Innholdsfortegnelse for 6-Apr-2022 i Shooting Times & Country

The politically powerful French hunting lobby has thrown its weight behind incumbent Emmanuel Macron ahead of the vote on 10 April. President of the Fédération des Chasseurs (National Federation of Hunters) Willy Schraen announced his backing for the En Marche candidate in an interview. Mr Schraen, who recently announced his own reelection bid, said: “[Macron] did not disappoint me. No law or amendment that could damage hunting has been adopted in this five-year period. Each time we had a problem to settle with a minister of ecology, he intervened,” he added. With characteristic bluntness, Mr Schraen continued: “If we have a president called Jean-Luc Mélenchon, there will be no more hunting. If it is Marine Le Pen, she will remove a series of practices deemed incompatible with her ideas. We…

A WAY FORWARD? Many thousands of sportsmen and women enjoy a visit to the Game Fair — who wouldn’t? One of my favourite things is seeing the muzzle-loaders and blackpowder smoke after a volley with Bill Harriman at the helm. I also enjoy watching Spitfires, Hurricanes and Vulcans as well as vintage cars and bikes. My question is, with the coming non-toxic issues, whether it’s petrol, jet A-1 fuel, lead, coal, diesel and so on, surely there has to be a case for our antique guns being able to use lead? And our organisations to lead the way for its use in such guns? If not, will the owners of these antiques qualify for compensation due to their firearms’ inability to safely fire the steel imposed on them by law?…

Every year, I head up to Cumbria to enjoy a few days of rabbit shooting. It’s a ritual I have followed during the same week of March for the past 15 years, because it’s the last opportunity before the moors and Fells are left to the myriad curlew, grouse, lapwings and oystercatchers as they head to higher ground to nest and produce young. Spring is a time of replenishment, representing an opportunity for rabbits to breed and produce quarry for the future. “A novice dog will bounce over the top of the cover” I get quite excited about working my dogs among the gullies, rushes, heather and bracken of the fells. It is not all about the shooting; it is about watching, handling and enjoying the dogs working in what…

It’s unfashionable these days to suggest that men are better than women at sport, or indeed that there are things that women are more successful at. However, it is often said that women are a step ahead in the world of gundogs. We are now getting into the swing of working test season for my dogs and I am looking forward to a summer filled with exciting competition. I have an open test this Sunday with Briar and Keepa that I entered a few weeks ago. This particular competition has 20 dogs entered but I was surprised to see that only five of the handlers were men. I had a quick look at the entries for many of the other tests I have entered and the theme seems to be…

It was a memorable Crufts for flatcoated retrievers as the Northesk Memorial Trophy, awarded to the top dog in the BASC Gamekeepers’ Rings, was won by a four-year-old flatcoat belonging to gamekeeper Helen Fox. The dog, known as Ruger (Satinbaze Cracksman For Blacktoft) was handled by Helen’s daughter, Megan. Unlike Baxer, the Best in Show winner, Ruger is a proper working gundog and recently completed his first full season on the Wheatley Grange shoot in Nottinghamshire. The most obvious difference between the two dogs is that Ruger is black, Baxer is liver. As with labradors, black is the dominant inherited colour of flatcoats, but liver-coloured dogs are not uncommon. The colour is caused by a recessive gene and has been recognised as an official flatcoat colour since the 1940s. Perhaps…

Due to a recent accident, my jaw is broken in three places and has been patched up with titanium plates. This means I’m under strict instructions not to shoot for three months. As you can imagine, I’m not happy about it and I left my latest session with the consultant feeling like a child who’s been told he’s not allowed to go out to play. I still have a responsibility to landowners and farmers to manage their pigeon numbers. So over the next few months, I will be inviting various friends into the hide. Not only to get on top of the pigeons but to discuss fieldsports and farming issues. “Gerwyn’s irresistible spread of decoys stood out in the spring sunshine” The first friend to answer the call was Gerwyn…

Things are not quite what they were in sika land. At least, the particular patch where I stalk in southern England, and the country around it, has proved not to contain the limitless supply of shootable sika deer that some rose-coloured-spectacled stalkers took for granted only a few years ago. Or is it simply that the sika, arguably the craftiest beast that ever set cloven hoof to British soil, has acquired the knack of effacing itself almost totally from the presence of folk who like to do some of their deerwatching through the scope sights of a rifle? There are two schools of thought on the subject. On the one hand, I am assured that neighbouring Forestry Commission land holds as many sika as ever, but that the hinds have…

Last season, I was assured by a fellow wildfowling club member that the shotguns being used on sustainable ammunition demonstration days had been wrecked by steel shot. Naturally, I checked this allegation. It proved to be false. Yet the same claim later found its way into the letters pages of Shooting Times, where the Editor challenged the letter writer to produce photographic evidence. Answer there came none. How does this sort of fable get passed around and given credence? Unmoderated social media has a lot to answer for. On the other hand, social media — or, at least, a multiplicity of independent media sources — can also serve as a useful antidote to propaganda. Hence the reason why the Putin regime is attempting to exert tight control over what the…

Despite recent defeats, Wild Justice has launched a campaign to shorten the season for woodcock. In a letter to George Eustice and Edwin Poots, the group calls for the season for the birds to be moved from the start of October — September in Scotland — to 1 December. “The rationale for such a change has been set out by the pro-shooting GWCT and rests on the fact that the UK woodcock population is swelled by large numbers of migrants in winter, and in midwinter the continental birds outnumber the UK birds by about 10:1,” it says. The GWCT has long pursued a policy of voluntary restraint in the shooting of woodcock before 1 December. Numbers of breeding woodcock have declined significantly in Britain but the much larger migrant population,…

CHECK Ticks have become almost as much a feature of the spring countryside as daffodils or frogspawn. Dogs should be checked frequently for these parasites and any found should be removed with a tick removal tool. Your vet should be able to provide a product that reduces the number of ticks your dog picks up. SHOOT Try the GWCT accredited game Shot test. This free test covers gamebird releasing, predation control, habitat management and all the other topics required to equip you with the right questions to ask when choosing where to go shooting.…

The body of a white-tailed eagle found dead on a shoot in Dorset contained significantly elevated levels of a commonly used rat poison, according to police. The bird, which was released on the Isle of Wight by the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, was found dead in woodland in January this year. Its discovery on land managed for game shooting led to extensive speculation that it had been illegally poisoned in a misguided attempt to protect gamebirds. However, in a brief statement provided to Shooting Timesand then subsequently published online, Dorset Police confirmed that the bird had ingested brodifacoum, a widely used rat poison. Birds of prey are very vulnerable to ‘secondary poisoning’, which occurs when the remains of poisoned rats and mice are eaten. Secondary poisoning from rodenticides of the…

I am lucky enough to host stalking clients from across the world. They join me in Ayrshire, this cold and wet corner of Scotland, from some of the most fascinating places and have incredible stories to tell, but invariably, at some point, the conversation turns to my deer dog, Zosia. She is similarly high on the agenda of any post-outing debrief as we tuck into a full Garryloop breakfast. She’s a popular member of our team and I always tell my clients that stalking is better with a hound by your side. It’s certainly the case that you can get away with not having a dog with you most of the time, but there will be instances when a dog is the difference between finding the animal you’ve shot and…

It’s now almost 60 years since my father took me beating for the first time and, to me, one of the remarkable things is how little our working dogs have changed since then. The average English springer spaniel in today’s beating line is perhaps a little smaller, and retrievers, both labrador and golden, tend to be a bit more finely built. Fashions have moved on a bit and I’m sure I see more cockers, and perhaps a few more of the continental HPRs, but no breed has disappeared in that time. A look at the old photos and accounts from six decades earlier again — and even back to the birth of Shooting Times in 1882 — shows much more change, but the sport of shooting was different back then…

Although many of us pride ourselves on having large acreages of shooting permissions, most of my really productive ground is confined to a handful of small areas. I am sure that is the case for many shooters, especially those of us tasked with pest control. The concentration of good shooting around specific areas or hotspots was brought home to me during a recent morning outing with my airgun. I was on an estate where I control grey squirrels and rabbits to assist with the protection of trees and crops, though my main motivation on this occasion was to be out on what was a beautiful spring morning. After quickly covering what I know to be generally unproductive ground, I slowed down as I approached a spot that often yields a…

Some 50 years ago, I remember interviewing an octogenarian keeper who told me in hushed tones that he had once loaded for the Marquess of Ripon — the greatest Shot of all time — while working as a young man on a well-known shoot. This had obviously been the high point of the elderly gentleman’s career and his face creased with pride as he handed me a much-thumbed sepia photograph of himself pictured with another loader standing to attention, guns at the ready, behind this legendary marksman as he swung through a high pheasant. In the background could be seen a smartly dressed cartridge boy and the usual brace of ubiquitous curlycoated retrievers. Even today, few people in the world of shooting have not heard of Frederick Robinson, 2nd Marquess…

Jaguar joined the SUV market with the launch of the F-Pace in 2015. Although popular, it’s been hovering under the countryman’s radar compared with some of its competitors and I see this as good enough reason to want to give it a try. I was impressed as the sleek F-Pace appeared in the driveway. The balance of sportiness and executive style is certainly eye-catching. We’re looking at the new F-Pace P400e R-Dynamic SE, which — if the 21in wheels and R motif aren’t enough of a giveaway — is the sporty high-spec version. It’s all-wheel drive and comes with decent eco credentials as it’s a chargeable hybrid. I predict it will tick quite a few Shooting Times boxes. Understated elegance comes to mind when taking in the F-Pace’s exterior. I…

JOSEPH F SMYTHE This rather dirty paper and ink label is from a case containing a 12-bore sidelock by Joseph F Smythe of Darlington. It probably dates to the late 1890s, when he also had a shop at 21 Dovecot Street, Stockton-on-Tees. The label itself supplies quite a lot of information, such as Smythe’s former employers, W W Greener and Alex Henry, suggesting he was a gunmaker who managed to leave employment and set up his own provincial business. The gun illustrated is a W & C Scott model, so he was clearly retailing guns bought from the Birmingham wholesale trade. He lists the smokeless powders he loads with, mentioning the popular brands of the time, when smokeless powders were replacing black. Although having no official warrants, he is bold…

An effort to restrict the breeding of gamebirds has made progress through the House of Lords. The Game Birds (Cage Breeding) Bill aims to “prohibit the use of raised laying or battery cages to keep certain game birds for the purpose of producing eggs”. The bill is sponsored by former Conservative deputy chief whip Lord Randall, who noted it was “not about the rights and wrongs of shooting per se”, adding, “well-managed shoots can be of conservation benefit, in terms of habitat management”. However, his fellow peers clearly saw it as an opportunity to push forward restrictions. Green Party peer Baroness Bennett said: “The Green Party also supports the bill. It provides some limited but important protections for the welfare of animals whose short life begins in captivity before they…

Avian influenza is continuing to ravage the north-west of France as British shoots make contingency plans. Data released by the French ministry of agriculture showed that in the last week of March, cases in the main gamebird-rearing areas of Vendée and Loire-Atlantique continued to increase, though the rate of increase appears to be slowing. Shooting Timesunderstands that these figures are likely to go on rising for some time as a sizeable backlog of cases are checked and confirmed by French veterinary authorities. As cases continue to increase, it has become clear that hopes that imports of chicks and eggs may start in early June are optimistic (News, 30 March). Where a premises has had an outbreak, the period from the slaughter of affected birds to restocking is more than 50…

When I was a child, I spent many hours outside with my brothers, Ray Mears’s Bushcraft manual in hand, trying out the skills he described and learning about the great outdoors. We would constantly have a campfire on the go and there would always be a game of some form afoot. Learning hunting skills from a manual, though, was significantly trickier and often our traps and snares would be empty when we checked them. It was with the help of a local poacher that we really started to hone our skills, as he had done over the course of decades pinching rabbits and pheasants from around the local area. We didn’t mind so much that old Pete was a poacher, all we cared about was that he was able to…

Working dogs have been used in conflict for time immemorial. The ancient Egyptians and others employed dogs for defence and attack in battle. In Greek mythology, the Trojan hero Aeneas mentions that they were also used to carry despatches in their collars. The Romans not only used dogs as sentries at fortifications to warn the garrison of approaching enemies, but also hunting dogs clad in spiked armour to rout attacking enemies. Over the centuries, military commanders deployed war dogs for a variety of applications, ranging from scouting and tracking to hunting down the enemy, but always on an ad hoc rather than an organised basis. Indeed, it was not until the last quarter of the 19th century that European armies began to take war dogs seriously and to train canine…

Golden ages are funny things. Nobody tends to recognise them at the time and it’s only later, looking back, that they are duly acknowledged. I’m sure nobody who lived in the early years of the 20th century realised that those heady seasons leading up to World War I would become the golden age of the gundog, but I reckon that’s what they were. In 1900, Queen Victoria was still on the throne, the hammerless shotgun was a novelty and neither the labrador retriever nor the English springer spaniel had been recognised by the Kennel Club. Within a year, Victoria was dead and her son, Bertie — King Edward VII — ascended the throne. A passionately keen shooting man, he did much to popularise driven game shooting, a sport in which…

THE F-PACE R-Dynamic is a serious bit of luxury kit and rather pretty, too. It’s more than a match for its competitors, but what’s the price? The F-Pace starts off at £60,070, on the road. With a few extras on the R-Dynamic — plus a few optional extras, such as the panoramic roof, 21in wheels and other toys — it comes out at £65,385. It’s a lot of money but, for the level of kit and overall quality, it’s pretty good value. Jaguar simply needs to make the charging a bit better.…

Confusion over doe’s tusks STALKING Q How common is it to find that Chinese water deer does have grown tusks as bucks do? One that we got this season caused a bit of confusion and was shot as it was believed to be a buck. It turned out to be a doe with tusks that were nearly 30mm long. Any idea what might cause this? A Although it’s not common to see them, visible tusks are found in female water deer. I imagine the cause will mostly be down to genetics. However, as with female roe that develop antlers, it is possible this might be a consequence of some individuals being intersex and thus carrying the characteristics of both sexes. Establishing that would require a bit of scientific input. Professional…

IT IS A STRANGE CRITICISM TO level at an artist; that their work is too realistic. But in his early days McPhail was criticised for being too photographic and recording wingbeats the human eye could not register. Certainly, his paintings of wild birds, such as woodcock, seem almost to lift off the canvas, with marvellous use of light and exquisite detail. After graduating from the Liverpool School of Art, Rodger’s first commissions were to paint a partridge shoot in Spain, followed by a trip to the US to depict shooting scenes in South Carolina and Georgia. “To actually get paid to do something I would have done anyway, and to have a whale of a time in the process, requires a colossal amount of good luck,” says Rodger. He started…

THOUGHTS FROM THE FIELD The stars Mizar and Alcor sit upsides in the Plough constellation. Known as the Horse and Rider, it is apposite this stellar pair shine bright in early April. The 174th running of the Grand National, a race considered to be the greatest test of horse and rider, takes place at Aintree on 9 April. The Grand National originated as a sideshow to a coursing meeting, organised by sporting publican William Lynn, proprietor of The Waterloo Hotel, Aintree. The enduring popularity of the race is largely due to the romantic backstories of the horses and jockeys. The best-loved National horse is three-time winner and twice runner-up Red Rum (left). When ‘Rummy’ retired, trainer Ginger McCain gave the horse a new job making personal appearances. The grand old…