High Birds And Holidays

Though shooting pheasants and ducks began in the 1500s, it was a tour of Europe that brought about driven sport, reveals Alex Keeble

- Alex Keeble

Throughout the UK and Europe, driven shooting has become one of the most popular facets of our sport. According to BASC, of the 600,000 people who hold shotgun certificates, more than 55 per cent shoot driven game.

The release of the game for sporting purposes, involving pheasants and mallard, began in England around the 16th century, when falconry was tremendously fashionable across different levels of society.

However, David S. D. Jones, in his book Game Shooting: an Illustrated History, writes that it was during that period when men began using matchlock and wheel-lock guns to kill deer, wildfowl and game birds. All quarry was shot either on the ground or on water, which would certainly get you sent home nowadays.

From around the 17th century, people began to shoot pheasants that were flying. Heading out with a dog and gun, fields would be walked over with anything being flushed by the dogs being added to the bag.

Since the creation of the breechloading shotgun — with its vastly improved rate of fire compared with the muzzle-loader — rearing and releasing game birds for sport increased significantly, becoming hugely popular in the Edwardian era.

The battue

The idea of shooting driven pheasants is, perhaps apocryphally, said to have begun with a holiday. The story goes that the 2nd Earl of Malmesbury, like many other aristocrats of his generation, went on a grand tour around Europe in 1799. However, rather than moseying around galleries and museums like many of his contemporaries, the earl sought outsport and while in Austria came upon battue, a style of hunting that used beaters to corral and move birds to waiting Guns. He liked what he saw, brought it back to England, and driven shooting was born.

He was a bit of a disappointment in his era because, while his father was a great statesman, his interests were shooting and keeping detailed records of the weather.