Game shots have a unique relationship with the weather. While others cower inside, a line of guns will happily stand in the pouring rain, the familiar smell of damp tweed curling into their nostrils as they wait for the birds to fly over. Yet fortitude is not always enough, and…
Gameshooting
New gamebird figures challenge RSPB claims
New BASC research has challenged RSPB claims that the shooting industry releases 50million birds into the wild each year. Real figure closer to 34.9million The paper, Impacts of gamebird release, says the real figure lies closer to 34.9million birds and describes the significantly higher estimate as being “based on unreliable…
Government comes out in favour of grouse shooting
Dr Avery’s petition is founded on his premise that: “Grouse shooting for ‘sport’ depends on intensive habitat management which damages protected wildlife sites, increases water pollution, increases flood risk, increases greenhouse gas emissions and too often leads to the illegal killing of protected wildlife such as hen harriers.” The shooting…
The world’s smallest shoot?
Back in the 1970s I made a couple of life-changing decisions. I resigned from a secure job in banking to become a full-time writer, sold my house in suburbia and moved with my wife and four children to live in a remote area of the Shropshire-Welsh border hills. Friends told…
Burton Constable shoot, pheasant shooting in East Yorkshire
Bakers A. Voase & A. Jones of Preston, East Yorkshire, make the kind of sausage rolls that made your eyes bulge as a child. I used to think I was the only one who hadn’t grown out of this kind of gluttony until I saw the faces of the Burton…
Cancelled grouse shooting “will hit rural businesses”
Many rural workers could be out of a job this season as up to 70 per cent of grouse shooting days face cancellation in some regions of the country, suggested the Moorland Association (MA) last week. Prolonged extreme weather conditions, described by the MA as “the worst breeding conditions in…
Local grouse communities caught in the crossfire
The grouse shooting season is now in full swing – following the annual war of words between the anti-shooting lobby and country sports enthusiasts that it always ignites. However Scottish locals who live and work alongside the grouse moors and depend upon the sport for their livelihoods take a more…
Top 10 game shoots in Yorkshire
The vast county of Yorkshire with its varied landscape contains hundreds of good shoots so this list represents just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to driven shooting in the white rose county. Bolton Abbey This 30,000-acre plus sporting playground on the banks of the Wharfe is owned…
Chefs and moor workers give public a taste for wild game
“Our group is about showing working life on the moors and at this time of the year, all the estate workers are really busy round-the-clock getting ready for the grouse season,” said Helen Savage, Co-Ordinator of the Lammermuirs Moorland Group. Fresh game is already supplied to the restaurants of Michelin…
It won’t be a vintage year for red grouse
Grouse moor keepers and sporting agents across England and Scotland are warning that this year’s grouse shooting season will be a disappointing one thanks to the bad weather that hit the first half of the hatching period earlier in the year. Keepers are reporting reduced covey sizes — in some…
BASC highlights “Glorious Twelve” benefits of grouse shooting
BASC has released an infographic pictured here to illustrate the benefits of grouse shooting. Chairman of BASC’s Gameshooting and Gamekeeping Committee Ian Grindy said heather moorland managed for grouse benefits conservation and wildlife. He said “BASC is highlighting the 12 benefits of grouse shooting so that people can make their…
Ever thought of setting up your own shoot?
I have often thought about running my own shoot. Many years ago I did, in fact, have a small shoot of my own where, with the help of a few friends and paying guests, we enjoyed some great days out in the field, even if the bag at times was…
Ex-RSPB conservation director says driven grouse shooting should be banned
The RSPB has taken a neutral position on the matter of driven grouse shooting. However, in his book Inglorious – Conflict in the Uplands, which is to be published tomorrow – just two weeks before the Glorious Twelfth – Dr Avery says that the sport should be banned. The controversial…
Shooting businesses in Yorkshire
There is more to Yorkshire’s sporting heritage than grouse moors, high pheasants, beautiful scenery and pulling the trigger. Scores of shooting businesses make the shoot days tick and here’s a selection… Shooting businesses – food and drink Yorkshire Game If you’ve bought game that originated from estates in Yorkshire then…
Is Yorkshire the ultimate fieldsports county?
Glorious grouse Let us start with the grouse. Ripley, Danby, Bolton Abbey, Dallowgill and almost anything with dale or moor or gill in the name will do. The moors in Yorkshire might not have the Celtic romance of the Highlands but they have a cracking population of grouse with less…
How should you prepare for the grouse shooting season?
A: It is so nice to hear that you, along with many others, are getting into grouse shooting again. The last five or six grouse shooting seasons have been excellent. This is mainly due to good management and good investment by the shoot owners, meaning the moors have become much more…
Roxburghe Hotel Kelso review
I can’t resist humming the theme from Mike Hodge’s Get Carter whenever I head north on the East Coast Mainline. When I make the journey, sometimes with a shotgun in the guard’s van (not for use in retribution for my brother’s murder, of course), I travel full of curiosity for…
Batcombe shoot, pheasant and partridge shooting in Somerset
In the modern framework of driven game shooting there are a number of ways to run a shoot. There are the larger commercial affairs, which cater for teams of paying guns and can lay on anything up to 100 days a season. These shoots will typically put on 250-300 bird…
Scottish Land Reform Bill could soar the price of shooting and stalking
Ordinary deerstalkers and gameshooters could be the first to suffer following the publication of the Scottish Land Reform Bill last week. The bill, which aims to widen the ownership of land throughout the country, includes proposals to end the exemption on business rates for shooting estates, which landowners have not…
Have you booked your Shooting UK Event?
Shooting UK has now launched three exciting new events for the readers of Sporting Gun, Shooting Times, Shooting Gazette and The Field – and of course, visitors to the Shooting UK website. Whether you want to find out what jobs a gamekeeper has to do throughout the year, how you have a…