Grinning In The Rain

Despite nonstop rain and no vehicle access, a West Country shoot is booked solid by very happy Guns. Tony Jackson joins them for a day

For the rain it raineth every day. Shakespeare must have been thinking of the West Country when he wrote that line in Twelfth Night.

Shortly before Christmas I was in Cornwall with a team of six Guns on a day that was to test to the full the British bulldog spirit. Sheets of rain swept in from the west, driven on the shoulders of an Atlantic gale, the mud was deep and cloying, and erstwhile trickling streams were transformed into brown rushing rivers. Was the keeper dismayed, were the beaters about to mutiny, the Guns daunted? Of course not. We grinned through the rain and set off for the first drive.

The Hele Barton shoot, some 1,000 acres of deep and well-forested valleys, lies near the village of Jacobstow in north Cornwall, a few miles south of Bude. It is a shoot of contrasts, offering eight main drives, while six boundary drives provide walked-up and some driven shooting; not only for pheasants, but also ducks, snipe and the occasional woodcock. The only drawback is that it is impossible to take in vehicles. Guns must be prepared to walk and, in the winter depths, to cope with mud and wet. As it seems to have rained almost nonstop since July, the ground is sodden.

But as Steve McDonald — who organises shooting parties here in conjunction with keeper Tom Hasson — said, he is fully booked through the season, with parties returning year after year to enjoy challenging days and superb birds.

Half-acre lake