Innehållsförteckning för February 2018 från Shooting Gazette

New online maps have been launched to help the fight against raptor persecution. The maps were developed by the Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG) and detail incidents involving the shooting, poisoning and trapping of birds of prey. Currently covering the period between 2011 and 2015, North Yorkshire was identified by DEFRA as a priority area, with the highest number of incidents (39) taking place there. Wildlife minister Thérèse Coffey MP announced the maps and praised the role of shooters in combating raptor persecution: “These maps highlight hot spots across the country for crimes against these precious birds, building on the valuable work conservation and shooting organisations are already doing to help protect iconic birds of prey.” BASC’s acting chief executive Christopher Graffius said: “These maps should be a wakeup…

Members of a Wiltshire shoot have pitched in to help a gamekeeper and a barrister fulfil their dream of starting up a gunmaking and repair workshop. Nigel Burroughs and Doug Maclean have launched Charlbury Guns at Church Farm in Hinton Parva, near Swindon, which has hosted a friendly partridge and pheasant shoot for the past 20 years. Mr Maclean, 30, is the Hinton shoot’s gamekeeper and has worked as a gunmaker since 2004, apprenticing with E.J. Churchill and L.W. Butler. He grew up locally and returned to the area for this new venture. Mr Burroughs, 51, a long-standing Hinton gun, has been a barrister for 25 years and sees the gunmaking business as the chance to start a second career in the countryside. Hinton shoot members hatched a plan to…

My team would gather at Barbury Castle in Wiltshire and I would be shooting with my very first gun, a Thomas Turner 12 bore. I’ve always wanted to know how King Edward VII felt after turning down the invitation to shoot with Lord Walsingham at Blubberhouses Moor in North Yorkshire, on a day his Lordship shot 1,070 grouse to his own gun. Sir Henry Cecil is an old friend who was a fine shot, superb company and an outstanding racehorse trainer. He famously trained Frankel who was unbeaten in his 14-race career. Widely regarded as one of the greatest racehorse trainers, his stories would keep everyone amused for hours. Sir David Black is a good military man, who ran his Elvendon shoot in Oxfordshire with utter precision. A fine shot…

Dear Uncle Giles, As a shy and retiring type, I was more than a little embarrassed on more than one occasion last season when I was introduced to fellow guns, previously strangers to me, by different shoot captains as “....one of the best shots you’ll see today”. What should one say when complimented to within an inch of one’s life? ADS, by email Uncle Giles writes To some extent this depends on whether you really are one of the best shots around. Do you snatch down startling archangels with deadly elegance or are you an average shot who just got lucky a couple of times? If you truly are a prodigious performer, the answer is to murmur quietly that your host is exaggerating above and beyond the realms of fantasy…

I read with interest the article regarding the LMC and Lincolnshire Police insisting on medical checks being carried out when applying for or renewal of certificates. Being a resident of Lincoln it was an eyeopener to read, especially as the Lincolnshire Licensing Office is run by Group4. I was under the impression holding a certificate was a right, unless the police could prove otherwise? Bearing in mind what both organisations have stated in the article, may I suggest the following might be an alternative: every applicant for the renewal or issue of a certificate should apply to their GP for a copy of their complete medical history under the Freedom of Information Act. This complete history (or history from the last issue of a certificate) could then be sent with…

The Black Gold II is satisfying to use in the field, proving as solid and secure in the shoulder as its appearance suggests. This comes as no surprise, however, given how consistently well the B725 has shot across the many variants and bores I have tested. The gun is fairly weighty, though this weight is well distributed and the gun is very well balanced so although you are aware of the mass of the gun it never becomes too wearing, even after extended periods of fairly hectic shooting. With the 28” barrels as fitted to our test gun I found the Black Gold II mounted consistently well and was a real pleasure to swing, staying on line with ease even when rather tricky wind necessitated rapid changes of direction. It…

With uncertainty continuing to dictate market sentiment into 2018, greater efficiency, diversification and natural capital will play key roles in the long term. Brexit looms large, but forestry, agritech and renewable energy suggest plenty of future gains for the rural sector. Brexit negotiations will dictate sentiment, prompting constrained supply and muted pricing as would-be participants wait for clarity. We expect supply to plateau over the next 18 months, but with little material downside as long-term fundamentals remain resilient. Declines in average values are not forecast to go beyond a -5 per cent annual dip. The implications of not agreeing a Brexit deal and moving on to WTO rules and a reduction in agricultural subsidy could erode farm earnings. While existing subsidy levels are initially guaranteed by the UK Government, we…

Retirement can be a daunting prospect for many, especially gamekeepers whose personal and professional life may have evolved around only one or just a handful of shooting estates. The question of what to do with their time, and whether they can still be of use at their old workplace are just two areas examined by Simon Lester, a gamekeeper of 40 years who hung up his tweeds recently. His thoughts, and those of his peers, make for interesting reading. Gamekeeper retirement 52 The eyes of the retriever world were glued on Lancashire at the beginning of December for the 2017 IGL Retriever Championship, and with good reason. The field was littered with the numerous championship handlers and a strong field of dogs that proved themselves with the quality of their…

Scottish wildlife crime has reduced by eight per cent in the past year, according to recent government figures. Recorded offences dropped to 261 in 2015-2016, down from 284 the previous year. Fish poaching remained the most common form of wildlife crime, but had dropped by 26 per cent on the year before. Offences relating to birds had also declined to 46 reported offences from 49 the previous year, as did those relating to deer — down to 13 from 24. Crimes involving hunting with dogs, however, more than doubled, up to 44 offences from 20 in 2014-2015. David Johnstone, chairman of Scottish Land & Estates, said: “We welcome the report and the direction of travel that shows incidents of wildlife crime decreasing with each passing year. We share the view…

Eschewing the Boxing Day opportunity to flog an over-filled body around farmland in pursuit of who knew what, I, along with many hundreds of others, went to the meet of the local hunt. Hounds licked children, the field master pressed the flesh of bluff farmers, the master saluted several well mounted bramble-cheeked ladies before making a stirring speech and all of us made a financial contribution to the cause. Gone away to the snug bar of the Dog & Ferret afterwards with some like-minded fieldsports enthusiasts, conversation turned to legislation and how it might affect us. That a manifesto pledge for a free vote on the Hunting Act was being parked by the Conservatives in the vainglorious hope of their economists that such a ploy will bring vast numbers of…

Make it clear what you want: Make sure before you buy any shooting the shoot has a good chance of delivering on your expectations. People want different things from a day, for some it is all about the quality of the birds, others want a nice show of birds but the hospitality is key. Some people like to stop at lunch, others like to shoot through. I hear so many stories where people say they were disappointed with one thing or another, and I think to myself “I am not surprised by this as the shoot you went on was just not the right one for you! Recommendations are key: As long as it’s from people who know what they’re talking about. We all like to think we are experts…

Q I am hoping to be able to provide shotgun storage at my hotel ahead of next season. What does the law say on this issue? A Many sporting hotels offer this service and it is to be warmly welcomed. If the hotel takes care of the secure storage it’s one less thing for the gun to worry about and much more convenient than splitting the pieces up and having say the barrels in the car, the fore-end in your pocket and the stock locked to a fixed point with a secure cord. The Home Office Guide on Firearms Licensing Law says this: “Considerations when firearms are being taken to venues involving overnight or longer accommodation include: obtaining accommodation which provides secure facilities (some hotels offer this service) but the…

TRAVEL Prescombe is simple to find and lies about 12 miles south west of Salisbury on the eastern edge of the small village of Ebbesbourne Wake. As usual it is the last three quarters of a mile that is the most difficult so go prepared. By road the shoot is two-and-a-half hours from London, and one-and-three-quarters from Bristol, while Southampton airport is 30 miles away. STAY The closest hotel is Howard’s House (howardshousehotel.co.uk) which offers comfort and seclusion in the charming village of Teffont Evias. Also nearby at Fonthill Gifford is the splendid Beckford Arms (beckfordarms.com). A few miles to the south at Farnham is The Museum Inn (museuminn.co.uk), justifiably famous in shooting circles for providing excellent accommodation and superb cuisine. CATERING The day began with generously filled bacon baps…

Shooting Gazette is looking forward to joining with The British Shooting Show to celebrate its 10th year serving the shooting community at a new venue, the Birmingham NEC, on February 16 – 18. The three-day event will draw together companies large and small from across the gun trade, with 30-plus lanes catering for everything from gun engraving, stock making and gunfitting to private rifle collections and arms heritage displays. Representatives from some of the biggest names in shooting, including Holland & Holland, Watson Bros. and Boss & Co., will be available to provide visitors with a hands-on experience of new and existing products. The British Shooting Show has come a long way from its humble beginnings at Newark Showground, and such was the success of its five-year stint at Stoneleigh…

“Traditionalists must concede change should be debated and that new ideas are a good thing if they improve the sport as a whole.” What’s the one big change you’d make to game shooting, and realistically, could you ever see it being implemented? Change is inevitable if any sport stands a chance of securing new blood or its financial future, and while these changes can sometimes be a difficult pill for those affected to swallow – don’t get me started with on-pitch advertisements in rugby union – even traditionalists like myself must concede that change, in all of its forms, must at least be debated, and that new ideas are a good thing when, at the end of it all, they actually improve the sport itself, even if not aesthetically. So…

My shoot is really not very posh and when selecting our pegs, gloved hands just dip into a plastic bag to select crumpled up pieces of paper with peg numbers on them. If only I could persuade the syndicate to splash out on Lot 500 from the Holts sale back in December, estimated at just £50–£70, to buy a fine vintage place finder. This was a charming little item with 12 ivorine numbered pegs contained in a leather zipped pouch. It sold for £80. Brand new top quality gun cases are very expensive and if you are lucky enough to own a Purdey, Holland or Boss, you have to have a quality case. In Lot 103 there was an almost mint double Holland & Holland leather motor case estimated at…

Bentley’s bespoke division Mulliner has teamed up with Purdey to create a Bentayga to take on the Holland & Holland Range Rover. The Bentayga is incontestably the best SUV on sale today in terms of on-road manners, and is better off-road than anything with tyres capable of 200mph has any right to be. The Purdey version has a lockable gun box with compartments for cartridges, drinks and even cigars. Unlike the Holland & Holland Rangey, it has somewhere to store unbroken guns but doesn’t look any more appropriate for a brace of filthy labradors.…

KEEPERS WESTMOOR BR1 JACKET BY MUSTO £250  musto.com Built using Musto’s own BR1 fabric technology – look this up and be pleasantly blinded with science – and definitely one for when wetter days are forecast, this sturdy waterproof and breathable jacket will tick most game shooters’ boxes. There’s the usual action back, bellows pockets, waist drawcord, adjustable cuffs etc., all of which a comfortable and functional shooting jacket should have nowadays to set it apart from the town and country cross-over garments offered by other retailers. While the jacket is true to its size there’s plenty of freedom of movement to be had, and the rain was certainly kept off the back (and front) when the clouds turned the taps on. It’s also well built without feeling too heavy across…

If we accept that the aim of a field trial should be to identify the best of the breed from a game finding point of view then we need to test the dogs using live game and not dummies or cold game. As the Kennel Club states in the J Regs, the trial should resemble a day’s shooting as much as possible. It doesn’t matter if it is walked-up or driven, and could even be a combination of both. The trial must test the dogs skills from a game finding point of view so, if driven, the birds should fall into cover. Traditionally, shoots have welcomed field trialling on to their days because the hosts, keepers and guns have enjoyed watching the dog work. An important aspect of the judge’s…

The GWCT and Curlew Country have teamed up in an attempt to reverse the decline of the endangered wading bird. Breeding curlew numbers dropped by 48 per cent between 1995 and 2015, and this new partnership aims to provide advice to farmers, gamekeepers and others on the best way to help the species in their area. Amanda Perkins, project manager at the Shropshire and Welsh Marches-based conservation project Curlew Country, said: “We are absolutely delighted to announce this partnership. Curlew Country’s trailblazing work on low ground curlew and GWCT’s Action for Curlew complement each other well and I am looking forward to working even more closely with the GWCT as we have a similar approach to much of our conservation work.” GWCT Wales chairman Nick Williams added: “Curlew Country is…

SERVES FOUR PEOPLE Ingredients •  300g diced venison livers•  100g chopped onion•  30g chopped garlic•  150g melted butter•  250ml double cream•  50g pitted prunes•  50g raisins•  Damson or sloe gin•  Sea salt and black pepper Method Place the prunes and raisins in a bowl and cover with the gin and leave to soak. Sauté the livers in a pan with the onion and garlic until cooked but still pink. Season. Place the livers in a blender and liquidise until smooth, pour in the melted butter and cream. Place the soaked fruit into ramekins. Pour over the parfait mix and chill. Serve with grilled sourdough. Lee Maycock is the development chef for Game to Eat (gametoeat.co.uk)…

What’s the biggest change you foresee the BSS undergoing now it’s moving to the NEC? A far greater audience with ease of travel. The move has already proven the ease in which people can visit is very much key - superb motorway links, its own railway station with over 43 direct links and to top this it has very own airport. To prove this has been a positive move ticket sales are up. As a venue the NEC gives the BSS the platform on which to be placed in the same bracket as Shot Show and IWA, i.e., a truly international shooting show. The NEC is obviously far removed from Newark and Stoneleigh – what old characteristics do you hope the BSS retains as it moves to a bigger venue?…

For your chance to win a bottle of Taittinger Champagne for Picture of the Month, send us a team photograph or a picture of something unusual from your shoot. Send high-resolution images or prints with captions to Shooting Gazette Gallery, Time Inc. (UK) Ltd., Pinehurst 2, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF or email: martin.puddifer@timeinc.com. PICTURE OF THE MONTH Jill Pye wrote to us just before Christmas with the following message: “My mother Brenda made this lovely shoot/country inspired Christmas tree for her local church Christmas tree festival at Cockerham in Lancashire. She is a very keen dog handler with a large pack of labradors, and as you can see she has one sat by the tree.” Sadly the tree has probably been put away now, but fingers crossed it…

High standards must be maintained A mixture of delight and relief overcame me whilst reading your November issue’s Letter of the Month, sent in by Peter Scott. At last, someone has the courage (clearly borne from his sheer frustration) to express concern over the growing measure of bad manners in the shooting field. Alas, it does not end with Mr Scott’s complaint. Call me old school if you want, but I too am witnessing actions that, if left unchecked, will seriously undermine and erode tradition; feeding the arguments and reasoning of the anti-shooting faction. We need to put our house in order and with some urgency. Shotgun shooting has, over the last few decades, enjoyed unprecedented growth, whether busting clays or partaking in the mushrooming opportunities commercial live quarry shooting…

“Shadowy smears resolved into hundreds of individuals, and the roar of goose music rang in our ears.” Fifteen years have passed since I shot my first goose. The moment was long awaited, and it came after many months of failure. I was a teenager, and in common with many young folk in the countryside, my life was suddenly catapulted into glorious technicolour by the attainment of my driving licence. Until that point, I had been forced to depend upon friends and family whenever shooting opportunities beckoned. It was still a hard sell to persuade anyone to chauffeur me out to the Solway on a cold November morning. So desperate was I to reach the tideline that I sometimes tried to bicycle the short journey. Narrow tyres on black ice frequently…

The lonely, cold vigil of a solitary pigeon shooter surrounded by a sea of rape is not the best place to be. I love all pigeon shooting but without a doubt the most frustrating crop on which to make a bag is winter oil seed rape. In my part of East Anglia farm units are becoming increasingly larger and the result is block farming of rape with several fields together often covering hundreds of acres. There can be thousands of pigeons attacking an area but as they are chivvied and scared by farmers from dawn till dusk with all manner of devices, the result is that the birds form ever-larger flocks. For the pigeon shooter this is the ultimate nightmare as for much of the day there may not be…

Yet another variant of the B725 has made its way to our shores! The sceptical amongst you might wonder whether or not the market is on its way to being saturated soon since Browning is not alone in producing seemingly endless variants of the same guns. At least this Black Gold II model does looks significantly different to the other guns in the B725 range – though for me it is not entirely successful. While the gold inlay work is actually rather good, for me the gun doesn’t quite come together fully visually. The contrast between the gold and the black of the metal work is a bit stark, largely down to a lack of depth with the rest of the engraving. Sadly the engraving of the landscapes in the…

Q Which is the better practice for game shooting during the close season: woodpigeons or clays? A The first thing I would say is that any form of practice, whatever it may be, from shooting a few clays to a bit of dry mounting in the kitchen, is better than doing nothing. There is no question in my mind that my clients who consistently perform during the season never actually stop shooting in the close season. They may have a break in early spring to get their guns serviced but as soon as the weather turns they are back at it by April. As a result, they maintain their muscle memory and, importantly, their timing. I am a big fan of keeping a record throughout the season of good days…

“The more we asked of them the better they got...” Six pages of action from the 2017 IGL Retriever Championship “I would love to see more variety out there…” Mike Barnes explains why there’s room for different breeds on shoot day “A good shooting day provides everything a trial needs…” Amy Bates examines the key ingredients of a field trial PLUS News from field trials and stakes at Thetford, Horncastle and many more……

Event: 16th Hunt Point and Retrieve (HPR) Championship Venue: Elveden Estate, Thetford Judge: R. Dockwray and J. Robertson Sponsor: Skinner’s The 16th HPR Championship took place in the grounds of the Elveden Estate by the kind invitation of Lord Iveagh. This two-day test was held over challenging grounds and really tested the dogs taking part. With numerous breeds of HPR attending the event it offered a great opportunity to see a diverse range of dogs, each displaying unique characteristics. It is thought by many that HPRs are only good on grounds such as grouse moors, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. This championship sported a mixture of terrain such as hedgerows, woodland and water. The dogs performed consistently throughout, with outstanding retrieves which were hard to place. Winner…

QI have two spaniels and another dog who is a young unknown variety that seems to have a lot of the traits of the other two. Can this non-standard gundog breed be trained as a working gundog? A All gundog training has the basics and ground rules that all dogs can attain, and you don’t have to have a gundog breed to achieve success. Recall, steadiness, direction and retrieve can and does apply to all dogs and is not exclusive to a breed. A lot of the gundog breeds have the temperament, willingness and instinct to make the process easier, but it certainly is not something only they possess. In fact, and interestingly, a lot of different breeds of dog could quite easily pass the bronze, silver and gold standard…