t sweat like us). I have found the spaniels that do it tend to be pocket rockets, certainly in early life, and then it becomes habit later on, even after a short bout of exercise. My spaniels that do this also lie in puddles belly down to cool off, but the dogs that don’t frog-leg tend to stand in the puddles.” Mike Berry…

Plant: Devil’s-bit scabious Latin name: Succisa pratensis Common names: Blue ball, bobby bright buttons, blue bonnets, oftbit How to spot it and where to find it: A tall plant with round purple-blue flowerheads and protruding anthers, making it look like a pin-cushion, devil’sbit scabious favours damp areas such as meadows and marshes, and likes to grow in areas where more dominant species are kept down by either grazing pressure or low fertility. Devil’s-bit scabious flowers from June to September and prefers neutral or mildly acidic soil. It differs from field scabious (Knautia arvensis) in that its leaves are long and oval, while those of field scabious are darker green, hairy and deeply lobed. Interesting facts: Devil’s-bit scabious provides nectar for hoverflies, bees and butterflies, and is the larval food plant…

As another trout-fishing season draws to a close on the chalkstreams, the silly season regarding the reporting of rain has already begun. Chalkstreams are traditionally at their lowest levels at this time of the year. There is little recharge of the aquifers that feed them during the summer; they are topped up from the end of October to the beginning of April. In the South East of England it is not only rivers that require rain during this vital period, but also more than 70 per cent of the region’s burgeoning population, who use a domestic water supply drawn from the aquifers. Yet the prospect of rain is often demonised by the media. It may not be welcome for some outdoor activities, shooting included, but I wish people of the…

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE, ISSN 0037-4164, is published weekly, incorporating Shooting Magazine, Shooting Life, British Sportsman, The Angler’s News & Sea Fisher’s Journal and Field Sport, by Time Inc. (UK) Ltd, 110 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0SU, United Kingdom. © 2016 Time Inc. (UK) Ltd. Contributions are welcome but must be accompanied by a suitable stamped addressed envelope. Publication of accepted articles is not guaranteed, and the publishers will not be held liable for any manuscripts, photographs or other materials lost or damaged while in their possession, though every care will be taken. The Editor reserves the right to amend any such articles as necessary. Distributed by Marketforce (UK) Ltd, a Time Inc. (UK) Ltd company, 2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HU Tel: +44 (0)20…