Innholdsfortegnelse for 16-Feb-2022 i Shooting Times & Country

The new T level in habitat management (land and water) has been delayed to reassess its content after it came under heavy criticism. The vocational qualification, which is equivalent to an A level, was intended to replace the existing land and wildlife technical qualification. However, countryside and shooting groups pointed out that it provided a poor route into gamekeeping and practical wildlife management (News, 22 December 2021). Now the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education (IfATE), which is responsible for technical qualifications, has said it will delay implementing the new course to allow “further engagement with sector and employer representatives”. Former keeper and gamekeeping lecturer Curtis Mossop, who is now BASC head of pathways to shooting, said: “We have been engaging with IfATE and other stakeholders throughout this process and…

The RSPB has prompted concern over calls for members of the public to report legal habitat management activities. The charity has launched an app and a dedicated web page for supporters to report the controlled use of fire to manage habitat and reduce wildfire risk. The supporting information made it clear that this is for “reports of managed fires”. Observers were given advice on how to spot such fires. The web page informed them that “an active burn is on fire now with smoke and maybe flames”, adding: “A recent burn from the current burning season has blackened vegetation, smells of burning and will blacken your boots and clothes if you walk through it.” It is unclear what the RSPB intends to do with the information. The Moorland Association tweeted:…

TAKING THE LEAD I have been lucky enough to experience much of what game shooting has to offer, but managed something entirely new this winter. In a season that stretched from Essex in September to the Isle of Lewis in January and which took in varied species and locations, I did not fire a single lead cartridge. As I experimented with various steel cartridges, the most consistent finding was, surprisingly, that those of my fellow Guns who knew the most about steel cartridges were those who used them least, or not at all. More than one shoot-lunch philosopher was slightly surprised to discover, as they set forth their firmly held views on the impossibility of replacing lead, that the Gun on the next peg had been knocking birds down with…

Before you reach the Norfolk border on the A11, you pass the Elveden War Memorial, which has stood sentry over the gateway to the county since 1921. The 30m-high Corinthian column has, over the past century, been a bystander to many a changing time and watched the comings and goings of quiet country life rambling along around it. One of the events it almost certainly witnessed was the arrival of the Chinese water deer after their escape from Woburn led to them establishing a significant population in the UK around the time of the end of World War II. “A 90-headed herd munched its way across the farm” David Crawford and his family have farmed in Norfolk, about 15 miles east of Elveden, for several generations. He first started to…

I hung my chest waders to dry over a roof joist in the shed. They had dangled there, like a headless corpse, for four weeks. The business of hedge laying had got in the way of my wildfowling for far too long. My abstemiousness ended when I accepted an invitation to the Ouse Washes to shoot under the Wolf Moon. I unhooked the bargain-basement neoprene leggings and was surprised by their lopsidedness and weight. I put my hand down deep inside the right leg and found the boot was full of peanuts from sole to calf. The wood mice, which I had long tolerated as amusing squatters, had repaid my hospitality by storing umpteen nuts in those unwholesome depths. I emptied the mouse loot into a bucket and threw the…

We should not expect fellow Guns to have attended Lucie Clayton’s finishing school. Well, not if they’re blokes. Founded in 1928 and based in Oxford Street, it taught young ladies — such as Jean Shrimpton and Joanna Lumley — deportment and etiquette. The average male Gun — a little ruddy, battered tweeds, a few too many pork pies — would not have wafted easily among the debutantes. Nor, perhaps, should we assume close reading of Debrett’s Correct Form, invaluable when boning up on order of precedence for formal banquets (Masters of Foxhounds normally sit above the salt), but also a decent, general distillation of how chaps ought to behave. We could, however, realistically hope that our brothers in arms have read Mark Beaufoy’s A Father’s Advice as, Lord knows, it’s…

“The new Wildcat is designed for plinking and casual target shooting” OUR VERDICT It’s nice to have another .22 semiautomatic rifle appear among the usual contingent of Rugers and Remingtons. This Winchester, though labelled as such, is made in Turkey. Named after Winchester’s renowned Wildcat .22 LR ammunition, it evokes cherished memories for me of running the Bridgend Stores, on the Isle of Islay, dry of ammo as a teenager while shooting rabbits on the beach. Made to a price point, this new-model Wildcat is designed for plinking, casual target shooting and, of course, stalking. It’s a small and lightweight rimfire, weighing less than 4.4lb, and, with a scant 36.25in overall length, it’s easy to shoot and carry for women and youngsters. The semi-auto bolt action is recoil-operated, using the…

During the middle years of the 19th century, firearms technology developed at an astonishingly fast pace. In some cases, an invention that was at the cutting edge of progress became obsolete before the year was out. While civilian shooters tended not to be bothered by this, the military took an opposing view, as their lives often depended on the modernity of their firearms. Keeping up with other nations was very important. Consequently, during the years from about 1860 to 1875, the great powers looked at ways how they might convert the huge stock of obsolete, but otherwise serviceable, rifle-muskets that they owned. I have always found these few years absolutely fascinating as some very ingenious men suggested a host of different ways whereby a muzzle-loader might be converted to breechloading.…

The use of tunnel traps about the shoot and a few cage traps beside the release-pen fence will often account for a mink, but those with waterways should consider deploying a mink raft or two. Set out at a rate of about one per kilometre of waterway, they will prove invaluable in helping to reveal the presence of mink before they do much damage. In detection mode, you check the raft about once a fortnight. Once the mink leaves its footprints in the clay tracking pad, you can install a cage trap and expect to catch the culprit within a week. See gwct.org.uk/minkraft for more details…

The very first pilaf I made was from a recipe in A Book of Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David. Published in 1950, the English food writer’s book is widely acknowledged to have sparked the British love affair with food from far more sunny shores. David had spent the whole of World War II in Europe. In the south of France when war broke out, she could not escape by travelling north so headed south. She was arrested in Italy, sent to Yugoslavia and then crossed to Greece, where she lived for a time. When the Nazis came, she fled to Egypt. “There are many versions of the rice dish and Elizabeth David’s is a leftovers pilaf” If you are wondering where I am going with this bit of history, Egypt…

A recent report in the Daily Telegraph was headlined: “Hunters must pay as France’s boars destroy farmland.” It explained how, under a 1968 agreement, farmers handed their Napoleonic rights to kill any wild animals damaging their land over to local hunters’ federations, which in exchange agreed to pay for any damage caused by large game such as wild boar. In 2019, French hunting federations had to stump up €77 million (about £65 million‚ in compensation. The federations now argue that the state should pick up half of the tab. But this was turned down by the French constitutional court. This interests me, because during the first COVID-19 lockdown there was a lot of online grizzling from the skiing lobby in France about the fact that ski lifts were closed, yet…

Wild Justice has launched a fresh legal challenge to shooting. The campaign group announced via its social media channels and the Guardian newspaper that it was going to challenge the general licence that allows the protection of gamebirds from corvids. In a blog post, the organisation said: “Last week, after receiving legal advice, Wild Justice sent a formal legal letter to Defra as the first stage of a challenge of the lawfulness of GL42. Unless we receive a legally watertight and convincing response to that letter, we will proceed to seek permission for judicial review of Defra’s decision.” Wild Justice made and then abandoned a similar challenge in 2019, when Natural England issued a specific licence that allowed the control of corvids to protect pheasants. “The use of GL42 to…

CHECK Snowdrops are through, bluebells are coming and in a few weeks, spring will be here. The roebuck season opens at the beginning of April. Walk your stalking ground in the next few weeks to check all is well and to look for signs of deer. Repairing high seats, clearing rides and spying carefully now will be repaid in the glorious first week of April. FISHING The trout fishing season is not far away now. While you will probably start fishing nymphs, mayflies will soon follow. There are some very simple-to-tie and deadly mayfly patterns online, which you could tie this week and use when hatches begin. Foam and CDC may not be traditional, but they are easy and they work.…

I have just watched the highly anticipated Countryfile episode featuring the GWCT’s commendable work at Allerton. Having read the GWCT’s email trailing the episode, I was disappointed when I watched the show on iPlayer. It seems the BBC Countryfile team work to their own hidden agenda. There was much talk about the Allerton Project and some of its achievements but precious little mention of the GWCT’s many years of commitment and involvement. Viewers with good eyesight might just have noted the spokesman’s jacket with its GWCT logo. Similarly, the BBC Winterwatch presenters were lamenting the sad decline in Bewick’s swan numbers, with lead shot immediately being suggested as a cause. They might be correct, but I think lead shot fired from guns on the migration route nearer the arctic tundra…

“Grey partridges are pairing up, so we must give them the best chance of success” The grey partridges I released last year have held well. Through the season they’ve formed three distinct coveys and their calling at dusk and dawn has been a real joy. Now they are pairing up and it’s time to make sure that they have the best possible chances of breeding success. Their nesting habitat looks good. We’ll feed through springtime. And I’m about to dust off the ladder and Larsen traps. The priority is nocturnal predator control, so I took delivery of some test equipment from Thomas Jacks to see whether any new gear might increase my chances. I invited avid fox shooters Bob Feaviour and Andy Riva to give their expert opinions at the…

The four-hour journey southwest gave me plenty of time to think, to daydream in that trance-like motorway state, of hunting ahead. I glanced down at Ben in the passenger footwell of the 110. What was it that gave him such a hunting drive? What was it that made me so driven to hunt? I know for Ben it is well-calculated breeding and positive exposure. What about my own motivations? The evolution of mankind has an inextricable link to that first successful hunt. It could be argued that it was the beginning of strategy. “Woodcock seem to have an uncanny ability to find the ‘back door’ and slip out” There is no doubt that I enjoy the strategy of hunting, that game of hide and seek, of timing and sometimes of…

FIELD TRIALS ARE A tricky subject for a gundog correspondent to write about, especially as I’ve never competed with a dog in my life. I have watched AV spaniel, cocker, retriever, HPR and pointer and setter trials, and been to the championships of all five, so I do write with some knowledge and experience. However, I have found that many triallers are wary of even the slightest criticism. An article I wrote some 20 years ago that was mildly critical resulted in both verbal abuse and hate mail. My chief complaint has always been that many trials fail to resemble a typical shooting day, despite the J-regulations (the lengthy rules that control trialling) stating: “A Field Trial should be run as nearly as possible to an ordinary day’s shooting.” The…

You can shoot this Wildcat as a suppressed gun, so subsonic ammunition is the order of the day, and the first revelation was how reliable with most of the test ammo it was. I was expecting a few jams but only the RWS and Norma subsonics, with their slower 910fps and 883fps velocities, occasionally failed to feed. The best tested were the Eley Subs, with their 38-gr hollowpoint travelling at 975fps for 80ft/lb and 0.75in 30-yard groups. CCI Suppressors functioned superbly and hit hard with their 45-gr hollowpoint, and with 0.75in accuracy at 958fps for 92ft/lb, this is a good rabbit load. I tried the Winchester Wildcat tin ammo as a lead-free alternative, shooting 1,607fps due to its lightweight bullet of 26-gr for 149ft/lb but hitting 1.15in groups. The highest…

I am continually surprised by the number of people who think work on a shoot stops on 1 February, when nothing could be further from the truth. The end of the shooting season may mean there is less organising to do, but there is more to do in a physical sense than there is in January, when everything is in place and fairly routine. Our priorities post-shooting season are the topping up of the feeders and, of course, keeping on top of the tidying up. Most of our feeders are left in situ to start with. We then reduce the number we have out as we get a clearer picture of the number of birds that are left in each of the drives. A good rule of thumb is to…

Fallow in the flower beds, badgers in the bathtub and foxes by the fireside. It might all sound a bit Dr Dolittle, but for David Whitby it’s par for the course. David’s lifelong habit of fostering wild animals has offered him an extended insight into their quirks. That his two sons have grown up to become ecologists speaks volumes. It started for David at the age of eight with a carrion crow chick called Fred — a gift from the keeper on the Hilton Park Estate in the West Midlands, the same place he would account for his first fox four years later with the 12-bore he had been given for passing his 11-plus. Deep-rooted itch By the time Fred the crow was 10 years old, David was studying economics…

The best lead-free bullets AMMUNITION I am looking for a superior lead-free 6.5mm bullet for my Schultz & Larsen (S&L) Victory rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor, with which I take longer shots across moorland. Do you have any recommendations? The 6.5mm bullet is a very aerodynamic projectile and has good ballistic coefficients compared with other bullets in the same weight category, hence its popularity, especially in 6.5 Creedmoor. I have tested most of the 6.5mm bullets available in lead-free and in all the test rifles, especially the S&L with its cut-rifled barrel, the Barnes LRX 127-gr bullets have been superb. The all-copper LRX offers match-grade accuracy at long range from the long profile and boat-tail design, giving very good terminal performance. Its polymer tip initiates the expansion of the four frontal…

A survey of UK police forces has found no evidence of any increase in the number of shotgun and firearm certificates being revoked. Shooting Timesmade Freedom of Information requests to all 43 English and Welsh police forces, as well as to Police Scotland, in response to concerns raised by the shooting community and our readers. More than half of the forces we contacted have now returned the data requested, with a small number refusing on technical grounds. None of the forces that have responded so far have shown any significant increase in the number of certificates being revoked in 2021. Some have actually shown decreases. Staffordshire Police revoked 29 shotgun certificates in 2019, 16 in 2020 and only 11 in 2021. The number of certificates issued has varied significantly, but…

Mountain hare numbers are booming on the grouse moors of the Peak District. Numbers of Britain’s only truly native lagomorph have, in recent years, have been in steep decline due to climate and land use change. However, the new data shows that, under the care of Peak District gamekeepers, there may be up to five times more animals than previous estimates. Experts from the GWCT trained local gamekeepers in the methods used by their Scottish counterparts for counting hares. These methods — which were developed by a group of land management and gamekeeping organisations — are widely accepted as the most accurate and consistent approach ever developed. Instead of using lamps or dogs, as has been done before, keepers used handheld thermal spotters to observe and count the animals at…

This year the game market will take an enormous stride into the future. More than two years ahead of the five-year voluntary phase-out of lead ammunition, game dealers have committed to processing only game harvested with non-lead shot. The move last summer set shoot lunches ablaze with heated talk of the future for game. The declaration from the dealers came as a surprise to many, including me, but it has the potential to blow the roof off the demand for game. I don’t deny any of the complications in going lead-free, I don’t deny that there is a debate to be had over what the science says about the health implications of lead-shot game, but let’s not kid ourselves: lead is a great big handbrake on the ability to sell…

Stories about dogs make good fillers for newspapers, but they are rarely worth reading. There are, however, exceptions. A recent report in the Daily Telegraph, warning of the dangers of walking your dog on a sandy beach in stormy weather, is worth mentioning here. The source of the story was the website vetuk.co.uk. VetUK is a company selling everything from veterinary prescription medicines to dog food and accessories. The article’s theme was the danger of walking a dog on a beach when the wind is whipping up the sand and blowing it around furiously. Some years ago, I walked on the beach at Holkham, in North Norfolk, in exactly these conditions. It was an extremely unpleasant experience, a feeling of being sandblasted. Fortunately, I didn’t have a dog with me.…

There is tremendous demand today for rough shoots and the rents of these, if they ever reach the market, have increased almost on the same scale as the price of guns. A private shoot on which the lessee has full and sole sporting rights is now a valuable asset and can no longer be obtained for a song. In general, a good shoot becoming vacant is very quickly snapped up by a local before it reaches the market. I have even heard of a case where the solicitors were approached on the day of the deceased tenant’s funeral. There is a growing tendency today for more and more land to come into the hands of public bodies such as the Forestry Commission, National Trust, county councils and water boards. Many…

RIGBY This label from a Rigby double rifle case explained to users in the early 1900s how to operate and keep a hammerless rifle in good order. Unlike hammerguns, a hammerless gun is at full cock once it has been opened and closed. Rigby recommended that the rifle be fired and left assembled with ‘dummy cartridges’ (what we know as ‘snap-caps’) for storage. An ebonite block was provided in the case so the locks could be fired-off when the rifle was disassembled and stored that way in the case. As Rigby stated, the fear was that springs stored under tension would weaken over time. This has not proven to be the case and many guns stored fully cocked for decades still perform perfectly when put back into service.…

THOUGHTS FROM THE FIELD ‘Frost’ is a generic term used when the world turns bone-chillingly crystallised. However, not all frosts are the same. A ‘ground frost’ occurs when the earth cools quicker than the air — the lawn may crunch underfoot but the air will feel warm. An ‘air frost’ is when the air temperature drops below freezing point at a minimum of 1m above ground level. Attractive, feathery ‘hoar frost’ is formed in a similar way to dew, but the surface temperature of foliage is below freezing point. A ‘white frost’ is made by already formed dew freezing following an air frost. A ‘glaze’ is black ice and ‘rime’ is made up of supercooled water droplets that form on vertical surfaces when exposed to wind. Bearded wildfowlers will know…