Innholdsfortegnelse for 27-Oct-2021 i Shooting Times & Country

Game meat will have new outlets this season as British Game Assurance (BGA) fights to get assured game into more shops and homes. A ‘culinary arts team’ is now including game in its recipes and will be showcasing top-quality wild meat dishes at events around the world. Peach Pubs, Blackburn-based hotel and pub group Thwaites, and pub and hotel chain Young’s will all be offering assured game dishes on their menus. This means British pheasants and partridges will be on sale in almost 250 new locations. The most significant deal in terms of volume, however, is with supermarket chain Morrisons. Bought by a US private equity firm earlier this month, Morrisons has never stocked feathered game before. Now it will be trying six lines, including whole pheasant, and will provide…

It is very easy to picture the classic shooting scene. The labrador sat majestically on peg, waiting for its turn to retrieve a bird. The super-fast, covered-in-burrs spaniel, smashing through the cover to flush a pheasant. But what if that classic scene was slightly altered and a terrier was sitting on the peg or a whippet was flushing game? It is not uncommon to see all the gundog breeds working in roles they were not necessarily designed for. Although this is not the norm, it is not particularly difficult to mould any gundog breed to work in a slightly different job, as they all link in together. Crosses are also quite common (The rise of the working mongrel, 20 October). The sprocker can make a great working companion. Some people…

It was early autumn when I first heard him. I was sitting in a high seat in one of two small woods on the edge of the estate. Already the leaves were changing colour, but they still clung tightly to the oaks and the heavy bramble ground cover remained thick. Not great conditions for spotting muntjac. So I blanked that morning. Only a single glimpse through the Pulsar Accolades of a passing doe, but she was far too deep in dense thicket woodland to consider following up. Then, just as I was thinking of heading home, there came a bark. Then another, and another: the repetitive bark of a territorial buck. Now, I know the vocal range of a muntjac buck pretty well and this beastie had a deep, sonorous,…

Even though the media has the notion that everyone who shoots grouse is a cigar-chomping millionaire, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. But it is a myth that goes a long way back and it’s fair to say that, a century ago, very few people who weren’t well heeled ever shot grouse. Today, however, things are very different. Since that golden Edwardian era, we have had two world wars, the scourge of death duties, an ever-booming middle class and incentives from governments that encourage landowners to use marginal ground for pretty much everything except sport. Though having your own grouse moor is the holy grail of ‘making it’ in sporting circles, there is a long tradition of renting a moor or ‘taking one for the summer’, as it used to…

We are fast approaching the fireworks season. It’s a period that seems to get longer every year, starting in late October, peaking on 5 November, but then continuing well into the month. Then there’s generally a few weeks of respite until the pyrotechnics explode again on New Year’s Eve. If you have animals that are frightened of fireworks, it’s a difficult time of the year. Some dogs ignore fireworks, others are totally petrified. The latter can include rock-steady gundogs. One of my springers was unworried about gunfire, but she found fireworks hugely unsettling. I tried a number of remedies to attempt to ‘cure’ her, including playing a fireworks CD at different frequencies in the run-up to 5 November. Curiously, she didn’t mind the CD at all and took little notice…

I love a shopping challenge and nothing satisfies my curiosity more than a mooch around a Chinese supermarket — or online shop — for ingredients. The test is not to recreate a dish that is offered in any Chinese takeaway, but something more authentic. The emergence of restaurants serving regional Chinese food and dishes that are deliciously different has led me to attempt to try them at home. Five years ago, a food critic friend insisted I eat at A Wong in London’s Victoria. My eyes were opened to the incredible variety in Chinese cooking. The chef, Andrew Wong, had toured all of China seeking out something different to serve in the restaurant originally started by his parents. When I first went, it was mainly occupied by diners who were…

In 1957, the first dog was sent to space, Frisbees were invented and a 15-year-old Mick Chambers was about to embark on a 58-year career as a gamekeeper on the Worlaby Estate in the Lincolnshire Wolds. Growing up only a few fields over the boundary, with a catapult, a pocket knife and a handful of snares as prize possessions, Mick admits taking it for granted that one of the best shoots in the country at the time was on his doorstep. “I’ve been very lucky,” he said as we sat in his living room one evening during a power cut, using an old foxing torch for light. For the first 12 years of his career, Mick worked under the tutelage of three separate headkeepers. Ken Howell, formerly of the ICI…

THOUGHTS FROM THE FIELD Household Cavalry horses, known as Cavalry Blacks, are generally part-bred Irish draughts, chosen for their size, steadfast demeanour and dark bay colouring — the very pattern of a weight-carrying hunter. After their early training, the young horses, or remounts, move to London, where they embark upon their final education before beginning ceremonial duties. Remounts arriving in London are given official names, each starting with the same letter. The following year, the initial letter shifts forward one in the alphabet. When I served in 3 Troop, the Life Guards, our corporal of horse utilised my mania for hunting in picking the monikers for the new additions to our troop lines. Taking inspiration from my copy of the 1880 Badminton kennel stud book, our intakes in 1989 —…

The sentencing of Mark Hankinson took place last week, with Westminster Magistrates’ Court handing out a £1,000 fine to the director of the Masters of Foxhounds Association (MFHA). A guilty verdict was delivered in September in a damaging blow to the credibility of one of the UK’s most senior hunting advocates. He was found guilty of intentionally encouraging huntsmen to use legal trail hunting as “a sham and a fiction” for the unlawful chasing and killing of animals, and ordered to pay a £1,000 fine and £2,500 costs. The MFHA responded immediately to the sentence with a statement that suggested an appeal may be launched. “This raises concern over the perception of lawful hunting” “This verdict is hugely disappointing; however, we are considering an appeal,” said MFHA chairman Andrew Osborne.…

SHOOT Make sure you are using the right chokes for steel shot. Steel shot patterns vary differently from lead, and if you are wounding an unusually high number of birds, you may need to reassess the chokes you are using. CHECK Conduct a security audit. Longer darker nights present more opportunities for thieves. Take some time to ensure locks are in place, working and are used, check camera coverage on entrances and exits and ensure high-value items such as quad bikes, ATVs and tractors are fitted with trackers.…

Mass escapes from Scottish fish farms should be the subject of regulation due to the known negative impacts that genetic introgression has on declining wild salmon. More than a quarter of a million farmed fish are reported to have escaped from aquaculture operations in Scottish waters over the past five years, with numbers likely to be under-recorded. Given the negative impact that interbreeding between farmed and wild stock can have on the survival of wild fish, gillies from the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) Fishing Group believe appropriate penalties now need to be applied. A spokesman said: “There have been incidents where stormy weather has led to mass escapes. Storms happen in the sea, so this is not something that is entirely unforeseen. In those circumstances, there should be penalties for…

Diggory Hadoke’s article (Why buy a single barrel, 6 October) brought back many memories of youthful escapades with a lovely little Cogswell & Harrison folding, side-lever hammergun. At 14 years old, I was allowed to shoot rats in our heap of grain tailings left for pheasants on the edge of wood. When my father and uncle were decoying pigeons, I would lay under the camouflage net and shoot birds that settled at the back of the pattern while my elders took ones in the air. One Saturday morning, I had a friend from the village staying and we set off with the gun — which was kept in a corner with the others, out of sight behind the grandfather clock — and a pocket full of cartridges in search of…

The first driven day of the season is always exciting. But 9 October brought anticipation almost as palpable as the sea fret that rose from the marshes at dawn. The cockerel bellowed his morning alarm as the Garnham household stirred into action, preparing bacon rolls, cakes, soups and sausage rolls: if guests don’t see much sport, they at least leave well fed. But season 2021-22 brings special reason to be optimistic. For years I’ve been trying to re-establish grey partridges on my patch. Relentless fox control; subdivided fields; weedy headlands; butterfly and bee mixes; Larsen trapping; beetle banks; extensive hedge planting and restoration: we’ve done it all. To no avail. “Not since Thatcher was PM have we had a covey here” In 2018 a wild pair nested but without success.…

Recent surveys have shown that 4% of pet owners whose dogs were insured had had an accident or near miss as a result of the animal being loose in their car. More worrying is that 21% of owners would usually leave their dogs unsecured on car seats. So, since most people who care to take dogs with them when they go shooting have a need to transport them in a vehicle at some time or other, it’s worthwhile considering how we might best provide for their safety and any legal obligations in this respect. that animal”. Essentially, we have to ensure that a dog is safe, secure and comfortable whenever it travels. First and foremost, the dog should have no fear of travelling and needs to be trained, ideally from…

In the age of steam, sportsmen bumped into each other at Euston Station on their journey to the Highlands. Today, we flock together at Tebay North services on the M6 or at Inverness Airport. So it wasn’t a great surprise when I was greeted by an old mucker at the latter in the hire car queue. I’d seen him last in his summer plumage as we drank supermarket champagne in the grounds of the local theatre, but now the salad days were over, he was up for the salmon, myself for the stags. Wishing him luck at the car park, I’d soon left the city, crossed the magnificent Kessock Bridge spanning the Beauly Firth and revelled in the steady diminution of roads — As, then Bs, until I was finally…

“The BRX1 is a real market stealer, shooting better and having more features than rifles at twice the price” The polymer composite stock has been subjected to the same extreme weather testing Beretta uses for its military arms — and passed with flying colours The barrel is a cold hammer-forged Sporter-style profile; it can be removed and swapped for your calibre of choice, along with a change of bolt head and magazine to suit OUR VERDICT Beretta is well known for its shotguns, pistols and military arms, having produced firearms since 1526. But other than the Sako brand under the Beretta umbrella, sporting rifles are something of a new direction for the company, so I was keen to see how its vast firearms experience would cross over into a hunting…

I know several people who are convinced they lose more birds over their boundaries in October than they do in August and September combined. A combination of the birds maturing and quite naturally wanting to spread out, their favourite feeding places becoming less attractive as the leaves fall off the trees and the weather changes, and stubble fields that were rich pickings post-harvest being turned in and drilled — it can all move and unsettle birds that had seemed to be there for the duration. Couple this with the shorter days making it harder for people to dog-in before and after work, and it is quite easy to see how birds can melt away and seemingly disappear, having been in and around the drives only a few weeks earlier. What…

To some of us enthusiasts, there is no such thing as a bad day’s hunting. Even the occasional blank ones have their compensating joys; you’re in the open air, in congenial company, and with hounds. Some days are better than others and a few stand out above the rest, to be remembered all our lives. Such a day was the last Saturday of September 1951. The morning broke, veiled by thick mists and that slight nip, which reminded me — if I needed reminding — that autumn, the most glorious of all our English seasons, was with us. I can always wake without trouble when there is sport afoot. So I had attended to the animals and made a pot of tea by 7.10am because my friend Waddie is always…

PURDEY This paper and ink label dates from between 1883 and 1901. It references the royal warrants of Queen Victoria, who died in 1901, and the Prince of Wales, who would become King Edward VII that year. The company was already trading from South Audley Street, but still made reference to the previous address of 314½ Oxford Street. This label was the first one used at the new address. The label measures 4in by 2 ½in, so it was a good deal smaller than the large labels that Purdey had been using previously. At the time, Purdey was still making quite large numbers of hammerguns, as well as the Beesley self -opening sidelock.…

“We cannot afford to lose the link between food and game shooting” A recent tabloid headline screamed something to the effect that we were all going to starve because frozen ready meals might not be available in supermarkets by Christmas. Naturally, this sparked an element of panic buying. The same tactics were instrumental in confecting the Great Petrol Panic. Media moguls never underestimate the gullibility of the public. We get the media we deserve. When it comes to food, we’ve never had it so good. Or rather, so cheap. The UK’s current household expenditure on shop-bought food is about half of what it was in 1957, and one of the lowest in the world. We are addicted to cheap food. We are also getting fatter and fatter. Can anybody spot…

A plan to reintroduce the UK’s largest birds of prey to Norfolk has been cancelled. The project was to take place at Wild Ken Hill — the estate that is home to the BBC’s Autumnwatch — and hoped to release 60 white-tailed eagles over the next 10 years. Local support seemed high but the project came under increasing fire from a combination of local sources. Estate managers were concerned about the impact of the new population on rare wading birds, while shooting estates had fears about the impact on their pheasant and partridge populations. Some local farmers were reported to be concerned about damage to livestock. Rob Wise, the National Farmers’ Union’s East Anglia environment adviser, said: “During an online meeting with the project proposers, farmers expressed concern about the…

Snipe shooting may come under pressure following a change to the wading bird’s conservation status. The UK is a major wintering destination for snipe, which are currently arriving in large numbers from their breeding grounds in Russia and Scandinavia. Snipe, which are famously challenging to shoot, form a small but important part of the bag for rough shooters and driven game Shots and are traditionally served whole and on toast. Now, the 2021 edition of the European Red List of Birdshas classified them as ‘vulnerable’. The red list organises all the bird species found in Europe into conservation categories. Thus far, snipe have been listed as being of ‘least concern’, indicating that their populations are broadly healthy and that their range is stable or increasing. ‘Least concern’ is the European…

US ammunition shortages continue The peak hunting season in the US is being disrupted by acute ammo shortages. The ‘ammunition famine’, which the Guardianrecentlyblamedon ‘grandmas buying shotguns’, is being felt across the country, with local papers from New England to Texas reporting that their readers are unable to stock up. In Maine, gunshop owner Dave Lorenz told the Bangor Daily News: “It’s very difficult. We’ve been fighting this for a long time.” Byron Dill, of Dill’s Outdoors, added: “The companies say that they’re manufacturing more ammo and running at full capacity. That’s great, fine and dandy, but shops should have ammo to sell. I don’t understand where the ammo is going.” Muirburn challenge thrown out of court Wild Justice’s attempt to disrupt the muirburn season has been thrown out of…

I am always keen to read David Tomlinson’s advice on training, having taken on a wilful working cocker who had enjoyed many years ruling the roost as a misplaced pet. However, I think the Editor should have cut out the last paragraph (Exercising the mind, 13 October). The unnecessary snide remark about other owners with dogs on leads may well have been correct; that they feared their level of control was not quite as it should be. It may also have been that when at a facility open to the general public, it was the courteous and correct way to behave to ensure dogs are not banned from even more places. Clearly, David’s dog was not ‘under close control’, as the Countryside Act puts it, when it put up a…

“They were curious little birds, determined not to leave their safe haven in the shallows” “The expression isn’t ‘as bald as a moorhen’ is it? It’s ‘as bald as a coot’.” Ben and I were sitting in a duck flighting hide, watching a wader in the shallows dipping below the surface now and again. Having never really thought about it much, I had asked what the difference is between the two, and back had chirped Ben’s quick reply. The most telling difference is the colour of the stripe down the front of their heads; the coot’s being bright white and the moorhen’s a vivid red. “I went on a driven moorhen day once on the Norfolk Broads,” Ben expanded. “There were hundreds of them, though in truth it was a…

Setting out specifically to catch the smallest fish in the sea sounds like some sort of angling perversion. But it does make an awful lot of sense — if you like whitebait. A marvel of crisp, deep-fried whole fish eaten piping hot — head, tails, guts and all — with a generous squirt of lemon, an ice-cold ale and perhaps a dab of home-made tartar sauce. Eating crispy fried whitebait is a thing of joy and yet it’s an epicurean oddity. As a nation we are famous for not eating many of our native species. We export 80% of the fish caught in the UK — all that hake, mackerel, langoustines, lobster, scallops, spider crab and turbot — while at the same time we import 75% of the fish we…

ONE OF OUR MOST frequent failings as gundog handlers is, I suspect, a failure to see the world as a dog views it. For a start, our perspective is several feet higher than that of even a tall dog, so it is much easier for us to mark where a bird falls than it is for our canine companion. Secondly, a dog’s eyesight is very different to ours. Though dogs may not be colour-blind, as was once widely thought, they don’t register the vivid colours we see. They are also much better at focusing on moving subjects than those that are immobile. We have all experienced the frustration of sending a dog for a simple retrieve of a bird that has fallen in the open, only for it to run…

A week had passed since the eventful day when we’d been called to trace two roe in 24 hours. The first, a buck, had been shot and lost at dusk, while the second was the victim of a traffic accident. On each occasion, I’d been joined by Wout, a tracker I was mentoring. Now, I was about to put his skills to the test again. It was early in the morning when a colleague called and asked if I could search for a wild boar. He was unable to do it himself so, of course, I agreed. The ethical code within our group obliges us to help one another out in these types of situations. I phoned Wout to see if he fancied coming along. He didn’t hesitate in saying…

Advice on changing calibre STALKING Q I’ve always used a .308 for stalking fallow and the odd roe, but unfortunately age is getting the better of me and I fancy a slightly gentler rifle. A friend of mine has a lovely little Sako in 6.5x55 that I’ve used and like very much, but I’ve no experience with this calibre. I wonder, will it be as effective as my .308? A I currently use a .260 rifle for roe and fallow that is ballistically very similar to the 6.5x55. In fact, the rifle I had previous to this was a 6.5x55 — or ‘Swede’ as it’s sometimes known — and I can confirm that it will most certainly be up to the job on these deer species and larger. The Swede…

Latin name: Selinum carvifolium Common name: Cambridge milk parsley Other names: Milk parsley, milkweed How to spot it and where to find it: A native of fens and damp meadows, this striking plant has sage-green leaves, intricately divided like those of parsley or even fern, on ridged stems. It forms umbrels of tiny creamy-white flowers that spread out into plateaus in perfect circles composed of smaller circles. It flowers from July into October. A perennial herb of fens, damp meadows and rough-grazed marshy pasture, it prefers chalky, peaty soils or fen peat over chalk. It is very tolerant and makes a good architectural plant for ornamental gardens. Interesting facts: Cambridge milk parsley’s scientific name comes from the old Greek plant name sélinon, which referred to plants of the carrot family…