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

Some weeks ago, a friend of mine told me how lucky he thought I was that I had passions and interests. It hadn’t really struck me but he admitted that, in truth, beyond going out for dinner and the odd holiday, he doesn’t really do much other than work. It sounds pretty sad when you put it like that, but I suppose he’s really in the same position as the rest of the country. We are very lucky, all of us, that we love shooting and most of us love cooking game and conservation, too. Last year, I had an argument with my mother, who complained that whenever I drive, I’m always much more focused on the life in the fields beyond the dykes at the side of the road…

Community buyouts, common land ownership, call it what you will, the Scottish Government seems bent on destroying the concept of anyone owning any large area of land; but when it’s bought for the nation, mainly by the nation, just what do we, the taxpayer, get for our money? Back in the early 2000s, the islanders on South Uist were involved in a community buyout. I’ve fished up there for many years now and, pleasingly, relatively little has changed. You can still go and enjoy the sporting delights that the island has to offer, and much of the management of the ‘old estate’ has carried on. That is certainly not same everywhere though. Langholm Moor is a prime example. Cost of rewilding By my rough calculations, it has cost some £4…

Bushnell Core DS-4Kedgarbrothers.com RRP £263The Core DS-4K offers dual sensors and 4K picture resolution for high-quality images, day and night. The unit has an optimised battery life for maximum image captures and more time in the field without checking batteries, all in a compact design to stay hidden from eyes you don’t want to alert. The 0.15-second trigger speed is best in class. Browning Recon Force 4K Edgebrowningbranded.comRRP £230With true 4K ultra-high-definition video, this unit features the highest quality of image and video of any of Browning’s trail cams. This camera has an adjustable detection range up to 80ft and Illuma-Smart Technology, which automatically adjusts the infrared flash for those perfect photos at night. A 2in colour display screen means you can view your images in the field. Spypoint Force-Pro…

Gundog training The summer, as always, seems to be flying past and the season is drawing ever closer. Like many, I was hoping for a relatively normal season this year but, sadly, bird flu has ensured that this will not be the case. So, while my dogs are starting preparations for the season, it may be a quieter one than we had hoped; however, I will still prepare, as should everyone else. The first thing to consider at this time of year is the fitness of your dogs. If you are lucky enough to go on the grouse, at the time of going to press, you have fewer than four weeks to ensure that the dogs’ fitness and training are up to scratch. We all know that working in the…

Know your beastsCapreolus capreolus: Roe deer It is a magical moment when he steps out into the woodland glade. In the prime of condition, his chestnut red coat glowing in the dappled sunlight, the roebuck is among the most prized of our wild deer, and this time of year, with the approach of the rut, is one of the most exciting in the roe stalking calendar. Along with the red deer, our only other true native deer species, the roe (Capreolus capreolus) was here before the last Ice Age and recolonised the British Isles as the climate warmed after the ice retreated, the first postglacial evidence for its presence being a bone that has been dated to 9,430 years before present. At that time, roe spread and flourished across the…

PURDEY This yellow-tinged paper label was attached to the lid of a pair of Purdey hammerguns. It bears the Royal Warrant of the monarch (Queen Victoria) and the address 314½ Oxford Street. This was Purdey’s address until the move to Audley House in South Audley Street in 1883. This particular label includes the style ‘& Sons’, first applied when James and Athol Purdey became directors. It was in use from 1878 until 1882, so is quite rare. The poor quality suggests it may be an old copy, though the note on the top corner for ’Schulze’ powder would date it to the early 20th century at the latest.…

NEWS ENTER A beautiful original painting of black-necked pheasants by Jonathan Pointer, valued at more than £4,500, could be yours for just £20. The painting (above) is the prize in a fundraising raffle for the World Pheasant Association’s black-necked pheasant restoration project in Nestos, Greece. Individual tickets are available at pheasant.org.uk PREPARE The game shooting season is just a few weeks away. This is a good time to get your beating and picking-up teams together. A barbecue or an evening with a few refreshments will provide an opportunity for a catch-up and will give you a chance to talk them through any changes you have planned. It will also give you a chance to see who is fit and keen for the season ahead.…

BASC and Deer Management Qualifications (DMQ) are launching a driving licence-style shooting qualifications card. The card will feature a photo, name and membership number. It will also list the BASC and DMQ qualifications of each individual and the date that they were achieved. Qualifications that can be listed on the card include Deer Stalking Certificate Levels 1 and 2, Game Meat Hygiene Trained Hunter and BASC Safe Shot awards. Nick Lane, BASC senior training officer, said: “The qualification card has been launched as the ideal way of providing proof of identity alongside a list of verified qualifications. We have listened to the problems faced by our members and have provided a system that collates all the information in one place to simplify actions such as gaining a permission.” The card…

Promote game by getting it on the shelves The careful distribution of processed game is going to be a new challenge this coming season. There is still widespread uncertainty over what volume of game the dealers can expect, and when to expect it. The added curveball this season is the roaring demand for BGA game shot with non-lead ammunition. This is the top-quality game that is going into the supermarkets and, as such, is a shop-window for our community. I know that supermarkets have a bad name among producers, and deservedly so in some cases, but more than 80% of people do all their food shopping in the major-multiples, and if we want the public to associate game with their normal lives and diets, that is where game needs to…

I’ve always been an early riser, and as a professional stalking outfitter, at this time of year it is probably just as well. I wake up minutes before any alarm that I have set, irrespective of the time, and just now that coincides with revellers leaving the clubs and heading for a kebab. Very early mornings are the best time of the day, never wasted as I can walk quietly around undisturbed forests with little risk of seeing a jogger or dog walker. Yesterday morning, back at the house after enjoying just such a wander and before the rest of the house stirred, I was about to take my first sip of freshly brewed coffee, which is a moment to be savoured, when the phone rang — at this hour,…

We’ve all been there. You’re in the field on a shoot day and it’s simply not working out. “Give it more lead,” your pal tells you, and he should know — he did an instructor’s course and hasn’t stopped talking about everything he learned on it since (it was 12 years ago now). “Give it five feet,” he calls over from the next peg, “some of them need a five-bar gate’s worth.” Lead, as in how far to shoot in front of a bird, as opposed to its homonym (Pb), which people won’t stop going on about at the moment either, is always a hot topic on the gun bus. If you’re not connecting, you’ll never be short of people who’ll tell you that you’re behind. But to my mind,…

AFTER WATCHING some gundog scurries recently, I went to fetch my young dog, River. He is now 19 months old and I have taken things slowly with him as he is naturally a slow-maturing dog. I began by simply walking him on the lead around the quieter parts of the fair — the last thing I wanted was for him to get trodden on in crowds or scared by the loudspeakers. He walked alongside me, nice and relaxed and was not worried by the people or other dogs. As expected, there were a few dogs that certainly lacked self-control and enjoyed dragging their owners from one strange dog to another. While this is less than ideal, it gave me a good opportunity to prove to him that he is safe…

Gundogs IN JUNE, I RECORDED a maximum temperature of 32.7°C in my garden. The following day, the mercury failed to rise above 14°C and it felt colder than that due to a stiff northerly breeze. We adjust to such fluctuating temperatures by wearing appropriate clothing, but for a dog, stuck in the same fur coat every day, coping is considerably more of a challenge. On a hot day, we lose heat through sweating, a remarkably efficient system that works well for us. In contrast, dogs only have a small number of sweat glands (primarily on their paw pads), but these make little or no difference to the animal’s heat loss on a hot day. Panting is a much more effective cooling mechanism. Moisture evaporates from the mouth and tongue, allowing…

Duck I was invited wildfowling on the foreshore last season. It’s something I have wanted to do for a long time, but have never had the time, means or guts to do it. Although I have done a fair bit of duck shooting, I didn’t know what to expect, so I rang a good friend and seasoned wildfowler, Richard Petti, for advice. Richard explained about the tides, winds and what best to wear. I asked what gun would be best and explained that I’d recently had my favourite 12-bore proofed for steel. “Do you really like it?” Richard asked. “Yes, I shoot pretty much everything with it,” I replied. “Don’t take it then. See if you can borrow one. The marsh is no place for a pretty gun,” Richard explained.…

SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH said: “Long before words like biodiversity were coined, Peter looked out from that huge window in his house at Slimbridge and realised our lives are so linked with our natural world that we have to learn to love it and look after it.” And from this, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) was born. The logo was designed by founder Sir Peter Scott, who made its headquarters at his Gloucestershire home. Named after the eponymous hero Peter Pan — created by his godfather, J M Barrie, who gave him life membership of the London Zoological Society as a christening gift — Sir Peter was a man of great passion and high intelligence. An Olympic sailing medallist, writer, inventor and broadcaster, he also created the IUCN red list,…

THOUGHTS FROM THE FIELD The terrier is uniquely British. Its name derives from the Latin terra, meaning ‘earth’. Many counties boast their own distinctive terrier breeds, yet not all were bred to be earth dogs. The Airedale is far too large to go to ground; believed to have originated by crossing otterhounds with bull terriers, it was used as an otter and rat killer on waterways. The most diminutive terrier, like the Airedale, also hails from Yorkshire. The original Yorkshire terrier is far removed from the shivering specimens we see in the show ring today. Thought to have originally been bred by Scottish weavers working in the mill towns, the tenacious yet tiny Yorkies were used to kill pests in the cramped confines of mills and mine workings. The breed’s…

The Americans have a phrase for ethical hunting: fair chase. This exudes all the right connotations, though defining fair chase hunting gets problematic as soon as you delve into the details. If you start considering local customs and norms, you soon find there may be a disparity in what hunters consider to be ethical behaviour. At one extreme is so-called ‘canned hunting’. This is where the quarry is constrained within a relatively small enclosure, with no real chance of evading the hunter (or rather, shooter). This sort of disreputable activity is much cited by campaigners against trophy hunting. Lurid examples of canned hunting for captive-bred lions in South Africa have been very damaging to the image of big game hunting. Who on earth would even contemplate participating in a canned…

Demand for grouse rising, report chefs Top chefs say that demand for grouse is increasing as restaurants and home cooks seek to put something wild on the table. Food writer Nichola Fletcher said: “There is really significant interest from people all over the UK to learn how to cook game and to eat it more regularly. Now more than ever, people want to know the precise details of where their meat comes from. Game is a sustainable source of meat, and very healthy, too.” Yorkshire Water leases under fire The Countryside Alliance is calling on the shooting community to help fend off an effort by animal rights extremists to persuade Yorkshire Water not to renew the grouse shooting leases on its land. The company’s leases have been a key target…

Pine martens were reintroduced to Galloway in the 1980s. This was a time of rapid expansion in commercial forestry, and the heart of the Galloway Forest Park had established a vast area of suitable habitat for the creatures. With only a minimal degree of fanfare, pine martens were brought down from the Highlands and released around a network of custom-built nest boxes in the forest. Reading through old accounts from the project, it’s clear that initial results were inconclusive. That’s probably fair enough when you realise that only a handful of martens were released without any real means of monitoring their success or failure. They just vanished, and at first the project seemed to have come to a disappointing conclusion. Little did those conservationists realise that they had sown the…

Recently, I mentioned that I had been persuaded to run a family dog show in support of a local charity (Viewpoint, 25 May). My experience of dog shows is limited, but due largely to the support and enthusiasm of friends (thank you Sue, Jan and Chris), the show was a considerable success. My target was to raise £100, which we achieved precisely — not a penny more or a penny less. OK, £100 isn’t a lot and it would have been much easier to make a donation of the same size and stay at home, but that would have missed the point. The dog show was only one of the attractions at the event. It proved to be surprisingly popular and it was clear that all the participants, both human…

Expert tips and advice The experts THE ULTIMATE SHOOTING QUIZ TEAM 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 Times rifle reviewer and stalker MIKE SWAN Conservation expert and head of education for the GWCT DAVID TOMLINSON Highly regarded writer and ornithologist LIAM BELL Shropshire gamekeeper, keen wildfowler and amateur naturalist 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,…