A fitting end and a hard-won bag

It’s been a season like no other and, with the end drawing near, Jamie Tusting decides it’s a good time for a woodcock walkabout

- Jamie Tusting

The season just gone will, I’m sure, be up there as one of the strangest and most tumultuous for a very long time. So many invitations and days out were postponed or cancelled as the coming and going of restrictions chopped and changed plans up and down the country.

The season was not without its highlights though — a few sporadic days out in the field providing some sport notable enough to merit a page in the gamebook. And as it drew closer, I became increasingly keen to mark the conclusion with a rapturous ovation and to send the season off well.

With the last day, unfortunately, falling on a working one, that left the final Saturday in January to come up with the goods. Thankfully, the day dawned bright and clear with a wind freshening from the west and the snow from a few days before mostly all melted. My brother Joe and I had planned to head to a wood nearby, which extended to about 50 acres.

Our chosen wood wasn’t quite big enough to support a whole day’s sport, so we made a plan to venture out in the afternoon, giving us enough time to cover it without going over the same ground twice. The wind was due to pick up later and we thought we could dovetail our afternoon’s sport with the possibility of getting into some pigeon as the evening drew in.