The sky’s an over-arching azure blue, a brilliant sun is slowly thawing the overnight frost and a brace of plump pheasants, the last of the season, hang in the lumber shed waiting to be plucked.
As wonderful as some days were, my now-fading memories of the shooting season are, I have to confess, like the curate’s egg, partly good and partly bad. While I can only base my judgment on the brace of shoots where I pick-up and occasionally shoot, they did offer a pleasing contrast. The larger is a 1,000-acre shoot, which normally shows bags of 50 to 70 birds, the other a small DIY shoot of some 350 acres with modest bags of 20 or so birds – and each shoot is efficiently keepered on a part-time basis. While the larger of the two shoots opened the season with a modest bag of 37 pheasants on a day of persistent driving rain, the smaller shoot, a week before, produced an astonishing bag of 53 pheasants, six of which I could claim!
Denne historien er fra April 2020-utgaven av Sporting Shooter.
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Denne historien er fra April 2020-utgaven av Sporting Shooter.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
RSPB gives mixed message on shooting
Having recently attended the RSPB’s virtual AGM, Conor O’Gorman discusses the outcome of the charity’s year-long review of game bird shooting
Causeway for concern
Alan Jarrett’s renewed interest in reading takes him down memory lane to an offshore island duck flight that very nearly ended in disaster
Through a purple patch
The Garrows Estate is taking a conservation-focused approach to restoring the wildlife populations and biodiversity on the Scottish heather moorland.
When the wheels fall off
Losing form on a day’s shooting can be infuriating, especially if you’ve been shooting like a god up to that point. Simon O’Leary looks at some common causes and how to remedy them
Beaches, books & bad behaviour!
The annual Kay family vacation to Northumberland offers a chance to give the cockers a blast on the beach – although they don’t always shower themselves in glory, as Ryan Kay recalls...
Using the Stop whistle
Now you’ve instilled the basics, it’s time to up the ante with some more tricky distance work. Howard Kirby explains how to take the core Stop whistle command to the next level
The humble teal
They may be tiny, but as far as Rupert Butler is concerned, the appeal of this little duck is huge. He recalls some of his most memorable nights in pursuit of these aerial acrobats
Fab all-rounder
Mike is impressed with the Fabarm Elos B2 Field Notte, which offers great value for money, is suited to fieldwork or clays and is future-proofed for use with steel in all choke constrictions
CALL OF THE WILD
Dom Holtam reconnects with one of the purest forms of shotgun shooting as he walks-up woodcock over pointing dogs in the Scottish Highlands
A yen for the Fens
Tony Jackson recounts a memorable duck flight over an area of Fenland in Norfolk with his friend and author, the late Alan Savory
