Innholdsfortegnelse for 06-Jan-2021 i Shooting Times & Country

To many people, Beauly means a great salmon river but there is more than one destination in that north-easterly corner of Scotland for those who love fieldsports. In the town of Beauly itself sits Campbell’s, one of Britain’s greatest sporting tailors. A few months ago, on my way north, I popped in to be measured up for a new pair of plus-fours (the moths ate my last ones). I was pleased to hear that the online part of the business was thriving, but it came as no surprise that its order book for tweeds had taken a hit. In my own small way, I was happy to be providing a few hours’ work for one of Campbell’s talented tailors. On my way back to Dumfriesshire, I thought about how much…

FAREWELL, MONTY It is with great sadness that I report the recent passing of Monty Wilcox, aged 83. Monty was one of the great gamekeepers of his time, though he was a soldier first. Rather than National Service, Monty signed up for three years in the Rifles at the age of 17 and a half. But his real ambition had always been with gamekeeping and he got his first break by helping the wonderful Charlie Mitchell of Gaunts estate near Wimborne. His first full-time job was as an underkeeper at Clarendon Park near Salisbury, and he took over at Manor Farm, Rockbourne, for Sir Kynaston and Lady Studd in 1977. Sadly, Sir Kynaston died just a few months later, but Lady Studd was determined their project would live on and…

Suffolk rarely makes the national news. However, the proposed building of the £20billion French-led nuclear power station, Sizewell C, on our coastline has excited a flurry of national media coverage. Sizewell is a hamlet. The few inshore fishing boats are hauled up on to the beach. There is no harbour, nor church. This windswept place has been home to nuclear energy since 1961, when Sizewell A was built, a stark and forbidding monolithic lump, completely out of keeping with the marram grass-covered dunes, sloping shingle beach and gentle cliffs. Its successor — the B plant, with its golf-ball roof covering the reactor — was built in the 1980s, going on stream in 1995. It has been providing clean electricity, and much-needed employment, ever since. Sizewell A, B and the proposed…

At 10, my son Charlie is at a delightful age. Hormone-induced angst and mood swings are horrors yet to be encountered. He uses his bedroom for the purpose of sleeping in, rather than skulking. The bathroom, he believes, is a place best avoided and I continue to be a hero figure whom he actively wants to spend time with. This will all change when he turns 13, at which point I will morph, almost overnight, into a tediously decrepit old embarrassment. Therefore I am making the most of these golden years and it barely took the slightest shake of his shoulder for the boy to spring out of bed and don his shooting clothes in a flurry of chatter and eye-glittering excitement. Today, we were out on the pheasants, wild…

Ah, the 1970s… that wonderful decade when Embassy cigarette smoke hung in the air and everyone’s grandmother had hideous wallpaper. It all feels like ancient history now. It was a strange period in British cuisine, when slices of pineapple were placed atop almost everything and restaurants served tinned orange juice as a starter, but it wasn’t all bad. There were a few wonderful food arrivals in the late ’70s – none greater than the mighty Kiev. I had no idea as a child that Kiev was in Ukraine. It wouldn’t be until 1990 when Paul Simon sang “a cooling system burns out in the Ukraine” that I even heard of the country and even then, there was no mention of its capital. For the first few decades of my life…

Latin name: Beta vulgaris maritima Common name: Sea beet Other names: Wild spinach How to spot it and where to find it: As you might expect, given its common name, sea beet is usually found along the coast. A hardy plant, it can thrive on mudflats, saltmarshes, field edges, shingle, between rocks and among sand dunes. It has thick, glossy, succulent leaves, which can vary between oval or diamond-shaped, smooth, wrinkled or twisted. The flowers, which appear between July and September and grow along the stem, are tiny with pale green petals. Interesting facts: Sea beet is the ancestor to beetroot, sugar beet and Swiss chard, and is a member of the Amaranthaceae family. Its leaves taste very much like spinach but are said to be superior, especially the young…

“Home alone: mystery of ‘world’s loneliest house’ with its very own deserted island that’s lain empty for 100 years.” That was the headline of a recent story in the Sun newspaper. It was accompanied by photographs of a white house nestled in a bowl of grassland on an island off the Icelandic coast. According to the Sun, there was speculation that the place was owned by singer Björk or by a reclusive millionaire who wanted a retreat in the event of a zombie apocalypse. The mundane truth emerged further down. The house is owned by an Icelandic hunting association, which uses it when hunting the island’s plentiful population of puffins. You might have expected the Twittersphere to explode. That it didn’t goes some way to underline the fact that the…

Move and clean bird feeders. If you enjoy feeding birds in your garden, take a minute to move them and give them a thorough clean, then disinfect them. Dirty feeders can spread diseases between birds, and therefore end up doing more harm than good. Go out for a goose. With all the migrant birds now here, the UK has geese in numbers not seen for many years. With increased populations, flocks have begun to appear in places where they are not expected. Don’t presume that your local bit of foreshore will be goose-free — slip a goose call and some heavy cartridges in your pocket and try your luck.…

I always turn to your cookery pages first and Rose Prince has really raised the bar (Game cookery, 23 December). Her recipe for boned pheasant looks amazing, so festive that the picture alone lifted my spirits. I saw the recipe too late for Christmas, but we had a houseful anyway — we’re in Tier 2, for now at least — so it wouldn’t have worked then. But I’m definitely planning to try it. January is such a depressing month. We’ll all need cheering up and the jewel colours of the grapes and golden brown skin of the bird look so festive, how could it fail to raise at least a smile? I’ve never boned a pheasant but I did manage to bone out a turkey some years ago, so doing…

The labrador retriever was first recognised by the Kennel Club as a breed in 1903. It was originally known as the St John’s dog or lesser Newfoundland dog. The breed was in Newfoundland in the 1700s and imported to England in the 1800s. When I was researching its origins, I came across the same old photograph over and over. There are clear similarities between my own Swiftlands Briar and one of the original St John’s dogs in the photograph that I found. The dog in the image is Nell, pictured in 1867. She belonged to the Earl of Home and is an example of the type of early St John’s dogs that were imported to England from Newfoundland. Though Nell has white toes, you can still very much see the…

AS WE ALL KNOW, sound working-bred spaniel puppies are in high demand at the moment, so I was delighted to be able to tip off a friend about a litter I had heard about. She arranged to see them and I was sure she would end up buying one. I gave her a call the day after the viewing. “Super puppies,” she confirmed, “but they were the wrong colour. I really want a liver-and-white bitch, not black and white.” I haven’t heard whether she has since regretted her decision but weeks later she is still looking for the perfect puppy. We have all heard the old saying that a good horse can’t be a bad colour, but I’ve known hunting people who would never have a chestnut because they are…

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…

The season feels like it has only just begun. The second lockdown removed a substantial amount of the game shooting period in November and shoots across the country are trying to add in extra days to recoup some of their expenditure. Many shoots are having record-breaking days due to the backlog of game that has not been shot during November, coupled with the fact that the birds seem to be holding exceptionally well. Perhaps taking a few weeks off in November to settle the birds will be an idea carried forward. I have spoken to a few keepers who are thinking the same. This would allow the natural food abundance to reduce and the bad weather to arrive before resuming game shooting. As a keeper, I rarely shoot a 12-bore…

Scottish general licences unchanged The 2021 general licences for wild bird control in Scotland are largely unchanged from the 2020 version. BASC Scotland director Dr Colin Shedden said: “The retention of all target species is particularly welcome. It will permit practitioners to continue conserving wildlife, preserving public health and preventing damage to crops, livestock and foodstuffs. This essential work has continued to take place across much of Scotland, despite the disruption caused by the coronavirus, which highlights the fundamental importance of general licences in the context of land management.” Covid boom for rural outlets The COVID-19 outbreak has been a boost for rural shops. According to a survey conducted by the Countryside Alliance, 66% of shops surveyed said their sales increased during the pandemic, with the majority saying their sales…

General appearance: Strongly built, short coupled, very active; broad in skull; broad and deep through chest and ribs; broad and strong over loins and hindquarters. Characteristics: Good tempered, very agile (which precludes excessive body weight or excessive substance). Excellent nose, soft mouth; keen love of water. Adaptable, devoted companion. Temperament: Intelligent, keen and biddable, with a strong will to please. Kindly nature, with no trace of aggression nor undue shyness. Head and skull: Skull broad with defined stop; clean-cut without fleshy cheeks. Jaws of medium length, powerful not snipy. Nose wide, nostrils well developed. Eyes: Medium size, expressing intelligence and good temper; brown or hazel. Ears: Not large or heavy, hanging close to head, set rather far back. Forequarters: Shoulders long and well laid back, with upper arm of near…

I suspect that I was not alone in where and when I had my sightings of a snow bunting. Almost any moorland keeper or stalker who did the rounds in winter snow cover — whether stalking hinds or looking for foxes and stoats — may well have disturbed some in their winter feeding grounds. The snow bunting, or Plectrophenax nivalis, is not solely a winter visitor here, but it’s during the winter months that most people will see one. I used to see snow buntings on edges blown almost bare of snow, where the ‘bent’ — or hard rush — was still proud of the snow and these beautiful little birds were cropping the seed capsules. The show bunting’s camouflage is superb in snow and, though I was looking ahead,…

THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE JOB If one thing is a given when ferreting, it is that at some time or another you are going to have to get your spade dirty and dig your ferret out. It still amazes — and annoys — me that a lot of ferreters advocate that if you have to dig to your ferret they are no good. I believe it is the direct opposite. If my friends or I never had to dig to our ferrets, we would know that they are just flirting with the rabbits, as opposed to driving them out or bottling them up. This may be your cup of tea, but it isn’t mine nor anyone I know. When flying a hawk solo over your ferret, it is best…

Should you give table scraps to your dog? I recently read an article on the subject that stressed the dangers of feeding a dog on potentially poisonous human food, ranging from onions and garlic to raisins and chocolate, as well as the perils of poultry bones. It failed to mention that the latter are fine raw, only dangerous when cooked. Much of the article I agreed with, but it failed to credit owners with any common sense. My spaniels frequently get scraps, but generally as part of their daily diet and added to their dinner bowl at feeding time. They regard such items as chicken and fish skin as delicacies, along with any leftovers from a roast joint. I’m proud to live in an almost zero-waste household and the dogs…

Itching to shoot the gun and feeling that I would never miss a target again, I stood under the high tower at Oxfordshire Shooting School. It didn’t go well. I struggled with line, then lead, then line again. I put this down to the photographer from Shooting Times standing behind me. He had a look on his face that said, “I thought you could shoot.” Though I didn’t shoot the gun well, nothing felt wrong; in fact it was a joy to miss with. The problem was clearly with me, not the gun. The trigger-pulls felt like snapping an icicle, the gun felt balanced, and recoil and muzzle flip were non-existent. After a break, I headed back on to the ground with a new degree of determination, and what a…

In the austere post-war years, many sportsmen saved money by reloading their own cartridges. Thomas Bland sold all the necessary gear from its William Street premises in London. This gear included a machine turnover tool (17s 3d), a decapper/ recapper (15s 9d), a measure for shot and powder (8s 6d), a wad punch (9s 3d) and a resizer (10s). Empty, capped cases for 12-bore home loads cost about £2 6d for 100.…

1 Filson Ridgeway fleece RRP: £175 filson.com/UK We might not be jetting off for a while but for those of us who like to hunt in Europe, ‘blaze’ is often mandatory. You could wear a hi-vis vest, but why not get something a little more stylish? This fleece from Filson is highly practical and has a ventilation zip on the front for when the moose-hunting gets too hot. 2 Beretta A300 Outlander semi-auto RRP: £1,075 beretta.com The pheasant and partridge season might soon be drawing to a close but the wildfowling season — below the high tide mark — runs until 20 February and there are few better guns for the marsh than Beretta’s Outlander. Stylish, affordable and low in recoil, as a semi-automatic this gun would serve most people…