A DAY IN THE LIFE
Sporting Shooter|February 2020
Alex Hatton joins a charming little syndicate shoot for its first day of the season, and takes pleasure in working his dog and mucking in on this ‘walk one stand one’ team effort
Alex Hatton
A DAY IN THE LIFE

Standing at a peg is not something I do very often, so when I was invited to a ‘walk one stand one’ syndicate day in north Wales, I accepted. It was to be this syndicate’s first day of the year, and so I was warned that a tweak to the way their drives work and a change in the placement of the feeders could work really well, or it could be really challenging. Bringing a gundog was welcome as not everyone had one.

The forecast was wet, so I packed my waterproofs and a warming soup for lunchtime. One of my Munsterlanders was in season, so it would be the 11-year-old Ilka accompanying me this time. She was up to it, but I would need to keep her a little calmer, as HPRs do naturally range more.

Following a shoot briefing (strictly no ground game or low birds), we were split into two teams, with the group I was with beating first. We allowed 10 minutes for the Guns to get into position and we walked to the first woodland. As I stood waiting to start, I certainly had a sense of a well-run syndicate – neatly carved out tracks in the woods for the quad, no rubbish, very tidy pens – there was obviously a formula that was working. With that we were off! I must admit it took a lot of restraint and handling on my part to stop the dog from ranging too much, as she could smell the pheasants the whole time we were stood there.

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