Innholdsfortegnelse for 04-Nov-2020 i Shooting Times & Country

It is possibly the first time that the café at the Tate Britain gallery in London has seen such an incident and I suspect it may never happen again. It was mid-morning and I was there to have coffee with an old theatre director who lives nearby. I suddenly remembered halfway through my scone that I had brought him two teal, shot on the Stour at dawn the previous morning and plucked in my garden 12 hours later at dusk. He was delighted with the gift and was keen to know everything about teal and the places they inhabit. With lunchtime looming, I said I needed to get going but he was adamant he had to show me only one painting. We rushed along the corridors, past the entrance to…

‘Cherry-picking’ over bird releases The true number of pheasants released in the UK is probably far lower than has been claimed, according to the latest science. After cherry-picking the highest possible estimate from a single study, campaigners have been claiming that 57 million birds are released for shooting every year. Now Dr Jo Madden of Exeter University has been back through the numbers and, by his calculations, the real figure lies closer to 35 million, including mallard releases. Game-based meals for hungry children The Countryside Food Trust is launching its winter appeal to help feed children in need across the UK. The trust has developed a range of game-based ready meals, recently adding a venison bolognese to its menu. Now it needs £100,000 to feed 100,000 families. You can donate…

I’ve been keeping and breeding pigs for about five years. At first, they seemed little more than a novelty. I bought two saddleback weaners from a neighbouring farm and treated them as a summer project. They’d be fat enough to kill by the autumn, by which time I thought I’d have had enough of them. But pigs are charming, funny characters and I found it very hard to be parted from them. We killed them in late October and butchered the carcasses when the weather turned cold. It felt very fitting to be working on hams and pork chops as the days shortened and the sky was filled with migrant thrushes from Scandinavia and Russia. I liked the old-fashioned connections with harvest and the changing seasons. It seemed obvious that…

FIRST, just because she finds recall easy when we are one-to-one and around a calm trained dog, this does not mean I should stop training in that situation. It is vital she keeps achieving and getting praised for showing the desired behaviour, so covering the training where I know she will achieve it can only end in success. I start by taking her into different fields and paddocks and practising recall with only her and one other trained dog. She is very ball focused so I am using a ball to reward her and keep recall exciting. Some dogs are more food focused and that can act as a useful motivation. However, it isn’t all that uncommon to find a dog that is not particularly motivated by either food or…

OF THE 30 NATIVE breeds on the Kennel Club’s vulnerable list, nine are gundogs. There are three setters (Gordon, English and the Irish red and white), one retriever (curlycoat) and no fewer than five spaniels — Clumber, field, Sussex, Welsh springer and Irish water. To qualify for the list, registrations have to be fewer than 300 a year. It’s the Kennel Club’s aim, by highlighting the perilous state of these breeds, to encourage more people to take on one of these rare dogs. It points out that there are more than 200 breeds recognised in the UK, but people tend to choose a dog from the breeds they are familiar with, “which means that the perfect breed for them and their lifestyle might be overlooked”. It’s a fair point. Most…

There is no better way to spend an evening or morning than sitting in the reeds or in a hide, waiting for duck to come in. When Steve Lee and I worked on the wildfowling section of Feathers: The Game Larder, we went out with a good friend, Chris Whiley. We got up at 4am to drive there on a cold October morning. After we had togged up with waders, Chris led Steve and his camera to a reed hide. Then, with the decoys positioned out on the water, Chris and I lowered ourselves into a slightly larger hide on the opposite side of the bank. We waited with bated breath, in the dark, listening for the whirring of wings and the quacking or whistling of ducks. For an hour,…

EC NO 3 POWDER Like Smokeless Diamond (Sporting Answers, 28 October), EC No 3 was a 33-grain bulk powder. It was developed from the 42-grain EC No 2 — EC stood for Explosives Company, of Stowmarket, which introduced a smokeless powder in 1882 — and was orange in colour. No 3 was suited to shooting light game loads where soft recoil was required. It became popular in the first quarter of the 20th century as a shotgun propellant, though it was too coarse-grained to be suited to rifle ammunition. EC, made from nitrocotton and nitrates of potassium and barium in grain-gelatinised ether alcohol, was stable and had a long life when stored. It was loaded as an option into Eley’s range of cartridges. A typical game cartridge load for a…

The grouse now have some peace and the drudgery of replenishing 1,000 or more grit stations may well be over for most keepers. The grit has become one of those must-do tasks, but it’s a pretty soul-destroying job trundling to and fro countless times over the grid system on the moor. The next main job, trapping, would in most years be some light relief, but for a number of grouse keepers this year it may not be so straightforward. The new regime for trapping is a choice of two traps, the New Zealand DOC and the Tully. There is quite a bit of grumbling about the latter. It would appear that it is not striking as it should once it has been set for a period of time. It’s perhaps…

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person engaged in fieldsports must be in want of good sustenance. And it always seems to taste so much better when it is taken in the field. I am not exactly sure why the location is so important, but I suppose we can count farm sheds and Land Rover cabs as falling within the necessary category. In this age of COVID-19 restrictions, the lavish indoor shoot lunch is definitely out. Sitting in a parked vehicle and opening a flask of hot coffee to release its aroma, while the windscreen wipers clack-clack wetly on the misty windscreen, is one of the most soothing rituals I know. It always seems to ignite the hope that the weather is about to clear — even if…

SHOOT With the leaves now off most of the trees, an air rifle or .410 can be used to put a significant dent in the local grey squirrel population. A quiet walk with a gun through the woods can be just as productive as staking out a bait station or feeder. SHOOT Try a multi-species day. A host of species are in season right now and a multi-species day can present a unique and interesting sporting challenge. Many lowland shooting operators will offer the chance to bag a pheasant, partridge, rabbit, woodpigeon and hare. In the uplands you may well be able to add grouse and mountain hare to the bag.…

ENFORCER RETRIEVE From the photo of the keeper’s dogs that are saving Tom the trouble of picking up his shot birds (Adventure on the school run, 21 October), Tom must be shooting a lot of Enforcer decoys as that’s what one of the dogs has in its mouth. Come on, Tom, are your big bags you talk about real pigeon or do you count all the decoys as well? Keith Williams, Essex The Editor responds: Meanwhile, when I go pigeon shooting with Tom, he doesn’t let me carry any of the decoys in case I break them (admittedly, it did happen once). THE WAY FORWARD? Is a single organisation to represent shooting’s interests a good idea (Do we sing as a choir — or several soloists?, 7 October)? Other countries…

Driven shooting has been an established sport in the British Isles since it was introduced by the mid-Victorians. The sport of shooting had previously been largely a matter of a gentleman walking-up game over his dogs. His firearm of choice was a muzzle-loading shotgun, until the advent of breechloading pinfires in the mid-1850s. This allowed guns to be loaded faster and the development of the shotgun continued apace for the next 50 years. Centrefire, rebounding hammers, snap-actions, hammerless guns that cock automatically, self-openers, which require only one hand to open, automatic cartridge ejection, single triggers. Each development made it easier and faster to fire and reload a double-barrelled shotgun. When used as a pair, with a loader, the rate of continual fire is unsurpassed. In tandem with the improvement of…

Thank goodness for ex-layers and for Forest Hall. I say this because, with the prospects for the rest of the season looking more and more uncertain, the ex-layers we put down at Forest Hall gave us the opportunity for a day’s sport early in October which, in its rough and ready and informal way, was rather wonderful. It was wonderful to be out with a gun in the (socially distanced) company of friends, it was wonderful to see pheasants fly again and it was, of course, wonderful to shoot the first birds of another season. I shot two of them and two was enough for me. If things fall apart and new lockdowns are imposed and the rest of the season is a write-off, at least I had a day’s…

KEEPA has now run in his first two trials and I am thrilled with his performance in both. In the first he got down to the final three dogs and only tripped at the last hurdle. In the other he was placed fourth. So it was a great start to his season. He is also picking-up at least three times a week and having the odd day’s beating. Despite going picking-up more than beating, we are often asked in our picking-up team to work hedges or certain cover up towards a drive as we walk to where we will stand during the drive. There are some pickers-up who claim their dogs cannot beat or dog-in because they are ‘picking-up dogs’. This doesn’t make a great deal of sense. One of…

For many years, I dreaded early November because it was the height of the fireworks season. The bonfire parties may have peaked on 5 November, but the week before and the week after were often equally noisy. The problem was that one of my spaniels had developed a great fear of fireworks and this intensified as she got older. Curiously, she was unfazed by the sound of gunfire, but there was something about fireworks that terrified her. At the time, I lived in a village that was surrounded, or so it seemed, by firework enthusiasts. In truth, there probably weren’t that many, but for my spaniel a single firework party was one too many. I tried all the tricks I could to relieve her stress. In the weeks leading up…

Latin name: Angelica sylvestris Common name: Wild angelica Other names: Angelica montana, Angelica pancicii How to spot it and where to find it: This hairless perennial herb is found in a variety of habitats that have rich soils, including damp woods and carr, grassland, marshes, swamps, ungrazed montane grassland and mountain ledges. It is usually around 1m tall, with hollow, ridged stems that are tinged with purple. Like its fellow members of the carrot family, it produces umbels of tiny flowers that are creamy-white or pink. Interesting facts: Most of us have, at some point, come across candied angelica, the bright green decorative bits of stalk soaked in syrup. This is Angelica archangelica, a close relative. You could candy A sylvestris, but its stems tend to be tougher and more…

5 NOVEMBER TRY SUSTAINABLE AMMUNITION DAY Mid Norfolk shooting ground, Taverham, Norwich bit.ly/Norfolkammo 10-11 NOVEMBER WILD BOAR CERTIFICATE Thoresby Estate, Nottingham bit.ly/boarcert 17 NOVEMBER GAME EXPERIENCE DAY Hartpury College, Gloucester, Gloucestershire southwest@basc.org.uk 22-24 NOVEMBER DSC1 ROYSTON BDS stalking certificate, Hertfordshire bit.ly/bds1Herts 28 NOVEMBER SCBC (LADI ES) CLAY SHOOT Southdown Gun Club, Findon, Sussex bit.ly/ladyclaySussex 7 DECEMBER RODENTICIDE COURSE FOR GAMEKEEPERS Online course, nationalgamekeepers.org.uk/events…

Alasdair Mitchell’s article has generated a lot of interest and discussion regarding our representative organisations (Do we sing as a choir — or several soloists?, 7 October). However, I feel an important element in the discussion has been overlooked. We know that the size of our various organisations is generally small, reflecting the fact that fieldsports are a minority interest in the UK. But we should also note that the anti-fieldsports and animal rights groups are much smaller again. Their success in creating ‘noise’ around their aims is that they have, quite successfully, hijacked much larger organisations that have previously been generally neutral in regard to fieldsports, in order to further their extreme agendas. These organisations include the RSPB, RSPCA and the National Trust, which have had to manage a…

Lizzie is back from her holiday at home where her owners practised the basics. She consistently walks on a relaxed loose lead and has a relatively consistent recall. Her sit is slowly becoming more solid. All of the above, however, are by no means ‘trained’. This is a common misconception with training young dogs. One of the things needing work is her recall around other dogs. As can be rather common in dogs this age she has a tendency to go over to a dog when she sees them. What is the reason for this? When training with her one-to-one or even around one of my trained dogs, her recall is immaculate. So why the change? I have heard many clients say that they feel their young dog is going…

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…

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