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Pest Control
Pest control is the year-round job behind every successful shoot and working farm, and for a lot of us it is where most of our shooting actually happens. This section gathers ShootingUK’s pest and vermin control coverage in one place: fox control around the release pens, grey squirrel control in the woods, rabbit control out on the fields, rat shooting round the grain store, and pigeon and corvid shooting over drilled and ripening crops. Expect fieldcraft from working gamekeepers and professional pest controllers, air rifle and rimfire technique, decoying and trapping advice, and reviews of the thermals, night vision and traps that earn their place in the truck.
It is written for the people doing the work – keepers protecting poults, farmers protecting a crop, and airgunners with a permission and a free Saturday morning. Alongside the how-to there is the legal side, which matters more every year: general licences, what counts as legal quarry, the conditions attached to shooting pigeons and crows, approved traps and humane despatch. If you want to shoot foxes at night, keep grey squirrel numbers down, control rabbits without wrecking the ground, or learn to decoy woodpigeons properly, start here.
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GamekeepingGamekeeper: why mink trapping along the river should never be neglected
Mink wreak havoc along our rivers, so trapping them is a job that should never be neglected, whatever else the shoot demands, says Dorset keeper Mike Appleby
By Mike Appleby | 6 October 2026
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Pest Control
The species we never asked for, and the ones we brought back
Jeremy Hobson goes from Florida's solar-powered robotic rabbits to knotweed, mink and grey squirrels closer to home, and to the reintroductions we have chosen for ourselves
By Jeremy Hobson | 21 September 2026
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Airgun shootingOne man and his dog: squirrel control with a gundog in the making
Danny Brookfield combines grey squirrel control and early gundog training for a rewarding morning on a pheasant estate
By Danny Brookfield | 7 September 2026
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GamekeepingModern fox control after dark: a night of thermal foxing in Essex
Miles Malone joins an expert two-man team on a north Essex shoot for a night of fox control, where thermal optics, close teamwork and precision shooting have replaced the lamp he grew up with
By Miles Malone | 4 September 2026
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GamekeepingSummer vermin control: 11 new pieces of kit, from air rifles to traps
From regulated PCP air rifles and humane squirrel traps to thermal scopes and 4G trap monitors, 11 pieces of kit built for summer pest control
By Shooting Times | 24 August 2026
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Airgun shootingRabbit control with an air rifle: thermal spotting and summer fieldcraft
Using modern thermal gear and classic fieldcraft, Danny Brookfield spends a summer evening with an FAC air rifle, protecting an arable farmer's oilseed rape from ravenous rabbits
By Danny Brookfield | 21 July 2026
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Airgun AmmoQYS .22 Domed pellets review: heavyweights for pest control
Dave Barham puts the new QYS .22 Domed pellets, in 17gr and 20gr, over the chronograph and on paper at 30 metres. The weight consistency is remarkable, but the 20gr came within a whisker of the 12ft/l...
By Dave Barham | 17 July 2026
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GamekeepingFox control before the poults go out: a keeper’s summer fieldcraft
With release only weeks away, gamekeeper Mike Appleby shares the fieldcraft, kit and fox signs he leans on to keep on top of foxes and give poults and other wildlife a fighting chance
By Mike Appleby | 13 July 2026
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GearWhen the heat is on: the rise of the affordable thermal riflescope
Once a luxury for the professional pest controller, thermal riflescopes have tumbled in price and soared in capability. Selena Barr talks to the trade about sensors, rangefinders, the law and where th...
By Selena Barr | 7 July 2026
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