Innholdsfortegnelse for 13-Apr-2022 i Shooting Times & Country

British game has been recognised as “healthy, nutritious, flavoursome and sustainable” and British Game Assurance has been described as “getting shooting’s act in order”, as politicians pay tribute to BGA and the products it promotes. In the House of Commons, Greg Smith, Conservative MP for Buckingham, highlighted BGA’s work in getting game into NHS hospitals. Leader of the House Mark Spencer MP endorsed his colleague’s remarks, saying: “British game is, as he says, nutritious and of good value”. Even stronger endorsement for BGA came from the House of Lords, where Lord Benyon said: “BGA is creating a rigorous assurance scheme that looks at the whole range of gamebird rearing, on individual premises and on farms and estates. “If any shoot is not signed up to BGA, it is very stupid…

I saw an advertisement the other day for cartridges loaded with 42g of shot. I thought it was a spoof. Some sort of witty parody advert that would direct the reader towards something more sensible. But no, it was a real offer. Honestly. For ‘extreme shooting’, it said. How on earth did we get here? It’s always nice to pull off the shot of the day, I grant you. Or the shot of the season, for that matter. Whether it be your personal best, or the best the team has seen. The team being your friends and family, obviously, plus the occasional outlier who has been invited along for the occasion. “That was some bird!” “What a fantastic shot!” Memories are made of these. As are reputations, of course, until…

Much Ado About Nothing isn’t one of my favourite Shakespeare plays, though its title is brilliant. Next time you’re down the pub, ask your local 16th-century language expert to explain what ‘nothing’ meant in Elizabethan slang, but make sure your wife or girlfriend’s out of hearing. Nonetheless, despite its saucy name, our local amateur theatre decided to stage it last summer — no little achievement as the majority of the players are in full-time jobs. Over the years, rather than learn their lines over a month or two, they’ve found it’s easier to take a week’s holiday each and crash through the whole process in seven days. And it works. On the first night, one of the bit-part actors needed prompting, but the rest of the cast were pretty much…

Aharvestable surplus of wild grey partridges is a rare and special thing nowadays. If you ask Melvin Wright, though, it’s also quite achievable. “It needn’t be complicated,” he told me recently, having finished his morning trapping round. “But you need a bit of fire in your belly and, crucially, the understanding of a passionate landowner. Without that support, you’re wasting your time.” At Caldecote House Farm in Bedfordshire, passion and understanding run deep. Brothers Richard and Simon Maudlin have adjusted their farming operation over the years to provide the habitat — think rough corners, pollen and nectar mixes, overwintered stubbles, wild bird seed plots and the like — while Melvin has juggled running an electrical contracting business and a busy programme of predator control. The results, achieved over 800 acres…

My recent Viewpoint on whether dogs experience grief when they lose a companion (16 March) drew an interesting response from readers. Sue Knight’s experiences echoed mine. She wrote: “In the 38 years I have owned Weimaraners and labradors, none seemed affected by the death of a kennel companion. All my bitches and dogs lived to the average breed age or beyond. Apart from one sire/son relationship, the others were not related and lived in harmony, usually with an age difference of four years. “The dogs knew, as I did, when the end of life was approaching. I may return from the vet tearful, having had a dog put down, but the remaining, younger companion slipped easily up the hierarchy ladder. One labrador changed from an introvert to extrovert overnight, but…

Should my GSP stop and sit? GUNDOG TRAINING Q I have a three-year-old German shorthaired pointer (GSP) and I have worked really hard on the stop whistle. It is pretty consistent and I have managed to proof it around most game. However, when I blow the stop, he stops and points rather than sits. He does focus on me, but never sits. Is this a problem and should I be enforcing a sit? Q If you watch the vast majority of advanced gundogs, very few sit when they are asked to stop. It is called a ‘stop’ whistle for exactly that reason. As long as the dog is stopping, there is no necessity for them to sit. A lot of people begin by training a sit and build on that,…

THOUGHTS FROM THE FIELD In medieval northern England, a traditional Easter spectacle was that of masked mummers, known as Pace Eggers or Jolly Boys, performing plays at farms and large country houses. The performances had a theme of death and resurrection. The players were rewarded by the audience with gifts of eggs, beer and other food to make up an Easter feast. The wonderful characters included figures such as St George, Slasher the Turkish Knight and a drag act called Betsy Brownbags. Plays revolved around sword fights, slapstick, scatological gags and bawdy innuendo. The biggest laughs were reserved for comedy baddie Old Toss Pot, who wandered through the crowd, begging for alms for good causes. Some readers may draw an analogy between this character and some of those who today…

The French bird flu outbreak may be starting to slow down. However, significant numbers of new cases are continuing and the disease has reached areas that were previously unaffected. Shortages of pheasant eggs and chicks are beginning to affect British shoots. The outbreak is focused on the Vendée department in northwest France (News, 6 April). It and its neighbour Loire-Atlantique are vital to the supply of gamebird chicks and eggs to the UK. Weekly data published by the French agriculture ministry showed that on 5 April there were 510 infected premises in Vendée, an increase of 17 on the previous week. While there were more cases, the rate at which they increased was much lower than the week before, in which there were 40 new cases. Cases in the neighbouring…

Satellite tags fitted to two woodcock by the GWCT continue to tell a tale, despite being expected to cease functioning several years ago. Fonthill Abbie II left her wintering grounds in Russia late in the winter and settled for a while in Belgium. There, she spent a few days in and around Ourodenburg. She spent most of her time in fields, but also showed a surprisingly suburban habit with a number of visits to gardens. She then headed north-east in April, with her latest tag reading showing her just off the coast of Latvia. Nellie III had a more settled winter, hardly leaving Västra Götaland County in Sweden. The study of tagged woodcock is only one of the groundbreaking pieces of research into the bird’s habits conducted by the GWCT,…

Mat Manning’s article about drey poking (In pole position, 30 March) brought back happy memories of the 1960s and controlling the grey squirrel population in 400 acres of mainly deciduous woodland. Poles were, in those times, supplied on loan from the local Ministry of Agriculture office free of charge. Sadly, this came to an end after three fatal electrocutions in Shropshire. Never use poles within 50 yards of power cables. Our best day brought a tally of 100. We would take turns with the poles, and some were better than others. Robert was our star performer, being able to dislodge a whole drey with one thrust. We never ate the little beasts, but the tails were amputated and sent by post to Veniard fly-tying suppliers in Croydon. This brought another…

Intercepting birds on a flightline between two safe havens is sometimes the only way of approaching them. But when trying to intercept birds moving from 400 acres of parkland into 200 acres of livestock, you have to play the percentage game. All pest control must be conducted under the terms of the general licence — we must be clear that what we are doing is legal and necessary and not simply accept this as received wisdom. This is especially true when not shooting over a particular crop. “Higher-welfare meat benefits the UK’s pest birds” The ethical choices of the British consumer can have a profound effect on the rhythms of the countryside. We like the idea of free-range pork, but there is something many average consumers of the bacon sandwich…

Many years ago, I met a man from south-west Wales who claimed to have shot 150 foxes on his 200 acres in a year. By any stretch, this amounted to an impressive total, but what did it mean in terms of predation control? The truth is, we will never know, because we have no idea about how many were still out there or what impact they were having. Here is a crucial point to understand: whatever the predator, how many you nail is not the measure of success. The key question is: how much predation are you stopping? Further discussion with my Welsh friend told me that he was operating in the watershed of two valleys, with loads of urban foxes coming in from each one. His annual tally was…

I sometimes think back over the countless hours I have spent in the countryside with my dogs. Whether it was roost shooting, wildfowling, rough shooting, pigeon decoying, beating, standing on a peg or simply going for a short evening walk, I almost certainly had a dog by my side. There were remarkably few occasions when the dogs picked up an injury. Indeed, having flicked through some of my diaries, I am now convinced it’s nothing short of a miracle that one of my canine pals didn’t suffer a serious calamity. Of course, bad luck can always rear its ugly head. Like the time a friend’s dog suffered a ruptured cruciate ligament while completing a routine dummy retrieve on a freshly mown meadow. Only the skills of a vet — and…

During all my years as a keeper, the resilience of certain species never ceased to amaze me. I suppose it’s life that some creatures have endured in spite of everything, while other things seem impossible to hang on to. It was always thought that the Normans were the first to introduce rabbits to our isles. They certainly farmed them and escapees were the most likely origin of our wild population. Recent findings, however, show that the Romans also kept rabbits in Britain as far back as AD1. If we care to look back even further, the remains of both hares and rabbits, at a site in Boxgrove, West Sussex, were found to be 500,000 years old. The original inhabitants most likely died off during the Ice Age, along with a…

Motoring from the twin counties of Moray and Nairn into Inverness-shire, I noticed, on the skyline of Beum a’Chlaidheimh, which is just on the county boundary, an animal of some sort. Thinking it might be a red deer stag, I stopped the car to examine the beast through my binoculars. It was a great, hairy wild goat and there were two more with it, one white, the other a brindled grey and brown. All of them had long, curving horns that swept down below their withers. All could be said to be carrying magnificent trophies on their heads. There are far more herds of wild goats in this country than most people realise. Scattered herds of goats exist as far apart as Devon and Caithness. The majority of these free-roaming…

There is no shortage of stories about shortages. The excuses include Brexit, COVID-19 and now the war in Ukraine — all wrapped up in the great media feeding frenzy labelled ‘cost of living crisis’. From the outcry, you’d have thought that access to cheap frozen ready meals was a human right. Yet, as I have pointed out before, we British have been paying far too little for our food for decades. We spend less on food than almost any other western country. The risk of relying on cheap imports of food, energy — or anything — is obvious. It became even more evident when the pandemic struck and a desperate EU looked at plundering our vaccine supplies in order to cover up its own bureaucratic bungling. The game shooting community…

A Welsh Labour politician has launched an attack on “hunting and bloodsports in all its forms”. North Wales Senedd member Carolyn Thomas described legal pest and predator control and harvesting of wild food as “a horrid bygone from days of feudal lordships, that has no purpose or reason to exist in modern-day society”. Her remarks came as she backed calls for a review of the policing of hunting in Wales. The office of Andy Dunbobbin, the North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner, issued a £20,000 tender for private contractors to undertake the review last week. Justifying this expense, Mr Dunbobbin said: “The strength of feeling and polar-opposite reactions from all sides in the debate around the policing of the Hunting Act in North Wales show exactly why this review is…

Experts with practical knowledge of moorland management and wildlife have disputed the claims of a new study of mountain hares in the Peak District. A study funded by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species found fewer hares on grouse moors in the Peak District than on areas managed for conservation. The authors went on to speculate that culling of hares was the cause. They wrote: “We reflect that in Scotland, grouse moor estates have conducted lethal removal of mountain hares. We then speculate whether the same occurred on grouse moors within the Peak District.” However, large-scale culling has never been part of how hares are managed in the Peak District. Ian Coghill, author ofMoorland Matters, told Shooting Times: “It is a matter of regret that the author refused to meet…

Fundraising walk in memory of keeper One of Scotland’s leading deer managers is to walk more than 400 miles in memory of a friend. Ronald Rose explained: “In November 2019, I lost a much-valued friend and colleague when Shaun made the decision to take his life.” Mr Rose added that he plans to “raise awareness that there is a wide range of assistance out there which can provide support for stalkers, gillies and keepers”. You can follow Mr Rose’s progress, learn more and make a donation to the Gamekeepers’ Welfare Trust at facebook.com/AWalkwithShaun ‘Affordable’ grouse moor up for sale An ‘affordable’ grouse moor has come on to the market. For a mere £750,000, Horden Moor Allotment in Teesdale can be yours. At 300 acres, it is an ideal starter moor…

Mountains mesmerise us; they demand our gaze, they call to be climbed, to be the centre of conversations, to be photographed, to be named, filmed and written about. They are addictive, as is stalking. Stalking is an ancient pursuit and is equally fascinating; it rewards us in so many ways. Much of my early stalking was in forestry, on fields and in the margins in between — but when I discovered deer that favoured the mountains, it changed my life. I became so fascinated with those open-mountain deer, with the rush of spotting and stalking, that it became the centre of who I was, where I lived and where I spent my time. Probably sounds a bit extreme — and it is — but I love it. The mountain deer…

There are plenty of dates in the stalking calendar that I look forward to. I love stalking does during snowy Highland winters, calling roebucks during their rut in late July and listening to the eerie and haunting whistles of sika stags under an October moon. But if I had to single out just one date, it would have to be early April and the opening few days of the roebuck season. The joy of early-season roe starts with the changing of the clocks, the warmer weather and the longer daylight hours. My dawn stalking forays start while the rest of the world sleeps. I relish the sense of solitude on those early mornings when I return for breakfast as most are only stirring. It’s a special experience to pause and…

Over the past couple of hundred years it would be fair to say that changes in agriculture, particularly its intensification, have been the biggest factor in reshaping rural Britain. The influence of these changes on flora and fauna has been huge, as has the effect on shooting. The removal of miles of hedgerows has had a big impact on grey partridge populations and ponds being filled in has done for much of our duck shooting, but the life of the pigeon shooter has been affected too. The fortunes of my favourite quarry species are completely bound up in farming. Weather aside, nothing else influences their behaviour like changing agricultural practices. By reading old issues of Shooting Times, and the great sporting books such as the Fur, Feather and Fin series…

OUR VERDICT “With great accuracy and handling, this rifle is clearly built by stalkers for stalkers” I was unfamiliar with Fierce Firearms until recently, but the manufacturer has been causing a few ripples in the gun trade with its high-specification stalking rifles and ‘guaranteed’ accuracy at 100 yards. Based in Quebec, Fierce has hidden its talent for producing high-precision items for the firearms industry for decades and now has branched out on its own. This has resulted in interesting rifles designed from customer feedback on what makes a proper stalking arm. To this end, Fierce has produced an extraordinary range of rifles with guaranteed accuracy of ½ MOA (minute of angle) at 100 yards, accompanied by recommended ammunition and load data. Custom feel You can opt for the Rival model,…

It is rare that a shoot has total control over its game covers. Around 20 or 30 years ago, shoots utilised existing farm crops to fill gaps along margins and between the strips of kale. They drove fields of roots grown to feed fat lambs too, but things have moved on. Now most farms specialise in one thing and mixed farms are few and far between. As a result, most if not all game crops are agreed with the landowner/farmer on the condition that they are planted as part of their Countryside Stewardship scheme agreements. The payment they receive from the Government compensates them for the lost crop. True, some shoots are in a position to rent the ground outright and grow whatever they like, how they like, but most…

EXACTLY A CENTURY ago, a golden retriever called Balcombe Boy became the first dual champion in his breed, an impressive achievement then and an unlikely one now. Bred by Viscount Harcourt and handled and trained by his owner, Captain Dick Herman, Balcombe Boy became a show champion and a field trial champion in the same year, 1922. Further dual champions followed as, until the middle of the last century, it wasn’t unusual for the same dogs to compete both in trials and in shows. However, as far as I have been able to discover, the last dual champion in the breed was Lucy Ross’s international champion, David of Westley. He achieved his title nearly 70 years ago and, though there have been a few show champion goldens since that have…