Innholdsfortegnelse for 12-Apr-2023 i Shooting Times & Country

New research from Direct Line Pet insurance reveals the scale of dog thefts in the UK, with 2,160 cases being reported in 2022. The actual number of dogs taken could be higher, with some experts pointing out that only one incident is raised whenever dogs are stolen, no matter how many are stolen at the time, so two dogs stolen together would still only count as one crime. Although the number is shocking, it represents a decrease on the previous year of 22%. American bulldogs were the most stolen breed in 2022, with the number more than quadrupling compared to the year before. Staffordshire bull terriers and French bulldogs were also popular targets for dognappers. Madeline Pike, veterinary nurse for Direct Line Pet Insurance, commented: “Taking precautions such as not…

Muntjac stalk As dawn breaks, a lapwing starts its undulating courtship call, trying to summon a mate across the Breckland soil. The tops of the trees rustle violently. The wind chills me to the bone; the warmth of my bed is but a distant memory. I am here to do a job; protect the emerging flora in our woodlands by culling muntjac. Given the weather, I am not hopeful. The end of March can deceive the optimist. It offers the most delightful of days as hawthorn leaves unfurl in the brightest green, blackthorn hedges burst into clouds of downy blossom and brimstone butterflies flutter around bramble patches, flaunting themselves in the first rays of warmth. Then a north wind blows, the hailstones clatter and February fill-dyke returns for an unexpected…

Most readers will be aware that I almost always have a dog with me when I am stalking, and have operated like this for many years. I am working Zosia, a German shorthaired pointer, and she will be a fixture at my side when I am out. The only occasion she won’t be with me is more to do with the logistics of travelling or the accommodation situation and nothing to do with her ability to do the job. I don’t follow the normal convention you might expect with a stalking hound by having her at heel. I like her to operate out in front where she gets a wider scent picture and I can see her reaction the moment she smells deer. In effect, she is a mobile early-warning…

Fifty years ago, there was no serious discussion about what makes the best rifle stock. There was standard wood for standard-quality rifles and fancy wood for fancy rifles. That’s all changed of course, and today’s rifle shooter can benefit from a much wider choice of materials, from a classic wooden stock through a range of laminates to injection-moulded thermoplastics and even epoxy-bound composite stocks. All have their advantages and disadvantages, but before considering these, it’s worth thinking about exactly what a rifle stock has to do. Primarily, it provides a means of bringing the barrel and action to eye level and supporting it firmly, comfortably and securely in order that the rifle may be sighted at a target. Secondly, it provides a means of transferring and distributing the recoil comfortably…

OUR VERDICT The Mauser M12 range of bolt-action rifles is a perfect example of a company moving with the times in terms of new innovations and technology, while insisting on old-world build quality. Mauser has always been a trusted and respected brand and this new M12 Max thumbhole laminate-stocked rifle wants for nothing, combining great accuracy, handling and ruggedness for a very practical stalking firearm. Retailing at £2,952, it offers a good choice of calibres, from .243 Win, .270 Win, .308 Win (on test), .30-06 Spring, 6,5x55 SE, 7x57, 7x64, 8x57 IS, 9,3x62, 7mm Rem Mag to .300 Win Mag. Better still is an enviable ultra-smooth and reliable low bolt-lift operating mechanism so you can concentrate on the stalking rather than worrying about the rifle. The safety system incorporates a…

Were there ‘dietary requirements’ in the 1970s? They didn’t exist at school. If the overcooked liver dolloped on your plate wasn’t to your liking, off it went into the pigswill bucket and you went hungry. And I’m certain my parents hadn’t heard of them either. Their friends came round for dinner and there wasn’t a veggie, vegan or pescatarian among them. That perhaps explains why game, particularly woodpigeon, fetched such extraordinary prices. I remember a 1975 classified ad in Shooting Times offering 75p a bird when you could trot down to the local pub and buy a pint for 28p. Imagine if that held true today: you deliver 10 pigeons to the gamedealer and come home with enough kitty for 30 pints of London Pride. Instead, the going rate is…

Remembering the experience that ignited a lifelong passion for stalking There was a time when pigeon shooting was my life. I couldn’t wait for the weekend: the precise and meticulous routine of packing camouflage nets, decoys and slabs of cartridges was nearly therapeutic. Later, through a series of unrelated events, I managed to join a pheasant syndicate. I remember the first time I was invited for a stalk one November morning. The excitement was unbearable — I didn’t get a wink of sleep the night before. I was only shadowing a friend from the syndicate for the morning, but it was enough to change the trajectory of my life. Afterwards, I started watching and reading everything about roe stalking. I had finished my Territorial Army service and I was missing…

NEWS On 27 March, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) launched a 12-week consultation on proposals to introduce a licensing system for the release of pheasants and red-legged partridge in Wales. If the proposals are implemented, gamebird releasing will be restricted and only allowed under licence. BASC describes this as “giving an anti-shooting Welsh government the power to shut down game shooting in Wales” and has launched a campaign, called Act Now, to encourage interested parties from across the shooting community to respond. One of the key messages is that you don’t need to be Welsh to have a voice, as the consultation is open to anyone. The consultation will close on 20 June, and NRW is expected to want to implement licensing before the start of the 2024/25 season. NRW says…

A 56-year-old man has been arrested after a red kite was shot on the Lochindorb Estate. Lochindorb is a freshwater loch in the east Highlands of Scotland, located directly south of Forres and Nairn and to the north of Grantown-on-Spey and Aviemore. The loch is a significant feature of the Dava Moor; it is a fairly desolate, windswept landscape with few trees. The award-winning estate is a prolific one, reported in 2014 to have produced consistently good bags, with a five-year average of 916 brace and around 1,200 brace shot that year, with 165 brace on the best day. On Monday, 27 March, members of the public reported seeing a red kite shot at around 11.15am on the grouse moor. The Scottish SPCA attended the scene along with Police Scotland…

My first deer — in fact my first three — that cold and misty morning, fell to a 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer — not everybody’s idea of a perfect deerstalking cartridge. Today, every rifle shooter has his favourite super-cartridge. Modern, synthetic and stainless-steel options deliver Olympic gold-winning accuracy in the field, yet there is a charm in the old cartridges and the rifles for which they were chambered a century ago. My first African antelopes were taken in Botswana with a 1920s 8x57. Since then, I have made a habit of hunting around the world using old-fashioned and out-of-favour cartridges in old rifles, whenever I get the chance. I have shot turkey in Texas with a .22 Savage Hi Power double rifle by Watson Bros and buffalo in Tanzania with a .577…

Sika stalk Season’s end draws close so it’s a time to knuckle down to hit those cull targets and top up the freezer. But here are also other priorities, such as an overdue catch-up with a hunting buddy and no better way to catch up than a trip to the hill. My good friend and former Special Forces brother Mick Craven is back from an extended stint of working abroad and we are set for a day hunting sika on the mountain. Mick and I have hunted together a lot and whether it’s Norway for reindeer, reds out west or sika closer to home, we always have a blast. We’ve also trained and worked together so we know how to operate effectively as a team. School drop-off complete, gear loaded…

Upland management For this sporting tour, I was invited to join my fellow Shooting Times contributor Lindsay Waddell in County Durham. The uplands hold a special place in my heart; a place where I feel most at peace. The wildlife they hold and the rarity of the habitat makes them one of our island’s treasures, as well as the habitat that is perhaps least understood. I met Lindsay near one of the sites where he manages about 250 acres of first-class upland habitat. Lindsay is a lifelong gamekeeper and has served as the chairman of the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation, but he now spends his time supporting the Philip Wayre Upland Trust, which strives to protect and restore endangered upland wildlife. After weeks of house renovation, I was desperate to get…

Will Pocklington speaks to some of our leading shooting instructors Deerstalking has surged in popularity over the past decade, but has this translated to a greater demand for rifle shooting instruction? Paul Hill has seen a lot of change in the sector since accounting for his first deer 35 years ago. You might assume that he has a natural inclination to teach, too, given that he was once a goose guide on the Wash, but an underlying passion for deer is just as likely to have led Paul to where he is today. It makes him just the person to answer my question. In 2008, Paul set up Corinium Rifle Range on the Gloucestershire-Wiltshire border. By this time, what was a hobby had evolved into work and he’d been managing…

VINTAGE TIMES CELEBRATING OUR BEST WRITERS Alight westerly breeze had the daffodils swaying gently. Towering cumulus clouds brought a hint of rain and an alternate mixture of sun and shade. It would be a cool, mean wind at 2,000ft, but down in the sheltered valley of a little tree-lined Yorkshire beck it would be comparatively tranquil. The water would be running strong but with the remarkable clarity that only comes after the continued floods of winter have scoured the stones and cleared away the last remnants of rotting autumnal debris. The trout would be lean but hungry and would be on the lookout for any hatch of fly that might come their way. The aquatic insects would be eagerly awaiting those conditions of water temperature and atmospheric humidity to induce…

NEWS The Government has ended an exemption in the Firearms Act 1968 that allowed shooting gallery operators to possess guns without a firearms certificate (FAC). In the past, fairground galleries have been allowed to operate without an FAC thanks to a loophole that has also benefited many other small rifle ranges at schools and colleges. The Firearms Bill, which has passed all its House of Commons stages and is now with the Lords, will require those who run miniature ranges using .22 rimfire rifles to hold an FAC and be subject to the same checks as all other shooters. Range operators will also now be obliged to provide secure storage for rifles and ammunition. Speaking at the committee stage of the bill, Jonathan Djanogly MP, chairman of the British Shooting…

Deer management I have a ritual when I read Shooting Times. I bypass the editorial and news pages, leaving them for later attention. When I remove the wrapper, I leaf straight to the letters pages, which provide me with an insight into the world outside my parochial Suffolk. Truths that I believed sacrosanct are questioned and challenged within the correspondence. These two pages open a window to a wider world, highlighting that while we may be a small island, we are a notably diverse one when it comes to wildlife. John Gough’s well-written letter on the topic of muntjac in the 29 March issue was a prime example of regional variance. Mr Gough’s experience and feelings towards muntjac seemed alien to my own. He clearly likes the butty little creatures,…

There is nothing to compare with practice in the field when preparing for a Deer Stalking Certificate level two assessment, and so I willingly agreed to guide a fellow stalker getting ready for his. In preparation, we spent an afternoon checking zero on his rifle. In the predawn of the next morning, we set off. Crossing some open fields, we began to make our way quietly along a tussocky grass margin, head-to-wind. A long belt of broadleaved woodland lay ahead, running gently downhill and ending abruptly at a wildflower meadow. Beyond this was a valley, thick with ferns, stands of willow and rough areas of scrub. The wood, a pheasant drive during the season, had a long maize cover running its length, flattened now, but there remained hoppers for the…

100 years of keepering WISDOM AND TRADITIONS GATHERED OVER A LIFE AT THE COAL FACE, THIS WEEK WITH DAVID WHITBY Born out of necessity, turned into recreation and now often a business, how would we classify game shooting? It no longer harvests wild produce, nor is it essential to feed us; quite the opposite, it holds precious little value as a food source. It is not a sport, per se, when the definition of such is “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment”. Though we may pursue game, it is certainly not a game — it is far more serious than that. What we have done is placed game shooting under the umbrella of ‘fieldsports’. The definition…

I thought we might take a bit of a tour around my gun cabinet. Not perhaps the full firearms enquiry procedural, but a look at the front row, if you like. The first gun I possessed — rather than owned — was a double-barrelled hammer underlever .410 by Alexander Henry, lent to me by a local farmer to pester his rabbits with. Actually, it wasn’t a .410 but a .450/.400 big game rifle, as I discovered when I snapped a brand new .410 cleaning rod half way down its rifled damascus tube the first time I set about cleaning it. I don’t suppose any .410 shot ever made it to the muzzles given all those twists, but that probably made it a safer proposition for a boy scarcely in his…

THOUGHTS FROM THE FIELD Look into the base of hedgerows and you will spy the vibrant, and tasty, signs of spring. The leaves of cowslip add a mild lemony taste to salads and violet flowers flavour cordials with their unique, slightly musky sweetness. Broom, however, is a now somewhat forgotten country delicacy. The flowers, like many plants found in the English countryside, were used to make a rustic wine. A Suffolk speciality was to pickle the buds of broom — or brum as it is known here. Dried, then mixed with vinegar, salt and mustard, the mixture was left to cure until winter. A powerful diuretic is found within the bright yellow buds, which made this a popular Boxing Day hangover cure. Aficionados advocate sprinkling pickled brum over a slice…