A potter with a gun

Geoffrey Armitage considers the essence of rough shooting, where Guns pit their intuition and powers of observation against wild game

Pottering about with a dog and a gun is a fascination all of its own. Many a keen Shot has been introduced to the sport in the school holidays when a spectacular success with a .410, the first duck or pheasant or, better still, the first woodcock, made an indelible impression. Even in one’s advanced years it is possible to find satisfaction in rough shooting as an alternative to the more formal stuff.

According to one dictionary, to potter is “to work in feeble or desultory manner”, but this in no way reflects the activity involved, or the energy and willpower the rough shooter has to expend in pursuit of his aims. Of disappointments there are plenty: a temporary lack of concentration when the one chance of the day occurs, a lapse in steadiness by a dog that scatters game out of shot, or the inexplicable miss of the proverbial sitter. Sometimes one’s instinct lets one down, prompted by fatigue or idleness.

I once stood while a spaniel worked out the far corner of a low fir plantation surrounded by wire netting, a spot that had never before held a bird. Up got two cock pheasants simultaneously and dived down the slope, an extra-long shot away. Ten more paces and I would have at least been within sporting range.

Successful rough shooting entails a considerable degree of experience, knowledge and skill, and there is enchantment in pitting one’s intuition, powers of memory and observation, the competence of one’s dogs and, in the last resort, one’s ability to shoot straight against game, furred or feathered. A vigilant eye helps just catching sight of movement ahead; it may be a blurred shape that might be a running pheasant or rabbit, or a glimpse of a wing above the reeds as a teal drops into a pool some way off, promising an exciting stalk.