Features

Ernest Hemingway shooting ducks

Ernest Hemingway – a remarkable Shot and author

It’s 60 years since Ernest Hemingway, one of America’s greatest writers and novelists, died. It’s an anniversary that has reminded many of his skills as an essayist, for his prose was short and punchy, his stories interesting and always eminently readable. While Hemingway’s life may have been celebrated by numerous…

The history of the walking stick gun

Ever since firearms were invented, they have been disguised as other objects, particularly walking sticks. This is unsurprising, as both a stick and a gun barrel look very similar, even when viewed over short distances. Hence the walking stick gun. There is a wonderful German walking staff in the Wallace…

countryside scene

What is the age to stop shooting? When are you too old?

I can remember when I was young how, sometimes, looking at the Guns, I would wonder how the stiff-limbed, pot-bellied old buffers lined out in front of me, some of them propped up on shooting sticks, were capable of mounting and swinging their guns. And doing it, moreover, for the…

Beaters

Second-hand 4×4 trucks: what can you buy for under £12,000?

With the rising cost of brand spanking new vehicles, and the prospect of big bills from handing back a leased truck, the second-hand 4×4 trucks market could be the sensible option for acquiring a pickup. We’re going to take a theoretical £12,000 and see what’s on offer. If anyone would…

trophy hunting in Africa

Trophy hunting: when it’s well-managed, it’s a force for good

When I first moved to the UK from South Africa, I knew how much of a contributor to wildlife conservation regulated big game trophy hunting is. And of all the wildlife conservationists I’d met and idolised growing up in southern Africa, most of them were pro-hunting, or recognised that hunting…

best royal Shots Edward VII

Best royal Shots – who would be on the A team?

Fieldsports have long been a passion of British monarchs and their families. But who are the best royal Shots? Shooting-obsessed monarchies the world over have been customers of our best gun and rifle makers, seeking the very finest sporting kit with which to engage their preferred quarry. If we were…

river otter

Is the river otter a victim of its own success?

One of the biggest wildlife success stories of the past 30 years has to be the reintroduction of the river otter to the UK. When river quality started to improve after organochlorine farm chemicals were banned in the 1980s, the Otter Trust got to work releasing animals at selected sites…

Walked up partridge

Finding your fields of sporting Elysium

On the rare occasion I tune my truck radio from the local station to a national broadcaster, I am struck by the length and magnitude of the traffic reports I hear. While I blithely trundle along near-empty Suffolk lanes to get to whichever farm I am working at, the voice…

Wild boar in the UK

Are there really as many wild boar around as reported?

The history of wild boar in the UK During the reign of King William I, the enactment of the Forest Law (1087) laid down that those guilty of killing a stag, roebuck or wild boar were liable to the punishment of blinding, and the hunting of these “beasts of the…

Curlew eating worm

A new dawn for curlew recovery

In January 2016, I began planning a 500-mile walk across Ireland, Wales and England to try to find out more about the plight of the Eurasian curlew. I had read the British Birds paper from December 2015 (The Eurasian curlew — the most pressing bird conservation priority in the UK?,…

magpie

Why has Natural England introduced new controls for corvids?

Things had calmed down after Natural England helped stoke anger over the general licences two years ago, but it has heaped coal back on the fire. Back then it was Wild Justice that threw a spanner in the works, helping to strip vital protection from endangered curlew, lapwing and other…