Innholdsfortegnelse for 24-May-2023 i Shooting Times & Country

Thanks to their sleek design and rugged build, Sako rifles have become a firm favourite with British shooters, so news of a brand new range of rifles has been welcomed here at Shooting Times. The Sako 90 range is out now and available in a dealer near you. Prices range from £2,450 for the Hunter, a basic wooden model, up to £4,395 for the high-end Quest, which features a carbon stock with enhanced ergonomic adjustment. Karl Waktare, head of distributors GMK, told Shooting Times: “The 90 has been a long time in the making, but Sako will not release anything with their name on it until it is 100%. The 85 set the benchmark for premium bolt-action rifles and this is more than a worthy replacement. Sako has modernised certain…

LETTER OF THE WEEK There are no short cuts to public support The Sharpshooter article in the 10 May edition of ST, comparing the reaction of some conservationists to the traditional hunting culture of native people to that of game shooters in the UK, was thought-provoking. However, my conclusion is different to that of Alasdair Mitchell’s. I have always thought that those of us who shoot or fish should, to coin a phrase, self-identify as traditional, native hunters. This becomes more meaningful if it is linked to any conservation efforts. Naturally this will greatly irritate the usual antis, but this reaction should be used to sharpen our passion to conserve hunting and fishing. I lived in Germany for a while and came to appreciate their jaeger philosophy. To become a…

All wildlife benefits from….” My heart sinks every time I hear those words, because they are invariably wrong. They are usually followed with the word gamekeeping, or shooting, and whichever is chosen the resulting sweeping statement reveals a degree of fundamental ignorance about the impact of game management that our opponents see straight through. Even taken at its simplest, this concept is clearly untrue. No gamekeeper worth his or her salt will be failing to do their best to control the local populations of common predators like foxes, crows and magpies. These three are native wildlife species, and being killed to protect game is hardly beneficial to them. But, beneath this obvious simplicity there is a much more subtle picture, in which game management produces both negatives and positives in…

I was out with the dog the other day, and as we turned from Big Field to Pond Meadow — this part of the world is not famous for the creativity applied to the naming of its acres — I saw a couple of young rabbits run into the hedge. It occurred to me that the sight was no longer commonplace. The dog was confused too. He knows all about squirrels, pigeons and pheasants, but I don’t think he’s ever seen a rabbit before, and he’s three years old. Rabbits are no longer common in the wild. The rabbit has always had something of a PR problem. It started out as a food source, and, as a food source, its ability to breed like the proverbial rabbit was generally seen…

Ferreting I don’t have to look at the calendar to know what time of year it is — my ferrets tell me. This month, I’m reminded it’s late spring because there’s incessant scratching; all of my ferrets have been segregated. Keen to mingle, the inhabitants of my cages also emit a potent cocktail of musty aromas and high-octane hormones. This year, I have decided to breed a couple of litters. I am keen to expand my team. I am also keen to supply a few of my friends with some fresh stock for the forthcoming winter’s work. Exchanging ferrets is one of the great joys of this game and used to be very common among schoolboys. The miles are clocking up now that the shows are in full swing. These…

100 years of keepering Our four-legged friends have been with us a long time, and it’s a pretty good guess that they have been used to help us acquire food for longer than we know — and we know they’ve been used for hunting for thousands of years. Like everything else though, the speed of change has accelerated in recent times, and the use we now have for our dogs, or that some of us have at any rate, has also changed. Cast your eye over the typical painting from the 1800s of the hunter accompanied by his faithful dogs and the bag for the day laid around them. His faithful dogs bear little resemblance to those of today, in size, colour or shape. Indeed, the hunter himself may well…

NEWS Intensive agriculture has long been suspected of being the major cause of the catastrophic decline in bird numbers across Europe. Now, a new study, published in the journal PNAS, provides conclusive evidence that this is the case. The study looked at 170 common bird species, monitored at more than 20,000 sites in 28 European countries, over 37 years. It concluded that agricultural intensification, in particular the much increased use of pesticides and fertilisers, is the main pressure for most bird population declines, especially for those species that depend largely on insects. The study concentrates on what it terms anthropogenic changes — changes resulting from the influence of human beings on the environment. Though the study also considered urbanisation, forest cover and climate change, it found that it was agricultural…

Defra has caused some anger in the shooting community by announcing that it intends to implement EU rules on releasing gamebirds near conservation areas. The rules prohibit the release of gamebirds within 500m of a designated European Special Protection Area or a Special Area of Conservation. Without consultation, Defra has chosen 31 May this year as the implementation date, potentially throwing hundreds of shoots into turmoil as they have to reconsider their plans. The timing of the move has been questioned by BASC. Glynn Evans, BASC’s head of game and wildlife management, told ST: “BASC is challenging Defra’s decision as unlawful, and is doing everything in its power to overturn this unevidenced, disproportionate and potentially disastrous decision. There is no evidence that releasing gamebirds has had any impact on spreading…

When you see someone putting on his big boots, you can be pretty sure an adventure is about to happen.” Sage words uttered not, as you might imagine, by Sir Ranulph Fiennes or George Mallory, but Winnie the Pooh. Even if, like AA Milne’s rotund bear (and me for that matter), you find solo trekking to the pole a touch too adventurous, big boots are still of great importance to us shooting types. Our sport takes us off-piste, into the realms of knee-high heather and peat hags, marshy bog or impenetrable scrub. Wellingtons might keep your feet dry yet few, if any, provide the ankle support required for crossing truly rugged country. Meanwhile, most lace-ups are just too short; the moment you step in anything deeper than a puddle, you…

We are not talking about a clandestine romantic liaison here. Oh no, this is about hooking up online with like-minded sporting folk through the power of the internet with these incredible smartphone devices we all carry in our pockets. Back in 2021, I had spent the day fly-fishing on the River Taw in North Devon and posted a few pictures on Instagram, as I do. A chap who was following me commented on the image and asked where it was. I was of course cagey with my answer, not being too precise about the location as you just never know. He came back and wrote, “I knew it, I know exactly where that is,” and added that he’d love to come fish it with me one day when he was…

OUR VERDICT In an age when 20-bore cartridges have nearly the same load ranges and performance as a 12, it would be silly not to consider using one as your live quarry gun, be that for driven, walked-up or even pigeons. The real benefit of a 20 over a 12 is the reduction in weight, meaning less fatigue when carrying and mounting. The fringe benefit is a scaled 20-bore action, which is usually a touch more elegant than a full-sized 12-bore. With this in mind, I borrowed a Krieghoff K20 from a good instructor friend and took it for a whirl on some clays. I have shot this gun before and have seen it in use on live quarry with very fruitful consequences. As you would expect, the action is…

The humble pignut, also known as the kippernut, cipernut, arnut, jarnut, hawknut, earth chestnut, groundnut, earthnut and a dozen more names, is tiny. The largest I have seen was barely an inch in diameter, a prized monster of its clan. Still, the plant that bears it, also known as the pignut, Conopodium majus, seems to do very well to produce anything approaching that size, as it is itself tiny for a member of the carrot family, with sparse, wispy leaves. Diminutive size has not stopped people from collecting them over the centuries, as they are both nutritious and of excellent flavour. It once bore the intentionally off-putting name ‘lousy pignut’. This was evidently used by mothers to stop their children from gathering them thanks to possible confusion with the poisonous…

VINTAGE TIMES CELEBRATING OUR BEST WRITERS It was the last day but one of my fortnight in that remote deer forest to which I had come, in May, only to watch birds. I cooked and slept in the lodge at the lochhead, a roomy stone house in a clump of larch and fir trees, and for the past 10 days I had been trying to locate a nest which I had never yet seen. Even egg collectors admit that the greenshank’s nest is one of the hardest of all to find, for it is usually far out in a featureless wilderness. The hen sits exceedingly close and there are probably no more than two minutes a day between dawn and sunset when the birds change over and the watcher has…

In a controversial move, the RSPB has repeated its call from last year for a countrywide moratorium on the release of all gamebirds and mallard. The RSPB made the same call last August but was ignored by Defra. Now the RSPB is repeating its demand, this time to Defra and the devolved governments, asking them to take a precautionary approach “to limit the spread of avian influenza in wild birds and reduce the risk of viral reassortment leading to new strains of the disease”. The call was made in a blog by RSPB senior policy officer Claire Smith. The RSPB says that since 2021 there have been 10 outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in gamebird rearing premises in the UK. Dr Roger Draycott, director of advisory and education…

NEWS Fox populations have seen a drastic decline since the enactment of the Hunting Act 2004, veterinarians have warned. More than 100 vets have written an open letter to the Government, urging them to initiate a scientific review to address the issue of population control. The letter highlights the lack of research supporting arguments on the most humane methods of controlling fox numbers, despite years of intense debate. According to the vets, the fox population has declined at an alarming rate since the hunting ban was implemented. In certain rural areas, foxes are on the verge of extinction, largely due to people simply shooting them rather than hunts conserving a few. The vets argue that shooting has led to the killing of some of the fittest animals and vixens with…

I bought a black labrador puppy in 2010. Having grown up in a house full of dogs, I knew what to expect from a four-legged friend, but this was the first dog that ever truly belonged to me. She gave me endless fun for all of 13 years, and she passed away a little more than a fortnight ago. I’m still struggling to make sense of her absence. In her declining years, she faded back from the day-to-day reality of my working life. She preferred to be left at home, and she would often choose to lie in a patch of sun beneath my office window. Bit by bit, she quietly became less of an active participant, and I learned to accommodate the changes as she slowed down. Her muzzle…

Across 6 The preserve of the BASC leads to an awkward conversation (12)8 Educational series on a sporting layout (6)9 Tucking right into French fries amidst bird sounds (6)10 If the extractor component is made of carbon, legal concern will ensue (4)11 Leaving shot game dangling in the Gardens of Babylon (7)13 A lump on the barrel as seen by helicopter (7)15 The result of a gundog scurry, on the clock (4)16 The attraction of a challenge to a firearms licensing decision (6)18 Try carrying a 1lb hat (6)19 Hats off to trophy hunters (4,8) Down 1 Barrel construction from the north enters Colombo, curiously (8)2 It branches out in the centre, eventually (4)3 Sporting member of the flying squad, with bird to hand (8)4 Perugini’s gunmaking associate cuts short…

THOUGHTS FROM THE FIELD Bachelor’s buttons is a name applied to 15 different British wildflower species, depending on where you live. In Devon and Cumbria a bachelor’s button is a red campion, in Suffolk it’s stitchwort, in Hampshire the devil’s-bit scabious and in Norfolk and Lincolnshire the marsh marigold. John Clare, the 19th-century ‘labouring class poet’, mentions in his poem May that in Northamptonshire it is knapweed. The term is thought to have arisen from a 16th-century practice in which unmarried young women placed immature flower buds under their aprons, with each given the name of local young bachelors. Whichever head opened first was supposed to indicate the man the girl would marry. The denizens of Somerset add even more confusion to the conundrum, with three different plants being dubbed…