The end of the season brings the long-awaited beaters’ days. Traditionally, it was the day that the estate owner gave to his gamekeeper to invite his friends along to shoot. It has changed over the years and the keepers’ day is now more often referred to as the beaters’ day. An…
Gameshooting
How to look after birds left at the season’s end
Regardless of the number of birds you shot on your last day, it is probable that you saw or flushed three or four times as many. What happens to the birds that survive the shooting season, and how they are looked after when it has finished, is important. It would be morally wrong for us…
When boys become Guns
The first steps into the shooting world are often some of the most difficult to take. For young people in particular the prospect can seem as daunting as it is exciting, but it is essential that they are welcomed in to the sport if gameshooting is to flourish and thrive.…
Grouse shooting: why moorland managers are conservation heroes
If the critics are to be believed then the picturesque patchwork of heather glens and valleys that comprise our nation’s grouse moors is a battlefield between gamekeepers and wildlife. Some groups and individuals who call themselves conservationists believe that the faults and failings of driven grouse shooting are so systemic…
White Swan Inn Pickering review
Generally speaking, a close proximity to the shoot, gun storage, drying room, kennels, good fare and a comfortable bed are the first things I look for when reviewing sporting hotels. I’d now like to throw another one into the ring: the ability to remain undisturbed. There’s nothing sinister in that…
Meet Dragon – the last horse on the beating line?
A horse moving with a line of beaters isn’t a sight you’re going to see much these days. In fact Frank Shellard says he is probably the last person riding on the beating line in the UK. (If you know anybody else, please get in touch.) I asked him what…
Roughshooting – point and shoot
Is there ever a good time to try to “squeeze in” a little sport? I suppose it is all dependent on the outcome. If it turns out favourably, then yes. If not, the domestic repercussions can, on occasions, be great! On this particular day, with strong gusting winds on the…
The right way to walk-up woodcock
For many people in this country, walked-up shooting or roughshooting is how we started. It is the grass roots of our sport and, until driven gameshooting became more accessible, it was the only form of shooting that many Guns would experience. I remember as a Young Shot walking in a line with…
Turkey hunting on Beaver Island
With another quiet chirrup, Al drew the two large turkey toms ever closer. We’d got into position before dawn, in the dark and, having slouched against the tree for a few hours with the shotgun perched on my knee, I watched spellbound as these huge creatures strutted their way towards us. The larger of the two was in range,…
Off-road driving: Tips for shooting parties
For a large number of those who go shooting, whether to beat, pick-up or actually point a gun, one of the great joys of our sport is that we get to use our 4x4s for off-road driving, the purpose for which they were designed. For 300 and something days a…
The wonder of rough-shooting
Nobody doubts shooting is more popular than it ever has been. It contributes a mind-blowing £2billion to the UK economy annually. And more than 600,000 people use their gun on a regular basis. That equates to one per cent of the country’s entire population. However, independent researchers believe the actual number…
Phil Spencer talks game shooting firsts, mentors and heroes
Shooting Gazette: What was your first shotgun? Phil Spencer: “My first gun was an AYA 28 bore which was my reward for passing my Common Entrance exam aged 13.” SG: Where was your first shoot day? PS: “Two years later, on our family farm near Canterbury in Kent. The bag…
Call for restraint shooting woodcock
In an effort to protect the woodcock population, several countryside organisations, including the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, are following the recommendation of conservationists by asking shoots to schedule any shooting until at least after November’s full moon, which falls on Wednesday 25th November. This will allow the declining resident woodcock population…
Pheasant takes a selfie
Flytipping is a scourge of the countryside. To crack down on the illegal dumping of waste in County Durham, the council installed hidden CCTV at known hotspots. But when they checked the cameras they discovered a culprit unlikely to be brought in front of the beak. A curious pheasant had…
Sixty pheasants slaughtered in gruesome attack
The birds were decapitated and their heads impaled on fence posts at the Wasing Estate on October 10 after the attackers used catapults to knock the pheasants from their perches in the middle of the night. The estate belongs to documentary maker Joshua Dugdale, who is Prime Minister David Cameron’s cousin.…
Shooting insurance: what are your options?
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…
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…