Expanding the empire

Tom Sykes and his partner, Charlie Wearden, managed to secure new ground, which has proved fruitful after a false start

- Tom Sykes

Shooting permissions are a hard commodity to acquire these days. Nearly every inch of the countryside has someone from the shooting community laying a claim to its potential bounty. I have been fortunate to secure crow shooting over a large pheasant estate. The one permission from the landowner and gamekeeper allows me to shoot over all the estate farms, which provide a fantastic and varied lump of ground to get stuck into. It is tremendous permission for which I am grateful, but I have kept an eye out for the opportunity to expand my little empire.

I love controlling corvids but I have coveted ground with a chance to produce pigeon bags. To my mind, there is no greater by-product from the pursuit of shooting than being able to add nutritionally valuable pigeon to my larder.

Prior to the revocation of the general licenses in April last year, Charlie and I decided to have a drive-in our locality with the intention of scouting out a farm or two with a pest problem. We trawled the countryside spotting potential locations and knocking on numerous farmers’ doors, only to discover that pretty much all the ground was taken. We decided to take one last detour down some narrow country lanes before heading for home. In doing so, we discovered a field of wheat drillings plagued by crows and pigeons. As luck would have it, the farmer who owned the field in question was a gentleman I had shot with on a game shoot that he and fellow farmers in the area run. I discussed with him the opportunity to shoot vermin on his ground outside of the game season, which he accepted gratefully.

Making hay