It's the fun of the hunt

The final week of the season afforded D. S. Barrington Browne the chance to track down a couple of wily old cock pheasants

Being a dog man I always enjoy the after-Christmas shoots rather more than those earlier in the season.

The hunting down of the cunning cock pheasant has a peculiar attraction all of its own. It tends to be more akin to foxhunting than any other form of shooting, particularly where the ‘hounds’ used are springers.

In fact, having hunted a pack of beagles, I would venture to suggest that hunting cock birds is infinitely more difficult, requiring a greater degree of hound knowledge and physical fitness, plus imagination.

In the final week of the season it is sometimes hard to get around your own bit of ground to make the last effort to shoot those that have outwitted you earlier on. However,

I saw my chance one afternoon and took it. Being on what might be described as a very rough shoot — close to town, riddled with public footpaths and very little game — I did not bother to ask anyone to come with me apart from my three spaniels.

There was the ‘old girl’ with a totally reliable nose but a little genuine deafness, her daughter, and a ‘problem child’ that I have been trying to encourage to enjoy the sound of shooting as much as the thrill of seeing birds move.

To start with, while walking to what I considered to be the most likely area, the dogs dashed into an enormous bramble bush and out shot a cock from the far side.

Likely places

Needless to say, I was quite unprepared and off he went, disappearing through some trees without a shot being fired. I reckoned I knew where he might have gone and decided to ‘draw’ my way through other likely places to approach him downwind.