Innholdsfortegnelse for 30-Dec-2020 i Shooting Times & Country

A fortnight ago, while outlining his plan for a green revolution, Boris Johnson sought to assure people that his party are not ‘eco-freaks’. I suppose he was hoping to recruit the support of those who are sceptical about environmentalism. Predictably, the response was mixed, with many people on social media posting photos of themselves captioned “this is what an eco-freak looks like”. They were generally a perfectly pleasant-looking mix of birdwatchers and hikers. But I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them have actually contributed in a hands-on way to conservation in our countryside. I didn’t see any keepers, shoot owners or gillies posting pictures of themselves captioned similarly, but in reality they are often at the vanguard of species and habitat preservation. It might run counter to narratives…

Night poaching laws from the 19th century have been used to arrest a group of men who were caught by a police patrol on Salisbury Plain. The officers observed a blue Jeep Cherokee, the occupants of which failed to stop, turned the vehicle’s lights off and drove off across country. Ultimately, the Jeep was stopped on the A338 with the use of a stinger, which deflated its tires. Five men from the Dorset area were arrested on suspicion of failing to stop for police and night poaching. The vehicle, four lurcher-type dogs and a set of night-vision equipment were all seized. Night poaching is an offence under the Night Poaching Act 1828. Ed Coles, a gamekeeper and Shooting Times contributor, whose petition for harsher sentences for poachers has now attracted…

PLEASE BE PATIENT I may be paranoid, but have other readers detected a rather worrying ‘nanny’ attitude creeping into Alasdair Mitchell’s column (Sharpshooter, 9 December)? We are being scolded for not welcoming with open arms all that is heaped upon the heads of the long-suffering shooting community. For example,though I have no knowledge of the habits of the wild beavers, I do have a friend who owns some salmon fishing on a Scottish river. He is suffering from the appalling damage caused by the salmon farming industry, with its sea lice and pollution, and his opinion of beavers damming the river is unprintable. A good number of your readers may not welcome the proposed ban on lead shot without seeing any justifiable evidence to support the move, but surely we…

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 Contact the team Email: stanswers@futurenet.com By post:…

The front cover of a magazine can influence that issue’s sales. I was once told that a really good picture of a gundog often works well for Shooting Times. I can understand this. I recall buying a copy from a newsagent in Corbridge, Northumberland, and the lady on the till was cooing over the cover picture of a spaniel carrying a cock pheasant amid a snowy scene. Dogs add an important dimension to our enjoyment of shooting. I have lost count of the number of people from non-shooting backgrounds who became interested in our sport because they owned a gundog and wanted to see what it was bred to do. And over the years, many shooters end up spending more time working their dogs than holding a gun. The price…

BEWARE Keep festive treats away from dogs. It may be tempting to indulge a hard-working gundog or doughty terrier over the Christmas period, but it is probably a bad idea. Fatty foods are linked to pancreatitis in dogs and chocolate, alcohol and raisins are all poisonous to canines. Though a slice of turkey is unlikely to do any harm. TALK Phone a shooting friend. The social life of the shooting season can be a huge boost to people, particularly if they are older or live somewhere remote. With much less shooting this season and COVID-19 restrictions in place, many have missed out. If you know someone who might be feeling lonely this season, give them a call.…

A scientific study has found that the speed of climate change is leaving mountain hares vulnerable to predation. Their pure white coats, which they grow during the winter months, make them stand out in areas that now get much less snow than they did in the past. The scientists also pointed out that a decline in grouse shooting could have disastrous effects on the hares. The team, which was drawn from five different American and Scottish universities, compared the dates on which the hares changed into their winter coats now and in the 1950s. They found no evidence that the timing of the moult had changed to match the shorter snow season. They found that hares were in the ‘wrong’ coat for 35 days more in 2016 than in 1950.…

I have been reading your excellent publication for many years, more so since lockdowns one and two. I revisited the 20 March 2019 issue in which Alan Edwards speaks at length about the horrors of the gamekeeper’s gibbet. Somewhere back in my formative years, when I ‘hung out’ with country characters, the purpose of the gibbet was pointed out to me. Is it really thought that the gibbet was to display the keeper’s ability to kill vermin? Gibbets were positioned deep inside country estates where only the owners, workers and perhaps poachers may have seen them. Now, with the countryside more open, a gibbet can be in public sight. But let us think back to the glory days of partridge shooting, especially the much-missed grey partridge. If you have plans…

Partridges are versatile in that they can be cooked whole or broken down. The breasts are very succulent and full of flavour, but will dry out quickly if not cooked carefully. Partridges are also good to eat on the day they have been shot. They are one of only a few gamebirds that I would advocate preparing like this and I have been asked to do so a few times on shoot days. If you want to try it, ensure the birds are from the first drive, so that you have time to pluck, draw and chill them. Partridges lend themselves well to this quick preparation and short resting time, but I would not do this with pheasants. Being a bigger bird, they need more time to rest and they…

Latin name: Coprinus picaceus Common name: Magpie inkcap Other names: Magpie fungus How to spot it and where to find it: With its distinctive speckled cap, it is easy to see how this mushroom got its name. The fruiting body starts as an elongated oval, opening out as it ages. Its narrow stem has a fragile, movable skirt and its flesh is white. The gills, too, are white in young specimens, turning pink to grey to brown until becoming black and ‘melting’. It is not a common mushroom, mostly found in beech woods on chalky soils. Magpie fungus tend to be solitary, or in small groups of two or three. Interesting facts: This striking mushroom was first noted in 1785 by French mycologist Jean Baptiste Francois Pierre Bulliard, who gave…

We have now had, of all things, a debate on the burning of heather in Parliament. Quite what will come of that remains to be seen, but what really annoys me — and that is putting it mildly, by the way — is that an awful lot of people with degrees are ignoring the science because they don’t like what it is telling them. I should add to that they also have an alternative agenda, and it does not include fieldsports. When you reach the point that a few misguided individuals who — because they are considered celebrities, whatever that means — have the ear of hundreds of thousands of people ignorant on the subject being discussed can simply tell lies and be believed, democracy is in real trouble. Just…

A countryside road show will be touring schools in Suffolk next year with the backing of BASC. Terry Behan, BASC’s director for the East of England, said: “We are delighted to be supporting the Suffolk Agricultural Association with its Outreach Outdoors project. This is a fantastic opportunity to engage with thousands of schoolchildren throughout the academic year. This initiative will inspire and empower children to learn about the management of the countryside and highlight the importance of farming, food provenance, biodiversity and conservation. “BASC will be delivering fun, interactive and educational sessions which are aimed at connecting children with nature, exploring local and national habitats and the species found within them,” he added.…

Woodcock arrived in Galloway with a bump. Many of the best covers grew busy with birds in the space of a few moonlit hours and it was thrilling to find the leaf litter wriggling with life when dawn returned. The annual migration of woodcock is always a signal moment in the year and it marks the shift from autumn to winter. Spotting a few new arrivals in the truck headlights one evening as I checked on my cattle, I ran my dogs through the birch woods above the house the following morning. It was a pleasure to stand back and see several woodcock flushed in the clear, dreary light of a new day. I headed out for some shooting near Cairnryan in early December. This is a well-known and popular…

This has been a strange season for most, none more so than our working dogs. They began by getting fit, working slightly less than usual but getting into the swing of the season. Then they were stopped in their tracks with the arrival of the second lockdown. Fitness levels and certainly training levels were left with nowhere to go and lockdown rendered a great many of us unable to do little more than go on basic walks. As the lockdown was replaced with the tier system, some activities returned to normal but not at the level my team is used to. With a third lockdown looming for the last few weeks of the season, it is hard to plan as I usually would for my dogs.…

My first dog was a neurotic, show-bred cocker spaniel who, despite his faults, was my best friend during my teenage years. I took him shooting, a pursuit he enjoyed, despite the fact that he was a less than helpful companion. It was hardly his fault that he wasn’t from gundog stock. It was, I suspect, the result of a cut from a flint on a shooting excursion that led to him contracting tetanus, a condition so rare in dogs that my vet had never encountered it before. Though he started to recover from the tetanus, he died from pneumonia. He was only six at the time. I was 18. All the family were shocked and saddened by his death and my mother declared that she would never have a dog…

Focus fading on retrieves GUNDOG TRAINING Q My labrador is just over a year old and was making good progress in her training, but once we started to lengthen the distance of her retrieves, she seemed to lose focus. It has become an issue on seen retrieves and is almost a disaster on unseen dummies. The shoot I pick up on requires some long-distance retrieving work but I am losing confidence in her. How can I fix this problem? A You are asking a lot of her at this stage. All too often a youngster can appear to make really fast progress in its initial training, but when things like this start to happen it should ring warning bells about its true headway. We are all delighted when a youngster…

1 Neoprene hunting waders 500 RRP: £129.99 decathlon.co.uk With 4mm of neoprene, these waders were designed with wildfowlers in mind. For setting up your rig without getting wet, walking through marshes or wetlands and shooting in cold weather while remaining camouflaged, these waders are ideal for those bracing flights. 2 Fernley field coat RRP: £274.95 alanpaine.co.uk This ultra-lightweight waterproof coat has a specific shooting fit, an action back and lightly padded reinforced shoulders to counter the effect of the stock rubbing on the fabric. It has fleece-lined hand-warmer and snap-adjustable cartridge pockets as well as a concealed one for valuables. 3 Firley thermos flask RRP: £195 cordings.co.uk Stylishly covered in a herringbone tweed and with a traditional leather trim, this flask can hold up to 500ml of…