Innholdsfortegnelse for 14-Sep-2022 i Shooting Times & Country

As I drove through Carmarthenshire, it started to strike me as being a little odd that there were no signs for the Welsh Game Fair. I double-checked the postcode and concluded I was heading in the right direction. “Perhaps it’s just a bit smaller than the Game Fair at Ragley,” I reasoned as fields of sheep passed by my window. When I arrived, or at least when my satnav told me I had, it seemed pretty clear that something was wrong. A quick Google search confirmed that things were very wrong indeed. I was at the former site of the Game Fair in Wales — three and a half hours away from its new location in Bangor. I had just 25 minutes until I was due to be on stage…

It’s that time of year when the new batch of gamekeeping students across the country are about to start their courses. It is also the time of year when last year’s graduates have hopefully got their foot in the door within the industry — and for those who wish to pursue deer, this often comes in the form of a seasonal gillie’s role. By now, the new gillies will be settled into their bothies on estates across the Highlands, they should be acquainted with their quadrupedal co-workers and have maybe even had a couple of guests out. It’s an exciting time for a young gillie, in a new place and with new responsibilities, all while staring down the barrel of a future career with all the fresh optimism and hope…

Soldier Palmer Shooting Times has challenged me to attempt a number of different Macnabs over the years. From the classic stag, salmon and grouse to many other less formal versions, I’ve ended up trying a wide variety of different Macnabs, from the madly optimistic to the downright silly. I must confess that in all this time, I haven’t succeeded in a single one. There have been times when I’ve come close, and with two pieces of the puzzle ‘in the bag’, I’ve fumbled at the final and third chance of success. There have equally been times when I have failed to achieve even the first step, and my attempt has been abandoned. Perhaps I failed too often, which is why Shooting Times no longer invites me to try these challenges.…

The experts THE ULTIMATE SHOOTING QUIZ TEAM Contact the team Email: ollie.harvey@futurenet.com Post: Shooting Times, Future, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR Affordable rifle for foxing FOXING I’m looking to buy my first centrefire foxing rifle and thinking about a .222. Do you have any suggestions for a particular rifle? I just want a standard bolt-action hunting rifle. Firstly, might I suggest perhaps going for a .223? You will find the ballistics are much the same, but you will also have a better choice in terms of rifles and ammunition, with .223 being more common these days. As far as choosing a modern rifle goes, these days pretty much all new factory rifles shoot accurately enough for foxing at sensible ranges, but if you’re buying a second-hand model, then…

DOG Before spaniels flushed partridges over stationary Guns or lines of beaters flapped flags across grouse moors, parties with guns and pointers pursued partridges in the countryside. Relatively few shoots offer this experience now, but for traditional, selective, sustainable and exciting sport, it is hard to beat. CROPS If your cover crops have failed, you may be just in time to sow a ‘rescue mix’. A number of seed suppliers offer a special blend to fill in cover crops that have not delivered. Talk to your supplier now if your crops have not come through and they may be able to help you recover your cover.…

Catalan boar hunters on strike Boar hunters in Catalonia are going on strike over regulations that they say will make it impossible to hunt without breaking the law. Hunters are vital to preventing agricultural and forestry damage caused by the region’s estimated 250,000 boar. But new requirements to provide GPS coordinates in advance of a hunt, they protest, are impossible to meet. Pointer finds cocker missing for a week An HPR has been hailed as a hero after finding a springer spaniel trapped in a peat bog. Meg, who belongs to a local farming and gamekeeping family, went missing on Saddleworth Moor on 28 August. Teams of volunteers and even a mountain rescue team failed to find any trace of her. That changed three days later when wire-haired vizsla, Dash,…

LETTER OF THE WEEK Is a DSC course worth the money? I enjoy reading Shooting Times from front to back and one article stood out (‘New consultation on deer management launched’, News, 17 August). There appears to be a great emphasis on everyone stalking and controlling deer numbers (professionally or recreationally) to have a certificate before doing so. This, to me, is one big money-making ploy for the organisers. There are some of us who have stalked for many years — myself over 25 years — successfully. I recall being asked by a professional stalker in Sutherland, where I have stalked, accompanied and unaccompanied, if I had Deer Stalking Certificate (DSC) Level 1. I replied: “No.” He asked why and I said I had other things that I could spend…

Stanley Duncan, who penned the original Jottings for Wildfowlers in the pages of Shooting Times during the 1930s, was a giant in the world of wildfowling. From accounts by those who met him, as well as grainy images of Old Man Duncan on the foreshore, surrounded by weaponry worthy of an army and enough wildfowl to fill a small zoo, we can gather that his physical stature was less than average, but what Stanley Duncan lacked in stature he more than made up for with his powers of foresight and resolve. Perhaps the nature of wildfowling, with hours spent crouching in a muddy channel watching tiny black dots on distant horizons, encourages a more philosophical view of the sport and its issues, compared with the fast pace of driven shooting.…

Most of us will have heard of a Macnab, spawned from John Buchan’s 1925 novel, where three friends set out on the ultimate sporting challenge to unlock the doldrums of life by poaching a salmon or stag from three forewarned estates over the course of 48 hours. The modern version of the challenge is a little different, entailing stalking a stag, catching a salmon and shooting a brace of grouse between dawn and dusk of one day with, of course, the permission of the estate. Sadly, I do not have enough pennies to rub together to grant me such an adventure, but have been lucky enough to be treated to the Dumfries and Galloway version by a good friend many years ago. This started successfully with an early morning roebuck,…

My profession takes me everywhere during the shooting season. Whether I’m instructing in the field, controlling pigeon numbers or enjoying a driven day, I certainly put the miles in. With the grouse season going fairly well, I’ve been making regular trips to the north, all while fitting guns and teaching in between. However, my hectic schedule means I haven’t had too many opportunities to get out on the pigeons. That being said, I will try to get out as and when I can. With the harvest being so incredibly early this year, I managed to get the bulk of important outings done. I recently returned from two good days on the grouse and was keen to get back out on the woodies. As luck would have it, a local sheep…

Gundogs TOWARDS THE END OF last month, I visited a local lake to see how the broods of mallard and gadwall had fared during the summer. It came as a shock, but not a surprise, to find that the lake had dried up. There wasn’t a duck to be seen, just a pair of grey wagtails foraging around a damp puddle. It was a reminder of what an astonishingly dry year it has been for much of the country. I’ve recorded just 169mm of rain so far this year — the intense storms that have hit many areas have missed us completely. Dried-up lakes, desiccated ponds and rivers reduced to a trickle will all have their impact on shooting. Here in eastern England, many farm ponds have dried up completely,…

Stalking dogs It was late afternoon one day when the phone rang. Eddy, a hunting buddy of mine, needed some help. He’d been out with a few friends, trying to fulfil their imposed quota of roe deer, but they’d lost track of an injured animal and wanted me to trace it. It later turned out that it was the shooter’s first ever roe deer. Eddy and I have hunted together in the Ardennes for years, so of course, I agreed. “I’ll get ready and leave immediately,” I said before hanging up. The truth was I was delighted to go, but my euphoria didn’t last long. A voice from elsewhere in the house brought me back down to earth with a bump: “And just how are you going to do that…

I turned down the volume of my car radio the other day. I had to because a man called Martin Lewis was shrieking about energy prices. I don’t doubt that many people are facing uncomfortable choices this winter. I am certainly not making light of the issue. But have we become so infantilised by the state’s control of our lives that we are no longer capable of looking after ourselves? Surely, this is a time when the benefits of community and individual self-sufficiency should come to the fore. We are told some people will be facing a dismal choice of heating or eating. Yet haven’t the Greens and the Lib Dems been campaigning to increase taxes on fossil fuels? Why aren’t they crowing about the situation? Isn’t this what they…

The Hunt Saboteurs Association has expressed its support for a team of convicted criminals who are facing suspended sentences after terrifying a 15-year-old girl (News, 10 August). The gang, who describe themselves as ‘the Stockport Monitors’, have become notorious for their threatening behaviour. Paul Allman, Cameron Allman, Charley Waring and Reuben Waterhouse were given 100 hours’ unpaid work to complete, while Matthew Slater was given a three-month tagged curfew, owing to poor health. They were also sentenced to suspended terms in prison for the episode, which left its young victim “terrified”. Polly Portwin, of the Countryside Alliance, said: “While small in numbers, hunt saboteurs can be incredibly violent individuals that are a danger to law-abiding citizens. Often disguised in balaclavas, they terrorise the countryside and are driven purely by a…

We have lived on the North Norfolk coast for as long as I can remember. I recall the most wonderful childhood of summers in bare feet, boating and fishing, whitebait netting and constantly being nagged to put shoes on. The house was a cottage with ramshackle sheds and a beautiful barn on the edge of the world, protected by an earthen sea wall, beyond which lay thousands of acres of salt marsh, tidal creeks, sand and freedom. Winters, which then seemed to start a little earlier, were equally marvellous and from the age of about eight I started with walking-up redshank with a single-barrelled .410 until told to either stop shooting them or eat every one. I stopped. My first goose was at morning flight, with my father on the…

At the time of writing we are easing nicely into September and, although the days are still quite warm, there is a chill in the air in the mornings and evenings that heralds the approach of autumn. Our reared pheasants are later than we would have liked in a normal year, but the weather has been kind so far and they are doing all right — I say, reaching out for the nearest wooden object. One of the benefits of the later birds is that the harvest is all complete and the young birds aren’t pushing out into the standing crops to sleep, or jumping on to a tramline in the wheat only to come out at the other side of a 40-acre field and then stand there looking stupid…

There was a cracking picture on the cover of Shooting Times last month (10 August) of a cocker retrieving a grouse. As a photograph it was great: a narrow depth of field so only the dog’s head and grouse were in sharp focus, complemented by a blurred background of purple heather. To my eye, only one thing jarred: the spaniel was in desperate need of a haircut. It’s never been traditional to clip spaniels, but these dogs rarely needed much more than trimming of their feathers. Look at old photos of working spaniels, both cockers and springers, and I challenge you to find the sort of woolly dogs we see today. Spaniels, and cockers in particular, have become hairier. I know that some owners love the wild, untrimmed look of…

HOW DO YOU TRAIN YOUNG FERRETS? The ferrets are now growing quickly. They have gone from being soft and cuddly fur sharks, as mad as a box of frogs, to mature and adult-looking specimens. In reality, they may look like adults but they are far from it. This is a very important point to remember when thinking about getting these young ferrets working. If started too early, a large percentage could pick up some bad habits that it might be difficult to recover from. Working a mentally immature animal may show results in the short term, but I always look at the bigger picture. Young ferrets are just that, young. When working a warren they just want to frolic about, dart from hole to hole and play hide-and-seek when you…

Have you tried a crying tiger salad? It’s basically a marinated beef steak, cooked rare, served with some chopped crunchy salad and with a dipping sauce that is knock-your-socks-off hot. That’s where the crying tiger comes in, the idea being that the sauce has enough hot chilli in it to make even a tiger weep. But who can tell exactly how much chilli that is likely to require? “Crying tiger sauce combines fish sauce, chilli, sugar, more chilli and lime juice” It breaks a hitherto hard-and-fast rule of mine: only ever use fish sauce very sparingly. This recipe throws that rule out of the window. The incredibly rich and very potent fermented fish sauce is one of those things, a very powerful flavour, yet in this instance, rather than being…