Innholdsfortegnelse for 24-Aug-2022 i Shooting Times & Country

Nearly all of the UK’s major supermarkets have now limited the sale of disposable barbecues, which have been responsible for a wave of wildfires as picnickers light them up in dry vegetation. Morrisons, Co-op, Asda and Lidl have joined Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer (M&S) in introducing a complete ban. The move was led by M&S, which said: “We’d already stopped selling disposable barbecues near national parks and in London, but given the unusually hot and dry conditions, we’ve taken the precautionary step of removing them from sale across the UK.” The news was welcomed on the moors of northern England. Tina Brough, from the North Yorkshire Moors Moorland Organisation (NYMMO), said: “Wildfires on grass or moorlands can be devastating and all too often disposable barbecues are…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Our sport must move with the times With regards to the dismay voiced by many shooters on the subject of our representative bodies embracing the voluntary ban on lead shot, I feel that many are missing the point. It seems clear to me that the furore that has erupted among the shooting community, and the reaction to this subject, vindicates those bodies in taking that stance. It is inevitable that lead will be banned. Times change and we have to move with them. Had BASC and others not taken this stance then I fear that this in itself would be portrayed as an unwillingness to adapt and would play perfectly into the hands of those who oppose shooting. Scientific evidence shows that lead is harmful. We…

As the hot weather comes to an end, the roe rut is finally here. Heather is in full bloom and bumblebees are working hard gathering sweet nectar. This magical time of year exists in a dichotomy: all that loveliness and splendour is equally matched by hordes of midges, savage flies and vampire ticks. Life is very much about balance, after all. In a bid to do my bit for the future of fieldsports, I’ve been actively introducing women to deerstalking for the past five years. It is always exciting taking a newcomer on roebucks in Northumberland. My guest for the day is Chloe. She is based in Scotland and recently completed her Level 1 Deer Stalking Certificate (DSC1). “A crack rang out. The northern king was down and out” Chloe…

I don’t tend to take many people out in a pigeon hide with me and I certainly don’t make a habit of guiding. I can’t bear to watch pigeons being missed and wising up to the people shooting below them. Although I prefer not to educate the birds on my ground, I don’t mind taking people out on their own ground and teaching them the basics of pigeon shooting. I feel this is important because it keeps the traditions and skill of pigeon shooting alive and well. Some guides do a brilliant job and are effective at managing their ground and the pigeon population. These guides know who they are and are well respected, ably assisted by top Shots to control pigeon numbers on their permissions very effectively. But there…

“They shoot everything — blackbirds, song thrushes, everything,” my informant said with the kind of conviction only an eight-year-old can muster. It must have been the mid-1980s and the farm next door had started letting out shooting. Small, scruffy farm boys in the school playground were feverish with the news that Italians were here to shoot and they were murderous rogues. We waited agog with expectation that any day now they would shoot a beater. But they never did and playground talk returned to Big Daddy’s feud with Giant Haystacks and the film Apaches. I have no reason to believe any of the allegations made were true — for all I know, the Italians were perfect gentlemen, excellent Shots and could not have been safer — but the idea that…

The sound of the tractor and binder had been creeping through my window during the morning — a purring, almost a seductive, sound. The mere noise of it urged me to be away with the gun, down beside the oat field where Farmer Jones was making his first cut of the year. However, I thought, these oats do not hold many rabbits — well, not enough to justify my leaving the daily task. So I sat on until it was time for lunch. Up at The Cart and Horses for my preprandial pint, Harry Edlin, the landlord, said: “Better get your gun down on old Jones’ bit.” But I shook my head and replied that these oats would not hold many rabbits. Instead, as soon as the meal was over,…

Email your stories / shootingtimes@futurenet.com Leading academics have hit out at an “avalanche” of misinformation over trophy hunting. The proposal to ban the import of hunting trophies to the UK has led to a spike in campaigning against the practice of travelling overseas to hunt, with campaign groups pushing a potent anti-hunting narrative. Adam Hart, professor of science communication at the University of Gloucester and a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, told Shooting Times: “The misinformation — some might term it disinformation — being put forward in the trophy hunting debate is exceptional. It is such an avalanche it is hard to combat, which I suspect is part of the strategy.” Nikolakj Bichel, of the University of Oxford Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, agreed, saying: “While you can find…

Social media debates about conservation fail to discuss the key issues, and focus on minor threats or things that present no threat to conservation at all. These are the findings of scientists who scrutinised Twitter posts to see whether users were engaging with the big challenges to species survival. The Australian and British teams used tweets about elephants to examine how conservation challenges were discussed. They found that overwhelmingly they missed the point and failed to mention the key threats. The most severe threat to wild elephants is habitat loss, with human-elephant conflict and poaching the next most important. However, the study found: “Twitter analysis revealed these major threats were infrequently discussed, with habitat loss being the most infrequently discussed.” Researchers found tourist elephant rides and trophy hunting dominated discussions,…

The roe doe is eating from the high vegetation in the ditch below the two stalkers, Palle Johansen and Steven Wade. Carefully, she selects the best morsels while slowly moving to the left. Palle quickly picks up his Viper-Flex shooting sticks while Steve prepares to make the call. The rut has been slow over the past few days, but with a doe below, it’s worth calling to see if there is also a buck to excite and entice. Steven calls a couple of times with the Buttolo. The doe looks up, but otherwise nothing happens. After a couple of fruitless attempts, they pack up and proceed further down the trail, into the barley field. Then suddenly, the buck flies. He is less than 80m away when he stops to check…

“Never mind the old gander if he comes at you,” said the farmer. “He’s a bit protective of his new goose, now that she’s on eggs.” Those words from more than 40 years ago are imprinted indelibly on my mind. I was wearing shorts and having your legs plucked by an elderly goose is surprisingly painful, I can tell you. Apparently, the old boy — the gander, that is — was about 25 years old, had been widowed by a fox some years earlier and had been bought a second wife that spring when the farmer was at market. Two and a half decades seems a remarkable age even for a domestic bird, but geese can make 10 years more than that. Even wild greylags, the species from which most…

The Volkswagen Golf needs little introduction. It has been at the forefront of hatchback sales since, well, forever, partly down to the legendary GTI. In the early 1990s, VW decided to stick a boot on it and the Golf estate was born. Some 30 years on and the latest model has been given a few extra toys that could tick some Shooting Times boxes. We’re having a play in the new Golf Alltrack TDI 4Motion, so let’s see if it can make it up all of the tracks. Sporty and rugged On first impressions, the Alltrack looks rather smart and sleek, with a hint of sporty ruggedness. Due to its size, I thought they’d sent the wrong car. However, on closer inspection, the front end is unmistakably a Golf. The…

Across 1 Those playing for keeps in the world of gun acquisition (10) 7 The head chef brings fortune to Edward while hens made noises (7) 8 One horsing around on an ATV? (5) 9 & 16 down Again, tales are rewritten about a region of England (4,6) 10 A reader is confused about how gamebirds were raised (6) 12 Historic document unfurling to reveal gun decoration (6) 13 See 11 down 17 Cunning Alf will swindle the bird of prey (6) 18 What’s below the knee of a young deer? (4) 20 Birds linger above the hospital before it’s finished (5) 21 Trashy groups of newborn puppies (7) 22 Releases a hospital patient who fires guns (10) Down 1 Does the illegal hare hunter sound cruder? (7) 2 Elk…

Thirteen more Scottish rivers will next year move to mandatory catch-and-release as the population of salmon continues to decline. Under the proposed gradings from Marine Science Scotland, seven Category 1 rivers will fall one grade to Category 2, where catch-and-release is advised, and one will fall two grades, from Category 1 to Category 3. There will be 13 new Category 3 rivers, where catch-and-release is mandatory, compared with the 2022 season. A number of rivers in Scotland’s south-west have now dropped to Category 3, including, the Water of Luce and the Water of Girvan. The region’s two largest rivers, the Nith and the Annan, were already Category 3 rivers. Ayrshire angler Danny Cannon expressed his sadness. He said: “It’s not that we can’t take a fish any more — most…

The grouse season has got off to a muted start, with some estates choosing not to shoot on the opening day and others putting on relatively small days in order to conserve stock. However, the conservation work carried out by shoots continues unabated. As Shooting Times has previously reported, grouse numbers, while much better than last year, are still relatively low this year and most estates will be limiting their shooting programme in order to rebuild numbers. Among those enjoying the opening day was beater Bruce Coyle, who spent a sunny day in the hills of Perthshire. Mr Coyle said: “The day went fine. It was hard work in the heat, but the keeper and the Guns finished up happy.” In the Peak District and the Yorkshire Dales, and on…

For wildfowlers it’s the sound of geese at dawn, for the rough shooter it’s the haunting shriek that snipe make when they rise from the reeds, but for me it’s that heavy splosh as a bar of silver leaps from the water and falls back again. I’d only been sitting on the bank for a couple of minutes when it happened and I only had to sit there for five or so minutes more, watching the river mouth, to confirm for myself that it was true — the west coast of the Hebrides was having a great salmon year. Before we arrived, our party had become increasingly enthusiastic as the June and July count zoomed upwards until the salmon figures for two months had swept past normal numbers for the…

Celebrating our best gunshops If there’s a gunshop with a longer history than Colchester’s KD Radcliffe, I’d like to know where. Owner Robert Radcliffe can trace its records to 1787, but there is good reason to believe that it dates back further. It may have been used by both Roundheads and Cavaliers in the siege of Colchester in 1648. For the majority of its existence, the shop was based close to Colchester Castle, a fortress that survives from Norman times. The castle was built on the site of a Roman temple, constructed to serve the new capital of Camulodunum. When the shop’s site was excavated in 2014, Roman jewellery was found buried along with human remains. The grave and hoard are believed to have belonged to a Roman killed in…

Right about now, wildfowlers up and down the land will be avidly checking their waders for holes, re-hitching plumb lines on decoys and throwing a few dummies about for the dog. The season is almost upon us and, while the warmer days of September and October tend to pass by in a cloud of midges, mosquito bites and fowl-free skies, we all begin to dream about the onset of winter and the arrival of the migratory ducks and geese. The only fly in this season’s ointment is the spectre of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), more commonly known as bird flu. This seemingly rampant disease has been right on my doorstep this year. My village was at the epicentre of one of the disease prevention zones. Local poultry and game…

Our greatest Shots Often referred to as the Rabbit King, Richard Lloyd-Price was not only considered to be the leading authority on rabbit shooting in Britain during the late-Victorian and Edwardian periods, but was also nominated by Baily’s Magazine as one of the 60 best game Shots in the country in 1903. Owner of the vast 64,000-acre Rhiwlas estate in Merionethshire in North Wales, he devoted much of his life to rabbit preservation, both for sporting purposes and as a means of making money through the sale of rabbits to game dealers, poulterers and butchers in northern manufacturing towns. Something of an innovative character, he pioneered sporting lets for paying Guns on his property, established a game farm, founded the first ever sheepdog trials at Garth Goch, near Bala, in…

THOUGHTS FROM THE FIELD In sheds throughout the country, mud-caked waders are being hosed off, reeking gamebags inspected, decoys counted and plumb lines replaced. The wildfowling season is almost upon us and for members of Great Yarmouth Wildfowling and Conservation Association, this means marshes ‘marked’ in late July are areas of great interest, with binoculars glued to the comings and goings of fowl. Marking is the means by which club members reserve a gutter or drain in which to welcome the opening flight of the season. The association was founded in 1955, with Shooting Times stalwart Alan Savory and Robin Harrison, a Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society warden, among the members. The club’s jewel in the crown is Breydon Water. The fowlers helped to start the process that led to…