Off To A Flying Start

Three Guns had the good fortune to start their season with three days of shooting grouse, over pointers and walked-up, in the north

If you’ve enough puffin your lungs, a walked-up day is the affordable way to get on to the finest game bird in the world and among the most spectacular landscapes in the British Isles. Peter Glenser, Alan Young and Tim Cray were lucky enough to open the 2017 season with three walked-up days at Dorback, Inverness-shire, the Drummond estate in Perthshire and at Stean Moor in North Yorkshire.

Dorback, Inverness-shire, 12 August

While a certain amount of wind is always needed chasing upland quarry, there are ways of making the going a little easier without actually “cheating”. The fourth Gun on the Twelfth was Major Charlie Gair, Peter’s guest and nephew, and a serving Irish Guardsman with youth and fitness on his side. No one wants to be shown up by the younger generation so arrangements were hastily made.

A Land Rover Defender was left at the foot of the glen while the Guns were driven in Charlie’s gleaming Discovery to the top. The team would then walk back a mile or two to the original vehicle and the Discovery would be fetched. This walked down grouse shooting has much to recommend it as a way of starting the season.

Spirits were high, and as the vehicles climbed the moor Peter explained the joy of walked-up grouse. “The journey of the Gun tends to go like this: you start with ‘any’; then want ‘many’; look for ‘high’; but end up happiest of all with ‘wild’. Why? Because with so few birds shot on a wild walked-up day, every one of them is remembered and every shot is discussed. And through that and of course the eating of them, these beautiful, spirited birds are properly respected.”