Innholdsfortegnelse for 16-Nov-2016 i Shooting Times & Country

BASC says it is imperative that DEFRA keeps in place tapeworm controls for dogs entering the UK as it is “a matter of life and death” for both canines and humans. DEFRA recently launched a consultation on a review of the 2011 Non-Commercial Movement of Pet Animals Order. In its response, BASC urged DEFRA to retain the pet travel scheme as it has helped to keep the UK free from the echinococcus multilocularis tapeworm, a parasite which causes a disease that is potentially fatal to humans, while still enabling the movement of pet cats, dogs and ferrets. Dr Conor O’Gorman, BASC’s policy development manager, said that the issue is “a matter of life and death” and warned: “The worming controls are our first line of defence in the face of…

The cross-party Environment Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee has published the results of its inquiry into future flood prevention, which makes no link between moorland management and flooding. This is significant because one of the primary claims in the recent attempt to ban driven grouse shooting, which was debated in Parliament last month (News, 9 November), was that intensive habitat management associated with the sport leads to an increased flood risk. The EFRA report, ordered by the House of Commons, recognises that “winter 2015-2016 broke rainfall records” and that “more frequent, more intense storms resulting from climate change will in future put more people at risk and increase flood impacts”. These comments echo points made by Charles Walker, Conservative MP for Broxbourne, during the driven grouse debate, when he…

I read with particular interest David Frost’s article (Firearms licensing: the best and worst revealed, 2 November) about the terrible state of the UK firearms licensing process. I am unfortunate enough to fall under the catchment of the Essex firearms team, despite being a stone’s throw from Suffolk (which appears to be delivering reasonable standards). You may find it interesting to know that service standards have further deteriorated. An existing shotgun certificate holder, I applied for my firearms certificate with a vast amount of information and permission slips on 1 April 2016 (the irony now becoming clear). I received a letter two months later acknowledging my application and advising of a 40-week (280 days) application period, which is far in excess of the dreadful levels referred to (220 days) in…

21. Which little British garden bird has been the subject of countless poems and folklore? 22. Which is the smallest and most common whale in our waters? 23. Which fl at fish lives in both the sea and freshwater? Stalking 24. Who is regarded as the UK’s leading expert on roe? 25. Which renowned UK stalking club was founded in 1953? 26. Which male deer gives a whistling call during the rut? 27. What is the name of the internationally recognised trophy evaluation body? 28. The same body has a mandatory drying-out period for trophies. How long is it? 29. In deerstalking what is the “pluck”? 30. Which deer, resident in the UK, breeds throughout the year? 31. Who is the patron saint of stalking? 32. What is a hummel?…

Norway is a stunning country, with its large mountains, rugged terrain and gin-clear salmon rivers. Add to that its wonderful scenery and immensely friendly people and it is the perfect place to fish. One person who knows the salmon rivers of Norway better than most others is Christopher Robinson, founder of Roxtons, Europe’s largest sporting agency. Christopher was serving with the British Army in Germany and was already a dedicated fisherman when, in 1976, he drove for 24 hours from his base to Gloppen in Nordfjord, a district of Norway situated between the largest mainland glacier in Europe and Norway’s wildest coast at the western cape, and caught his first big Norwegian salmon. From then on, he was hooked — and has fished trout and salmon there every year ever…

“It must have been a tense moment, standing before a king whose prowess had been tested in battle” At the end of August 1872 they passed through country which, Frederick Courtenay Selous reflected ruefully, had until “very recently” been “one of the best hunting grounds for elephants in South Africa”. Now they had all moved away to the distant low-lying country where hunters seldom ventured. After sending messengers ahead at the Matabele outpost of Minyaama’s kraal, he and his friends rode on to Bulawayo. The farther he advanced into Lobengula’s realm the more Selous was struck by the beauty of the young women. “The Matabele girls were very pleasant to the eye, having most good-tempered-looking faces, and fine, upright, well-developed, dark chocolate-coloured figures, the naked beauty of which was but…

“It was obvious that Craig had a natural talent; even as a youngster he could find the right angles and composition” My truck chugged its way up and down the dale until we met the tarmac of the motorway and on to the venue, the reason for it all. Basking in the sunshine, a Jurassic rock moorland framed its impeccably managed landscape, teeming with a rich and diverse collection of flora, fauna and wildlife, including rabbits. The reason for being 300 miles away was simple: it was an opportunity to have a good old-fashioned rake about the moor with old friends and our dogs. Craig “Macca” McMillan has been wearing his boots out on this heather moorland for decades, usually accompanied by a brace of lurchers and his son, Craig…

It isn’t hard to spot Dorothy Walls-Duffin when she is picking-up with her team of Labradors — most will be chocolates. And when they start to work, it is perfectly clear that these dogs quell any myth about the ability of the chocolate Labrador in the shooting field. Brown-coated they may be, but these dogs have all the drive and style and game-finding ability to match most blacks and yellows and are the result of 30 years of concerted effort by this most committed breeder. Mrs Walls-Duffin’s Grangemead kennel, based in Warwickshire, is a leading light among the few UK devotees of working chocolate Labradors. The kennel was founded on the Styleside bloodline of Ged Leeson, who has been one of the pioneers determined to prove that coat colour should…

Shooting organisations have welcomed two improvements to firearms law passed last week by the House of Lords and adopted by the Government as amendments to the Policing and Crime Bill. The first of these changes permits an eight-week extension to the life of a firearms certificate so long as renewal documents were submitted eight weeks ahead of its expiry date. This will help the police and firearms users with renewals and resolve problems caused by delays in renewal and the increasing reliance by the police on Section 7 temporary permits. The second amendment moves expanding ammunition for deerstalking back to Section 1, removing the need for a specific police exemption As reported last month (News, 5 October), these amendments, which are supported by the police, were called for back in…

I was alluding to a stay of mine in Boulogne with my chum, Charlie, in one of the last numbers of the Shooting Times. There are, as doubtless several of my readers are aware, many small but very good marshes in the neighbourhood of Boulogne, notably at Wimereux, at Slack and at Tardinghen. The one at Wimereux was not much to speak of; still, along the brooks, I have often killed my two or three couple of snipe on about 200 yards of brook — which was not bad, considering the deed only took me 10 minutes each day to perform. The shore-shooting was fair there, as vast flocks of oxbirds and so on used to fly past the mouth of the river. Of course, this was then all free…

“Each morning we would wake to the delight of icicles hanging from the roof of the van” Like so many of the best conceived but ill-executed ideas, the plan was hatched in a pub and fuelled by the bonhomie induced (long before the days of breath tests) by a combination of festive ale and malt whisky shared irresponsibly between myself and my wildfowling companion, a poultry farmer who, for the purpose of this narrative, was called Bob. A diminutive character, with a shock of ginger hair, he was a remarkably good and consistent Shot and a man who knew Chichester Harbour and its many channels and gutters like the back of his broad splayed hands. The talk drifted to fowling, the lack of duck but the ever-growing population of brent…

The after-dark hunting scene seems to be completely dominated by night-vision equipment at present. This high-tech, super-stealthy gear, which allows you to see in the dark without having to use conventional illumination, is far more affordable than it was just a few years ago, and I have to confess to being a big fan. That said, it is not to everyone’s liking, and is still pretty expensive when compared with the price of a decent torch, so it is worth remembering that traditional lamping techniques still work as well as they did before night vision arrived on the scene. Of course, night-vision kit has some major technological advantages — not least the fact that these optics create a sight picture using “invisible” infrared light that cannot be seen by your…

It is without doubt East Anglia’s oldest industry. As early as 2,500BC, Neolithic miners and craftsmen were busily exploiting that most precious of all Stone Age natural resources: flint. At Grimes Graves, near what is today the small Suffolk town of Brandon, the purest, blackest flint in northern Europe was being mined on an industrial scale, and in the production of the knives, blades, axes, arrowheads and other workaday tools that our ancestors required, those ancient craftsmen learned the skills of working with this unique material. Those skills were never quite forgotten. Long after Stone Age culture had vanished from these islands, medieval flint knappers were producing the exquisite architectural flintwork that still graces some of our finest churches and cathedrals, but it was the rise of flintlock firearms in…

I came off a dawn flight clad top to toe in camouflage, including a baseball cap given to me in the US, with my over-and-under magnum-chambered 12-bore and fowling cartridges in the boot. In the estate yard I joined the beaters for the day’s pheasant shoot, but when the host discovered that a guest Gun had suddenly had to call off, and knowing that I had come from the nearby marsh, he invited me to join the line. If the official guests thought I had merely arrived inappropriately dressed and equipped, they were too polite to say so, but one in particular registered that askance look whereby eyes and brows say more than words. My apologies were waved aside, one Gun furnished me with a box of Eley Hi-Flyer No.6…

At 28 years old, Alex Keeble is headkeeper on a 1,000-acre shoot in the Cotswolds where a mix of redlegs, mallards and pheasants are released. He believes that vermin control and the skills of successful trapping are a vital part of a keeper’s job. Alex was originally from Suffolk, where he began shooting at the age of nine with his stepfather and where pigeon shooting and roughshooting predominated. “I was using a 12-bore by the age of nine, which was also when I got my first shotgun certificate, and the sport gave me a deep love for the British countryside,” he said. “I keepered part-time on a farmers’ shoot before I studied for a BSc honours degree in conservation and the environment at Writtle College, Chelmsford. As part of my…

The little egret is one of the success stories of the past two decades, and dispersing youngsters can appear almost anywhere at this time of year. The increase in numbers in the UK has probably been aided by not having to deal with many cold winters but the range of expansion is a continuation of a long-term spread of the species across Europe. Currently, you are probably safe in assuming that any white heron-shaped bird is a little egret but that could change. Two other species are now breeding here: the much bigger great white egret and the similarly-sized cattle egret. Adult cattle egrets are creamier in colour, but its juveniles are quite similar to little egrets. Look out for the yellow feet of little egrets, which are obvious as…

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Scottish rural organisations have united in condemnation of those who commit raptor persecution, following a report by the RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage that suggests the slow growth of the red kite numbers in the north of the country is due to illegal killing. The joint report notes that there are now 70 breeding pairs in northern Scotland, but says that if there had been no illegal killing there could have been as many as 1,500 pairs. Roseanna Cunningham, Scottish environment secretary, commented: “It is, of course, good news that red kite numbers are increasing in Scotland. “It must be said that it is extremely disappointing that this success is being lessened by illegal persecution of these magnificent birds.” A spokesman for the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) said: “Red kite…

Trinity Fields Fundraiser is organising a one-off charity driven pheasant and partridge shoot and ball and is hoping to raise £25,000 for East Anglian Air Ambulance, East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices and the Porch Project. Three different shoots across East Anglia have donated two drives each on 6 January for nine lucky Guns. The day will comprise a full English breakfast followed by two drives donated by David Clarke of the Bonnywood Shoot Syndicate in Barking. Shooters will then head over to Mallard Barn Shooting and Game Supplies in Wattisham for another two drives there, donated by Peter and Charlie Rushbrook, along with lunch. The last two drives of the day have been donated by James Buckle at Semer, with afternoon tea and cakes to finish the day. For a chance…

“The birds were as wild as their native fens, and strong and swift on the wing” Though the drainer has nearly succeeded in sweeping away that great tract of fen that once covered all the eastern counties, there remain a few spots in East Anglia which retain, to a large extent, their old features. One of the most noteworthy is Wicken Fen, in Cambridgeshire, in the neighbourhood of which my boyhood was passed. The neighbouring squires and yeoman farmers of that district were some of the best sportsmen I have ever known — men who rode as straight to hounds as they looked down the barrels of their 10-bores when the mallard flashed by on a 40-mile gale in the grey sleet of a December afternoon. Big bags were not…

•GAME CARD• Name: Plas Gwyn shoot, Anglesey. Date: 22 October 2016. Size: 2,075-acre sheep and cattle estate. Terrain: Parkland, grassland, rocky outcrops, ancient woodland and grazing pasture. Covercrops: 10 acres of Kings Crops’ Poacher Leave-it, Coveys Delight and Caledonian kale, plus sunflower mix. Weather: Cold and sunny. Guns: Michael Williams-Buckeley, Trefor Lloyd, Tristan Wood, Colin Davidson, Jack Matthews, Richard Rogers, Simon Rogers, Bedwyr Williams, Gareth Hughes. Drives: Lagoon, Park, Well Cover, The Spinneys, Larches. Bag: 98 pheasants, 31 mallard, one teal. When you are faced with travelling underground, as well as underwater and finally across water to get to a shoot, you would hope the effort would be worth it. Fortunately, it turned out to be more than worth it, as…

“Exhausted birds can be found along the east coast, hungrily looking for insects or nectar” November not only heralds the arrival of thousands of continental woodcock, but there will also be plenty of goldcrests. Years ago, it was thought that goldcrests travelled across to Britain on the backs of woodcock — presumably people could not fathom their simultaneously timed appearance on our shores, nor believe that the tiny goldcrest could fly here on its own. From ringing, we know that these tiny kinglets migrate from the same sort of areas as the much bigger wader, flying across the North Sea in the dark. The map (right) shows in orange the ringing sites in Scandinavia and on the Baltic of birds that have turned up in Britain and Ireland. The coastal…

“With no roads, tracks or trails, we drove over brutal terrain, taking each gradient as it came” Iceland is celebrated for its volcanoes, geysers and glaciers, its fabulous salmon angling and, more recently, its football team. It is less well known for its wild reindeer. Reindeer are not native to Iceland, though they have been established there since 1787 when they were introduced from Norway. Throughout most of the past 200 years, they have been hunted in a more or less regulated way, and numbers over that time have fluctuated. However, in 2004 the Environment Agency of Iceland took control of the management of the wild reindeer and introduced a new hunting system based on a strict quota with tags available by way of a lottery. “Do you want me…

“If an owl had called out twit, it would have been apt. After hours of patient waiting, the geese had made a total fool of me” Gossamer-like clouds drifted intermittently across the heavens, while star constellations played hide and seek behind them. Orion hunted over the English part of the Solway Firth. The Big Dipper, and its companion star Polaris, ploughed the sky above my creek on the Scottish side. Nearer the horizon — to the left of the waxing, gibbous moon — Jupiter and Mars shone brightly. On the mud banks, 200 yards away, a small black line of pink-footed geese lifted. The geese voiced their discontent at being pushed off by the incoming tide. They wavered like a ribbon held in a breeze as they headed up the…

Chocolate is probably as synonymous with Christmas as the tree and the presents, but if you spot a chocolate Labrador on your shoot during the festive season it is likely to be the subject of some derision rather than celebration. But do these dogs really deserve their bad reputation in the shooting fi eld? There is no clear-cut answer to that question simply because the working ability of chocolate Labradors per se cannot be judged simply by the colour of their coat. In other words, while some show little if no ability as gundogs, others can equally match any black or yellow for their drive and game-finding ability. I can hear many shooting people doubting that fact, and they will be basing their opinions of chocolate Labradors on some they…