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GENERAL LICENCE CHANGES: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW!

Since 1882

15 JANUARY 2020

How to identify ducks at dusk

Mixed bags Cull corvids to increase wild game

RED DEER

Sick Irish stag causes uproar

NO VACANCIES

Why the countryside is losing its keepers DRIVEN SPORT

HIGH BIRDS IN FLAT COUNTRY

PIGEON CONTROL

ROOST SHOOTING WITH YOUNG GUNS

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DOG OF THE WEEK In association with Orvis For all things dog, Shooting Times recommends Orvis.co.uk Outdoor outfitters, instructors and apparel makers since 1856.

Molly When she isn’t hunting pheasants and keeping grey squirrels away from the garden Molly, a three-yearold sprocker, loves to scan Shooting Times’s foraging pages for tips on what to look out for on walks.

Owned and photographed by Dafydd Joyner

6

15.01.20 Issue 6,175

Beyond veganuary It probably hasn’t escaped you that we are currently in the throes of so-called veganuary. I hope I’m not about to offend any vegan readers but the whole thing looks like a bit of a corporate con. Last weekend I even came across a shop selling ‘vegan pork’ and ‘vegan chicken’. Your guess is as good as mine.

Last July, while wandering round a wheat field picking pigeons I’d been decoying, I was suddenly struck by how many vegan-friendly sandwiches the crop might end up in.

‘Vegan-friendly’ — except two of us had killed 400 pigeons because the pesky birds were making serious inroads into the farmer’s profits.

By the time you take into account pesticides, deer management and the creatures killed by farm machinery, I would wager that it’s impossible to eat anything without harming animals. As we all know it is possible to eat meat sustainably, and if you’re munching an invasive species such as muntjac you’re even doing the countryside a real favour.

Why not give a non-hunting friend some ethically harvested meat this veganuary and tell them about its provenance? After all, the way to people’s hearts is through their stomachs and shooting could do with a bit more love.

Patrick Galbraith, Editor

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16

Do you know your ducks?

How to identify different species

20

Peerless driven shooting Tenants’ shoot at Burghley Park

23

Find us keepers Where have all the keepers gone?

26

Irish stalker Barry Stoffell’s first column

30

The joys of roost shooting A New Year’s Day pigeon outing

34

Essential kit for airgunners Where to splurge, when to save

38

Audi A6 Allroad Quattro Could this be the best all-rounder?

46

Crispy duck with plum sauce How to make a takeaway favourite

Follow Patrick on Twitter @paddycgalbraith

Contents NEWS & OPINION

14

GAMEKEEPER

06 NEWS

26

STALKING

10

38

VEHICLE TEST

FEATURES

42

VINTAGE TIMES

16

WILDFOWLING

44 GUNDOGS

20

DRIVEN SPORT

46

COOKERY

23

GAMEKEEPING

48

30

PIGEON SHOOTING

SPORTING ANSWERS

54

PRODUCTS

AIRGUNNING

55

KEEPER OF THE MONTH

58

SHARPSHOOTER

34

LETTERS

REGULARS 12

COUNTRY DIARY

4 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

NEWS Some GPs are refusing to carry out checks; others are charging exorbitant fees

Time for GPs to stop holding shooters to licence ransom As police adopt a hard-line approach, BASC launches scheme to help shooters applying for licences to find GPs to endorse their applications

ALAMY

A

new service has been launched to help put applicants for firearm and shotgun certificates in touch with doctors.

BASC members who have been told they must provide a doctor’s verification of the medical details in their application can use the service to find a doctor who can help.

Bill Harriman, BASC’s director of firearms, said: “More than a dozen police forces are now ignoring Home Office guidance and enforcing GP involvement, with even more looking to move in that direction.

“The shooting community is in a catch-22 position, with the GP holding the applicant to ransom and the police not progressing the application.

“The system is on its knees.

BASC’s new service provides a valuable stop-gap for our members until a complete solution can be sought.

“BASC will continue to work towards ensuring a political solution whereby GPs are legally

largest in the country, now operate policies effectively forcing applicants to approach their GP. Many applicants have found themselves in a situation where their doctor was either unwilling to take part or charged an

“More than a dozen police forces are ignoring guidance and enforcing GP involvement” obliged to participate in the licensing system.”

There has been an increasing trend towards police forces insisting on applicants getting their applications verified by a doctor.

A total of 14 English police forces, including four of the

6 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

exorbitant fee. The problem has been less severe in Scotland, but one reader contacted Shooting Times to describe his experience.

“The appointment cost £100 and the surgery said they must see me annually for a check or they would remove the note

from my records and notify Police Scotland,” he said.

“When I spoke to the officer dealing with it, he said our surgery was the only one he was aware of doing so and to ignore them.

“As for the check itself, I sat for an hour waiting to be called and when I got in all she asked me was if I had ever been depressed or felt down.”

Advice issued by the British Medical Association in September 2019 said doctors could tell police they were ‘conscientious objectors’ if they opposed private firearms ownership and did not want to take part in the process. The BMA said if GPs did provide a verification service they could charge a ‘reasonable fee’.

Matt Cross

Email your stories / STeditorials@ti-media.com

Gloom over salmon season Expectations are low as the salmon season reopens across Scotland. The Helmsdale and Thurso were the first to open, with fishing beginning on 11 January.

The Tay followed today (15 January). The Tweed and the Dee begin their seasons on 1 February, with most other rivers, including the Spey, opening 10 days later.

The last few rivers, including the Nith, open on 25 February.

A shift towards 100 per cent catch-and-release on major rivers is likely over this season and next.

Mandatory catch-andrelease was introduced for spring salmon across the country in 2014.

Outside the spring months, the numbers of salmon voluntarily released by anglers have increased

Weekend Twitter poll If you could only have one dog breed for the rest of your days would it beÉ 37% A Clumber 38% A flatcoat 25% An Irish water spaniel follow us @shootingtimes

Respondents: 153

To do this week A move towards 100 per cent catch-and-release is likely in Scotland

dramatically in recent years — 93 per cent of rod-caught salmon were released in 2018, an 86 per cent increase in 25 years.

Late last season officials on the river Tay scrapped advice allowing a small number of salmon to be

killed and asked anglers to release all salmon caught on the river.

This was followed up at the Tay Fisheries board AGM, when a formal policy was adopted asking for all salmon caught on the river in 2020 to be released.

Defra’s

R E S P O N D consultation

An egg-to-table audit scheme The British Game Alliance assurance scheme can now run from egg to table following the launch of its Game Farm Audit scheme.

The audits have received the backing of the Game Farmers’ Association (GFA), the British Veterinary Poultry Association and UK shooting organisations.

GFA chairman Dominic Boulton said: “The GFA supports this new initiative and has been involved

with the development of the scheme.

“We encourage all game rearers, whether GFA members or not, to participate in the audit and demonstrate their commitment to all that it stands for.

“Against the backdrop of mounting political and anti-shooting pressure, this scheme represents a huge opportunity to protect our livelihoods.”

The audit process will include recommendations on mycoplasma testing.

Mycoplasma gallisepticum, also known as ‘bulgy eye’ or ‘swollen head’, is becoming a more common problem for game birds.

However, a newly developed test will allow vets to identify the problem much more quickly, reducing the spread of the disease and limiting antibiotic use.

on trophy hunting is closing on 25 January. Ideas under consideration include a ban on the import and export of all hunting trophies. Shooting organisations are calling on members to respond opposing option three, which would ban all trophy imports and exports, and to back option four, which would leave the situation unchanged.

Aregular worming scheduleisimportanttomaintainthe healthofyourdogs.TheKennelClub recommendsthatdogsarewormed atleasteverythreemonths.Ifyou simplycannotgetyourdogtoeat awormingtablet,speaktoyourvet abouttopicaltreatmentsor chewable dog-biscuit wormers.

DOG

Game rearers are being encouraged to take part in a new farm assurance scheme to ensure standards

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 7

NEWS Pest control was severely hampered by the general licence fiasco

EVENTS DIARY 1 8 -1 9 JA N UA RY LADIES’INTRODUCTION TO WILDFOWLING WEEKEND Latchingdon, Essex events.basc.org.uk/ events

20 JANUARY WALES LADIES’ GAME DAY Coed Coch, Dolwen, North Wales po.st/Walesladies 31 JANUARY DERBYSHIRE REALLY WILD DINNER & AUCTION Thornbridge Hall, Longstone Lane, Bakewell, Derbyshire gwct.org.uk/events 31 JANUARY BASIC METALLIC CARTRIDGE RELOADING Baronscourt estate, Tyrone po.st/metalreload 7 FEBRUARY GWCT ESSEX SPORTING BALL Braxted Park estate, Witham, Essex georgejones@ newneyhall.com

ALAMY

19 FEBRUARY PREDATION CONTROL LAW & BEST PRACTICE COURSE Near Fakenham, Norfolk gwct.org.uk/events

Welsh licences to remain unchanged The controversial Welsh general licences have been extended until December this year, pending review Natural Resources Wales (NRW) has announced that the current set of general licences for Wales will be extended until the end of December 2020.

The Welsh licences, introduced in 2019, are particularly restrictive, with the protection of wild birds licence only allowed to be used to protect red- and amber-listed birds

crow, magpie, jackdaw, rook, jay, collared dove or woodpigeon to be controlled to protect public health — with the feral pigeon being the only species left on the list.

At the time Steve Griffiths, BASC Wales director, criticised the new conditions, for example the decision to remove the rook from all the Welsh licences. He

“We will ensure NRW provides a licence that is fit for purpose” during the nesting season (News, 9 October).

BASC strongly condemned the new licences as ‘irresponsible’ at the time, saying that both the NRW process and the new conditions placed on the licences would cause users issues. The new licences, which came into force in October, no longer allow carrion

8 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

also raised the serious concerns regarding the lack of resources given by NRW into publicising the changes, stating the rural community may accidently break the law as they remain unaware of the new licences.

However, responding to the latest news, Mr Griffiths said: “In extending the current general

licences for another year, NRW has provided welcome stability in a turbulent period. Over the year BASC Wales will continue to ensure members have the correct information to hand and will play a key part in ensuring the NRW review produces a future licence that is fit for purpose.”

Late last year Scottish Natural Heritage announced that it would extend the current general licences for Scotland until April.

The general licences in Northern Ireland were renewed unchanged on 11 September and will run until 10 September 2020.

The general licences for England expire at the end of February. BASC has asked for a 12-month extension to allow time for the results of the Defra consultation exercise to be considered (see p.7).

Matt Cross

Email your stories / STeditorials@ti-media.com

New GCSE to ‘reconnect teenagers with nature’ A new GCSE will help British schoolchildren to reconnect with nature by learning the names and characteristics of British plants and animals. The natural history GCSE is the brainchild of nature writer and conservationist Mary Colwell and backed by Green Party MP Caroline Lucas.

The new qualification could be taught in England as early as 2021.

Ms Colwell said the GCSE would help children reclaim knowledge lost in recent decades as society has become “much more urban, much more indoors” and our wildlife has been depleted.

Following the school climate strikes, which began

in 2018, the natural history GCSE should appeal to those young people who care about the natural world.

“I think young people really want to know where they’re living, what’s around them, how they’re

connected to it, and they want to know how that fits into the bigger picture of the world,” said Ms Colwell.

Mary Colwell will be writing more about this for Shooting Times next month.

Gene editing could eradicate greys Scientists are examining the possibility of using gene-editing techniques to eradicate grey squirrels.

The plan would use genetically altered male squirrels containing a ‘gene drive’ that would spread a gene for infertility throughout the grey squirrel population.

The innovative idea for squirrel eradication is being developed by scientists at the Roslin Institute, where Dolly the Sheep was cloned.

As well as causing considerable damage to trees, grey squirrels are believed to be responsible for the loss of native red squirrels from large parts of the UK.

New chairman for Scottish Land The new exam will appeal to those who care about the natural world

Packham attacks muirburn Anti-shooting campaigner Chris Packham has tried to link muirburn taking place on estates across England and Scotland to the wildfires ravaging Australia.

The practice of burning grass and heather to reduce fuel loads, create firebreaks and manage habitats is a tried and tested moorland management tool.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Mr Packham used images from a controlled burn taking place on the North York Moors to try to draw parallels with the tragic situation in Australia.

In a Facebook post he wrote: “Call me simple but…

Australia are trying to put fires out… meanwhile, driven grouse moor owners are lighting fires, destroying

Controlled burning on moorland helps prevent wildfires taking hold

wildlife, so that people can then kill even more animals.”

On the post, Andrew Gilruth, director of communications at GWCT, said, “The Green Party in Australia supports controlled burning in their winters to reduce the fuel load available for wildfires in their summers. It’s astonishing that green activists here are trying to prevent people from reducing wildfire fuel loads on our moorlands.

“The recent wildfire on Saddleworth Moor released 200 years of stored carbon in a single night when the top 7cm of peat was lost.

“Equally, those living in Manchester and Sheffield will not thank activists for the health problems created when the toxic particles, accumulated and locked into the peat during the Industrial Revolution, were released into the atmosphere.”

Mark Tennant has been appointed chairman designate by Scottish Land & Estates (SLE). Mr Tennant has been a member of the organisation’s Highland committee twice, as well as vice-chairman (policy) since 2018.

He said: “This is a crucial time for businesses and communities in rural Scotland. Our farms, forests, moorlands and peatlands can play a huge role in helping combat the climate emergency and without which Scotland cannot reach net zero emissions by its target of 2045.”

Last year SLE appointed its first female CEO — Borders farmer Sarah-Jane Laing.

ShootingTimes goes green From keeping songbirds fed to digging out ponds, the shooting community already does a lot for the environment.

However, in an effort to do a little bit more, Shooting Times has started sending out its subscription in paper packaging. You can subscribe at po.st/STsubs

FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM @SHOOTINGTIMESUK

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 9

LETTERS LET TER OF THE WEEK ISSN: 0037-4164 Shooting Times, TI Media Ltd, Pinehurst 2, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF.

For editorial enquiries: STeditorials@ti-media.com 01252 555220 For picture enquiries: max.tremlett@ti-media.com Subscription hotline: 0330 333 1113 help@magazinesdirect.com Editor Patrick Galbraith Deputy editor Ed Wills edward.wills@ti-media.com Brand assistant Sarah Pratley 01252 555220 Group art director Kevin Eason Art editor Rob Farmer Picture editor Max Tremlett Chief sub-editor Sarah Potts Deputy chief sub-editor Nicola Jane Swinney nicola.swinney@ti-media.com Sub-editor Richard Reed richard.reed@ti-media.com Digital editor Charlotte Peters charlotte.peters@ti-media.com www.shootinguk.co.uk Managing director Kirsty Setchell Group managing director Adrian Hughes Classified advertising Will McMillan 01252 555305 will.mcmillan@ti-media.com Display advertising Rebecca Norris 07929 369204 rebecca.norris@ti-media.com Charlene Homewood 07815 712678 charlene.homewood@ti-media.com Laurence Pierce 07971 605143 laurence.pierce@ti-media.com Group advertisement manager Stuart Duncan stuart.duncan@ti-media.com Advertisement production Tony Freeman tony.freeman@ti-media.com Innovator (for loose and bound-in inserts) 020 3148 3710 Can’t find ST? 020 3148 3300 Back issues 01795 662976 support@mags-uk.com

Shooting Times is the official weekly journal of BASC and the CPSA BASC Marford Mill, Rossett LL12 0HL Tel 01244 573000 CPSA PO Box 750, Woking, GU24 0YU Tel 01483 485400 Wereservetherighttoeditletters.Nolettershouldexceed250 words.Letterswillnotbeusedunlesstheauthorisprepared tohavetheirnameandcountyofresidencepublished.

Lettersshouldbeaddressedto:TheEditor,Pinehurst2, FarnboroughBusinessPark,HantsGU147BF,oremail STletters@ti media.com.Pleaseincludeadaytimetelephone number and postal address.

Agreeing with the antis for once I returned home from our annual Boxing Day foray to witness the splendid spectacle of our local hunt being applauded and cheered by 1,000-plus lovers of the countryside. As usual, our morning was completed by a quick visit to our local pub for a swift drink before coming home for lunch. It is a ritual enjoyed by tens of thousands of good people all over the land.

However, this quick visit to the pub was unusual due to the presence of 10 of the local saboteurs sitting rather dejectedly in the corner, minus balaclavas. I bade them all season’s greetings and received a collective grunt in

who sit on the fence regarding country sports and they described him as “arrogant, egotistical and a media junkie”. They believed his online postings are beginning to have the opposite effect on public opinion to what he is hoping to achieve.

I never thought I would ever finish a conversation with 10 hunt sabs and agree wholeheartedly with what they had to say.

Perhaps 2020 will be the year that the public and the BBC finally see through Chris Packham. It appears the antis already have.

D. Wright, Norfolk

IN ASSOCIATION WITH BROWNING The winner of Letter of the Week will receive a Browning Powerfleece. Warm and practical, it is ideal for both the peg and the pub and is available in sizes S-5XL. For more information visit: browning.eu.

Colour dependent on availability.

DON’T DUMP BIRDS Why do people shoot pheasants then dump two brace in a green recycling bag like so much rubbish? The shooting community can do with all the help it can get, and this does no good at all.

It is not the first time my friend and I, out walking our dogs, have come across this along one of the roads in the Wenvoe area.

We have passed word around, including to one of the local gamekeepers, who was horrified.

What a waste of good food.

Chris Bunston-Croome, Glamorgan

FRIENDS LIKE THESE

This week’s cover image was captured by Alamy

return. I decided to use the situation to attempt some proactive dialogue with them, and their response was eyeopening to say the least.

Instead of the usual venomous and nonsensical retort I generally receive from such encounters, they started to discuss the current hunting situation after the December general election.

When I asked the group what they perceived to be their biggest obstacle in 2020, they collectively replied “Chris Packham”. This shocked me, as you can imagine.

The reasons they gave were that they believe his “passive-aggressive manner” alienated the general public

I was horrified to read about the man who attacked a van carrying hunt saboteurs with the corpse of a fox (Letters, 8 January). The incident happened on Boxing Day after a meet of the Badsworth and

10 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

Bramham Moor hounds. From what I can gather, the man with the fox — which was thought to be roadkill — was not connected with the hunt in any way. But as your correspondent rightly points out, it was a disastrous action that will have long-term negative effects on all fieldsports.

Chris Packham was widely quoted by the media after the story was made public, saying: “If there is anyone in the UK left with any ambiguous ideas about whether we should end foxhunting immediately then watch this [video]. This is the 21st century in a so-called civilised country and it’s beyond belief.”

Those of us who support fieldsports in general and hunting in particular will have been dismayed by this disgraceful act. The Countryside Alliance said: “We condemn this utterly despicable behaviour by this group of individuals whom we

are told are not connected to the hunt in any way.

“We understand these were local people whose appalling actions have brought hunting into disrepute and we sincerely hope they will be held to account.”

As far as I can tell, the culprit has not yet been identified, which seems extraordinary if he is indeed a local man. Your correspondent called for him to be kicked out of any countryside organisation he might belong to, and that is the very least he deserves.

The fact we now have a Conservative Government will be a relief to many country people who, rightly or wrongly, think it will be more sympathetic to the rural way of life and rural pursuits. But the tide of public opinion is easily swayed by such reckless acts and any government wants and needs the support of the electorate.

I don’t doubt the Government

Email your letters / STletters@ti-media.com IT’S PAR FOR THE COURSE One of the drives on our local syndicate backs on to a golf course so quite rightly we take great care to ensure we shoot in a direction away from it. Inevitably we leave some pheasants well alone as they fly in the course’s general direction.

However, once a year when the golf course is closed we have permission to stand on the course and cut off those wily birds.

This hole is a par four and a hen bird was taken cleanly with the second barrel (left).

That’s surely “on the green for two” and the putt will be for a birdie.

L Sweeney, West Yorkshire

NEXT WEEK IN

WILD THINGS Proof of the pudding: the first day on a new wild bird shoot.

DUCK DELIGHT Wigeon decoying: a fruitful trip down Memory Lane.

VINTAGE DELIGHT would throw us to the wolves — to use an apt idiom — if it perceived it would help to garner public support.

Vanessa Harcourt, by email

THE BEST MONTH I thoroughly enjoyed Ed Wills’s celebration of the beginning of this new decade (Is January the finest month?, 8 January). Among my children’s friends, this time of year is one long lament of doom; as well as the gloomy lull after the anticipation of Christmas, they have exams on the horizon.

My own friends are generally just as dour; they’ve invariably spent too much at Christmas, as well as eaten too much — don’t we all! — and several have given up alcohol. The usual resolutions about going to the gym or taking up some sport are casting a long shadow and they don’t yet feel they can abandon their good intentions entirely. That’s going

to take at least another week…

But those of us who shoot want January to last forever, whether we go beating, picking-up or carrying the gun ourselves.

It is a time to make the most of every outing, to enjoy the chat and the sport and the simple joy of being out and about in our gorgeous countryside.

We care not a hoot for the veganuary nonsense; we all have freezers full of delicious, nutritious, sustainable meat that, in its form as a living creature, was about as freerange as you can get. When February comes and the season ends, we will have wonderful memories to revisit alone or with like-minded friends, tales of high birds and valiant gundogs, superb shots taken and easy shots missed.

I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Wills — January is indeed the finest month.

D. Ross, Northamptonshire

t is always interesting to read the Vintage Times pages and see things in a different light today. However, what I miss are technical articles, such as those written by Gough Thomas, the Shooting Times technical editor in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

I would argue that most of them are just as relevant today.

For example, I am surprised how few shotgun shooters today bother to pattern their guns or determine where they shoot relative to the point of aim.

C. Norris, by email

The Editor responds: I am delighted you enjoy our Vintage Times pages — we took the decision to republish them because they showcase some of the very best writers and the best writing about country sports. We will certainly look at reprinting some of our previous ‘how-to’ articles — and I am always interested to hear what our readers really want to see.

‘‘The wildlife of today is not ours to dispose of as we please.

We have it in trust. We must account for it to those who come after.’’ King George VI

JOB SATISFACTION In 1972 a keeper answered a job ad in Shooting Times: we join his last day.

TOP DOG All the action from the 90th Cocker Spaniel Championships.

... AND MUCH MORE!

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 11

Richard Negus

Country Diary

In its comparative isolation, Norfolk might not be a place that humans would pass through — but it’s a real thoroughfare for ducks and geese

E

Dining rooms The RSPB estimates that 64,000 geese, ducks and swans flock to Breydon Water and Berney Marshes for the winter. The pinkfeet adore this bit of Norfolk. The draining of the marshes, then the shift from livestock to arable farming, has not been beneficial to all birdlife, but for the pinks it has created a gigantic patchwork of dining rooms. Pinks summer in Iceland, then shun the volcanic land in August and take to the water to moult for a month. Re-feathered, they await a change in the wind.

I imagine one wise old goose dictating the precise moment of departure for the 400,000 or so that take to the wing and fly south. Following a brief stop at the Faroes they arrive in Britain. By October, migrant pinks in their tens of thousands dwell in East Anglia. They feed, bicker and take part in a host of other activities that only these elemental creatures fully understand.

Darren and I waited in our hide. Into the vast sky rose skein after skein of pinks, heading inland to feed. Thanks solely to the skill and goose craft of my deadly friend — we succeeded in bagging a goose apiece.

A pink-footed goose shot over Breydon, which offers a vast array of dining rooms to visiting fowl

We packed up our hide and headed back along the sea wall to our vehicles. Animal rights types love to paint shooting days as naught but slaughter and tweed. In their fevered minds it is all about gammon-faced men idling in stately homes, lunching copiously upon claret and casseroles.

Darren and I enjoyed our repast provided by Great Yarmouth’s Asda. We munched flaccid cheese and onion pasties sitting in the supermarket’s car park. Thus

“Into the sky rose skein after skein of pink-footed geese, heading inland to feed” nourished we went back to Breydon. High tide was at 14.30pm and a 45-minute walk across wall and salting lay ahead of us.

We crouched in a bay of a rond. The rising tide lapped at my knees as Darren swung on to a pintail, down it came and off went his Chesapeake Bay bitch Eider to make a retrieve.

The same fate befell a solitary wigeon and I noted that Darren’s dancing bear

12 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

of a puppy was slowly transforming into a wildfowler’s dog. As is my normal form I missed an easy pintail and was drinking from my thermos when a pair of teal scudded close by. Darkness fell suddenly.

The sodium lights across Breydon Water created a false sunset where the engineers refurbish wind turbines. The inmates of the hospital at Gorleston stared bleakly out of their ward windows at the scene, oblivious to our presence.

In a heartbeat the sky filled with whistling. Like bees the wigeon came, swarm after swarm in their thousands. High in the sky they stood out black as spades.

We were witnessing another intentional visitation to East Anglia. Over the sea from the Baltic they had come. Out on the sands they had rested and they had chosen this day to make the last effort to visit Norfolk.

“Lovely to see that,” muttered the never easily impressed Deadly Darren. And lovely it was. Better still, the rest of Britain doesn’t know what it is missing.

Richard Negus is a professional hedge layer and writer. He lives in Suffolk, is a keen wildfowler and a dedicated conservationist with a passion for grey partridges.

R. NEGUS

ast Anglia bulges out into the North Sea like a cook’s backside.

Norfolk and Suffolk are not places that the motorist passes through. You do not merely happen upon East Anglia by taking the wrong exit on a motorway — we don’t have any motorways.

Our isolation leads to jokes made at our expense. I frequently find strangers staring intently at my hands upon introduction, doubtless hoping to glimpse our muchvaunted webbed digits. East Anglia is a place forgotten, or gently ridiculed, by the rest of the country. While hominid visitors may shun us, not so the avian.

Deadly Darren and I decided to take a day off and overdose on wildfowling. Our morning flight was spent in pursuit of pinkfooted geese. We set up our hide at 5.30am against a reed-fringed dyke, swollen to the brim by recent rains. To our front was a sodden field of drilled barley, the shoots seeming to gasp like drowning men as they pushed through the alluvial soil. Beyond this lay the sea wall and Breydon.

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Gamekeeper

A couple of chance meetings highlight the importance of making the case for shooting, and underline why we shouldn’t pigeonhole people

S

Not all those who shoot live in the countryside — and not all those who do support fieldsports

he confessed to knowing less about it. He made the case for eating game, expounding on the many reasons game shooting bound the community together.

As is often the case with people who speak with such passion, it was difficult to get a word in edgeways, so we left him to it. We did the dutiful thing and listened while trying to eat our dinner, before he, too, bade us goodbye. He left with a similar parting comment about townies not understanding the countryside.

This was not particularly rude, but nevertheless something to which people could quite easily take offence.

“One of our New Year’s resolutions should be to engage with strangers more and gently set out our stalls” Rather bemused, we ate our meal but were then approached by an equally charming man with a terrier. Again, after the cursory introductory questions about Christmas and the weather, he spoke with passion and feeling about the same subjects. He went to great trouble to explain trail hunting and hunting exemptions, including the use of birds of prey. He touched on game shooting, though

Two things have stuck with me. The first was the passion with which they both spoke, ignoring the few factual errors. The second was the assumption that we lived in a town and by default knew very little about the countryside, and nothing about country sports.

I see this time and again, especially on social media and magazine’s letters pages, when people wrongly repeat the ‘town

14 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

versus countryside’ argument. You simply cannot pigeonhole people because of where they live. Not all rural dwellers understand farming or support country sports.

Likewise, some of shooting’s most ardent supporters live in urban areas. They do so because of work, or because they can’t afford a house in the country, or out of choice because life is easier and more convenient if you live closer to shops and railway stations.

There are any number of reasons why people live where they do, and living in a town doesn’t automatically preclude them from understanding and supporting hunting, shooting, fishing and farming.

The same can be said about people who live in the countryside who have different views to us.

You don’t have to support shooting to live in the country, you don’t have to approve of hunting to own a farm, nor do you have to pass some sort of farmingbased countryside test to relocate to somewhere with less traffic and lower pollution levels.

Perhaps one of our New Year’s resolutions for 2020 should be to engage with strangers more and gently set out our stalls, as the gentlemen in the Leicestershire pub did — with the added caveat that we don’t judge them first.

A. HOOK

hortly before Christmas, I drove for a couple of hours to a country pub in Leicestershire to meet my eldest son and his family for lunch.

The pub was good, the food was excellent, and the pre-Christmas meet-up and present swap went as planned.

What has stuck in my mind most about our trip, though, is the people in the pub.

We were having a drink and looking at menus when a rather charming, unassuming gentleman — who had, I assumed, been retired for a number of years — started a conversation.

After a couple of generic ice-breaker questions, he went straight into politics, game shooting and the hunting ban – to be expected in rural Leicestershire and within a stone’s throw of a hunt kennel. His passion for rural life and country sports was most evident, though there were huge gaps in his actual knowledge of both hunting and game shooting.

He said he cooked food for the local shoot, attended hunt meets, knew the best ways to cook a grey squirrel and could source some of the best wild food in the UK right on his doorstep; all things that I am sure he does and can do.

He gave us a general rundown of all things rural without drawing breath or giving us a chance to chip in or reply.

He ended it with: “This is how it is in the country, it isn’t something I expect you townies to understand.” He then bade us good day and walked out.

Wildfowling

Can you ID that duck?

Any wildfowler should be able to identify ducks and recognise their flight patterns: Mike Swan gives you some tips on what to watch for

T

he question “What’s that one then?” should never be heard from the person who shot a bird, so knowing what the odd unusual duck looks and sounds like is a real benefit at flight.

So, too, is knowing what to expect, so you don’t pass up an opportunity

that might just have been the chance of a lifetime to shoot something different and delicious.

For every wildfowler, knowing our nine legal quarry ducks inside out is not just desirable — but well nigh essential to getting the most from our wonderful sport.

WIGEON Most flightpond shooters will never see one and if your pool is surrounded by trees, you can effectively forget them. Wigeon, whether inland or on the coast, are primarily grazers, so open pools, splashes of floodwater and creek edges at full tide are the real draw.

They love to land on water and walk ashore to feed in the margins, or graze the eelgrass on the estuary flats when the tide is out. Look out for something a little smaller than a mallard, with a relatively longer tail and a noticeably short bill. The wonderful whistling ‘wheeoo’ of the cock bird should have your hackles rising in excitement when it comes to you out of the dusk.

TEAL The tiny teal buzzes with life and is the ‘whiz-bang’ of the duck species, suddenly appearing and just as quick to depart. There should be little chance of a mistaken identity because it is so much smaller than the rest of the quarry ducks. On the marsh teal will often fly low when the other ducks are in the stratosphere,

so it always pays to keep watch at head height, especially if you hear the sharp whistling ‘crick’ of the cock.

If you are alongside a river or creek, your first view of a teal may well be as it comes around a bend towards you, below bank height. The only real risk of misidentification is with the protected garganey, which is a very rare summer visitor to the UK, and usually gone by the time the season opens.

A. HOOK / TAYLORMADE PHOTOGRAPHY / ALAMY

Teal are smaller than the rest of the quarry ducks

MALLARD The mallard is so familiar that it should not really need any description. The question is not so much how to identify it as how to spot something different. I well remember my first trips wildfowling on the Medway and my father’s warning to “beware the easy mallard, coming out of the sun with wings set as it tips into the decoys”. How right he was, for though I never actually made the mistake, I came close to firing more than once. Normally the slower wingbeats of the shelduck — a protected species — would be a dead giveaway, even if you can’t see any colour, but with wings fixed for the descent you have nothing but the silhouette to go by.

“Beware the easy mallard, coming out of the sun with wings set”

Mallard is one of the most easily identified ducks — but don’t get fooled by a shelduck

16 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

P I N TA I L Pintails are almost as big as a mallard, but are slimmer and much more elegant. The long neck, long tail and slender wings are all noticeable in silhouette, and the white breast and neck of the drake in full plumage are obvious in good light. The flight pattern has a rather shallower wingbeat than other ducks, too.

Pintails are pretty much coastal in distribution and very much a wildfowlers’ duck. They will flight inland to pools and freshwater marshes, but are extremely rare at flightponds. Apart from the distinctive sound of the wingbeats, they are usually very quiet birds and I have never heard any sort of call.

version_3_2018/9

Image © Richard Faulks

Male and female pintail are slim and elegant birds

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Wildfowling SHOVELER The huge spatulate bill of the shoveler — which makes it look almost like a cartoon creature — is specially adapted for filtering out small invertebrates from shallows. When the shoveler is swimming, its bill seems to weigh down the front of the bird, causing

the tail to be cocked higher than the other surface feeders.

Flight is fast and direct, with less inclination to twist and turn than other ducks, and the big bill is obvious even in poor light. Shoveler have a quack very similar to mallard, but they seem to be rather less vocal, so you will probably not hear anything but a rush of wings when they catch you unawares.

Gadwall are of similar size to wigeon but feed mostly in the water

G ADWALL

The shoveler’s huge spatulate bill is obvious even in flight

TUFTED DUCK These are diving ducks that take their food from the bottom. In common with the other divers, their silhouette on the water is distinctive, with the tail lying flush with the water surface, rather than cocked above like the preceding surface-feeding species.

Tufted ducks appear very black and white, with a white belly and flanks in the full plumage drake, and a very

extensive white belly on the females.

When they take to the wing, divers must run to take off, rather simply springing from the water like surface feeders, and in the case of the tufted, the long white wing stripes that reach out from the speculum into the primaries become very obvious.

They share these in common with the protected scaup, which are very much offshore sea ducks, while tufted are primarily found on freshwater, inhabiting both lakes and rivers.

GOLDENEYE The angular and iridescent green head, white spot at the base of the short bill and bright yellow eye of the drake goldeneye are unmistakable, and most of the rest of the body appears to be white as he sits on the water.

When he takes flight he suddenly appears blacker, as the dark flightfeathers are spread. Females and

juveniles are much browner, but they retain the distinctive head and bill shape. Goldeneyes are perhaps the most solitary of all the ducks, and the adult drakes especially so. If you see a group in winter, it will usually be no more than five or six, and I speculate that this is a family party still living with mum.

They are also the quarry duck most inclined to stick out over the water, flying low and fast, and unlikely to cut any corners that bring them closer to land.

18 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

The gadwall is very much a small and refined mallard.

Like the wigeon, it is mainly a plant feeder, and it is of similar size. However, rather than grazing it feeds mostly in the water, taking significant amounts of the finer pondweed, as well as seeds and such like. As a consequence it has a ‘normal’ duck bill for its size, rather than the short stubby grazing one of the wigeon. In good light the white wing patches, where most other surface feeders have their iridescent speculum, is easily seen.

Gadwall are very much freshwater ducks and are notably infrequent on the coast, though they will take to the shore when fresh water freezes over.

POCHARD With his rich chestnut head, black chest and stern, and finely marked grey body, the fullplumage drake pochard is a very striking bird. Both he and the rather drab female have pale grey wing stripes in place of the white of the tufted. They are mainly freshwater birds and often flock together with the tufteds on lakes and gravel pits, though they seem less keen on moving water. The divers generally have a fast and direct flight pattern and are much less likely to rocket skywards if alarmed by a shot or other land-based disturbance.

Driven shooting

High, fast and fabulous Burghley might be in a flat bit of country but the tenants’ day proves it can show birds to rival the very best in England, says Jamie Tusting

T

he earliest record of shooting on the Burghley estate is captured in a painting dating back to 1683: the 6th Earl of Exeter is standing proudly with his gun in hand and faithful dog at foot.

The flintlock was invented at the end of the 16th century and came into general use in the 1630s, making it practical to shoot flying game with a long gun. Young aristocrats like the earl eagerly embraced the sport.

However, conservation was not forgotten in this new era of fieldsports. There are records on the estate of leases for old reservoirs from the end of the 17th century detailing numbers of wildfowl allowed to be shot by tenants.

Natural habitats

R. FAULKS

Fast forward to the current day and a Countryside Stewardship Scheme has been put in place to protect the estate’s natural habitats, while allowing fieldsports to continue in Burghley Park.

Its formal game shooting records date back to roughly 1820, with hares and rabbits being shot in vast numbers, on occasion more than 1,000 in a day. Game shooting at Burghley has flourished since and while it is no longer one of the biggest enterprises on the estate, it represents a hugely important part of the estate’s tradition and parkland management.

Though records are unclear, it is thought the first tenant farmers’ shoot was held at Burghley shortly after the end of World War II. More than 20 tenant farmers are invited to shoot. and the order of the day is a ‘thank you’ from landlord to tenants for all their hard work in maintaining

and developing our rural landscape.

The first tenants’ day shoot I attended was just a few days after I first started at Burghley and was something of a “rabbit in the headlights” experience.

I have been working as the assistant agent at Burghley for more than three years now and, with sunlight pouring through the window, I woke in a much more relaxed frame of mind on the morning of my third tenant farmers’ shoot — the 70th such event.

We congregated at the Round House, a beautiful thatched cottage set in the middle of Burghley Park and home to the keeper, Dave Frisby, for a quick coffee and to draw pegs.

There were 13 of us in total: nine tenant farmers, with more than 300 years of farming at Burghley between them; Burghley house manager Philip

Birds take to the air as the drive gets under way

“Perhaps the prospect of a beer was too much, as every goose carried on across the lake” 20 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

Gompertz; estate director David Pennell; graduate surveyor Georgie Hatherell; and me. A motley crew.

Ancient trees The first drive was Brackens, an area of cover around an ancient tree avenue on the edge of the estate, boasting some of the most splendid trees in the country. ‘El Magnifico’, a sweet chestnut planted roughly 500 years ago, is said to be the largest tree in Cambridgeshire — the park and house are solely in that county — and about the 25th biggest in

Driven shooting the UK. I always feel privileged to be able to shoot here and today was no exception. Between Andrew Hinch and me was a 600-year-old oak, predating even the birth of William Cecil, the first Lord Burghley — Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I — who built Burghley House.

I was so distracted by the beauty of my surroundings in the bright sunshine that I almost missed the first bird of the drive over my head.

I aimed wide with one shot and didn’t have time for a second.

However, Peter Sharpley, a back Gun behind me, calmly made the most of my daydreaming.

The tenants’ day is a vital part of helping to forge good landlord-tenant relationships, which ultimately helps the estate provide stability and prosperity. Peter has recently taken on part of the farming business from his father and it was great that he had been able to join us, especially when he was shooting as well as he was.

While Andrew and Peter seemed unable to miss, I was merrily scaring two jays that floated over. I was forced to concentrate when David came

across to load for me, and I managed to make a modest contribution to the bag. In the distance the loud jeer of a jay sounded and, determined to make up for my earlier antics, I struck gold with my second barrel.

The Burghley shoot has evolved over the years, with each keeper, shoot tenant and the marquess determined to put their mark on a fine tradition.

Generations In recent years it has been run by Andrew West, his wife Davina and son Robert. They have farmed in Collyweston for a number of years and Davina’s family has farmed on the estate for generations. Andrew provides a mix of let and syndicate days as well as a few family ones.

In the Gun bus on the way to the next drive, the chatter continued where it had left off, with Robin Dunlop cracking a hilarious selection of jokes, and we arrived at Willows smiling broadly. A large block of maize stretched up a hill, with a copse of willows and poplars at the front.

As the beaters got going, the partridges came flooding forward,

A Labrador appears a touch reluctant about giving up a cock pheasant it has retrieved

launching themselves off the top of the hill and fizzing across towards the Guns. Robert West was out on the left and the first partridge took him slightly by surprise.

The Burghley farmers line up on the peg for the tenants’ day shoot

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 21

Driven shooting

“It was high and fast, the sort of bird you would more naturally associate with Devon” It was high and fast, the sort of bird you would more naturally associate with Devon. Yet Robert took a snap shot and folded it majestically. You could see him raising his bat to the applauding crowd.

It was my turn next and though I didn’t play it as coolly as Robert, I did find the mark on two partridges as they motored overhead. It really was a cracking drive and, as the beaters came down the hill, the pheasants started to flush, launching out of the cover and climbing over the trees.

Elevenses We had two more drives before heading back to the Round House for elevenses. David’s wife Debs had prepared a feast. A thick broth and trio of delicious sausage rolls — including a Marmite-and-cheese flavoured version — seemed to go down particularly well.

The rain started to come down and it was a slightly soggy bunch who lined out at Gas Hill. I took up a position as a back Gun as an incredible drive unfolded. The pheasants sprang out of the cover in droves. Georgie was standing adjacent to the wood and, despite the ploughed field underfoot and the rain in her face, she shot brilliantly and hit the mark three times at the first attempt.

I had the best seat in the house and watched spellbound as Alan Bell and Mark Roberts — who farm at

Jamie Tusting connects with a towering pheasant

opposite ends of the estate — worked together to keep the pickers-up busy.

David came grinning across the field towards me at the end of the drive with Galahad, his 12-year-old Labrador, triumphantly carrying a partridge.

Though the rain had let up slightly, the prospect of the roaring fire at the Blue Bell at Easton-on-the-Hill was starting to fill our minds. But we had one last manoeuvre to complete.

The day’s bag steadily piles up on the game cart as the shooters start to find their mark at Burghley

22 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

The 26-acre lake at Burghley, designed centuries ago by Capability Brown, supports an abundant population of wildfowl. The evergrowing gaggle of greylag geese have been posing a nuisance to the estate, not only in the park but also in the gardens of Burghley House.

Deafening Andrew lined the Guns up just out of sight of the geese, while David, Robert and I fanned out towards them. The noise from the skein as it took off was deafening but the Guns were ready and a reverberating volley rang out across the park.

Perhaps the prospect of a beer was occupying our minds too much, as every single goose carried on across the lake and landed on the front lawn of the house. The hubbub had disturbed a lot of the other wildfowl and a pair of mallard flew over. Two booming shots rang out and one of the mallard folded and fell. Robin took in the moment, his smile radiant against the backdrop of the most beautiful house in England.

Rural jobs

Keepering was once a common job in the Scottish lowlands

Keepering is still vital Two wars in the past century took lives and decimated jobs but, while much changed, keepering remains a valued profession, says Matt Cross

T

GETTY / G. GUNN

here were McCreaths, McWhirters, McQuakers, McHargs and McKeowns, Swans, Campbells and Laings — all of them the old names of lowland Scotland.

I was idly flicking through a digitised copy of the 1910 census returns for my village. The census recorded names, ages and occupations. There were blacksmiths, carriage drivers, fruit growers, a profusion of servants — even a ‘temperance hotel keeper’. There were also three gamekeepers and eight shepherds. We have one of each now.

This is far from unique to my little village. Nationwide, the number of Number of amateur huntsmen

123

gamekeepers has dropped a long way since the early decades of the 20th century. The 1911 census records 17,148 gamekeepers in England and Wales and 5,908 in Scotland.

By 1931 the number of gamekeepers in England stood at just over 10,000, with around 4,000 in Scotland. Through the century the numbers continued to drop until there were only 4,000 English gamekeepers by 1951. Today the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation puts the total number of keepers for the UK at roughly 3,000.

Census records To find out where so many of Britain’s gamekeepers have gone, we can go back to one of the young men recorded in the village’s 1911 census.

The census records the name of a lodger at the house of one Agnes Kirkland as Allan Cuthbertson, aged 19, an ‘under-gamekeeper’. A few

450

professional stalkers across Scotland This includes 60 forestry rangers and 150 forestry contractors.

years later Allan’s name appears again in the historical record, not in the cursive of the census clerk, but cut by a mason on to the village war memorial.

Aged 26, Corporal Allan Cuthbertson of the Royal Scots Fusiliers died on the Western Front in World War I. His battalion war diary records the day he sustained his fatal wounds as ‘fairly quiet’.

His pre-war employer, a major in the Army Remount Service, had

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 23

Rural jobs taken his own life four years earlier.

He killed himself on the ship taking him to France, horrified at the thought of what faced the horses he was transporting.

The gamekeepers who returned from the war came back to a changed nation. Heavy taxes and death duties had broken up many of the estates.

The standard rate of income tax had risen from six per cent to 30 per cent and death duties forced many of those inheriting estates to sell up.

Here it was something more subtle.

After the war the son who inherited the estate could find little zest for the life of a country aristocrat in a world where so much had changed. Instead he allowed the estate’s finances to slide and for 55 years he did not raise the rent on the estate farms. When his grandson took on the estate in 1972 it was bankrupt. Soon afterwards the last remaining keeper had gone, the land was sold and most of it planted with trees. Even 65 years after it Number of kennelhuntsmen

66

ended, the war was still shaping the lives of gamekeepers.

From 1931 to 1961 the number of gamekeepers crashed. Two years before World War II broke out, gamekeepers were discussed in Parliament. Alexander Walkden MP asked the minister for labour, Ernest Brown: “Are the government making any arrangements for these men to be more usefully employed in the event of an outbreak of war?” He gave the

Approximately

250

professional fishing gillies years and were too far gone for the diminished workforce available to bring back.

Tree planting After World War I, when a national timber shortage nearly crippled the war effort, a tree-planting programme had begun and by the 1940s it was advancing rapidly.

On the southern edge of Kielder Forest in Northumberland, trees were planted across the grouse moors of Hesleyside. Sixty years earlier they had been described as “the finest grouse moors in the kingdom”.

Much more of Kielder Forest spread over the moors of the Duke of Northumberland; across upland Britain, spruce and pine turned what were once loss-making grouse moors into profitable tree factories.

For a while the Forestry Commission employed its own gamekeepers but the job of trying to control foxes and crows in the vast plantations proved futile and the received ecological wisdom turned against predator control. From then on when the trees came the gamekeepers went, and so did much of the life, both human and animal.

“Maybe in decades to come, gamekeepers will return to land they trod 100 years ago” enigmatic answer “That is a matter of opinion”, but when war came many gamekeepers either joined up or were moved to other more vital occupations.

Some, like gamekeeper Roddie Campbell, who fought for the legendary Lovat Scouts, found fame.

Many died and many more came back to a world much changed. Many moors had been unmanaged for six

Afforestation did not just push out keepers. The 1946 Hill Farming Act breathed new life into hill sheep farming but by the 1960s trees were pushing sheep out, too. In his 1989 book Sheepdogs at Work, hill shepherd and sheepdog trainer Tony Iley quoted trialling expert Matt Mundell: “Here in Galloway and in Tweedsmuir they are a vanishing people. Men and dogs are leaving

JOB

1881

2020

PERCENTAGE CHANGE

Gamekeeper

12,633

4,406

-65.12%

24 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

Number of kennel yards in UK

233

the hills every week and forestry ploughs are coming in… just the other week I was up a glen with more than 20 cottages where once herds and their families lived. They will never return.”

The processes that have driven down the number of shepherds are different to those that have driven down the number of gamekeepers.

Systems for producing sheep have become more efficient at the same time as sheep have lost value. The result is that a shepherd now covers far larger areas and far more sheep than his or her predecessor did.

Loss of ground When the Scottish Government’s Werritty Review compared the economics of grouse moors and sheep farms, it found it took 10,000 acres of moorland to create a single shepherd’s job.

In his authoritative book about grouse moors, Grouse in Space and Time, Peter Hudson analysed the number and density of gamekeepers on the grouse moors of northern Britain. While the number of keepers has declined, the amount of ground each one looks after has stayed

The amount of ground looked after by gamekeepers in northern Britain has changed little in 100 years

roughly the same. In 1992 a Scottish gamekeeper working on a grouse moor looked after slightly more ground than his early 20th century predecessor, but an English keeper actually looked after slightly less.

Almost the entire loss of gamekeepers can be put down to the loss of ground for shooting.

When the 2020 census is published in 100 years’ time it will show far fewer of those old Scots surnames.

Life and landscape have changed, the grouse butts and sheep fanks crumbling slowly into piles of stone.

Shooting here is strong; every year Americans and Canadians cross the Atlantic to shoot in Scotland, their presence a testimony to the work of our remaining keepers.

Perhaps in decades to come, more enlightened models of forestry will emerge and the forests will one more become the rich hunting and shooting grounds of old, and gamekeepers will make their return to a land they trod 100 years ago.

Figures are from data supplied by the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation and The Hunting Office.

Number of professional huntsmen

123

H AW K E R P RY M 1 W O O D L A N D S ®

INTO THE WOODLANDS GAMEKEEPERS IN THE ENGLISH CENSUS 1851 - 7,703 1861 - 9,848 1871 - 12,431 1881 - 12,633.

1891 - (Data deficient) 1901 - 16,677 1911 - 17,148 1921 - 9,367 1931 - 10,706 1941 - No Census 1951 - 4,391

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Irish stalker

Staggering ignoranc The public may be sentimental about deer but herds need controlling for their own good, as an incident in Kerry shows, says Barry Stoffell

CHRISTOPHER BROWN / ALAMY

D

eer management, an activity undertaken quietly and in solitude, enjoyed — or perhaps more accurately endured — a brief moment of national attention here in Ireland.

An incident in Kerry raised questions regarding the management of red deer in the county.

In late October a red stag was observed by a tour group who had assembled to watch the rut of the wild red deer in parkland close to Killarney. Evidently unwell, the stag had deformed antlers and a pronounced loss of co-ordination in its hindquarters.

Numerous photos were taken and social media was soon alight with wild speculation about a mystery disease affecting the wild deer. The press picked up the story and the local paper ran a front-page photo of the stag, leading with the emotive headline ‘Deer fear’.

Key to the newsworthiness was the iconic status of the herd in question — of all the deer that live on

the island, the red deer of County Kerry are something special. The reds that inhabit the wild south-western outpost of the Irish Republic are widely accepted to be the only truly ‘native’ Irish deer left, having been there for at least five millennia.

Food shortages While there are plenty of red deer elsewhere — most notably in the Wicklow mountains and the highlands of Donegal — these beasts trace their lineage back to Scottish hill deer and English park stock reintroduced after the native herds were hunted to extinction during the food shortages of the mid-19th century.

When the Wildlife Act was introduced in 1976, the population of the remnant herd in Kerry was down to a little over 150 animals.

In recognition of their historical importance, the act granted them protections that persist to this day.

A wild red deer in County Kerry may only be shot under a special Section

The wild deer herd in Killarney National Park

26 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

42 licence. Under this protection, the population re-established itself and the county is now home to more than 1,000 red deer.

The vast majority of these animals live in and around Killarney National Park: 26,000 spectacular acres of mixed mountains, lakes and woodland formed from the amalgamation of the Knockreer and Muckross estates.

Management of all deer within the park falls to the National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS), which has become the custodian of this natural resource. The park is not fully fenced and relies largely on geography to keep the deer in place. However, every year a significant number of reds turn up on the farmland around the margins of the park and are culled by stalkers under Section 42 licences.

The deer population in the national park, which abuts the vibrant tourist town of Killarney, is the subject of constant public scrutiny, as shown by the speed at which the story regarding the sick deer spread.

Irish stalker

The deer are a major draw for tourists

Online, the experts weighed in from far and wide. The symptoms were consistent, some said, with a condition known as ryegrass staggers.

Ryegrass can be contaminated with a certain endophyte fungus that produces toxins such as peramine and lolitrem B which, once ingested, cause the animal to lose co-ordination of its rear legs.

particular, the numbers have been increasing steadily and now far exceed what would be considered normal. A large number of these animals now permanently inhabit the grassland and, in the absence of any hardship, they have achieved reproduction rates comparable to farmed deer.

Wild deer numbers in thi

Tests A small nu were spott close to the condition. culled the a deer and qu sensibly ref comment on condition un further tests performed o carcases, tho was pointed short stateme there was no r within the national park.

The results of these tests have yet to be released. But as the social media storm subsided, a few saner heads quietly pointed out that the reality is likely to be far less dramatic than ryegrass fungus and, sadly, not entirely unexpected.

The density of the wild deer population in and around Killarney has been raising eyebrows for some years among local deer managers.

On the lush park and grassland around Knockreer House, in

ingesting small amounts of soil alongside the rapidly diminishing grass. Once inside the rumen, this accumulates and inhibits the uptake of vital trace elements, in particular copper.

Copper licks In farmed deer, this condition is quickly recognised and treated with copper licks or, in more extreme cases, boluses. In a wild deer population, the most practical and sustainable remedy is a significant reduction in the deer density of that particular area.

deformed antlers nced loss of in its hindquarters” g of their range — itself supposedly protected under EU habitat directives — the deer are placing ever greater demand on the limited acreage of grass.

As a direct result of the chronic overpopulation, some experts have suggested that the latest episode may be the first instance in the wild deer population of a condition quite common in farmed deer — that of enzootic ataxia as a result of traceelement deficiency. Persistent overgrazing an area leads to deer

Until the full results of the deer necropsies are made public we won’t know what’s wrong with the wild reds of Killarney, but it seems likely that soon the NPWS will have to make a difficult decision.

Culling deer in the public eye anywhere always draws vicious condemnation from those who seem to believe that wild animals are more than capable of deciding to delay having a family until they’ve saved enough for a mortgage on their very own exclusive acre of grass. But anyone managing deer owes it to the beasts they oversee to base their strategy on data and best practice rather than public opinion.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 27

Pigeon shooting

A New Year slumber party What better way for two young boys to learn shooting than to go pigeon roosting? Tom Payne takes them under his wing on New Year’s Day

S. FARNSWORTH

R

oost shooting as a form of pigeon management goes back to the very early days of fieldsports. In those days, muskets were used to take on my favourite sporting adversary with pigeons perching in tree canopies being shot down with single musket balls.

Roosting pigeons is certainly the easiest of the four techniques on offer for pigeon control. You don’t need knowledge of flightlines, nor to have perfect fieldcraft or exceptional decoying abilities. All you really need is a decent wood with plenty of pigeons coming home to roost.

I would confidently guess that, with a national average bag size being 12 during a decoying outing, many pigeon shooters would find roost shooting a lot more fruitful.

With the general licences coming under review again at the end of February, roosting pigeons as a tactic for controlling numbers in the winter months is currently of great importance. The alternative, which

is chasing wary flocks of birds around winter rape fields, can be devilishly difficult. However, roosting pigeons is more than merely about managing numbers. It sits at the heart of our shooting traditions.

There aren’t many shooters from rural communities whose first bird wasn’t a roosted pigeon. The importance for future generations is

“Roost shooting instils respect for our quarry, respect for fieldcraft, and safe gun handling” huge. It instils respect for our quarry, knowledge of fieldcraft and safe gun handling, but it also gives youngsters a sense of the excitement that comes from hunting for your food.

Roost shooting on the farm shoot or estate can also be a massive thank you from gamekeepers and

30 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

landowners to the pickers-up and beaters. It is always a joy to be in a wood with a hard-working team whom you have been beating alongside during the season, taking on spectacularly sporting pigeons when they’re coming in to roost.

Beating wings I remember with huge fondness being out in the woods at home with Dad on a good, windy, overcast night with big flocks coming home to the firs. The noise of beating wings was so exciting.

That feeling has never left me and I’m still the same today, happy with a couple of hours of frantic shooting then back home to the warmth with a handful of pigeons for the pot.

To bring on the young generation, it was a great pleasure being able to get Harry and Alfie Brownlow out over the festive period. We received a phone call from Mrs B — Clare Brownlow — suggesting that we all get together in Scotland for the New Year, and how could we refuse? I’m not one to turn down a party and not if all our

Pigeon shooting was a brilliant atmosphere and it’s a super ground.

The boys were excited about shooting the next day but we had one minor issue to face first: New Year’s Eve, and coming out of it unscathed.

It was easier said than done with this raucous lot. The clock struck midnight, a “Happy New Year!” and it was off to bed with a cup of cocoa ready for the next day. Of course it didn’t happen like that — we all were up until the early hours of the morning laughing and attempting to dance.

close friends are involved. Harry, 10, has been enjoying his first season doing a bit more shooting with his father Charlie, but eight-year-old Alfie is just getting into it and both boys are shooting well but focused on safety.

Warm-up Knowing that we were going to be out roosting on New Year’s Day — if the weather played ball — we decided to meet at the Bisley at Braidwood shooting ground on New Year’s Eve for a bit of fun and a warm-up. A festive clay shoot was also a chance for me to see how the boys were progressing with their shooting.

I’m not a 36-bore fan but the boys really enjoy shooting the little .410 side-by-side — a classic shooting family’s heirloom — and they do shoot it well. Both boys practised some high hanging springing teals and a few stalling higher crossers.

I wasn’t planning for them to be taking high, crossing pigeons over the tops of the trees, more the classic pigeon coming into settle in the treetops. We had a great couple of hours at the Braidwood; there

Afternoon roost

Tom alerts Harry to a roosting pigeon that could prove to be the next one for the bag

We all wobbled into the kitchen for a slap-up breakfast the next day.

The weather was looking great for an afternoon roosting, 16mph winds with a few stronger gusts and overcast. The mixed wood of firs and hardwood followed a burn. We had seen a few pigeons but Scotland is patchy and, though we were hoping for a few, it was mostly about getting the boys out.

They took it in turns, watched by their parents and me. The shooting was tricky. There was a rising bank Clare and Charlie Brownlow with proud sons Harry (left) and Alfie as they carry home their trophies

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 31

Pigeon shooting

Alfie takes aim under the watchful eyes of his mother Clare and Tom

from the burn that made the arriving birds a lot higher than I thought. We tried to be selective as the odd bird would present itself for a nice shot.

Great fun We had to bear in mind that the boys were using .410s, so punching up through the treetops at a 40-yard crosser cutting through the branches was simply not realistic. But it was great fun being out.

The wood was sparse and I stood the boys with rhododendrons behind them so our silhouettes were broken

by cover — a vital tip for any budding pigeon shooter.

The shooting was undoubtedly tough but with the boys ready, like coiled springs, we would get the odd bird drifting in, setting its wings on approach for landing. It presented the perfect target — 20 yards up, landing gear down, then that distinctive pop of the .410 and the unsuspecting pigeon would tumble at our feet.

It was a tough call over who would pick-up the birds. The boys were brimming with excitement as they went off to retrieve their rewards,

“The first cock pheasant went to roost — that sound is the signal for the end of play”

An eager Labrador retrieves one of the boys’ downed pigeons in what was a day of fantastic sport

32 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

in much the same way as I did in the past — and still do. Harry, being the oldest, had the lion’s share of the shooting and a tricky 25-yard bird whistling through the branches left to right fell to his trusty little gun.

No mean feat.

I had a few shots just before the first cock pheasant went to roost.

I explained to the boys that sound is the signal for the end of play, which is tradition I have always stood by.

Nine in the bag We walked back to the house discussing the nine birds in the bag, then later enjoyed a couple of pints in the pub.

It served as a reminder of how important roost shooting is, not merely for managing pigeon numbers and limiting damage but also for the teaching, camaraderie and memories it brings to shooting families and shooting communities.

After a year in which we have received so many attacks on our traditions and livelihoods by people who don’t understand rural Britain and refuse to accept the employment and conservation that fieldsports bring, I was filled with a great sadness.

Will these two boys, like so many of the younger generation, be able to appreciate, learn and enjoy their sport? It’s a tough one. Things are undoubtably going to change but let us be the ones who make the decisions on how we can improve.

We must be united in what will be a tricky decade for fieldsports.

Airgunning

Go quality, not fancy If you’re starting out and buying lots of new aigunning kit, it’s vital to know when you should splurge and when to save, says Mat Manning

M. MANNING

A

irgun shooting is enjoying a huge surge in popularity and newcomers are spoilt for choice when it comes to accurate and reliable equipment.

Unfortunately, though, too many shooters are failing to get the best from their gear by overlooking a few basic points. Many of these snags are easy to remedy and a few small tweaks can bring a significant improvement when it comes to accurate shooting and the enjoyment of your sport.

It is easy to be seduced by the marketing patter from gunmakers

and retailers. While it might sound nice to own a new gun with all the latest extras, it has to be said that many of the modern whistles and bells are unnecessary.

Do you really need a huge array of accessory rails, a massive shot capacity or a super-stubby bullpup?

Probably not, and certainly not if those extras mean that you have to skimp on quality in order to meet your budget.

My key piece of advice to anyone thinking about buying a new airgun is to try a few different ones first. Have

Sophisticated flagship models represent the pinnacle of airgun design but might be too much gun for some applications

Joining a club is a great way to get advice, try different guns and access some great second-hand bargains

34 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

a go with friends’ guns or join a club, where you will meet lots of friendly shooters who will be more than happy for you to have a try with their set-ups. You may have your heart set on a particular model then find that something else suits you much better.

Toppling tins Think very carefully about what you want your airgun for; there’s no point in splashing out thousands of pounds on the latest match-winning air rifle if you only intend to topple tins in the garden or thin out feral

Airgunning

A simple break-barrel springer could be all you need for controlling pests in the garden

pigeons on the farm. Similarly, your introduction to target shooting will be a disappointing one if you opt for a gun that doesn’t fit you properly and churns out inaccurate shots.

Go for the best you can afford but don’t break the bank and always put quality ahead of gimmicks. A decent spring-powered airgun is likely to give far better service than a cheap pre-charged model if you’re on a tight budget, and you can always keep saving and upgrade in a few years’ time. The second-hand market can also produce some real gems, which is another good reason to join a club.

Serious club shooters tend to change their airguns very frequently, which means there are often some real bargains to be had.

The same rules apply when choosing a telescopic sight — so go

most pre-charged airguns but you might want a sturdy one-piece mount to combat the recoil of a spring or gasram gun.

Low to the bore If you’re buying online, make sure the mounts match the rails on your gun — dovetail or Weaver/Picatinny — and are the right size to fit the tube of your scope, which will usually be 25mm or 30mm. When it comes to height, I like to keep my scopes as low to the bore as possible. But you might need to go a bit higher if your sight has a very large objective lens or if the mounts need to straddle a magazine that stands proud of the action.

When mounting a scope, begin with the screws only lightly tightened so you can still slide the sight back and forth. With the help of a friend,

“Think about what you want the gun for: do you need a huge array of rails, a massive shot capacity or a super-stubby bullpup?” for optical quality over fancy extras.

Massive zoom ranges and giant objective lenses are not essential and overly complex reticles can be a real hindrance. A 4-12x scope with an objective lens of around 44mm and a basic mil-dot reticle should cover most airgunning applications.

Your scope mounts create a vital link between your gun and your sighting device, so make sure you choose the right one. Good-quality two-piece mounts are suitable for

shoulder the gun with your eyes closed — to stop you from adjusting your hold to suit the incorrect positioning of the scope — then get your helper to slide the sight slowly back and forth. When you see a full sight picture that fills the frame, you have the eye relief — the distance between your eye and the ocular lens — set correctly.

You now need to ensure that the vertical cross-hair is dead upright in alignment with the barrel,

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 35

Airgunning Quality two-piece mounts like these are adequate for most pre-charged airguns

something that too many gun shops fail to do.

You can buy levels and set up plumbs to provide a reference. But a simpler way is to place your gun upright in a stand and move your head back slightly from the usual shooting position so you can see the sight picture and the scope mounting rails. Ensuring that the sight picture remains exactly concentric to the scope, rotate the optic until the bottom of the vertical cross-hair is aligned with the centre of the rails.

Aligned That should ensure that it is also aligned with the barrel and remains (in windless conditions) aligned with the pellet as it travels downrange.

With eye relief and vertical alignment correctly set, you can fully tighten the mounts. When fastening the screws in the rings, try to keep the gaps equal on both sides of the sections and tighten them very gradually, taking down each screw a little way at a time. Don’t fully tighten one side first as it may twist the scope, and don’t overtighten the screws because you really don’t want to squash the tube.

Matching your airgun with the right pellet is one of the most important factors of accurate shooting. Many retailers sell airgun combos complete with ammo and while the pellets that come with the kit may shoot well enough, you will almost certainly be able to find a better match. Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules when

it comes to pairing airguns with pellets and rifles that roll off the same production line can shoot well with very different ammo. The only way to find out the best match for your airgun’s barrel is to set up on the range with a variety of pellets and shoot some five-shot test groups to find out which give best results.

You don’t want to splash out on lots of full tins of pellets then discard the majority of them, so ask friends if they can lend you a few samples.

Again, club shooters will be in a handy position and some manufacturers also offer sample packs to help cut the cost. If you are going to buy a few tins of pellets, my advice is to avoid cheap

lines and stick to leading brands such as Air Arms, JSB, Daystate, H&N, RWS, QYS and Bisley — they have a strong following for good reason.

I would also recommend limiting your choice to domed designs. This configuration wins most of the silverware in field target competitions and that consistent accuracy is a prime concern when targeting live quarry. Ignore all the claims of improved penetration or expansion from more elaborate designs.

Precision rules supreme; it is consistent accuracy that wins competitions and any pellet is deadly if you can confidently land it between your quarry’s eye and ear.

“Your scope mounts create a vital link between your gun and your sight”

Stick to quality and proven designs when testing pellets to find the best match for your barrel

36 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

Vehicle test

AUDIA6ALLROADQUATTRO50TDI | PRICE£57,570

PROS: 8-SPEEDGEARBOX,7DRIVING MODES, RAISABLE SUSPENSION

CONS: PRICEY,IMPRACTICALWHEELS/ TYRES, LIMITED OFF-ROAD ABILITY

Audi A6 Allroad Quattro 50 TDI If you’re looking for a fast estate car that can also venture off-road, then Audi’s new A6 Allroad Quattro could be just the ticket, says Ed Coles

D. GOULD

A

t first glance, you might think you’re reading the wrong magazine, testing an Audi A6. But hold your horses — on closer inspection we may have found something that could fit the bill for country sports types.

The Audi A6 Allroad Quattro is essentially an A6 with adjustable air suspension and four-wheel drive, though I probably won’t risk trying to fit a spinner on the back to go feeding.

As estate cars go it’s quite sleek and stylish, almost pretty from a certain angle. The 20in wheels don’t look out of place, though I can’t help wondering if anyone makes a 20in low-profile tyre capable of off-roading.

It’s time to pull out that trusty feed bag and see how promising things look underneath. There’s not much

to report, unless black plastic excites you — most of the workhorse bits are hidden safely away behind a fortress of shielding.

There are a few glimpses of the permanent 4WD set-up and a few gizmos, but not a lot. The all-road has a central self-lockable differential, and we don’t need to see it to know it’s there. Audi has form with the

The air suspension raises and lowers the car depending on which driving mode is selected. Of course, the off-road setting gives us a little more breathing space when it comes to the front and rear clearance.

The tailgate is quite fancy with one-touch auto-opening and closing, so stand back. There’s a decent amount of space back here but it’s

“I can’t help wondering if there is a 20in low-profile tyre capable of off-roading” quattro set-up — those of a certain age will recall Audi’s world rally success.

We can see the independent air suspension front and rear that cushions the big A6 — it is an important part of the all-road system.

38 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

deep rather than tall. It’s not ideal for accommodating a dog box, but a small one would fit in. There is enough space for all the essential sporting kit, by my guesstimate, using the standard bag of wheat measurement,

Vehicle test around seven to eight full bags.

There is also enough room to accommodate 32in barrels — just about.

Engine Opening the bonnet, lurking beneath the plastic on our test model is a 3-litre V6 TDI engine, which stables 282 horses. It certainly packs a punch and with the eight-speed Tiptronic automatic gearbox it soon propels you to speeding fine territory.

The A6 all-road is offered with three different 3-litre engine variants, with output ranging from 228hp to 344hp. All use Audi’s mild hybrid technology (MHEV) system, which can reduce fuel consumption by up to 0.4 litres over 62 miles using regenerative braking via the alternator/starter, feeding a separate battery.

Interior As it is an Audi, you would expect it to be a bit plush and it is. The interior is best enjoyed when dark — it’s like a neon cocktail bar. All mod cons are present and correct, and the central touchscreen controls myriad devices. The satnav uses satellite imaging and I was simply blown away by it — I could do with it to show my beaters where to go on shoot days.

The interior is very comfortable with a few options making it a bit more luxurious, ranging from a Bang & Olufsen stereo to an extended leather package.

Everything is controlled from the touchscreen, be it the climate control, the radio or driving mode selection. There are seven driving

modes — Allroad, off-road, efficiency, dynamic, comfort, auto and individual. Auto and comfort give you a standard ride height of 139mm, which is pretty reasonable; 45mm higher than the standard A6. However, the faster you go, the lower the suspension sits. Motorway driving at more than 74mph — though illegal — lowers the ride height by 15mm.

Off-road So for a little off-piste driving.

With off-road selected, the height again adjusts depending on speed. If you want to avoid those ruts, don’t go faster than 20mph as the suspension will drop from 184mm to 169mm. Don’t then go over 49mph or you could be in trouble.

The A6 also has hill-descent control along with a lockable diff, so on paper it should be able to cope with an adventure or two Does it do what it says on the tin? The Allroad feels stable on country lanes and is very much at home on the motorways. For a big vehicle it’s quite spirited on the back roads. The automatic gearbox works well and manual mode is fun using the paddle gear change.

It handled the ruts pretty well but I wouldn’t take too many liberties with it, and I certainly wouldn’t want to scratch it. I do wonder how the big 20in wheels and low-profile tyres would cope on really rough and wet ground.

That said it’s pretty capable for an estate car on stilts, and most importantly it didn’t get stuck.

THE BOTTOM LINE

IT WILL COME AS NO SURPRISE that the A6 Allroad in all its elegance comes at a bit of a premium. Brace yourself — the basic on-theroad price for the bottom-of-the-range 45 TDI is £54,555. The 50 TDI is £57,570 but there were a few ‘side orders’ on this model, and they bump the price up to £68,885.

I know it’s a lot of money but you are almost getting two cars for the price of one.

You could bring the price down — the fancy sunroof is just under £2,000, the leather pack is £1,000, the 20in wheels are £2,200, while the upgraded stereo and technology pack add another £3,395 to the price.

Mudflaps at £250 are an option probably worth having.

However, it’s still cheaper than a Range Rover and not far off as capable.

NEED TO KNOW

The plush interior has plenty of high-tech options

Manufacturer

Audi

Model

A6AllroadQuattro50TDI

Topspeed

155.3mph(limited)

0-62mph

5.9seconds

Output

286hp

Torque

457lb/ft

Fueleconomy Combined

48.3mpg

Emissions combined

152-156g/km

Towingweight (braked)

2,500kg

Rear load limit

1,400kg

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 39

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C

ATING OUR BEST WRITE R B E RS EL

Plan a patchwork oasis How do you build snipe and woodcock numbers to such a density that they can be driven? By releasing fewer pheasants, says Colin McKelvie

P. QUAGLIANA / ALAMY

C

ertain game species are comparatively amenable to intensive management: the best and most obvious example is the pheasant. But what about woodcock and snipe? Certain parts of the British Isles have always harboured larger populations of both species than other areas — and will continue to do so, simply because the habitat is infinitely more suitable.

The inevitable result is that those who wish to enjoy the best snipe and woodcock shooting had better head for the ‘Celtic fringes’, the mild areas of bog, pasture and low scrub-like cover to be found in Ireland, the Hebrides, west Wales and Cornwall.

A prerequisite is that sedentary wintering woodcock must have soft, wet soil, rich in earthworms, insect larvae and other invertebrate life, in which to probe for food.

This requirement is best fulfilled in damp frost-free western areas, where the fields are chiefly given over to permanent pasture. The manure of grazing livestock helps to enrich the ground and to enhance the numbers of worms and other invertebrates, and woodcock are known to feed voraciously on earthworms during the hours of darkness.

If your shooting takes place principally in arable farming country, you will inevitably see fewer woodcock, except when a fall arrives and a transient migrant

party briefly occupies some of the coverts. However, if a generally arable area happens to contain an ‘oasis’ of permanent pasture with woodlands and other cover vegetation adjacent, you may well have a sporting little woodcock spot.

Disturbance The birds dislike disturbance and if your woodcock spot can be kept undisturbed and only beaten out once every two or three weeks, a modest but worthwhile bag may be achieved.

Disturbance includes not only human intrusion but also the presence of other creatures that are noisy or active during daylight.

“With an oasis of cover you should be able to shoot a modest bag of woodcock”

42 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

Pheasants that are released and fed throughout the winter will usually represent an unacceptable level of disturbance to woodcock.

Laurel, rhododendron, holly, gorse and other low, dense cover plants are attractive to woodcock and provide dark, secluded and usually frost-free daytime roosts. They flourish in the acidic and often waterlogged soils of the western and southern areas of Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the West Country in England.

Optimum numbers can be achieved if the habitat is laid out to enable the birds to flight to and fro at dawn and dusk from their night-time feeding grounds, allowing them to

Vintage Times drop into clear areas then scuttle under cover to their day-time roosts.

A much higher proportion of the woodcock flushed will go over the Guns, and bags will be consequently bigger, if areas of cover can be tunnelled, divided with narrow rides, and otherwise broken up in such a way as to enable beaters and dogs to drive relatively small patches, with Guns stationed in a three-sided or even encircling formation. Many woodcock flushed will not go straight forward but will break back at unpredictable angles and heights.

Sporting The numbers of wintering woodcock — those that can be harvested by sporting shooting — will be increased if time and manpower can be made available to achieve a desirable patchwork effect. Those clumps of low cover should interspersed with clearings, rides and tunnels which enable the beaters to put the birds over the Guns in an effective way.

“The slender legs of the snipe mean it is well adapted to shallow flooded areas such as marshes”

Also like woodcock, the snipe is an active feeder, probing deeply and energetically in soft mud and ooze for a wide range of invertebrate food material. It usually feeds during the daylight hours, though its feeding pattern is interrupted by a full moon, during which time snipe will feed at

“An understanding of the birds’ ecological requirements will help to ensure sport” Like the woodcock, the snipe is classified as a wading bird. Its slender legs are relatively longer than those of a woodcock, and it is well adapted to shallow flooded areas, such as water meadows, marshes and boggy areas, where the depth of water does not exceed more than an inch or two.

“Clumps of low cover with rides and tunnels will allow beaters to put birds over the Guns”

night and rest during the day.

Snipe are principally winter migrants. The vast majority of wintering birds come to us from breeding grounds in northern Europe, Scandinavia and Iceland.

Their preferred wintering habitat consists of moist, often flooded places, adjacent to areas of longer vegetation that affords cover, shelter and a dry resting spot.

Snipe, too, appreciate a patchwork environment, in which open areas, perhaps under an inch or two of water, are close to dry and sheltered areas, where they can rest and take refuge from predators.

An excellent if inadvertent management technique came as a spin-off from the early practice of tethering animals, particularly goats and horses, on areas of marsh and bog during the dry summer months.

They tended to graze in circles and, as they were moved across the marsh or bog, a pattern of eaten-out circles interspersed with areas of longer, uneaten vegetation, was created.

In the later winter months this formed ideal snipe wintering habitat.

An interesting if rather more bizarre

management technique to improve the attractiveness of a marsh or bog for snipe consists of adding animal blood to the ground. Blood adds to the richness of the soil and promotes the invertebrate food that is essential if a marsh is to be made into an attractive feeding ground for snipe.

Like woodcock, snipe react badly to repeated disturbance. Snipe bogs should be shot infrequently. The birds are particularly susceptible to undue noise from Guns and beaters.

Bog and marsh Here again, effective habitat management can help, in that a patchwork effect of long and short reeds and other bog and marsh vegetation will help to conceal the approach of dogs and Guns. This will give snipe a sense of security, resulting in fewer wild flushes out of range and, with luck, a higher proportion of shootable birds.

Both woodcock and snipe are among the game species that are least amenable to intensive management.

For this reason the pursuit of snipe and woodcock remains a true fieldsport simply because you can never predict the numbers of birds which will be seen or bagged with any degree of certainty.

Nevertheless, as with all game species, an understanding of the birds’ basic biology and ecological requirements will help us to ensure sport and an assured future for wintering populations of these most welcome immigrants.

This article was first published in the 17 January 1985 issue of Shooting Times.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 43

Castlemans Soul Mate was second in the 2018 IGL Retriever Championship

It’s a golden wonder

D. TOMLINSON / S. MAGENNIS

Golden retrievers are a rare sight in the shooting field and rarer trial champions, but what has led to their decline, asks David Tomlinson DOGS ARE USUALLY withdrawn from trials due to injury to themselves, not their handlers, but when Keith Broomfield injured his back during November’s IGL Retriever Championship at Glenalmond he was forced to withdraw his golden retriever, FTCh Polihale Vodka Surprise (Lay on McDuff, 27 December).

Keith is a former champion with the Labrador Kaliture Black Spruce in 2011, but this was the first time that he had qualified with a golden retriever.

His withdrawal was a blow to those hoping to see a golden win the event for the first time since 2006.

Sixty-four dogs qualified of which only four were golden retrievers, with all the rest Labradors. In theory, curlycoated and flatcoat retrievers, Irish water spaniels, Chesapeake Bay retrievers and Nova Scotia duck tolling retrievers could all qualify.

Despite studying The Best of the Best: A History of the IGL Retriever

Championship 1909-2011, I’ve been unable to establish whether a curlycoat has ever qualified — I think it’s unlikely. The only flatcoat win was back in 1912, though a number of flatcoats qualified and ran in subsequent years. There’s never been an Irish water spaniel, Chesapeake

“Perhaps the good looks that made it a popular pet led to its working ability being neglected” Bay or duck toller qualifier and I doubt if there ever will be.

There’s one major reason why Labradors dominate the championship: it’s a competition that could almost have been designed for them, so perfectly does it suit the Labrador temperament and ability.

Thus for any handler who really wants

to win, a Labrador is the dog to have.

Golden retrievers have only won four times since the competition started in 1909, so the odds are against them from the start.

Ubiquitous Despite this, the fact that several qualify for the championship every year is a reminder that these beautiful dogs can hold their own against the ubiquitous Labrador.

If more top handlers followed Keith Broomfield’s example and campaigned for golden retrievers, it would do much to enhance the breed’s profile and popularity.

Part of the problem is, of course, that working-bred goldens are in short supply and it’s so much easier to buy a Labrador from a top working line than it is a golden retriever. Kennel Club figures reveal that between 7,000 and 8,000 golden retriever puppies are registered annually, but it’s safe to assume that at least 95 per cent of these are from show stock.

In association with Chudleys: over forty years of highly nutritious food for working dogs 44 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

www.chudleys.com DAVID’S VIEWPOINT

A GUNDOG AT HEART? There is an inner cocker to the cavalier King Charles

I

’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that inside many a cavalier King Charles spaniel there’s a cocker spaniel trying to get out. So I wasn’t really surprised when I read the following story sent to me by Debbie Grounds in response for my request for stories of non-gundog breeds that have aspired to be proper gundogs.

“We recently lost Oscar, our blackand-tan cavalier King Charles spaniel,” she wrote. “Oscar had a gentle and sweet personality and had been well trained to Kennel Club gold level in obedience but had received no gundog training.

“I was living on the North York Moors during the 2011 to 2012 pheasant season and while out beating was encouraged

This year marks the golden retriever’s centenary, as it was not until 1920 that the Kennel Club agreed to a separate register for ‘Retrievers (Golden)’; before they were registered as ‘Retrievers (Golden or Yellow)’.

Despite the confusion over names, the Golden Retriever Club was formed in 1913 and still exists to encourage the breeding of dogs that are sound in type, conformation and temperament and, most importantly, to encourage the working of the breed.

Quite how well it succeeds in encouraging own The Retriever Championship has only been won by a golden four times

to bring my dog along. I duly arrived the following day with Oscar, at which point everyone laughed and voiced their doubts as to his suitability as a working dog,” she revealed. “However, by the end of the first week I was complimented on his ability and training.

“He would flush pheasants from totally overgrown areas that the larger Labradors struggled to get into. He could be relied upon to return to me immediately when asked and was often sent in to flush just a few birds and then come back to me.

“He had to be helped over the larger stone walls and never picked-up as the pheasants were too large, but he was an amazing companion and working dog.

“I returned to beat at this shoot last year and was pleased to find that he was fondly remembered after five years: he was a truly amazing little dog.”

Ruth Harvey sent me another heartwarming story on a similar theme. “Dune was found on the beach — a 12-week-old emaciated puppy that had been tied up in

dogs is debatable, but I have seen an encouraging number of show-bred goldens acquit themselves well in the shooting field. My impression is that a higher proportion of pet golden retrievers go shooting than is the case with Labradors.

Dual purpose Writing about golden retrievers nearly 70 years ago, Peter Moxon remarked that they “run the Labrador a very close second” as a working gundog, adding that “this breed has made astonishing headway in recent years thanks to the enthusiasm of breeders who have wisely insisted that the dogs be ‘dual-purpose’ in every sense”.

Sadly, I don’t think this is still the case today, as show and working strains of golden retrievers have become as divergent from each other as with Labradors and English springer spaniels.

Even the appearance has changed, as the easiest way to tell working from show strains is by colour. The former retain the handsome rich gold that gives the breed its name, while the majority of the latter are now a pale, creamy shade.

Moxon noted that goldens of the right strains are easy to train and

King Charles spaniels are trainable little dogs

a plastic bag and abandoned. I could see every bone in his body. He was black with a large head.

“I soon fed him up and he grew into a beautiful cuddly dog looking like a Newfoundland-cross retriever, so he fitted in well with my Labrador picking-up team.

He enjoyed retrieving and spent 10 happy years picking-up with me. He was a legend – so, so happy and so much loved by my family for many years.”

Email: dhtomlinson@btinternet.com

handle, have exceptionally good noses and work well in water. He also praised the breed for its kind and gentle nature.

Perhaps this has been the breed’s downfall as a shooting dog — its good looks, plus the placid temperament that has made it such a popular pet, have resulted in its undoubted working ability being neglected.

Remarkably, most goldens seem to retain their working instincts.

Anyone interested in working one of these dogs should read The Complete Guide to the Golden Retriever, written by the late Michael Twist.

I was fortunate enough to interview Michael for this column nearly 20 years ago — he had owned, worked and shown goldens for more than 50 years and was adamant that a good golden could compete on equal terms with even the best Labradors.

Training a golden retriever is little different from training a Labrador — what works for one will work equally well with the other. Training the Working Retriever by Anthea Lawrence is a guide to training retrievers in general and goldens in particular, and as such is highly recommended to anyone who wants to train a golden retriever to the gun.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 45

46 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

Game Cookery

Duck

Cai Ap Bryn’s crispy duck pancakes with plum sauce would be a great talking point at any wildfowling club AGM and they’re not tricky to cook

W

ild duck is one of those meats that can be challenging to cook. I have a few rules I tend to stick to — either cook it fast and rest or simply use the low and slow method. This recipe is the latter.

Crispy duck pancakes are one of my all-time takeaway guilty pleasures. Wild duck is complemented by sweetness so the

home-made plum sauce really does marry well. There are many species of duck but for this I use mallard because it has more meat yield than, say, teal or wigeon.

‘Wild’ mallard can come in two forms; game-reared ducks eat well, whereas truly wild duck that are shot on estuaries, marshes and various waterways can have a slightly fishy taste due to their diet. I place the truly wild mallard in a brine to draw out

that taste; the game-reared ducks can be prepared exactly as they are.

Then we get to the type of cooking that is an excellent way to cook game birds, waterfowl, rabbits and even squirrels — the French method of confit. Confit de canard involves cooking the birds slowly in their own fat with salt and herbs. This seals in the flavour, stops the moisture escaping and keeps the meat deliciously tender.

CRISPY DUCK WITH PANCAKES AND PLUM SAUCE Makes 12 FOR THE BRINE 1½ PINTS OF HOT WATER

1½ TBSP OF CHINESE FIVE SPICE

3TBSPSALT

2 GARLIC CLOVES, MINCED

2 TBSP SUGAR

1IN PIECE OF GINGER, GRATED

1

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and allow to cool completely. Place the duck in the brine, cover and refrigerate overnight. The salt will draw out some of the blood, leaving cleaner meat and a slightly less fishy flavour. The sugar will get drawn into the meat and again helps to combat the fishy taste.

2

Some people will do this over a couple of days, placing the duck in fresh brine halfway through. This is better if you have a number of ducks to do at once as it limits the labour involved — overnight works well for me.

3

Once the duck is ready remove from the brine, rinse and pat dry.

PREPARING THE DUCK Spatchcock the duck by removing the backbone, then open up the back and place on a hard surface breast upwards. Press down firmly on top so the bird becomes butterflied (flat).

A. SYDENHAM

FOR THE PLUM SAUCE

FOR THE DRY RUB

SALT AND PEPPER FOR COOKING 1 STAR ANISE 2 SPRING ONION STEMS 500G OF DUCK OR GOOSE FAT 1

Mix all the ingredients and rub all over the duck, including in the cavity.

2

Leave the duck to rest for a few hours in the fridge. Once ready, place the duck in a deep ovenproof dish on top of the spring onions and put the star anise on top.

3

Cover slowly with melted fat — you can use duck or goose fat but if you have a limited supply you can use pork fat. I have used lard for this, too, and it worked perfectly well.

4

Once covered, place in the oven at 140°C for 2½ to 3 hours. The duck needs to be fully submerged and the dish covered with a lid or foil. If you put it in a large dish you will probably need more fat.

5

Be careful not to overcook the duck as your dish will simply be left with floating pieces of meat and a load of bones. Check after 2 hours to see how it is getting on.

2 PLUMS, STONED 3 TSP OF RED WINE VINEGAR 1½ TBSP SOY SAUCE 2 TBSP OF HONEY ¼ TSP OF CHINESE FIVE SPICE 1 STAR ANISE 1 TBSP OF BROWN SUGAR 1 MINCED GARLIC CLOVE Place all ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil then simmer for 15 minutes, then remove the star anise and either blitz or push through a strainer and place in the fridge to cool.

FINISHING THE DUCK ½ CUCUMBER CUT INTO BATONS 4 SPRING ONIONS SLICED 12 ORIENTAL PANCAKES (ONLINE OR FROM A CHINESE GROCER) PLUM SAUCE 1 Remove the duck from the fat and drain, sprinkle over some salt and place under a medium to hot grill for 5 minutes to crisp up the skin.

2 Shred the duck with two forks, load up the pancakes and enjoy. This is a real treat and, while it may seem a bit fiddly, it really isn’t that arduous.

The good thing about this dish is that you can prepare it in advance. Leave the duck in the melted fat, once cooled to room temperature, and keep it in the fridge.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 47

SPORTING ANSWERS The experts

Never have a battle of wills with your young dog

THE ULTIMATE SHOOTING QUIZ TEAM BILL HARRIMAN BASC’s head of firearms and global authority on guns MAT MANNING Airgunner and journalist from the West Country BRUCE POTTS

Shooting Times rifle reviewer and stalker DAVID TOMLINSON Highly regarded writer and ornithologist LIAM BELL NGO chairman, Shropshire gamekeeper and keen wildfowler GRAHAM DOWNING Shooting consultant and sporting author TONY BUCKWELL Veterinary surgeon with a special interest in gundogs TOM PAYNE Professional shooting instructor and avid pigeon shooter JEREMYHUNT Runs Fenway Labradors and a professional gundog trainer

A. HOOK / J. POTTS / M. MANNING / S. FARNSWORTH / J. HALL / M. BEEDIE / P. QUAGLIANA / ALAMY

TIMMADDAMS Former head chef at River Cottage and runs a shoot in Devon SIMON WHITEHEAD Author, professional ferreter and rabbit controller IAIN WATSON Keen stalker and senior CIC international trophy judge

Contact the team Email: stanswers@ti-media.com By post: Shooting Times, Pinehurst 2, Farnborough Business Park, Hants GU14 7BF

My dog’s split personality GUNDOGTRAINING

I have never trained a Labrador before so to begin with I spent a lot of time doing my homework in the hope of finding a level-headed puppy that would suit my inexperience as a trainer. My bitch is now 14 months old and, though she is a delightful member of the family, she can be defiant. When I tackle these issues she shows she is not really a ‘toughie’ and can become sensitive and unresponsive.

Will I ever get anywhere with this split personality?

This isn’t an uncommon situation but do not give up. If you keep your cool you will make progress. If she is good in other ways it’s simply a case of finding the right approach to bring that out in training. Her truculence can be overcome by finding the right balance between being a family dog and a trained working dog. In my experience dogs like this can turn out to be very special, but if you try the dominant approach it will not work.

48 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

At times you will need to be firm but always be fair. If she were really a hardgoing type, she would have bounced back when you have tried to tackle her defiance. But look what happened — she became sensitive. This is her true nature and you have to find the best way to create a balanced relationship between you.

When things do go wrong in training don’t let it trigger a battle of wills. Stop the session and try again the next day, thus avoiding confrontation that will achieve nothing.

Keep training sessions short. The aim should be for her to succeed every time. When she fails ignore it and repeat but make it easier if possible so she gets it right. She will gain confidence in herself and you — and you will be less stressed so will be able to build up your experience in a positive way.

Go overboard with praise when things are going right and keep exercises fairly simple, even at this stage of her development. You have the makings of your dream dog here, so be patient and give a little more — you will get it back eventually in bucket loads. JH

Expert tips and advice

Velocity in a short barrel Native RIFLES

I have a Tikka rifle in .223 Remington but the barrel is 24in long. I want to fit a sound moderator without increasing the overall length too much. How much barrel length can be reduced without affecting velocity?

I use quite a few different .223 rifles with different length barrels and here’s what I have found. The .223 calibre 52-gr bullet with a velocity of 3,402fps from a 24in barrel generates 1,337ft/lb energy. Reducing the barrel, inch by inch, to 20in only loses 149fps, which, in practical terms, is very little,

yet the benefits in weight reduction and overall length are real. Taking an extra 2in off really gives a highly ‘trim’ rifle but you do start to notice increased muzzle blast.

At 18in the 3,185fps velocity and 1,171ft/lb energy is only 217fps short of the initial velocity. This means when zeroed at 100 yards with the starting velocity, you are -2.1n low at 200 yards and -9.5in low at 300 yards.

With the shorter 18in barrel with 217fps reduction equates with a zero at 100 yards then a drop of -2.5in at 200 yards and -11.3in at 300 yards. Therefore at 200 yards there is only a -0.4in difference, and at 300 yards there is a -1.8in difference. BP

Trying to call in muntjac STALKING

Since September I have tried to call muntjac while stalking but with no success. I see the animals and have taken two from high seats, but I have been unable to get them to come to the call. I have tried the whistle-type calls and have used the kind that you squeeze. I have also tried blowing blades of grass, but nothing seems to work. Can you offer any pointers or suggestions?

I don’t think there is any magic bullet or solution to your problem — it’s more to do with time, experience of the animal and your understanding of why they will be likely to respond to the calls you have and are using. Often it’s more likely that young animals will respond to the call — they are more naive than their elder relatives.

The mantra says less is more and experience would suggest that often stalkers get impatient with a lack of results and call far more frequently and randomly than is needed. This only alerts any deer to danger rather than bringing them out to see what is going on.

It’s often useful if you can see the response, if any, that an animal makes when you call. If you are seeing deer from a high seat, try giving it a squeak to see what it does. If it bolts for cover ask yourself why. If it stops and tries to determine the source and direction of the call, watch it.

If it disregards the noise, try a different pitch or length of call. Perhaps limit your use, watch for the response when you have sight of an animal and vary the type of call you give. This, coupled with a lot of patience, should bring positive results. IW

Using a caller too frequently can alert deer to danger

Britain

Plants, flowers and fungi of Great Britain at a glance

Latin name: Auricularia auricula-judae Common name: Wood ear Other names: Jelly ear, Judas’s ear How to spot it and where to find it: This is a common fungus that grows throughout the winter and favours dead elder trees and fallen branches, though it can be found on other decaying hardwoods. The fruiting body is not huge, from 3cm to 8cm, but is curved and wavy and really does resemble a human ear. They are brown to dark brown with a slippery, jelly-like texture and covered with a fine down.

Interesting facts: The ‘ judae’ part of this mushroom’s name comes from the belief that Judas Iscariot hanged himself from an elder in shame after betraying Jesus Christ.

The legend, which dates back more than 400 years, suggests that the ‘ears’ that emerge from elder wood are visible residues of the disciple’s tormented spirit.

Despite its somewhat unedifying appearance, the wood ear is edible.

When cooked, they are firm and crunchy with a mild, musty flavour.

They become dry and, if picked in this state, can be rehydrated when you wish to use them, then be added to soups, stir fries and stews. Wood ear mushrooms are rich in B complex vitamins and contain potassium, phosphorus and calcium. They have been linked to many impressive health benefits, ranging from lower cholesterol levels to decreased cancer growth.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 49

SPORTING ANSWERS

Hot stuff

Teal are simple to prep and delicious to eat

AIRGUNNING

I’m planning to undertake airgun pest control right through the winter, but I do find it uncomfortable in cold weather.

Can you recommend anything that will help to make my shooting more comfortable when the temperatures plunge?

It’s good to hear that you don’t want to let cold weather halt your shooting. Some of the best airgunning opportunities come through the winter months, and there’s great sport to be had with pigeons, grey squirrels and rats at this time of year.

Having the right clothing makes a big difference and that usually means wearing plenty of layers and kitting yourself out with a cosy hat and a decent pair of gloves. As for an accessory, my top choice would have to be a decent flask. Being able to warm up with a mug of piping hot tea, coffee or soup is a real luxury in freezing conditions and can bring a huge boost to morale. I’ve lost count of the times that a hot drink has made the difference between me heading home early and staying on to enjoy the best part of the day. MM

A hot drink is a great way to give yourself a boost when shooting in cold conditions

Make the most of tasty teal GAMECOOKING

I have a few teal in the freezer from a recent shoot. I have never eaten them before, though my friends tell me they are among the finest meat on the planet. Can you suggest the best way to eat them?

I am not keen on rare meat but do not want to spoil them.

You are in for a treat. Teal is one of my all-time favourites — challenging to shoot, seriously rewarding in the kitchen and incredibly easy to pluck. You do have an issue, though, if you are not keen on rare meat because the birds would be best cooked hot and fast in a pan, well seasoned and whole, then finished in a very hot oven for around eight minutes before a 10- or 15-minute rest. The flavour combination between the fat on the birds and the deep, rich flesh is a joy, but if you overcook the flesh it will go a bit bitter and livery unless you slow cook it.

If you really cannot face a bit of medium breast meat, slow roast the birds with some port or wine and onions, and cook them until the leg and breast meat becomes tender. That way you can stop them drying out and still get some great flavour from the meat.

For four teal, you will need three medium onions finely sliced, two glasses of port, a sprig of thyme, a finely diced carrot, two cloves of garlic and a little butter to get them going. Seal them in a casserole dish and then add the vegetables. Cook the birds on the stove top for a few minutes before adding the port or red wine and then put on the lid, bring to a simmer and pop in the oven for an hour or so. Keep an eye on them and, if they start to dry out, add a cup of hot water.

Allow them to rest for half an hour once they are ready, and serve them with fresh greens, mashed potatoes and the roasting juices from the pot. If that all sounds a bit much, simply send them to me and I will eat them. TM

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Expert tips and advice

Working age Dummies for youngsters FERRETING

After spending many years ferreting with friends, I now feel experienced enough to get my own ferrets. How old do they need to be before they can be worked? I don’t want to harm them by trying to work them too young.

It is only natural to be concerned about the age and welfare of your ferrets when you begin. The rabbit warren can be a dark and, at times, intense place for a ferret. Though ferrets mature physically quite quickly, mentally they take a little longer than most people appreciate. If, for example, ferrets were born at the beginning of June, they would be ready to work by late November. Most young ferrets are worked slowly at around six to seven months of age, though many ferreters prefer to hold them back until the new year. So now would be perfect if yours were born in June.

I like to see what they act like; whether they are mature enough.

Bad habits can be formed by starting too them early, especially skulking when they skittle around the entrance of the holes, dodging the ferreter’s grasp in some comical game. When you take them out and they constantly fool around, box them up and take them home. Start them slowly, take your time and if you think they still aren’t ready, then wait a few more weeks — it pays dividends in the long run. SW

GUNDOGTRAINING

My son has a young Labrador that he is looking forward to begin training in earnest once the shooting season is over. As a birthday present I am going to buy him a selection of training dummies. Are there dos and don’ts about the type of dummies he should be using for a youngster?

There seems to be a huge selection these days compared with the basic canvas dummies I used to use when I trained my first dog.

Training dummies now come in a vast array of shapes, sizes and colours so I’m not surprised that you ask this question. We’ve certainly come a long way since the days of dummies made from old stuffed socks, but it’s important to remember that even such a simple homespun approach did the trick back then so it’s important not to

lose sight of what you are actually trying to achieve.

In training, your basic requirement is for a puppy to retrieve an item that it can easily pick up and carry, find pleasing to hold and that can be easily delivered without encouraging any damage en route to the handler. By all means invest in a variety of dummies but make sure they are of a shape and size that will help the puppy to learn its retrieving skills.

It is important that the first stage of training adheres to this, so I still stick to basic canvas puppy weight or ½lb dummies.

I am sure your son will welcome some of the many other types of dummies as part of his birthday present, such as rabbit skin or peltcovered ones or even rubber game birds, but giving confidence to the puppy and making his learning positive rather than challenging should still be the priority. JH

There is a huge range of dummies available to suit any size of dog

Ferrets are usually ready to be worked when they are six or seven years but they do vary

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 51

SPORTING ANSWERS

Cleaning routine

Many factors dictate the height at which birds will fly

RIFLES

Value of low-flying birds GAMEKEEPING

Is there any merit in shooting the low birds in January and leaving the higher ones to breed?

I know it sounds a bit back to front, but it does make sense when you think about it.

I have heard this spoken about before. While in theory it could work and help to improve stock, in practice it probably won’t. Individual pheasants fly differently on different

days. Wet birds, birds that have had a rough night, have had to battle their way out of heavy cover or had to struggle to break through a canopy of leaves, won’t fly as high or as strongly as birds that have had a dry night and not had to battle to get airborne.

In addition, you would probably have to do it for years — and never introduce new stock — to make any difference, and nobody really wants to shoot low or unsporting birds. Stock selection is best left to the game farms and those with closed flocks. LB

Dogs at risk from cats VETERINARY CARE

I have been told my dogs and I are at risk of a new disease transmitted by being bitten by cats and cat fleas. Is this true?

I presume you are referring to Bartonellosis or cat-scratch disease (CSD), which is caused by the bacterium Bartonella henselae. It’s seen in humans (and dogs) very rarely, following a scratch or being bitten by a cat or the bite from a skin parasite like a tick. Infection can also occur following the prick from a plant.

Bartonellosis is not a disease of cats but of humans; dogs are infrequently affected. If sensible hygienic precautions are taken to treat the wound, the incidence of infection after being scratched or bitten by a cat is low. Cats become infected from the bites of ticks and fleas, or contact with mice and rats, so it is found particularly on outdoor cats.

In one survey, while only 30 per cent of cases were associated with

a known animal-associated injury, 95 per cent of patients owned or had close contact with animals, specifically cats and dogs.

Humans contract the bacterium from a cat scratch or bite, or while gardening or (more recently) from a tick bite. The chance of infection is much reduced if the wound is thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.

CSD itself is a benign, self-limiting swelling of the lymph nodes nearest the site of injury. If more serious infection does occur, it is seen about six to eight weeks after the event as a raised, non-painful, brownish-red swelling at the site of the previous injury. Lymph nodes nearest the site of the original injury enlarge and are often painful to touch. These swellings can persist for several weeks.

Some patients have associated symptoms of fever, feeling run down, headaches and neck or abdominal pain. Antibiotics are usually only indicated in a small minority of cases where the swollen lymph nodes do not subside. TB

52 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

I will be shooting Chinese water deer this winter on a week’s holiday. Do I need to clean the barrel every day or leave it until I am finished at the end of my trip?

Will accuracy be affected if I don’t clean the barrel daily?

It really depends on how many rounds per day you shoot and if the weather is wet. A barrel that has been shot and left overnight after stalking in damp conditions will attract moisture to the bore and start the corrosion process. It’s worse if a sound moderator is left on and stored upright because this allows the cocktail of acidic residue to seep into the bore.

It is the first shot that counts, so when you take that first shot from a cold barrel where you aim is extremely important.

On a stalking trip — other than sighting in shots where I shoot many rounds to check zero — I only take one or two shots. That first shot placement is determined by how the rifle has been left prior to the shot being taken. By this I mean: was the gun cleaned the night before? Is there still residual oil in the barrel? Is the barrel still fouled? Are the climatic conditions the same as when you shot the rifle last?

I would take your usual cleaning kit, just in case, but each night run a bore snake cleaner through the barrel a couple of times to ensure it is at least free from moisture, debris and partially cleaned. BP

Running a bore snake through the barrel every night will at least ensure it is partially cleaned

Expert tips and advice

WHAT TO DRINK WITH A GAME PIE Now that the freezer has been overwhelmed with game of a feathery nature — most of it of recent vintage, plus a couple of pigeon breasts that have enjoyed their first anniversary — action is needed. The gift of a generous amount of venison from a dear friend, has made the situation worse but the solution obvious: game pie, the greatest of all pies, and several of them.

It must, however, be the right sort of pie.

According to the British Pie Awards, to be a pie at all it must be entirely encased in pastry. A pastry top alone would make it a ‘pastry-topped casserole’ and with just a pastry bottom it would be a tart. Someone needs to maintain standards.

In addition to the game there are a few other

ingredients that I consider essential for a successful game pie: stock from the cooked meats plus a vegetable stock, wild mushrooms (dried is fine) and sweet chestnut flour to thicken the roux.

Since ‘pie’ is often included on pub menus under ‘pub classics’ its association with beer is well established. But which beer? Gyle 59, based in Somerset, is a favourite craft brewer of mine. Endlessly inventive and perfect in execution, its beers are always a revelation.

For game pie, I recommend its elderberry stout. Slightly fruity, bitter but smooth, sweet from the unfermentable sugars, dark with what I guess to be a chocolate malt and heady at 7.3 per cent, it is stout indeed.

John Hook

Crossword / Compiled by Eric Linden/1439 Across 4 Scampers to gundog competitions (8) 7 Tucks in when tea’s ruined (4) 9 Gets in a scrape as a deer feeds (6) 10 With finger on the trigger, the FTSE 100 is revealed (5) 11 Scribble your name on a ‘No Trespassing’ notice (4) 12 It might land wildfowlers in deep water! (4,4) 13 The perfect accessory for keeping shooting hush-hush (8) 15 The referee brings back no plant (4) 16 When roebuck shooting kicks off with a mixed pair before first light (5) 17 It gives us the licence

to be part of the BASC’s wildfowling scheme (6) 18 Game-shooters are carrying a netting constituent (4) 19 Contemplate how deer chew the cud (8)

Down 1 Paralysed with fear as shot game was kept on ice (6) 2 Gunmaker Sabatti initially finds sikas on the outskirts (4) 3 The toddler returns without a large type of sight (3,3) 5 Is the deer stalking qualification a necessity for shotgun owners? (11) 6 CCI ammunition — a piercing type, presumably (7)

Solution 1437 / 2 January 2020

TO CATCH A FISH Cascade Monkey Conehead Now that the salmon season has opened on the river Tay, it’s time to start thinking of what is going to catch that first salmon of the year. On occasion I a to flick a line that water I u Cascade Mon Conehead.

It is a superb early season

pattern but can be very effective in smaller sizes as the season progresses.It is a proven catcher of

8 A creative artist mixed up by the stuffer (11) 12 One who taunts Koch’s gunmaking partner? (7) 14 Fox refuges have electrical connections (6) 15 Dismissing a gun pin (6) 17 It causes inflation with action to follow (4)

Across: 7. Brancher 8. Rape 9. States 10. Stoops 12. Scope 14. Coverts 16. Microns 17. Essex 19. Antler 20. Aphids 22. Rain 23. Variable Down: 1. Protection 2. Knot 3. Ghost 4. Bristol 5. Brooders 6. Lens

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SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 53

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Celebrating the custodians of our countryside

David Carter is a consummate professional and his retirement marks the end of an era in more ways than one, as Richard Negus discovers

David Carter is retiring after almost 60 years as a gamekeeper

T

hese days plaudits such as ‘hero’ and ‘legend’ are applied to individuals so patently undeserving of such epithets that the words have become nigh on meaningless. For the writer, in particular, this state of affairs is vexatious. I met a gamekeeper this month called David Carter and I have been forced to scour the thesaurus to find a suitable word that does the man justice.

He has succeeded in reaching the top of his profession while maintaining the admiration, regard and genuine affection of employers, Guns and peers alike.

However, David, who has been the headkeeper at Castle Ashby since 1973, turns 81 in March and he has finally decided to retire.

Sadly, this is the end of an era, for more than one reason. Not only will this be his last season as keeper but the shoot will also be mothballed, bringing a long and illustrious history of game shooting on the historic estate to a close.

I asked David what had led him to stay on the same estate for 47 years. “I don’t know, I didn’t intend on stopping as long as this,” he said. “I spent 11 years at Copped Hall near Epping and a season in Shropshire before I came here.”

I visited the estate for his last day of the season and the sheer majesty and timeless landscape of the place gave me an inkling of understanding his reluctance to leave.

But with nearly 60 years in the profession, and most of it on one estate, did David ever got bored, I wondered.

“Keepering is a great profession for giving you variety,” he replied. “You spend the first part of the year controlling pests and by the time you get fed up with that you move on to rearing. When you are getting a bit weary of that it’s then time to put the birds out in the wood. Before you get

but there are very few estates like that now.

Some of the colleges are quite good, my son — a keeper on a neighbouring shoot to Castle Ashby — went on day release while he was training,” he revealed.

“My advice is to visit a number of colleges and ask lots of questions of the lecturers to see if they actually do know what they are talking about before you decide where you are going to go.”

This led me to ask if David thought the youngsters would have jobs to go to. Is there a future for shooting?

“I regret to say I don’t think it‘s going to last too much longer, there is too much pressure from everything outside. I’m not talking about ‘antis’ and that lot, it’s more that everyone wants to walk in the countryside and go where they like.

“I think the last election, going the way it did, means we at least have another five years. If that Mr Corbyn had got in we’d all be retiring this season.”

I asked if David had any advice to Guns so that they might get the most out of shooting. “Have more respect for your quarry. Don’t just blast away willy-nilly, seeing if you can beat your mates by shooting at birds that are too high, then thinking you have done something clever if you manage to hit one in 10,” he added.

“I’d like to see more respect once they’ve shot ’em, too. Don’t just chuck birds

“In the last election, if that Mr Corbyn had got in, we’d all be retiring this season” thoroughly cheesed off with feeding, the shooting season has started.”

I asked if he had a favourite time of the year. “Spring and autumn, I think. I don’t like it too hot and I don’t like it too cold.

Witnessing the change in the seasons keeps you soldiering on.”

As his career draws to an end, the obvious question is what advice does he have for the next generation of keepers?

“If you can find a position where you work under an experienced keeper, take it;

in a great heap in the back of a Land Rover, they are someone’s dinner.”

David’s response to my final question — “Is there anything you regret about spending a lifetime in keepering?” — is telling: “No, I don’t think there is.”

After struggling with my thesaurus for synonyms to rival ‘hero’ and ‘legend’ I gave up. David Carter is best described by two greater words, ‘professional’ and ‘gentleman’ — for he truly is both. We all wish him well in retirement.

S. MAGENNIS

If you have a gamekeeper you would like to nominate for Keeper of the Month please send details to STeditorals@ti-media.com

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 55

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Alasdair Mitchell

Sharpshooter

The SNP is agitating for another referendum, despite losing the vote in 2014 — but emotional arguments will always trump financial ones

I

t has often been said that the best defence of shooting is the financial contribution it makes. But when it comes to mobilising political action, cold financial considerations don’t always trump hot emotional ones. Public opinion is a fierce beast and elected legislators are not known for their courage.

The money that shooting injects into practical conservation and the rural economy is important. The various organisations have done a good job in quantifying and communicating this. But we cannot rely on the financial argument alone, for the simple reason that the future of shooting will be shaped by politics, not money. And when push comes to shove, emotion trumps money. If we rely too much on financial arguments, without addressing the emotional ones, we could be in trouble.

We saw this with Brexit. The establishment argued relentlessly against leaving the European Union. The Remain position was expounded by the government of the day, most MPs of whatever party, senior civil servants, the Confederation of British Industry, trade unions, the ‘green blob’ of conservation group thinkers, the BBC… They were adamant that the mere act of voting to leave the EU would unleash a financial and diplomatic catastrophe.

Yet in the end, the smug, out-oftouch establishment had to bend to the democratic will of the people. There’s a lesson in this.

North of the border, the independence movement lost the “once in a generation” 2014 referendum by a margin of 45 per cent to 55 per cent. Many in the fieldsports world heaved a sigh of relief, fearful of what a laird-bashing Scottish National Party (SNP) might do with unfettered power. But now the SNP is pushing for a new referendum.

“Public opinion is a fierce beast and elected legislators are not known for their courage” This is the same lot, remember, that put low-power airguns on certificates. And in 2015, when David Cameron mooted the possibility of mild reforms to the Hunting Act, he was thwarted at Westminster by the orchestrated tactics of the SNP — despite the proposals not even applying to Scotland. The SNP’s action was motivated out of political spite and an eagerness to

goad its political opponents. The SNP is prepared to weaponise fieldsports in its bid to confect a convenient enemy.

Simon Heffer wrote in the Daily Telegraph that the current climate of Scottish independence debate has been changed by the reality of Brexit. He noted that an independent Scotland attempting to join the EU would now face having to adopt the euro and highlighted the uncomfortable fact that Scotland currently has a budget deficit roughly seven times greater than that of the UK as a whole.

He pointed out that it was largely English taxpayers who bailed out Scottish banks.

Yet, crucially, he observed: “It is, of course, perfectly respectable for anyone to prize national self-determination beyond a chance of prosperity, and there are many deeply ideological Scots (such as Ms Sturgeon) who do.”

Well, quite. The same applies to the arguments about fieldsports. Look at driven grouse shooting; no sensible person doubts the financial input it makes. But in the final analysis, that’s not going to be the deciding factor. If enough of the general public gets sufficiently riled by stories about, say, raptor persecution, the politicians will react.

This is yet another reason why we need to get our house in order.

DOG BY KEITH REYNOLDS

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE, ISSN 0037-4164, is published weekly, incorporating Shooting Magazine, Shooting Life, British Sportsman, The Angler’s News & Sea Fisher’s Journal and Field Sport, by TI Media Ltd, 3rd floor, 161 Marsh Wall, London, England E14 9AP, United Kingdom. © 2019 TI Media Ltd. Contributions are welcome but must be accompanied by a suitable stamped addressed envelope. Publication of accepted articles is not guaranteed, and the publishers will not be held liable for any manuscripts, photographs or other materials lost or damaged while in their possession, though every care will be taken. The Editor reserves the right to amend any such articles as necessary. Shooting Times & Country Magazine, as part of TI Media Ltd, is committed to supporting the editorial standards of Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). Distributed by Marketforce (UK) Ltd, a TI Media Ltd company, 2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HU Tel: +44 (0)20 378 79001. Printed by Walstead UK Ltd. Registered as a newspaper for transmission in the United Kingdom. Subscription rates for 52 issues: UK — £143.

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