Innholdsfortegnelse for 19-Jul-2023 i Shooting Times & Country

I don’t want to jinx it, but after a lot of toing and froing, I think I might finally have sign-off on restoring a couple of old marl pits in Norfolk. They would have been created 200 years ago, when marl was dug out and used to fertilise the fields — marl is a sticky mixture of lime and clay and it was eventually superseded by industrially produced agricultural lime. The pits where marl had once been dug inevitably filled with water and became ponds where livestock could feed. One resource turned into another, but as arable became the order of the order of the day, they were rendered obsolete. Norfolk is full of such features just waiting for somebody to come along and restore them — often they need…

Email your letters / stletters@futurenet.com LETTER OF THE WEEK Keeping the balance Some time back, hedgehogs were found to be destroying the population of whatever seabird on whatever isle and were subsequently eradicated by whatever means. Why didn’t Mr Packham and co set out their stalls and campaign for a truckload of surplus mainland badgers to be sent over to square the problem, essentially killing two birds with one stone? Consistently observing more kites and fewer buzzards and kestrels, I continue to ponder the balance — more the imbalance — I feel that we have created. Rewilding is all very well, but it has to be managed by us. The management of such a dilemma does involve the destruction of a living creature. That is a fact. I recall a…

Chris Rogers is a deer manager in East Anglia, CIC head measurer and NGO committee member At a time of plenty and the high cover that results, it is a relaxing part of the year for the deer. As discussed in last month’s diary entry, we switch on to the lower crops of sugar beet and maize to try to pick up the cull roebucks we are looking for with clients. However, one factor that affects movements can be the weather, and over the past month deer movement was hampered by a couple of weeks of high temperatures, which contributed to June being the hottest on record for the UK. With temperatures into the low 30s on some days, it was no surprise that the deer were moving late into…

July is an interesting month for deer managers. While the roe deer are active, the daylight hours are long and the deer season really kicks off in Scotland, the downsides have got to be the dense cover and swarms of biting insects. All that aside, many of you have clearly been having plenty of success, gathering by the heads coming through our doors. While there aren’t many featured this month as I still haven’t finished sorting through the raft of heads that were measured at the fantastic GWCT Scottish Game Fair, believe me, there will be some interesting heads in next month’s issue. Focusing on this month though, it’s hard not to begin with McIntosh’s platinum medal roebuck hailing from Moray. Weighing in at 815g before deductions, it is a…

It’s been a peculiar year so far; some seriously hot days have been followed by torrential downpours. It’s excellent for the crops mind, which seem to be thriving down our way. I am already seeing a lot of pigeons coming together, and with just a couple of weeks until the crops are cut I’d say we will have some excellent shooting. Event season means that, unfortunately, I tend to miss out on the best of pigeon shooting. Instead, I have to desperately try to grab a few hours here and there. There is something about pigeon shooting that is a so addictive — I think as shooting goes, it’s as good at it comes. It’s also usually very relaxed and can be relatively cheap. Farmers are usually thankful to have…

I almost cheered when I read Rose Sutcliffe’s observations (Country Diary, 28 June) about rural connectivity and the Shared Rural Network project. The latter is a scheme using matched funding from the Government to cover 95% of the UK’s landmass with multi-network mobile phone signal, regardless of actual demand. It is an unholy mix of commerce and a clumsy political pledge. “Telecoms companies have been given the power to plonk towers on private land” There have been recent changes to the regulations that underpin the Shared Rural Network. Telecoms companies have been given the power to plonk minor Blackpool towers on private land without planning permission and without the owner’s consent. They can do this even in national parks, where the residents themselves are subject to ferocious planning controls. Under…

NEWS FISHING After a long dry spell, rain is falling across Britain and fish are moving on up the rivers. Why not down tools, tell your boss you need to cast a line and pack the car? Devonian Andy Torrance got in touch to say he’s having a cracking time on the Findhorn, while contributor Freddie Braithwaite-Exley had a bumper time on sea-trout on the Teviot, that great tributary of the Tweed, last week. CHECK Check in with local gamekeepers, deerstalkers, ghillies, and hunt staff. It’s a hard time for the sporting community following GL43 restrictions, and life wasn’t all that easy prior to that. It always pays to check in — head out for a beer, talk about gundogs, and look after each other. And should you need them,…

I think it is a mistake to shoot wild ducks in September, because they are still migrating in and will almost certainly be in moult. Until they are in full plumage, they are not ready for the table; they need to settle and feed up. It is also a sad fact of life that our coast is still overrun by tourists in September and they tend to get in the way, so it’s best to stay off the marsh until the season properly turns. The Wildfowlers’ Association of Great Britain and Ireland (WAGBI, now BASC) was formed in 1908 by Stanley Duncan, and it was he who said: “It would be a thousand pities if the wildfowler, with all his qualities of energy and perseverance, should fail to use them…

As often as I can, but not often enough, I head up into the Cambrian mountains with my friend Dai, where we walk empty miles, catch trout from remote llyns and burn peat to warm our souls. Our base is a hut built well over 100 years ago by a club made up of local farmers, solicitors, doctors and the like, which still exists and of which Dai is a member. Back then, as well as the trout, there were grouse to be shot in August and September. Never many, but enough for a dinner or two and it was perfectly sustainable for the first 80 years or so of the club’s existence. There are still a few grouse in the wilder parts of this remote area, but shooting stopped…

Gundogs IT COMES AS A surprise to many people to learn that the biggest threat to a dog’s health in the countryside comes not from ticks, leptospirosis, adders or mad heifers but grass — or, to be more specific, grass seeds. There are around 10,000 species of grasses worldwide, of which a mere 160 or so are native to the UK. All spread by seed. There are three principal methods of seed dispersal: wind, water and fur, and it’s the last that poses the most serious threat to the wellbeing of our dogs. These fur-specialist seeds are typically arrow-shaped and barbed, so they will readily attach themselves to passing animals and are not easily dislodged once there. Serious problems A few grass seeds stuck in the fur of your dog’s…

100 years to keeping WISDOM AND TRADITIONS GATHERED OVER A LIFE AT THE COALFACE, THIS WEEK WITH LINDSAY WADDELL Most of us who work or have worked as a full-time gamekeeper are aware of how the job evolved and how it has changed in our own lifespan, but just what has happened to gamekeepers in the past 150 years? The turn of the 19th century saw gamekeeping as a profession heading for its peak in terms of men employed, with some 23,000 full-time gamekeepers being recorded from census records. Just prior to World War II, that number had dropped to 15,000, and today the estimated number of full-time gamekeepers is around the 3,000 mark. So what has happened to all those jobs, and just how many are now single-handed as…

Shooting rights in the busy south of England don’t come up for sale often, and the ones that do are fascinating. Symonds & Sampson is selling the freehold shooting rights for 210 acres of water meadow along the River Avon south of Ringwood in Hampshire. The lot, just off the appropriately named Duck Island Lane, includes 7,500m of river frontage along the Avon and Bickerley Mill Stream, but sadly no fishing rights as these remain with the Christchurch Angling Club. The shooting rights to the water meadow have been listed with a guide price of £35,000, but the level of interest suggests it may go for considerably more. Morgan Clement of Symonds & Sampson said that interest for the lot doesn’t seem to have been dulled as a result of…

Council plans to ban trail-hunting A motion to ban trail-hunting, exempt hunting, hound exercise and hunt meets outright across land owned by North Yorkshire Council had been branded a “colossal waste of time”. The Countryside Alliance’s Jim Barrington, who for several years worked as a director for the League Against Cruel Sports, said that any attempt to ban trail-hunting on land owned by North Yorkshire Council “would do nothing to help animal welfare” but “everything to fuel prejudice” against rural communities. The Countryside Alliance, which has thousands of members across the county, is contacting councillors urging them to reject the “divisive” motion. The rural campaigning group says that hunts provide a vital social and economic lifeline in the countryside. The meeting of the full council was due to take place…

Mark Fitzer is the head gamekeeper on the famous Holkham estate in North Norfolk Well, it was dry when I last wrote in this column and, guess what, it’s still dry. Granted, we have had a bit of rain, probably enough to save our small seed mixes at least for a while, but they are now at the stage when everything is trying to eat them. With them being quite late, there isn’t much of an option to redrill, so it’s a case of being vigilant and trying to prevent their demise. We do have an option to redrill with a catch crop and, yes, there are some useful mixes on the market, but really they are all much of a muchness. While they are certainly better than nothing, their…

I’m always interested when I come across new and innovative developments in the dog world: I’ve just come across one that I hadn’t previously encountered. It’s the securely fenced dog-exercise paddock. The idea is so simple that I’m surprised that I haven’t come across it before, and it’s aimed squarely at the owners of badly behaved or untrained dogs that have no recall. Hopefully that doesn’t include any readers of this column, but we all know of dogs for whom such exercise areas would be ideal. I’m not sure what the minimum area for an exercise paddock is, but I would guess that it’s at least an acre, preferably two. Secure fencing requires a substantial investment, particularly if a really proper job is to be done, with the bottom of…

A few weeks ago, one of our association’s members, Marc, was in Germany visiting with friends when he was asked to search for a roebuck that had been shot on the neighbouring hunting ground. The hunter explained that the animal had fled in response to the shot, but they couldn’t see any clear signs to indicate it had been hit. It was already dark when the call came in, so Marc suspected that the buck had been shot at last light. Finding shot signs in deepening twilight is never easy but, unfortunately, that doesn’t stop many hunters from trying. One of the reasons we often get called after dark is that the hunter, having made his shot in near darkness, is unsure afterwards of exactly where the animal was when…

The experts THE ULTIMATE SHOOTING QUIZ TEAM 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…