Innholdsfortegnelse for 20-Jan-2021 i Shooting Times & Country

It’s the sort of story that I might not believe if someone relayed it to me down the pub. Last Saturday, while driving back from an unsuccessful morning of stalking in -12°C conditions, I rounded a corner to find an injured young buck lying on the road, dying in the cold winter sun. Someone had hit him hard before driving off towards Dumfries. My friend, whose ground we’d been stalking over, got out of the car behind me and did the right thing by despatching the poor animal with a sharp knife to the carotid artery. By this point, a small gathering had collected, including a DHL delivery driver smoking a Benson & Hedges and an old farmer’s wife who had a look on her face that suggested she’d seen…

With the season all but over, my mind as usual turns to planning for the next. In just a few weeks, the pheasants will be setting up their territories, strutting their stuff and doing everything they can to keep their harems together. The corvids will be getting frolicsome too. Rooks start early, jackdaws a little later, and the crows and magpies will be getting increasingly territorial. In two months from now, it will be Larsen trapping season — or will it? With the new rules under Defra’s open general licences for pest bird control, the central plank of my little wild bird rough shoot in Dorset is seriously undermined. While I’m a passionate conservationist, the main reason for my predation control programme is to produce enough wild pheasants for four…

WHAT’S THE FIRST thing you turn to when you open your copy of Shooting Times? I start with Dog of the Week, not simply because it happens to be the first page, but because it invariably brings a smile to my face. There’s something really cheering about seeing readers’ dogs. They may not be field trial champions, they may not even be very good workers, but they have their week of fame, their week in the spotlight. Quite how satisfying it is to have your dog featured in Dog of the Week was brought home to me two weeks ago, when my sprocker, Emma, featured (6 January). OK, I may be a weekly columnist, but her appearance was not at my request, but at the invitation of the deputy editor.…

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 Timesrifle 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 ELLENA SWIFT Award-winning gundog trainer and canine behaviour specialist 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…

Q What might cause my six-year-old retriever to drink more water and pass more urine? A Changes in a dog’s urination and drinking habits are two non-specific symptoms that may be associated with many diseases. Increased urination is called polyuria, while excessive thirst is polydipsia. The two symptoms frequently occur in combination and can often be a sign of serious disease. In bitches, for instance, polyuria and polydipsia are common signs of pyometra, an infection in the uterus. Generally, an increased production of urine is the primary problem and dogs drink more to make up for the water being excreted. Hormone imbalance from endocrine disease and kidney failure are the most common reasons for polyuria. Polyuria and polydipsia can be a sign of diabetes, either the more common sugar diabetes…

Q Do you think that long-nets are better than purse-nets for catching rabbits? A To be ambivalent, I would say yes and no. Like a lot in ferreting, it is down to personal preference, topography of the rabbit warrens and the land you ferret. I prefer long-nets to purse-nets, but purse-nets have their place. They are lighter to carry, every hole is covered — so you will not get any ‘hole hoppers — and if you have to walk a long way then back again with your harvest, this lighter load will make a significant difference. On the other hand, while the long-net is heavier and more cumbersome to carry, it can completely surround a warren, so nothing can escape — though the rabbits may simply go back underground. They…

PLAN Make spring corvid control plans. Spring is the best time of year to control corvids. Make sure you are ready by working out trap and hide locations and doing any necessary repairs. Also ensure your corvid control is compliant with any changes to the general licences. Shooting and gamekeeping organisations should be able to advise. CONTROL Lowland lambing will be under way very soon. Fox control is a vital element of a productive lambing for many farmers, so phone any you help out and discuss how you can continue to manage foxes while observing the COVID-19 regulations.…

Everyone in the shooting, hunting and countryside community should agree that, due to the antis and ridiculous legal challenges by Wild Justice, things need to change. At the very least, a new mindset is needed. Having read your article concerning big bags (News, 23 December), I found myself frustrated and angry that 700- to 800-bird days were still being defended. Isn’t it about time the shooting community told it like it was? Let’s stop prevaricating and get real. The answer is in the name commercial shoot; they have to make money. To us urbanites these shoots appear to be blasting huge numbers of birds out of the sky, which surely gives the antis more ammunition. Week on week, your magazine rightly attempts to introduce wild, ethically shot or caught game…

Here in the British Isles it is understood that the Saxon kings avidly practised the art of falconry. By the time of the Norman Conquest, royalty, nobles and clergy used falcons and hawks for sport. While falconry was perceived as an aristocratic pastime, plebeian Brits were also using raptors to catch game and wildfowl for the pot. When the Boke of St Albans was written in 1486 by the rather racy-sounding sporting nun Juliana Berners, she prescribed a neat list of which bird of prey was suitable for each level of social strata. She opined that eagles could adorn the arm of an emperor; kings carried eagles while their sons could fly a peregrine. Looking down Dame Juliana’s list, it would appear I may just scrape into the mix with…

I had a surprise visitor while writing the accompanying article. A mouse suddenly appeared on my desk and sat studying me with quivering whiskers and beady eyes. Its appearance wasn’t a complete surprise as I had glimpsed the mini beast in my kitchen the night before. I thought that I had cornered it in a cupboard, but it vanished without trace, seemingly into thin air. Until a year ago, I lived in a converted barn where, every year, there would be an invasion of wood mice into the bedroom loft. One year, I caught close to 20. Other invaders to the same loft space included a pair of young rats and once a common shrew. Add in the pipistrelle bat colony in the roof and that was four species of…

Q Would you recommend a driven day or walked-up day for a young Shot’s first outing on game? A A young Shot would be safer on a small driven day because there’s less going on. If a youngster has only had a few shooting lessons under a tower, being thrown into the experienced side of walked-up shooting might be difficult, especially from a safety point of view. On a driven day, it is easier to understand where everyone is — beaters, neighbouring Guns, pickers-up. It’s also easier to understand the basic rule: if there is no sky behind the bird, don’t shoot.…

One of my small claims to fame is that I once lived within a 100-acre rabbit warren. The warrener had long departed the scene, as had the one-way doors in the fence that would let rabbits in, but not out. What had not left were the rabbits. This Dorsetshire chalkhill farm had been reverted to pasture, with even the former hilltop arable permanently grassed over. I could walk over the brow of a hill and be greeted by a sea of brown and white tails bobbing. You will be pleased to hear that it is now a national nature reserve. The fortunes of the rabbits waxed and waned over the years with the waves of myxomatosis. I always carried a hefty stick to quickly despatch any that were suffering and,…

Rumours that the law will be changed to stop the local supply of freshly shot game to pubs and restaurants have been denied by the Food Standards Agency (FSA). The supply of small quantities of game from shoots and individuals direct to end users has been a longstanding feature of rural areas and is protected by special exemptions to the normal food hygiene regulations. However, it has come under fire in recent years, with larger game dealers attacking what they describe as ‘Fred in a shed’ operations, which they say are out of date and unprofessional. The FSA is updating the food hygiene advice for wild game and speculation was rife that the local supply exemption would be removed. But in a statement the agency has denied that this is…

Game pie for the homeless in Devon The homeless in Devon are enjoying luxury pheasant pie, thanks to local gamekeepers. Headkeeper Shane Strawbridge, of Wiscombe Park and Sidbury Manor in Devon, found changes in the export regulations brought about by Brexit meant he was unable to sell his birds to Belgium, as he has done in previous years. Instead, Mr Strawbridge and his wife Holly sharpened the kitchen knives, bought in some vegetables and got cooking. They plan to rustle up some 500 delicious and healthy pies for locals in need over the next few weeks. Gene editing could end grey invasion The trap and the gun may be overtaken as the key tools for controlling grey squirrels by tiny pieces of DNA. Squirrel conservation charity the European Squirrel Initiative…

The frost has been, on balance, a good thing. The ditches are still running well after a week or more without rain, which is a sign that the daily freeze-thaw routine is cracking the ground and letting water down into the field drains. The earth is squeezing moisture out like a dirty sponge and our soil structure will be that bit more absorbent come the next wet spell. We might even be able to get some tractors on the land to tidy up the hedges. It has also helped the team at the hunt kennels to be philosophical about the lockdown. They couldn’t hunt anyway with the ground this hard. The shoot, on the other hand, is poleaxed by the First Minister’s lockdown announcement and my morale is not helped…

From the beginning of the Iron Age until the 1830s, the most common method for human beings to make fire was to use a flint and steel ‘strike-a-light’. These were hooked pieces of hardened carbon steel against which a piece of flint was struck. This created a shower of sparks. A spark is a minute piece of steel that ignites by air friction when it is shaved off by the hard flint. The sparks were directed on to a piece of tinder and made it smoulder. The flame was developed by blowing on the glowing ember to oxygenate it. This was a reliable, if laborious, process that needed skill to make it work. From the mid-16th century onwards, this principle was adapted to gun locks. The earliest form, the snaphaunce,…

At the beginning of any other year, I’d be shopping for southeast Asian foods. However, this year, it is not simply because they have a healthy freshness. Not being able to go out to eat has made me nostalgic for those places where you can enjoy the delicious, sweet-sour piquancy of raw salads and fish, grilled meat and comforting dumplings. “The texture and flavour is so clean that I felt energised for hours after eating this” Those last, along with sushi, are not things I make at home — though goodness knows I now have the time. But I have been making broths and adding crab, spices and coconut to make laksa, while stir-frying is happening in my kitchen more than once a week. If you add game into the…

These devices may perhaps be better called ‘barrel destroying rods’. Made from wood, then baize-covered, they were intended to be slid into the bores of a stored gun, with the ends projecting from both barrels. The idea seems to have been to protect the bores from the air but in longterm use they drew damp from the air into the baize and, from there, into the steel of the bores, creating rust and pitting. I have been handed several guns from decades in storage with these preserving rods in place. I have always attributed their use as an aid to the rusting process, but I must admit that a Westley Richards that I recently bought, which had been stored in an attic for 80 years with the rods in place,…

Latin name: Lepista nuda Common name: Wood blewit Other names: Blue hat, blue cap, blue leg How to spot it and where to find it: This unusually coloured mushroom grows among leaf litter in deciduous and mixed woodland, as well as under hedgerows. When young, the wood blewit is indeed blue, though often the caps, gills and stems are more of a violet colour, changing to yellowish-brown from the centre outwards when mature. The smooth caps grow to between 6cm and 15cm wide and the whole thing up to 10cm tall. Interesting facts: Wood blewit likes the cold and only starts to appear after the first frosts. It is one of several species that grows in ‘fairy rings’, a natural phenomenon due to the way the mycelium — branching, thread-like…

Q Last autumn, on a stalking trip in the south-west, I saw a big red stag, which had a fork on both of the third tines on its head. The animal was mature and carried a multi-pointed head of, I think, about 20 points. Is this a common feature on stags? A It’s certainly not a common feature in wild deer. Very multi-pointed heads on red stags are usually associated with park or captive deer. Mature wild red deer of European origin typically develop heads of between 12 and 16 points. While the structure of the antlers varies, normally they will have three points below the crown: the brow, bez and the tres. In some cases, there may be a fourth tine — a sur royal. Above that is the…

1 Swarovski dS Gen II 5-25x52 P scope £3,630  swarovskioptik.com The next generation of Swarovski dS rifle scope, with 5x zoom, can tell you — factoring d peed, pressure and temperature where you should be aiming. It can you the flight time of your bullet. a truly innovative piece of kit that be seen to be believed. 2 Two-man pop-up hide tent £79.99  a1decoy.co.uk Setting up a great hide can take ages and many of us simply don’t have the time. This two-man pop-up hide tent takes only two minutes to assemble and has two inbuilt seats. The time you save can be time you spend shooting. We think this would be perfect for roosting pigeon. 3 Härkila Sandhem fleece £139.99  gb.harkila.com The world isn’t short of fleeces…

The estate here is nestled in the Tyne Valley so the weather never seems to reflect the surrounding area. The moors had significant falls of snow long before Christmas. Keepers have been kept busy in the upland areas, tracking foxes and a number of other mammals that are betrayed by the snow cover. It reveals their whereabouts and their intentions. In contrast, I seem to have been knee-deep in mud for weeks. Rain replaces the snow at these lower altitudes and getting a helping hand from the snow is a rare and welcome luxury in the valley. It never seems to last long. You need to get out and about as soon as possible to make the most of any tracks. I rarely seem to get the opportunity to follow…

Many of us have spent lockdown plotting all sorts of shooting and fishing excursions for the next season. This is great fun, but it has been said that relative satisfaction is the sum of expectation minus reality. Managing expectations is therefore a key part of the equation. Yet, sometimes, the reality turns out to be a long way adrift from even a modest expectation. Take the trip Martin and I once made to Nova Scotia, in eastern Canada. I persuaded him to fork out a large amount of moolah to join me for an action-packed holiday of goose hunting and salmon fishing in untrammelled wilderness. We duly arrived at a comfortable cabin in the backwoods. We were greeted by a friendly fellow, who said: “So, guys, what sort of things…