How To Make Sure The Gunline Is In The Right Place

Liam Bell offers some guidance on how to make sure the gunline is in the right place

- Liam Bell

When I am on a driven day, I sometimes wonder why drives are driven in a particular way, or why the Guns are in a particular place when, to my eyes, they would be far better somewhere else, or the birds driven slightly differently.

There are so many things to consider when you are putting the pegs out, not least the expected flight path of the birds. I quantify this by saying expected flight path, because when you are pegging out a new drive, or if you have recently taken on a new shoot and don’t quite know where the Guns have stood previously, a lot of it will be guesswork.

They might be educated guesses, but until a drive has been driven a few times — under varying conditions and at different times of year — it is very much a case of going with your gut instinct and hoping you get it right. If a driver doesn’t go to plan the first time, it doesn’t mean it won’t the second or even the third. It is usually worth giving it two or three good goes before you give it up as a bad job and move the Guns or take it in a different direction.

Careful planning

In an ideal world, birds would be drawn from a release wood into a cover crop or wood on a bank, the Guns would be put in the middle of the field between the two pieces of cover, and the birds driven back home over their heads. In reality, it is rarely this simple.