Putting ex-layers to the test

Laurence Catlow hopes that his new stock of ex-layers will provide good sport while freeing up time for some much-needed fishing

- Laurence Catlow

I have always thought of my pheasant time, by which I mean the time for their release at High Park and for the work that belongs to it, as the main feature of late summer and early autumn. For years and years poults came to my pens right at the end of July or very early in August, and for the next six weeks or so their care was the chief focus of my attention.

It was a time to which I looked forward eagerly and, except when things went wrong, pheasant time was an absorbing and enjoyable experience. There was a quiet and satisfying rhythm to it and I often found its later stages, when the first signs of autumn were already beginning to touch High Park and when it was beginning to seem that another release was on the threshold of success, deeply satisfying.

Some of this perhaps helps to explain why, when the year’s longest day brought 300 pheasants to my little shoot, I felt that times and seasons had somehow become confused. It seemed wrong to me that dog roses and elderflowers were  looking down on the new occupants of my pens. Why was it that what should have happened six or so weeks later had happened already?

The reason for this, of course, and I think I have already mentioned it in earlier articles, is that this year is a year of experiment at High Park: an experiment to see if we can hold exlayers and then enjoy good sport with them throughout the season. Yes, the pleasant labours of releasing poults were welcome and rewarding but, if putting out ex-layers works, looking after them will take much less time and give me the freedom to do other things, by which I mean mainly, of course, doing much more fishing.

Dozens of eggs