Walk On The Wild Side

Furrier makes good use of the long festive break with plenty of ‘armed rambles’ over game-laden farmland, and discovers there is lots of fun to be had at informal little gatherings such as these.

If you managed to cleverly combine the Christmas and New Year bank holidays with your annual holiday quota, the festive break could have been quite a long one. In the past, during the Christmas break, I would have involved myself with a lot of beagling, following foot packs, hunting hares, and also following the local foxhounds.

Nowadays, with the new legislation and the potential for confusion, I’d rather be certain that I’m staying on the right side of the law, bearing in mind the fact that firearms could be revoked if you were found to be involved in illegal activities – unknowingly or not!

So, for a change, at the end of the year I was out with the shotgun, a comfortably weighted 20-bore, as the days were to be spent going on what was more akin to an armed ramble, or a sporting dog walk. It seems to me to be much more rewarding when you have to toil harder for the shot, and it galvanises you to make it count, too. Two of the days were on new ground, which always makes it more exciting, as well as a little nerve-racking – will you be accepted by the other Guns? Will they believe you’ve been sporting in your choice of shot, and respected the game as well as followed their perceived shoot-day etiquette?