Make Every Shot Count

On smaller shoots, where you might only get a handful of shots during the day, you need to do everything you can to maximise your chances of success. Steve Rawsthorne tells you how..

- Steve Rawsthrone

One of my best mates, Andrew, owns an estate in Suffolk and every two or three weeks I go up there for a couple of days to manage the deer. We had huge numbers of fallow, now much more tolerable, and a good supply of muntjac. It’s very civilised; when I come back to the house in the morning, the housekeeper cooks me breakfast – my other half doesn’t do that! Over the years, I have got to know his keeper, Paul, well and we have become good friends – known to all as The Fat Controller, even to his face, if you met him you would know why. He’s known by some other soubriquets too, too rude for these pages.

Paul has a group of mates; he calls them his ‘hobbledies’. They all grew up with each other in the Suffolk countryside, fishing, shooting, scrumping apples and maybe poaching a rabbit or two, and the odd pheasant in their youth. Now they are grown up, at least physically, they all shoot together. Somehow or other, they always have plenty of places to go, it may be 10 or 12 acres here and 20 or 30 there, so you might do a drive or two, then move a couple of miles to the next ones.

They have the shooting on a good chunk of outlying fields on the edge of Andrew’s estate. Everyone chips in with a few quid, there is no big money involved; a couple of tractor drivers are in the group, the cover crops are always good, strong and well fertilised, and the hoppers are always full of feed. The shoot HQ in one of Andrew’s barns is always well stocked with food and has a bar which the local pub would be proud of. On shoot days, whether their own or let days on behalf of the estate, they meet in the morning and there are plenty of burgers, sausages and eggs for all.