The family way

Richard Faulks has a fantastic day all round at the estimable Moscow Farm shoot, an exemplar for shooting if fieldsports are to continue to prosper

- Richard Faulks

I’ve known Marvin Rear for about seven years through a clay shooting club. He is the cunning mastermind behind the layout of each fortnightly shoot. A great job he does too.

The clay club is on top of a hill, which overlooks some of the land where Marvin now shoots game and he has recently been lucky enough to become a member of the family-orientated syndicate. When I was offered a chance to join them on a day, I jumped at the opportunity.

Terrain

Moscow Farm sits in its own small valley with a single-track road running through and an impressive fort at Burrough Hill overlooking it. It is owned by the Johnson family, close friends of the Stimsons, who have the shooting rights. The shoot was set up 35 years ago by John Stimson and Pete Rackham and covers 400 acres of surprisingly steephilled countryside in Leicestershire.

The drives all radiate around two release pens and have been strategically placed in about 13 acres of cover plots drilled with wild seed mixes that the birds are flown back from to the woods and pens.

The cover plots are drilled by Chris Johnson, a keen bird spotter and conservationist who no longer shoots but spends the days with the party with binoculars while his son, Billy, enjoys the sport. “The farm has been in Stewardship Schemes for many years and I enjoy seeing the large numbers of birds using the wild bird seed plots and the occasional sighting of grey partridge and woodcock [which are not shot],” says Chris