Innholdsfortegnelse for 15-Jul-2020 i Shooting Times & Country

A fortnight ago, on my way to decoy pigeon in the Cotswolds, I stopped in to visit Stephen Booth, who is a keeper on a classic Oxfordshire shoot. Stephen is a keen Shooting Times reader and has some favourite old covers pinned up in his shed, which is a treasure trove of rural curiosities, from old traps to antique cartridges. He is a modest man but his reputation as a brilliant keeper precedes him and I was pleased that he’d noted we have many more women writing in the magazine, which he thinks is a great thing. Over tea, we discussed various rural programmes that were once on TV, from Tack’s Game to Clarissa and The Countryman, which, of course, features Shooting Times contributor Tohnny Scott. It would be a…

BASC guidance on COVID-19 BASC has published its COVID-19 guidelines for shoots in England in a booklet, available for download on the BASC website. Dan Reynolds, BASC director of England, said: “BASC has been working intensively on creating guidance for shoots to help them address the risk of COVID-19 this coming season.” Similar booklets for other parts of the UK are expected shortly. Island hopping and high street shopping Otters have made it back to the Isle of Wight. They last bred on the island in the 1950s but have made visits to the island’s coastline in more recent years. However, for the first time in many years they have now started to explore the island’s interior with signs of their presence found high up on the Eastern Yar, the…

A month is a long time in the life of a grouse. In fact, in many cases its a high proportion of its life. That is indeed the case this year, for as soon as my piece last month was winging its way down the internet highway I began to get some rather worrying calls regarding the deaths of numerous chicks. It would seem to be especially prevalent on the lower, drier, easterly moors, and may well be the result of the driest spell of weather we have had in living memory for the time of year, coupled with some pretty grim heather conditions. The heather had taken quite a hit with six or more weeks of north to easterly winds, drying the plant out and severely browning the new…

Uncertain about the future, I have spent the odd half hour lately living in the past by turning the pages of my shooting diaries and waking some of the countless memories waiting for me there. Some of the days to which these memories belong come back to me with surprising clarity, others have left fewer and hazier impressions. I should like to recall two or three of the former sort together with the thoughts and conclusions that they have inspired. The first such day was almost 20 years ago, a day between Christmas and New Year when an impromptu decision brought me to High Park to explore a few odd corners with an unruly black and white spaniel called Digby. There is snow on the high fells and bright winter…

IN A RECENT ARTICLE (Gundogs, 3 Tune issue) I looked at my collection of dog books and gave a brief but honourable mention to Lez Graham’s three-volume series, The Pet Gundog Puppy, The Pet Gundog and The Advanced Pet Gundog. I was unaware that Lez was updating all three but the new editions have landed on my desk. Originally published in 2010 and 2011, this is the first major revision these slim, informative books have had. When Lez had her original idea for these books, it was to help anyone who had acquired a gundog as a pet but had little idea of what their dog was capable of, given the right training. The books advised in a simple, straightforward manner how to understand your dog and how to motivate…

This recipe really takes me back to my childhood. Like most youngsters, the first experience I had in the field was shooting rabbits with my uncles. This is my version of a Spanish dish that my mother, aunties and uncles used to make – and still do make – in Spain. “Simple, one-pot cooking – with chips” This is simple one-pot cooking, with the addition of some chips – and who doesn’t like chips? It is the sort of thing that is perfect for when you get back late from a shoot day and you’re exhausted. There are many places in southern Spain where you will eat this peasants’ dish and I have yet to eat a bad one. Two good-sized rabbits will give four to six good portions. Best…

The White Park’s claim to being a truly ancient breed is among the strongest of any native breed. Its place in our heritage is such that the government shipped a small unit to the USA for safe-keeping during World War II, and its image was chosen by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust founders for our logo in 1973. References to White Park-type cattle are found in Druid folk tales and Welsh payment records from the ninth century. From the 13th century, several British parks featured herds, including the ancient Dynevor and Cadzow herds. At the breed’s nadir in the 1960s, only four herds remained. Thanks to working alongside the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST), the White Park is in a stronger position today with more than 30 herds. However, it…

Cockling was an annual family outing back in 1960s Portsmouth. So, when I moved to West Dorset 20 years later, I looked to rekindle those happy memories. Sure enough, I found cockles, buried in the sandy seabed with their siphons and shells just showing. Then I discovered the Venus clam. These can be located by looking for siphon-holes, which are about an inch apart. Nothing, however, is as exciting as catching razor clams. These, too, are visible from siphon-holes (clams are generally oriented on-edge, siphons on top) forming a keyhole or figure-of-eight shape. A sprinkle of salt onto the hole will produce a flurry of activity, followed by the emergence of one-third of the shell. Grab it and pull gently. Don’t worry too much if there’s an ‘r’ in the…

1 X-Bolt SF Max Varmint RRP: £1,299 browning.eu This new version of the X-Bolt is known particularly for its distinctive, 24in, semi-weight barrel, which allows superb control, along with a stock that offers a perfect grip. There is an adjustable cheek piece for optimum alignment. It is available in five calibres. 2 Hawker Low Boots RRP: £99.99 gb.seeland.com If you are stalking where the weather forecast is terrible, and the terrain is tough, this is the boot for you. These 7in high boots have a waterproof membrane and are extremely lightweight. The flexible forefoot and glassfibre shank produce a boot that is supple but still offers good support on any surface. 3 Mtm Ez-Dt Double Clay Thrower RRP: £26.99 sportsmanguncentre.co.uk This handy bit of kit will throw…

The term ‘overtourism’ is coming into regular use in the media. Concerns about the adverse impacts of uncontrolled mass-market tourism have been brewing for some time. Now, in the pandemic era, they are becoming mainstream. The photos of the horrendous piles of rubbish left behind on Bournemouth beach recently sparked a widespread sense of revulsion. Are we really going to allow this sort of thing to continue? Those of us who live in national parks know that swarms of day trippers clustering at honeypot selfie locations can be a nuisance at best, or cause real environmental damage at worst. The irony is that some of the people who display knee-jerk antipathy to hunting sports are themselves complicit in the sort of mass-market tourism that trashes the countryside and alienates local…

Take advantage of early mornings and light evenings for some daytime foxing. Smart foxes can learn that they are likely to be hunted at night and can switch to daytime hunting. A quiet stakeout in an upwind position during daylight can catch out a wary animal and give you a shot. Fieldsports enthusiasts are the eyes and ears of the countryside and a key thing to watch out for during the summer months is ‘sewage fungus’. This slimy brown coating on stream beds looks like very fine hair and can indicate a pollution problem upstream. If you think you have noticed this or any other sign of pollution, your local rivers trust should be able to advise on what to do.…

It is coming up to the height of the harvest season, when thousands of woodpigeon will be shot over standing crops and stubbles. This also coincides with the height of the pigeon-racing season. In lots of shooting magazines there are photos of bags of pigeon that often include what are said to be feral pigeons. Most pigeon races take place on Saturdays, from April to September, and groups of pigeons can be seen racing home in various sized groups, ranging from the odd bird on the last leg of a 500-mile race to a bigger group taking part in a 60-mile sprint. As a lifelong shooter who also keeps racing pigeons, I would like to appeal to shooters to be aware that there can be as much effort gone into…

It is common for me to talk about how important the basics are. Heel and sit are two things I cover frequently. However, it is sometimes the case that basic recall gets overlooked. With any young dog, despite wanting a solid recall, it is vital you do not flatten their drive to hunt and either retrieve or flush. Too much recall and stop whistle will often cause a young or inexperienced dog to become sticky and continually look for commands, inhibiting any natural talent it has for game finding. To avoid this, it is important that when training youngsters they have a guaranteed success each time they are cast. For example, if you send a young or novice dog for a retrieve, ensure it is achievable. When hunting a young…

We hear a lot these days about fake news, but while some of the stories we read in newspapers may not be fake, they often state the obvious. I recently read that, in the opinion of a nutritional expert, it’s not good to feed dogs a vegan diet. I’m not a nutritional expert but that is a classic case of stating the obvious. The dog’s ancestor, the wolf, is an eclectic carnivore, which means it gets its food from a broad and diverse range of sources. Some it kills, some it scavenges. While it may be, principally, a meat eater it is not averse to eating anything it fancies, from grasshoppers to birds’ eggs and berries. Such a varied diet provides all the protein and carbohydrate the animal requires. It’s…

Pride of Exmoor BUTTERFLIES Q Can you identify the butterfly in my photograph, please? I photographed it on Exmoor in late June. A Your butterfly is a heath fritillary, one of Britain’s most rare species, restricted to a few woods in Kent and Essex, and a number of sites in the West Country. Curiously, the Exmoor colonies were not discovered until the 1980s, suggesting that they must have been overlooked until then. These butterflies favour sheltered valleys or coombes on the moor, flying from late May through to the end of Tune. Despite their rarity in England, at the sites where they do occur they can be abundant, sometimes emerging in hundreds or even thousands. The favoured food plant of the caterpillars is cow wheat, but on Exmoor they can…

.303 BRITISH We call it, simply, the .303 but internationally the name ‘British’ is added for clarity. It started life in 1888 as a black-powder cartridge for the Lee-Metford rifle. It transitioned to Cordite smokeless powder in 1891 and, once adopted by the British Army, it became the standard military round from 1889 until the 1950s. The case is bottlenecked brass with a corrosive primer. In service for 60 years of ammunition development, the cartridge was produced with a mind-boggling variety of iterations, from soft-nose, to round nose, to incendiary, tracer and armour-piercing bullets. Perhaps its classic form is the 1910 version, MKVII. This loads a 174gr pointed nose bullet in front of 37 grains of cordite, with a muzzle velocity of 2,440fps. Though a military round, the .303 was…

This is the original fly upon which the Sunray Shadow series of flies was based. It has a reassuringly humble heritage and is one of the most classic of all British salmon flies. Border collie dogs were popular among British farmers and local gillies and their hair was perfect for this fly. Simple and easy to tie, yet exceptionally effective, it became a standard pattern that has been used to great effect for generations. It is best fished square and fast or stripped back at pace. It can provoke aggressive reactions from otherwise ‘dormant’ fish.…

Richard Gould is one of the most highly regarded wild bird keepers of his generation. Described by the judges of the Purdey Awards as a “one-man dynamo”, they created a special award by which to recognise his great vision and outstanding success in creating a most impressive lowland game shoot at Ixworth Thorpe in Suffolk, where he was headkeeper. Richard started his career as a YTS trainee at Hilborough, the van Cutsem family’s estate in Norfolk. He said: “My headkeeper at Hilborough was Gerald Gray. He drilled into me that you look with your eyes, not with your feet. I learned that to be an effective keeper, you have to be a great observer of nature.” I asked him if there were many youngsters keen on becoming wild bird keepers…

It’s the field boundaries that define this farm more than anything. That sounds obvious but, of course, to my share farming partners it’s the land in between the hedges and walls that makes the money and the boundaries are just cost. It’s a bit of grit that has worn holes in the landlord and tenant relationship for centuries, I suspect. And to the wildlife that shares this land with us, the boundaries are everything — nesting sites in wall crevices and hedges, food and corridors for safe passage. So re-fencing the whole farm this year has been a challenge for a variety of reasons and not just financially and logistically. It has been a fulfilling exercise and made me see nooks and crannies that I had overlooked and appreciate them…

BILL HARRIMAN BASC’s head of firearms and global authority on guns MAT MANNING Airgunner and journalist from the West Country DIGGORY HADOKE Vintage gun expert, firearms dealer, author and journalist 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…