Innholdsfortegnelse for 27-Jul-2022 i Shooting Times & Country

Last week I was chatting to a keeper who told me he shoots around 150 deer a year. “I pay for my rounds myself, mind,” he added. It’s a fairly standard situation — the man is employed by a shoot tenant who has no real interest in him shooting any deer, but he does it because he recognises that it’s an essential part of land management and he cares deeply for the natural world and the importance of woodland and scrub as habitat. There is a bit of data about to land, based on research carried out by GunsOnPegs, which shows that very few shoots are actually run for profit — in other words, if estates decided to tin their shoots, it wouldn’t, in theory, make any material difference. Except…

We’re feeling the heat Yesterday (19 July), the news reported that Britain had just experienced its first 40°C day for 350 years. I am fortunate enough to work from home and have managed to avoid unpleasant exposure to the sweltering heat and, worse still, stuffy commutes. While I’m sure many of your readers were comfortable in air-conditioned offices, my thoughts go out to those who work in the countryside. A roofer friend of mine has been starting work at 4am and finishing before midday in an effort to avoid the heat. I would be interested to know if gamekeepers have managed to do likewise and, if not, how they managed to conduct their duties in such stifling conditions? I wonder if, when we are enjoying time on the peg in…

Tree planting is very much in vogue. Everyone, it seems, wants to plant trees. Many are doing it for selfless, altruistic reasons, others to improve their shoots and add variety to their farms. And some, it must be said, are buying ground and planting trees with the sole intention of making money from selling the woodland carbon credits to businesses that are aiming to be carbon neutral. I am certainly in favour of the planting of more trees, but they need to be the right sort of trees and to be planted in the right places. The last thing we need is a further loss of biodiversity caused by something that is supposed to be storing carbon and doing the exact opposite. But I do wonder if people have taken…

Mud squelches out from beneath my companion’s boot every time it connects with the boggy ground below. Stalker Anthony White is well over 6ft tall and has a shoe size to match. He walks on ahead of me, untroubled by the noise or the giant footprints he’s leaving in his wake. I decide to take advantage of the ground he has compressed: my ‘little cat paws’ fit easily into the impressions he has made. There’s no noise as I move forwards, and my footwear remains free of the grey clay that is clinging to Anthony’s boots as though it wants to drag him down into the earth. My thoughts are jerked back to the present as Anthony stops at the edge of a large meadow. He’s spotted a roe doe…

On sight alone, telling a chiffchaff from a willow warbler is a challenge. The plumage of the two birds is almost identical, but while the chiffchaff has dark legs, those of the willow warbler are pale, and the latter also has noticeably longer wings. Thanks to many years of practice, I reckon I’m pretty good at recognising which is which. I used to think I was reasonably sharp when it came to naming dog breeds, too. Norfolk terrier or Norwich terrier? Easy. Though they’re the same size and similar in appearance, the former has drop ears, while those of the latter are erect. English springer or Welsh springer? Equally simple. The Welsh dog is slightly smaller and always red and white, never black and white or liver and white. Simple…

GROUSE Grouse counts are looking good and many estates will have plenty of shooting available. Driven grouse may be one for the bucket list, but a day of walked-up sport can be found for a very reasonable price. Ring round now and you may well find yourself a deal. BIRDS Ensure birds stay hydrated. Dr Kenny Nutting of St David’s Gamebird Services told Shooting Times: “When birds overheat, they stop eating but still drink, sit down and put their wings out away from their bodies and pant as they try to lose heat. To help with dehydration, and the resulting imbalance in electrolytes, we would recommend that you give an electrolyte and energy supplement via their water.”…

Shoots need to be careful about overconfidence in the supply chain, as demand for game begins to outstrip anticipated supply. I noted before that some dealers are starting to offer to pay for shot game, but others have responded by weakening last summer’s commitment to sourcing non-lead only. Given the uproar caused by the game dealers’ 2021 lead-free announcement, and the panic in some quarters over a lack of demand for game in 2017, it is surprising that we are starting to hear people saying that “shoots have always managed to get rid of their game”. The factors that caused the lead-free announcement have not gone away; in fact, more outlets are tightening their sourcing requirements to demand lead-free and BGA assured. The need to modernise game shooting as a…

With the species we have here at Euston, we can stalk deer all year round. But, in each season, there are certain highlights — calving time, for example, when even the most hardened individual can’t help but have their heart melted by the sight of a female deer with her young as they spring around when out and about for the first time. The other obvious highlight is each species’ rut, and from the middle of July to the middle of August it’s the turn of the roe. Perhaps controversially, I don’t get as excited by roe as other stalkers. They are pretty and the buck’s antlers can be some of the most interesting in the deer world, depending on how they grow, but I’d much rather be trying to…

Zeiss DTI 3/35 Combining a high-resolution HD LCOS display, a well-balanced, ergonomic design and 0.5x zoom, the DTI 3/35 is the perfect tool for stalking in challenging conditions. It’s fully integrated within the Zeiss Hunting App, meaning you can download, livestream and share your videos and images. zeiss.co.uk Leica Calonox View The Leica’s 2.5x basic optical magnification provides a large field of view, ideal for observations in the immediate vicinity. Using digital zoom up to 10x magnification — in combination with a 1280x960 pixel LCOS display and Leica’s own image processing — quarry is easily identified. uk.leica-camera.com InfiRay Finder FH35R LRF The FH35R LRF pairs a 640x512 12-micron sensor with an integrated laser rangefinder. With the cold hue setting users enjoy visually clearer images with rich details and highlight targets;…

While these pages don’t reflect it, it’s been a busy month for our measuring team. I attended the fantastic Malmo Guns charity stalkers’ evening in Lancashire, measuring some lovely heads and meeting some great people. Our British Deer Society team also had a fantastic showing at the GWCT Scottish Game Fair. I’m still waiting for the data from this show at Scone Palace, but I gather some 55 heads were measured, with some beauties among them. Somewhat outside of the medal heads I usually include for mention, I have to draw attention to one of P Abbot’s muntjac that he brought to the evening in Lancashire. While measuring a little shy of a bronze medal — though another he brought took bronze — the fascinating thing about it was the…

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, professional ferreter and rabbit controller IAIN WATSON Keen stalker and senior CIC international…

THOUGHTS FROM THE FIELD A location amid a jumble of local access lanes and a summer of endless rain. Not the best of combinations for the organisers of the first Game Fair. Held at Hall Farm, Stetchworth, Suffolk, in 1958, the new event was the brainchild of Nigel Gray of what is now the GWCT. Gray, along with his boss Charles Coles and the CLA, expected an audience of 500. As the gates opened, it didn’t take long for the organisers to realise they may have underestimated the attraction of this fledgling event. By the end of the final day, 8,500 visitors had enjoyed the array of gundog trials, falconry displays, gunmakers and of all things rural. Some 64 years later and the Game Fair — this year’s takes place…

After a period recuperating from its latest courtroom defeats, Wild Justice has launched a new attack on shooting. The campaign group has set up a petition calling for a shortened season for woodcock shooting. In the petition’s blurb, Wild Justice said it wanted “the opening of the woodcock shooting season to be pushed back to 1 December”. However, few in the shooting community were convinced that this was the group’s real goal. Keen woodcock Shot Ricky Fairclough said: “There is no way that what they want is a shortened season; everyone knows that they want all forms of shooting banned. This is just another bit of their plan to chip away at shooting.” Over the past few years, the GWCT has advised restraint on shooting woodcock before 1 December to…

Chef James Martin’s passion for shooting Celebrity chef James Martin has spoken about his love of shooting. In an interview with Entertainment Daily, he said: “I enjoy pheasant and partridge shooting, but mostly I love picking-up with Cooper. The Guns always look a bit surprised when they see me at lunchtime. At the end of the day, I always take 60 or 70 brace straight back to my restaurants.” Mr Martin will be at the Game Fair at Ragley Hall this weekend (29-31 July) if you need any cooking or gundog training tips. Thieves snatch pheasant pellets Thieves have grabbed a tonne of pelleted pheasant feed from an Oxfordshire farm. Thames Valley Police believe that at some point between 10 and 15 July, thieves cut the padlock on the shipping…

The river Findhorn is one of those enchanting places that grip you as soon as you arrive. The deep gorge it sits in for much of its course shuts it away from the rest of the world; when you’re on the river, nothing else matters. The river runs through hard rock formations that create some narrow, fast sections and the pools are generally quite short, only 10 to 15 casts in low water, meaning every cast must be made to count. I have now been fishing for salmon for a decade and for all of that time, the species has eluded me. I’ve had some takes and lost a few, but never had one in the net. The opportunity of three days fishing on the Findhorn was extraordinarily exciting, though…

We’ve been told by the UK Climate Change Committee that we have to plant 1.5 billion trees by 2050 if we’re going to meet the Government’s net zero greenhouse gas emissions target. Well, I’ve made a start. In fact, I have personally delivered 0.0001% of the national tree-planting target by turning over a couple of arable acres to new woodland and putting in 1,500 young trees — a mixture of oak, hornbeam, field maple, hazel, spindle and a range of other native species. The chap from the Woodland Trust came round and produced a planting plan, the young trees arrived along with bundles of spiral rabbit guards, tree tubes and stakes. It took us a week or so to plant them and now, three years later, the trees are doing…

Gundogs GO TO CRUFTS ON gundog day and you have the opportunity to see every one of the 38 breeds of gundog that are recognised by the Kennel Club. All will be beautifully groomed and — in theory, at least — great examples of their respective breeds. However, though they may be called gundogs, only a minute percentage will have been trained to the gun, let alone worked at what they were originally bred for. Fire a gun in the ring and I’m sure the majority would bolt back to their benches. In contrast, the majority of the dogs in the Sporting Pavilion at this week’s Game Fair are likely to be proper workers and their owners will be happy to chat to you about their animals, what they are…

Trout All my life I have been a huge fan of fishing. I will never forget being seven years old and landing a 3lb trout on my bubble float rig. We didn’t fly-fish back then — my father didn’t know how to — and the easiest way for my brother and me was to float-fish for them using maggots or freshly dug-up worms from the garden. Five years ago, I eventually got around to fly-fishing. I always thought it was going to be a complicated thing to do, and in some ways it is. It certainly isn’t as simple as float-fishing, but it opened up a whole new world of angling. From learning lots about larvae, nymphs, dry-flies and lures, to stalking fish in chalkstream waters and floating lines, there…

EVERY STALKER WILL INSTANTLY recognise Sir Edwin Henry Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen – a Royal stag painted against a turbulent sky. Painted in 1851, it has become Landseer’s most famous work and has been reprinted countless times. After the Palace of Westminster was destroyed by fire in 1834, Landseer was commissioned to paint three panels to be displayed in the new building – one of those was Monarch of the Glen. Queen Victoria’s favourite artist – she knighted him in 1850 – Landseer had prodigious talent. His first painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy when he was around 12 years old. He was born in London in 1802 and began to travel to Scotland annually from 1824, often combining sketching trips with hunting outings. What is less well…

A bad worker blames his tools. A bad fisher or shooter blames the weather. It is said that the British speak about the weather so often because we have so much of it. Our weather is famously variable compared with the more stable conditions experienced by continental countries. Yet, when you look at the climate records, it is also less extreme. Wildfowlers and duck shooters — yes, there is a distinction — relish really wild, windy conditions. This is partly because the birds fly lower and therefore are more likely to be within range. But there is also an aesthetic quality; wildfowling in a gale seems appropriate somehow. Pheasant shooting, on the other hand, seems better suited to calm, frosty conditions, or even snow. It is astonishing to think that…