A bit of a knees-up

Why do we shoot better some days than others? Is it pure luck, mental confidence — or simply the lack of a hangover, wonders Colin Willock

- Colin Willock

I don’t often impress people when I shoot but last Saturday I very definitely scored 10 out of 10. The points were generously awarded by the excellent and experienced game Shot on the next peg to mine at the bottom of a valley during a very hot pheasant drive.

It was one of those drives where the birds were not only very high but very well shown, at least from the Guns’, if not from our keeper’s, point of view. The drive culminated in the tapping out of a long double hedge into which a series of flanking and blanking movements had already pushed a great many outlying pheasants.

If a keeper wants to save his birds he can, especially early in the season, arrange for them to be flushed in mass attacks that leave the Guns unloaded half the time and bewildered most of the rest. The result is that only a small percentage fall out of the sky while the Guns, not to say the keeper, have the satisfaction of knowing that there will be plenty left for next time.

The drive out of the double hedge over the valley was not like that at all. The birds rose in ones and twos, and threes and fours, but never in what used to be called a bouquet. I am certain that Clive, our keeper, intended to show them that way. He knew he had plenty of birds. I suspect he also thought that at least 50% would fly over the valley of death unscathed.

However, the four Guns in the hot spot had their eyes in that day. Not a lot of those tall birds got past in the centre of the line.