It's not all in the bag

A great day’s shooting should not be all about bag size, argues Nick Ridley — there is far more to it than that

- Nick Ridley

A few weeks ago, my rough shooting syndicate had just finished shooting at one of our favourite estates and we got talking to the gamekeeper about shoot-to-kill ratios and the difference between walked-up and driven shooting.

The keeper expressed his view that on a walked-up day he would expect a ratio of two to one. I must admit we all burst out laughing – surely he was having a joke or we were just really awful shots… which, in any event, may have been fair comment.

Only last weekend I was shooting in an ancient Dorset woodland. The cover was pretty hard going, with low-growing bramble in sedge reeds, whose only purpose was to give cover to the pheasants and tangle and trip anyone trying to get a shot at one that a spaniel had extradited from its cozy refuge.

Couple that with the fact that a tree seemed to jump up right in front of me just as I mounted my gun and pulled the trigger, it was challenging to say the least. At the end of the day, I had emptied 31 cartridges of number five lead for just four birds in the bag, a shot ratio of 7.75 to 1. I wasn’t in the least bit disappointed, it had probably been the best day of my season so far, the dog had worked really hard and I personally enjoy the challenge of shooting in such tricky and exciting conditions.

Time to re-evaluate