Unexpected Pheasants

Walked-up days and challenging pheasant shooting don’t often go hand in hand in Phil’s experience, but a new estate in Somerset manages to deliver both, to the team’s delight

Very few of the estates we visit on our walked-up and boundary days offer the opportunity to shoot pheasant only. I confess it is not my favourite quarry to shoot on a walked-up day as they often sit very tight in fodder beet, rape or kale and do not offer a challenging or sporting shot. Although once underway a pheasant can travel at speed, it is certainly not as exciting as a partridge bursting from cover and getting up to speed immediately like little rockets. Pheasants are more comparable to a jumbo jet, labouring to get airborne.

With this in mind, I was slightly anxious about a day I had booked in Somerset on a new estate renowned for its high birds. Having visited the keeper earlier in the year, I knew they had fantastic topography, ideal for driven high-bird days, but I was interested to see how he would run a smaller walked-up day, especially after admitting that he had little experience but was keen to start putting them on as they had issues with neighbouring shoots and were losing a lot of birds on their boundaries.

There were six of us shooting, including a new member who had just joined this season and had not yet shot a pheasant. There was one other Gun there who I meant to keep an eye on as reports had come in from a similar day the week before that he had been a bit greedy and was not embracing our ethos of inclusive and sporting shooting.