Working for every bird

With no wind to speak of and wary game at the end of the season, an HPR day on a Norfolk shoot provides great sport for David Tomlinson

- David Tomlinson

THERE’S ONE SIMPLE rule on the Artemis shoot that everyone has to obey: it’s exclusively a shoot for HPRs, so no spaniels nor retrievers are invited to take part.

What’s more, on shoot days the emphasis is always on working the dogs, not filling the bag. It’s not a place for hot barrels — it’s rare for the bag to exceed 15 or 16 birds — but it is a great shoot for hot dogs that love to run. I was reminded of this when I paid a visit on a crisp, frosty winter’s day.

I say ‘reminded’, as I first visited and wrote about the shoot for this column five years ago. It covers some 600 acres of dry, gorse-dotted heath and forestry in the Brecks, on the Suffolk-Norfolk border.

Demos Diomidous established the shoot nearly 20 years ago. Today Demos, a retired dentist, summers in Cyprus, but he comes back for the shooting season and rarely misses a day. He doesn’t have a dog of his own but he hardly needs one, for the shoot is never short of dog power.

On the day of my visit there were three Guns — Demos, Joe Norman and Miles Toon. Miles was handling his German shorthaired pointer, Tia. Because of the nature of the shoot, the maximum number of Guns is four.

Working for the Guns was a team of four dog handlers, plus amateur keeper Adam Peck, who is also an HPR enthusiast. Adam’s black GSP, Millie, proved an impressively fast and athletic dog, appearing to flow rather than run over the ground.