Innholdsfortegnelse for 14-Oct-2020 i Shooting Times & Country

Last week, in Gloucestershire, I had the privilege of seeing something that was once common in England but has tragically become a rarity. The wind blew, the rain fell and, as the flankers’ whistles went, grey partridges buzzed over the Guns, beating them with speed rather than height. To see England’s quintessential gamebird pouring over blackthorns, as they did across the country during shooting’s golden era, is really quite stirring. The sheer number of birds that the shoot’s owner George Ponsonby and his keeper Frank Snudden are able to show is proof of the brilliant things visionary estates can achieve. I often hear suggestions that there should be collaboration between shooters and conservationists. It might be meant well, but as we wandered back across the fields for tea — fields…

BASC has launched a new wave of publicity for shooting in newspapers across the country to mark the start of the pheasant season. It follows a similar campaign at the start of grouse shooting (News, 19 August). The association took out full-page adverts in regional newspapers including the Edinburgh Evening News, Shropshire Star and Western Morning News. Garry Doolan, BASC’s deputy director of communications and public affairs, said: “We’re running these campaigns so we can directly target readers with the key facts. Our members know all about the economic and environmental benefits, but we also want to reach those who rarely get access to such information.” FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM @SHOOTINGTIMESUK…

We suffered a major wildfire in the spring. Nobody knows how it started, but I was the first on the scene. I called the fire brigade, but despite the best efforts of more than 10 fire engines and three helicopters, six square miles of moorland and forestry was converted into cinders over the course of almost five days. The hill was stripped away to the bare bones. The moor was crispy and dull, and it was bizarre to watch eddies of soot chasing themselves around the scorched heather sticks like tiny twisters in the breeze. It’s easy to be discouraged by a big fire. The devastation is vast. It struck during a dry spell and there was no rain for almost a fortnight afterwards. Cuckoos returned and seemed puzzled by…

When I arrived in Teesdale many moons ago, one of the things that struck me was the number of plants I had never seen before. What I now know as the Teesdale Assemblage is a unique mix of plant species in what is also a unique environment. Our interests are one of the things that mark us out as individuals and I have always had slightly more than a passing interest in the plants I saw and walked among on a daily basis. Teesdale was then something of an eye-opener as well as a mystery to me. Even in early Victorian times, Teesdale was well known as early travellers had discovered plants living together here that they had not seen anywhere else in England. The plants which grow in a…

SPOT THE ODD ONE out: grey wolf, labrador, golden jackal, coyote. All four are members of the genus Caninae, and have scientific names prefixed with the word Canis. However, a big clue is that the labrador is the only one that can be trained to retrieve pheasants, sniff out drugs or work as a guide dog, for it is the only one that has been domesticated. This definitely makes it the odd member of this small canid pack. Perhaps surprisingly, it’s also the only one that is endangered. Endangered? I can hear the splutterings of indignation. How can Britain’s most popular breed of dog possibly be endangered? All of us have been brought up around or even with labradors, making it all too easy us to take them for granted…

Venison mince. I am a terror for saving little packs of venison mince for a rainy day. I pop them in the freezer and then forget about them. It was when one of these decided to tumble out of the freezer on to my foot, while I was searching for a steak or two, that I had my eureka moment. The idea of combining minced venison with a creamy mushroom sauce came into my mind. This is nothing new. Creamy sauces have been around as long as cows have been milked and probably longer, but it’s unusual for me to go down this route. I am normally rather anti-cream in most of my cookery. But I have been eating so much veg recently that a small part of my being…

THE SUPER-MAGNUM EXPLORA Holland & Holland pioneered the improvements in shot and ball guns to the highest level with the Paradox, but Westley Richards developed its own versions: a 12-bore called the Explora and a 20-bore called the Fauneta. Its most powerful version was the Super-Magnum Explora. This was a brass shotgun case with nitro-powder driving a pointed, brass-capped bullet of 750gr on a design patented by Leslie Taylor, the managing director of Westley Richards at the time. The bullet was cannelured and the brass case slightly crimped to secure it. The ‘LT’ bullet fired from a Westley Richards 12-bore Super-Magnum Explora delivered 3,643ft/lb of energy and travelled at 1,500fps. In 1912, Super-Magnum Explora cartridges cost £1 7s 6d per 100. To fire the cartridge, a new 2¾in chambered version…

1 Huttie pants RRP: £45 swazi.co.nz Swazi’s warmest trousers, Huttie pants are manufactured with cosy microfleece. With two zipped and secure pockets, they are ideal for any outdoor activity as they are both practical and comfortable. 2 Highland Stalker hunting coat RRP: £495 johnrigbyandco.com Fully waterproof, this coat features four external pockets: two large front pockets — suitable for cartridges — and two smaller fleece-lined side pockets to keep your hands warm. There are two further large zip pockets inside. The hood is fully detachable, wire reinforced and weighted to stop it blowing off in windy conditions. 3 AimCam Pro 2i camera glasses RRP: £249 edgarbrothers.com Described as the world’s most advanced line-of-sight camera glasses, the AimCam Pro 2i model is designed to capture video as you…

What do you do with your empties? Plastic wads are already verboten on many game shoots. But plastic cartridge cases are another matter. They are still very much the rule rather than the exception. Unlike wads, which are blasted to God only knows where, cases are much more likely to land somewhere predictable. Given this, you’d have thought it would be a common courtesy to pick them up. Surprisingly, however, there are still some shooters who don’t even attempt to pick up their empties. Many of these folk are gravitationally challenged. Others just go through life thinking it is somebody else’s job to clean up after them. I find it depressing to walk on to a stand at a driven shoot and find the immediate area blighted by dozens of…

Re-equip SUPPORT your beaters and help the Gamekeepers’ Welfare Trust (GWT). From 1 October to 20 December, leading net-maker Collins Nets is donating 50p for each of its beaters’ flags sold to the GWT, a charity that offers support to gamekeepers who are experiencing difficulties and their families. F E E D Step up wild bird feeding. With frosts now arriving on a regular basis, small birds will need the calories to get them into good condition for the winter. Fat balls and niger seeds are always popular on the bird table, while adding a little rapeseed to food spun for gamebirds can help our songbirds immensely.…

THE MAKING OF A FERRETING DOG When I bred from my lurcher Tawny, I kept two bitches for myself: Budget and Dotty. I am often asked through my social media channels about how I start my puppies off ferreting, so here is a brief synopsis. The first and most important thing to note is that everybody is different, so what I do isn’t necessarily the right thing for you, the reader, just because it has worked for me in the past. The puppies are immature athletes with sponge-like brains and developing bones, muscles and ligaments. Consistency is the key and in the real world this can be harder than you imagine. I am in no rush with Budget and Dotty. I don’t think I have ever had that luxury with…

In the early years of my shooting career, pheasants were far too valuable to use for retrieving practice. I didn’t shoot many and those that I did bag were destined for dinner. This became second nature and, even today, I don’t like to use a shot pheasant or partridge for dog training. This is hardly a problem, as there’s enough pheasant roadkill to provide all the birds I could ever need. It’s remarkable how often roadkill pheasants are barely marked, so they are ideal for training. I will usually cut off the breasts afterwards to feed the dogs, so little is wasted. Some roadkill is inevitable as pheasants are ground-dwelling birds that are highly vulnerable to road traffic. I do get irritated when people insist that pheasants are stupid and…

Latin name: Phragmites australis Common name: Reed Other names: Norfolk reed, bennels, carrizo, Danube grass, spires How to spot it and where to find it: Swathes of swaying reeds are a familiar sight across our wetlands in the autumn. Common reed has tall, hollow, golden stems with large, feathery flower spikes that appear dark purple, slowly fading to brown as the spikelets — which contain the flowers — grow bristles. It is found in swamps and fens, ditches, at the edges of lakes, ponds and rivers as well as in coastal lagoons, brackish swamps and estuaries. Interesting facts: Common reed is an aggressive, vigorous plant that grows to 3m in height. It will outcompete almost every other species. It is one of the most widely distributed of all flowering plants.…

31 OCTOBER INTRODUCTION TO GAME SHOOTING Lady’s Wood, Chipping Sodbury, Gloucester 01454 294546 or email shoot@ladyswood.co.uk 3 NOVEMBER FIREARMS AWARENESS TRAINING (RIFLE) Rifleman Firearms, Hambridge, Somerset basc.org.uk/events 6-7 NOVEMBER INTERMEDIATE DEER COURSE Baronscourt estate, Newtownstewart, Northern Ireland basc.org.uk/events 7 NOVEMBER LADIES CLAY SHOOT Holland & Holland, London shotgunand chelseabunclub.co.uk 10 NOVEMBER WILD GAME MEAT HYGIENE COURSE Herefordshire nationalgamekeepers.org.uk/events 10 NOVEMBER ADVANCED AIRGUN HUNTER Humberside Shooting Ground, Brandesburton, East Yorkshire basc.org.uk/events…

Richard Negus mentions several firms that manufacture waterproof coats on the market suitable for shooting (Eurovision coat contest, 19 August). But I feel he overlooked the champion of them all, Barbour. It was the first company to make a green waterproof coat that was guaranteed to keep you warm and dry all day. In the 1960s we all had a ‘Barby’, even Stanley Duncan had one or two in the Black Hut [where he founded WAGBI, the forerunner to BASC]. Every Saturday morning I would head for Duncan’s shop in Hull to replenish my fishing and ferreting gear. To get back to the shooting coat, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In a sports shop window in the 1960s I saw four beech logs formed into a…

I have a memory from my years spent in Leicestershire. It is an image that has helped me as a father, determined to educate my son in the ways of the countryside. It was a time of decadence, albeit financially impoverished thanks to my ineptitude as a horse dealer. The lovely Jacobean estate where I had my yard sat in the heart of the Quorn Hunt’s Friday country, a sea of old grass, black-hearted hedges and persevering foxes with an addiction to running in straight lines. We hosted a number of meets each season, one of the most popular being that for the Pony Club. At the time, because I was both single and childless, children fell into two categories — foul or horrible. From my viewpoint on the edge…

THE ULTIMATE SHOOTING QUIZ TEAM 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…

ALPINE MARMOT The shrill whistle of an alarmed marmot (Marmota marmota) will be familiar to anyone who has hiked in the high meadows of the Alps and the Pyrenees. Populations of alpine marmots — a European endemic — can also be found in the Massif Central, the Vosges, Jura, Black Forest, the Slovenian Alps and the Romanian Carpathians. They favour south-facing open meadows and in the Alps can generally be found from 600m to 3,200m. Marmots live in small, family groups, usually with a dominant breeding pair. Mating takes place in the spring, immediately after hibernation, with a litter of typically three young born after a gestation period of 33 days. Reproduction rates are generally slow, because usually only the dominant female produces young. Marmots can live well into their…

We are planning on shooting our flightpond this coming weekend. I have been feeding it weekly with wheat since the end of July. Barley is the preferred food choice, but unfortunately we only grow organic barley here and it is too expensive to feed to ducks. This pond tends only to attract mallard, though we see the odd teal. Flighting wild duck on a pond is one of the most exciting and rewarding forms of shooting. The pond we use is surrounded by trees. This can make the shooting challenging as the ducks only arrive on last light and once they drop beyond the tree line they become invisible. The hides we use are made from three wooden pallets, secured to make a blind with an open back. Because of…