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NEED TO KNOW: NEW GENERAL LICENCES ANNOUNCED

Since 1882

19 FEBRUARY 2020

WHERE DO STOLEN GUNS END UP?

How to store a gun properly

CHASING DUCKS

The last flight of the season

Wildfowling A sport that needs your help FOOD FOCUS

COOK GAME LIKE AN ITALIAN

THE RE AL MCCOY

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DOG OF THE WEEK In association with Orvis For all things dog, Shooting Times recommends Orvis.co.uk Outdoor outfitters, instructors and apparel makers since 1856.

Knud Knud is 18 months old and last season went out beating for the first time. He loves watching ‘Nordic noir’ thrillers and cookery programmes and enjoys watching his owner fishing, though he can be critical about her casting.

Owned and photographed by Amy Hulmes

Invest n your shoot n for under

19.02.20 Issue 6,180

For less than the cost of a driven pheasant, get the best blend of shooting, news, product reviews and keepering advice, delivered every Wednesday

The ultimate DIY When it comes to game I often feel familiarity breeds apathy. I love woodpigeon but I have to admit, over the past month, I’ve become very aware there are 40 breasts in my freezer, not to mention a drawer full of partridges.

At a party last week I got chatting to someone about shooting. They’d grown up in a city but had a real interest in food and the environment.

They stopped me mid-sentence to say how incredible they thought it must be to harvest your own meat from a sustainable source.

The following day, I found myself reflecting on the encounter and concluded they were absolutely right.

The relationship people who hunt have with the food on their table is an enviable thing. It won’t have escaped your notice that there’s been a great deal of discourse lately about intensive farming and encouraging people to realise the planetary consequences of their food choices.

I can’t help thinking all anybody really needs to see the light is an afternoon stalking rabbits for the pot with an air rifle.

In case you’re also running out of ideas about what to do with the game in your freezer, we have four recipes in this issue. And some of them, I’m quite sure, will be new to you.

Patrick Galbraith, Editor

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16

Last day on the foreshore Is our writer in the wrong place?

19

What happens to stolen guns?

The new national database

22

A sport that needs support The future of wildfowling

25

See you next season How to store your precious guns

26

Every last delicious morsel Italian dishes using the whole bird

32

Sako’s superb lightweight rifle Why we love the Finnlight 2

36

Feed the birds Cover crops that benefit all species

38

Bring on next season Order your poults locally and soon

Follow Patrick on Twitter @paddycgalbraith

Contents / Regulars NEWS & OPINION

14

GAMEKEEPER

06 NEWS

32

RIFLE TEST

10

35

GUNROOM

FEATURES

36

CONSERVATION

16

WILDFOWLING

38

ON YOUR SHOOT

19

GUN THEFT

42

GUNDOGS

22

WILDFOWLING

44 VINTAGE TIMES

25

GUN STORAGE

46

COOKERY

26

COOKERY

48

30

GUN CARE

SPORTING ANSWERS

54

PRODUCTS

58

SHARPSHOOTER

LETTERS

REGULARS 12

COUNTRY DIARY

4 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

1959

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CELEBRAT

S

ADE

2019

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Greylag geese can now be shot all year round

Keepers slam shake-up to Scottish general licences Fury as greater protection is given to rooks and gulls in major changes to general licences in Scotland, with restrictions in many upland areas

P. QUAGLIANA / ALAMY

A

major shake-up to the general licences for Scotland has been heavily criticised by gamekeepers.

Under the new regime announced by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), rooks and greater black-backed gulls can no longer be killed to protect wild birds.

Greater black-backed gulls and collared doves can no longer be killed to prevent damage to livestock and crops, and only Canada geese and feral pigeons can be killed to protect human health and safety.

However, in good news for crofters, greylag geese will be able to be shot all year round.

The responsibility to register crow traps will be transferred from the police to SNH and

significant restrictions have been introduced on the use of licences on protected sites.

Anyone using the licences on certain Special Protection Areas andSpecialAreasofConservation will require permission from SNH.

“Land managers will clearly be extremely disappointed by components of these changes.

“Those who are most affected are likely to feel their circumstances have not been properly taken into account and

“Land managers will clearly be extremely disappointed by components of these changes” The changes have met with criticism from gamekeepers, as the exclusion zones include a large area in the central Highlands where use of the licences by grouse moor keepers protects a range of ground-nesting birds.

Ross MacLeod, the GWCT’s head of policy in Scotland, said:

6 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

that SNH is adopting an overcautious approach.

Mr MacLeod continued: “Most contentious will be the restriction of general licences across many upland Special Protection Areas (SPAs) without prior permission for control of birds, particularly as the

consequences are not yet entirely clear — not least the additional administrative burden and the potential impact on species under threat such as waders and raptors.”

SNH also decided to ignore arguments for including Scotland’s booming raven and cormorant populations in the licences.

The agency said the decision not to include ravens was due to “significant regional differences in abundance of the raven and the regionalised demand”, adding that instead it intended to “simplify the process for applying for a licence”.

The changes will affect Scotland only and will come into force from 1 April this year.

Matt Cross

Email your stories / STeditorials@ti-media.com

Key general licences ended Defra has temporarily reissued six key general licences for England that had been due to expire at the end of February.

The licences being reissued cover crop and livestock protection,

conservation of wild birds and protection of health.

Defra said in a statement: “The current licences GL26, GL28, GL31, GL34, GL35 and GL36 will be reissued from 1 March to 31 July. No action is required by licence users,

Licences to control pigeons and other pests have been reissued

beyond the requirement to act in accordance with the licence conditions.”

This should mean that there is no interruption to the protection of nesting birds and lambs during the critical spring period, though Wild Justice has indicated it may seek an injunction to prevent the licences being reissued.

Outgoing environment secretary Theresa Villiers said last week: “We are working intensively on delivering a robust licensing system for the future w balances the different interests at stake in a fair way. We need to ensure we have carefully considered a relevant evidence.”

Defra expects to re details of the new licen early July and they wil into force on 1 August.

‘Progress’ on antibiotic use A wet spring and summer led to a small rise in the use of antibiotics for game birds last year.

New figures from the Game Farmers’ Association, calculated using records of veterinary prescriptions, show a seven per cent rise compared with last year.

A spokesman for the GFA said: “2019 was a tough year for game rearers. More birds than usual succumbed to sickness — associated in part with terrible weather

conditions — and as a result vets prescribed more soluble antibiotics than in the year before, much of it to treat bad outbreaks of mycoplasma.

Antibiotics in compounded feeds fell again, however, for the fourth year in a row.”

The industry had been making substantial reductions in the use of antibiotics, with a 51 per cent decrease in prescriptions over two years.

Chris Lloyd, secretary general for Responsible Use

of Medicines in Agriculture, said: “The game bird sector is to be congratulated for its progress to date.

“The united approach, transparency and accountability of sector leaders shows there is determination to overcome these inevitable setbacks.

“Their commitment to work with others to set further reduction targets post-2020 illustrate that the sector is determined to continue making progress.”

Weekend Twitter poll Every so often, someone points out we are Shooting Times & COUNTRY Magazine: what would you like to see?

19.3% Morris dancing 48.9% Bears in Medieval England 21.7% The corn laws 10.1% Religion in rural Wales follow us @shootingtimes

Respondents: 405

To do this week

Use air rifles to

S H O O T control corvids.

An air rifle can be an efficient tool for controlling nest-raiding magpies and crows. They provide an efficient and humane option where trapping or use of shotguns would not be appropriate.

Effective use of camouflage and decoys will be necessary to bring your quarry within range.

The use of antibiotics in game birds was up slightly last year

Brush up

T R A P P I N G on your

knowledge of traps and trapping. With just over a month until the use of Fenn traps for stoats becomes illegal, ensure you are familiar with the alternatives and have a stock of legal traps.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 7

NEWS EVENTS DIARY

Huge sums are being paid to tackle invasive stoats on Orkney

20 FEBRUARY WILDFOWLING SEASON ENDS, ENGLAND, WALES AND SCOTLAND (Below high water mark) 23 FEBRUARY BEST OF BRITISH VENISON Perry’s Field to Fork, The Old Cookery School, Eccleshall events.basc.org.uk/ events

23 FEBRUARY S&CBC LADIES’ CLAY SHOOTING Manchester Clay Shooting Ground, Eccles shotgunandchelsea bunclub.co.uk/events 28-29 FEBRUARY INTERMEDIATE DEER COURSE Baronscourt estate, County Tyrone events.basc.org.uk/ events 02 MARCH

A. SYDENHAM / A. HOOK / ALAMY

SNARING AND MUSTELID TRAPPING COURSES Hopetoun estate, West Lothian 01738 551511 ijohnston@gwct.org.uk 24 MARCH GWCT ROADSHOW FARNHAM The Castle Inn, Farnham gwct.org.uk/events

Anger at £90,000 cost of ‘stoat dogs’ Orkney project to protect ground-nesting birds racked up £90,000 bill to buy six dogs and train handlers The shocking cost of providing only six dogs to help control invasive stoats on the Orkney islands has been revealed.

Shooting Times decided to investigate after a tip-off that the dogs were costing tens of thousands of pounds.

The project is led jointly by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), RSPB Scotland and Orkney Islands Council, with National Lottery funding. However, the project has faced criticism over the high cost of the eradication programme, estimated at more than £6million.

“People will be scratching their heads at the sums involved” However, the cost turned out to be a staggering £90,000 — a figure described as ‘astonishing’ and ‘ridiculous’ by gamekeepers and terrier enthusiasts.

The Orkney Native Wildlife Project aims to rid the islands of stoats to protect ground-nesting birds. The stoats first appeared in 2010 and are now well established, according to the project’s website.

8 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

Now a Freedom of Information request made via SNH has revealed a £90,000 price tag for providing the six dogs and training for their three handlers. It does not include the handlers’ wages.

Three positions for working the dogs are being advertised at £20,000 per year for four years, meaning the total bill will exceed £300,000.

Scottish Gamekeepers Association chairman Alex Hogg told Shooting Times: “While not doubting the skills of these dogs in any way, there will be people scratching their heads at the sums involved — staggering numbers, which seem pretty much in line with other mainstream conservation projects.

“Why, when gamekeepers are providing stoat control every day as part of routine predator management, do the pounds start totting up as soon as conservation NGOs get involved? This project, as a whole, will cost many millions.

“Once again, this example shows that if you were to put a financial value on the service gamekeepers offer the countryside, for free, it would run to eye-watering sums.”

Matt Cross

Email your stories / STeditorials@ti-media.com

Praise for Countryfile feature on deer stalking Shooters and gamekeepers have expressed delight at the inclusion of a stalking feature on the BBC’s Countryfile.

The segment involved senior BBC reporter Charlotte Smith joining a gamekeeper culling hinds on the Auchlyne estate in Perthshire.

The programme intends to follow life on the estate over the course of a year, with segments filmed by BBC crews and others filmed by estate staff.

There has been criticism on social media, but shooters and country people were quick to hit back. Fieldsports fan Neil Robertson was one of many who took to Twitter to praise the show.

In a tweet to the show’s producers he said: “Brilliant show last night, but why has it taken so long? Looking forward to the follow-up visits to the estate, keep up the good work. The real countryside.”

Neil told Shooting Times: “I was brought up watching the great Jack Hargreaves on the telly. He went hunting, shooting and fishing; you never heard people being outraged by it. Sunday hopefully saw a new dawn.”

Do your bit to help GWCT game census

Deer stalking on a Scottish estate has featured in Countryfile

Cruel thieves steal gundog A Somerset gamekeeper and his partner have been left heartbroken by the theft of their springer spaniel bitch.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Francis Bere’s fiancée Emily Kretz got in touch with Shooting Times to ask for readers help after the dog

Missing: a springer spaniel bitch, stolen from a farm in Somerset

was stolen from her kennel in the village of Lopen, near Crewkerne in Somerset.

The two-year-old spaniel, whose name has not been released, was stolen on the night of 8- 9 February.

Emily said: “The experience of losing her has been awful. It’s souldestroying knowing someone has her and possibly is not treating her well.

“She is a shy, quiet dog around people she doesn’t know. Obviously, it will affect my partner’s work come August but we really don’t care about that at the moment, we just want her back.

“It’s part of the family gone — we also lost our old cocker on Tuesday night to cancer, so this is another punch in the heart.”

Anyone with information should contact Avon and Somerset Police on 101 quoting crime reference 5220032706.

TheGWCThascalledonshootstotake partinitsNationalGamebagCensus.

Theschemehasrecordedthenumber of 24huntablebirdspecies,11‘pest’ birdspeciesand19mammalspecies shoteveryyearsince1961.TheNGCis avoluntaryschemethatreliesonthe goodwillofkeepersandshootmanagers.

Itisfreetotakepartandonlyrequires youtocompleteasimpleform.Shoots ofanysizearewelcomeandrecordsare keptcompletelyconfidential. To take part visit gwct.org.uk

Boris set to ban trophy imports BorisJohnsonhasgivenaclear indicationthatabanontheimportof huntingtrophieswillbeintroduced.

AnsweringaquestioninParliament fromConservativeMPPaulineLatham, thePrimeMinistersaid:“Weintend toendtheimportofhuntingtrophies comingintothiscountry.”Thestatement angeredcampaigners,whopointedout Defra’sconsultationontrophyimports and exports is still ongoing.

FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM @SHOOTINGTIMESUK

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 9

LETTERS LET TER OF THE WEEK ISSN: 0037-4164 Shooting Times, TI Media Ltd, Pinehurst 2, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF.

For editorial enquiries: STeditorials@ti-media.com 01252 555220 For picture enquiries: max.tremlett@ti-media.com Subscription hotline: 0330 333 1113 help@magazinesdirect.com Editor Patrick Galbraith Deputy editor Ed Wills edward.wills@ti-media.com Brand assistant Sarah Pratley 01252 555220 Group art director Kevin Eason Art editor Rob Farmer Picture editor Max Tremlett Chief sub-editor Sarah Potts Deputy chief sub-editor Nicola Jane Swinney nicola.swinney@ti-media.com Sub-editor Richard Reed richard.reed@ti-media.com Digital editor Charlotte Peters charlotte.peters@ti-media.com www.shootinguk.co.uk Managing director Kirsty Setchell Group managing director Adrian Hughes Classified advertising Will McMillan 01252 555305 will.mcmillan@ti-media.com Display advertising Rebecca Norris 07929 369204 rebecca.norris@ti-media.com Charlene Homewood 07815 712678 charlene.homewood@ti-media.com Laurence Pierce 07971 605143 laurence.pierce@ti-media.com Group advertisement manager Stuart Duncan stuart.duncan@ti-media.com Advertisement production Tony Freeman tony.freeman@ti-media.com Innovator (for loose and bound-in inserts) 020 3148 3710 Can’t find ST? 020 3148 3300 Back issues 01795 662976 support@mags-uk.com

Shooting Times is the official weekly journal of BASC and the CPSA BASC Marford Mill, Rossett LL12 0HL Tel 01244 573000 CPSA PO Box 750, Woking, GU24 0YU Tel 01483 485400 Wereservetherighttoeditletters.Nolettershouldexceed250 words.Letterswillnotbeusedunlesstheauthorisprepared tohavetheirnameandcountyofresidencepublished.

Lettersshouldbeaddressedto:TheEditor,Pinehurst2, FarnboroughBusinessPark,Hants,GU147BF,oremail STletters@ti media.com.Pleaseincludeadaytimetelephone number and postal address.

NEED TO KNOW: NEW GENERAL LICENCES ANNOUNCED

Since1882

19 FEBRUARY 2020

WHERE DO STOLEN GUNS END UP?

How to store a gun properly

CHASING DUCKS

The last flight of the season

Wildfowling A sport that needs your help FOOD FOCUS

COOK GAME LIKE AN ITALIAN

THE RE AL MCCOY

IS GUN OIL WORTH THE PRICE TAG?

This week’s cover image was captured by Sarah Farnsworth

Nuts about some unusual pets While rereading back issues recently, I came across Richard Negus’s story about his son’s pet jackdaw Mole (Country Diary, 31 July 2019). When my younger brother was about 10 he too found a young jackdaw, which he brought home and raised as a pet. Jackie grew up to be a much-loved companion.

He would sit on my brother’s shoulder as he cycled around the village, taking off for occasional exploratory flights but always returning.

One day he took himself off on one of his perambulations and spotting some of the village children on their bicycles — perhaps thinking my brother was among them — he swooped down to alight on the shoulder of the most likely-looking rider, flapping wings and squawking loudly.

Unsurprisingly, the child was terrified and promptly fell off his bike. This happened a few more times and we were

eventually visited by the local bobby, who warned that any further terrorising of the neighbourhood by Jackie would result in drastic action.

His next adventure was not so funny. Nearby was an old people’s home and somehow Jackie managed to fly into a lavatory cubicle, occupied by an old lady. Jackie loved loo paper and one of his favourite tricks was pulling the stuff off the roll into a heap on the floor, then picking up an end and flying around the room with it.

Unfortunately, the lady concerned was not even slightly amused. Her screams brought the entire staff at the double and regrettably one of them had the presence of mind to close the window and catch the bird. The RSPCA was called and we eventually heard that Jackie was no more. But the jackdaw did achieve his moment of fame, making it on to the local television news.

IN ASSOCIATION WITH BROWNING The winner of Letter of the Week will receive a Browning Powerfleece. Warm and practical, it is ideal for both the peg and the pub and is available in sizes S-5XL. For more information visit www.browning.eu.

Colour dependent on availability.

CURRENT LAW FOR CHECKING TRAPS Could you please settle a point of law? I work with the local Wildlife Trust to control mink.

In the past they have supplied me with live-catch traps that I know, by law, must be checked at least every 24 hours.

This spring, they will give me a couple of cage traps that will alert my smartphone when they have been sprung. The Wildlife Trust has told me the traps don’t need to be checked daily because you can attend the trap immediately it has been sprung.

I don’t think they’re right.

Is this a case of technology overtaking the law? Does the

10 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

law say these new trap to be checked every 2 N Rollings, by email

Lindsay Waddell resp are correct in that the technology is viewed a checked and it is being cases like this. It is not but like any new syste doubt become less ex it becomes more main I gather it is often char unit basis, so a few cag too bad.

KEEPING UP A TRADITION Ten-year-old Jamie (ri first pheasant on a He

My brother was pretty upset but some time later he found a baby grey squirrel that had apparently fallen out of the drey. Christened Nuts, the squirrel lived in a birdcage in the kitchen until he outgrew it, then he was allowed to wander freely around the house.

My mother was regarded as decidedly strange by the ladies of the village. Perhaps in an attempt to disprove this, she invited some of them to tea.

All was going well until one of the ladies, dropping her teacup and turning to my mother, exclaimed that she could have sworn she saw a squirrel running up the velvet curtains and disappearing behind the pelmet. “Ah yes,” said Mother calmly. “That’ll be Nuts, he lives there.”

“Nuts?” said the woman.

“I think that just about describes it.”

R. Forsyth, by email

Email your letters / STletters@ti-media.com keeper’s day. He was supervised by his father, who picks-up, and Jamie’s grandfather was singlehanded gamekeeper on the estate for almost 30 years.

He is very proud of his grandson, who is continuing tradition and wearing a tie.

S. Knight, Suffolk

WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT

NEXT WEEK IN

ROOST SHOOTING Why roosting pigeons is the best way to become a better shot.

RATTING Your news piece about the 730-rat tally in Suffolk has a slight anomaly (News, 29 January). The 1,000 in 90 minutes tally set by Jacko in 1862 was across 10 weeks, fighting 100 rats per session.

It wasn’t a single session achievement. But the real importance is how effective terriers are in rat control.

I. Barnett, Norfolk

PELLET DENSITY VERSUS PATTERN I read with some alarm C. Norris’s comments about lead versus steel shot (Letters, 22 January).

Whereas anecdotal evidence has its place, his confident conclusion that “pattern density trumps pellet energy at least up to 50 yards”, is incorrect.

If taken to its logical extreme, it would mean that shooting geese with No9 shot at 50 yards would be effective.

The true scientific evidence of the ballistics of steel compared with lead has been around since 1996, for anyone who would care to look at them. It is available in a report to the Department of the Environment by University College London.

This states on energy density per pellets (striking energy): • No5 Lead 32g at 40 yards with muzzle velocity 415 metres per second (m/s) — 0.51 joules/mm2 • No5 steel 33g at 40 yards with muzzle velocity 394m/s — 0.22 j/mm2 • No1 steel 36g at 40 yards with muzzle velocity 415m/s — 0.33 j/mm2

I took these photos when I accompanied my husband, the parents of my son’s partner and their springer on his first season of shooting at Powys Castle in midJanuary. To me, these images epitomise what a shoot is all about — the bond between man/woman and their dog, and the camaraderie.

Stephen Askham and his wife had kindly invited

You can see that to obtain the strike energy of lead No5 you’d have to use pellets in excess of No1 steel or substantially increase the muzzle velocity.

Pellet velocity at 40- to 50yard range are evidenced at: • At 40m range lead No5 = 188m/s, steel No5 = 154m/s, steel No1 = 181m/s.

• At 50m range lead No5 = 166m/s, steel No5 = 133m/s, steel No1 = 150m/s.

Here again, at 40 or 50 yards, steel No1 does not even have the velocity of lead No5 shot.

As for patterning, the evidence in the report, after much testing, gave the following for 32g pellets in a 30in circle at 40 yards: lead No5 = 174, steel No5 = 204, steel No1 = 133.

us to join them on the shoot.

Stephen is pictured with his young dog, Stanley, behaving exceptionally, having been to only a few shoots this year.

The first photo of my husband, Geoff, and Stephen is a classic one of friends enjoying the open air, the countryside and thrill of the shoot, together. Long may it continue.

Caroline Blackburn, by email

There are only 166 pellets in the 32g No1 steel cartridge and 187 in 36g which, though they pattern tighter, still do not have the velocity or energy density of the 249 pellets of the No5 lead shot cartridge.

This serious scientific report clearly shows that even slightly larger and heavier magnum steel loads can never better standard lead loads even at 40 yards. The only possible solution is for much larger steel loads, with much greater propulsion that gives much greater recoil, and thus needs heavier guns or 3½in chambered high-pressure proofed automatics to absorb that recoil. Even then, there is no steel equivalent for lead BB. G. Blayney, Gloucestershire

‘‘The wildlife of today is not ours to dispose of as we please.

We have it in trust. We must account for it to those who come after.’’ King George VI

TIME AND MONEY How often is it worth getting a gun serviced?

RISE OF WILD BOAR Where they’re likely to crop up next.

RATTING AT BURGHLEY Britain’s grandest terriers go rat hunting at one of Britain’s smartest estates.

... AND MUCH MORE!

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 11

Richard Hardy

Country Diary Deer managers have a difficult enough job to do as it is — without meddling suits in warm, dry offices trying to mess with the seasons

T

Complex cycles It’s probably a function of getting older — patience is learned and experience reinforces that everything happens for a reason and everything happens in a season.

The complex and inexorably interwoven cycles of our natural world with sporting and farming calendars are finely balanced.

I was brought back to earth from these musings by the Scottish government deer management report (News, 5 February).

This rambling document provides a terrifying view into a world where native deer are the enemy and traditional seasons are changed on a whim from the haven of a warm, dry office.

The report contains much that is eminently sensible, such as deer culling in the hours of darkness using modern night-vision equipment. This is a vital tool in skilled hands and an important aid.

However, proposals for meddling with the seasons, with the result that female deer could be culled later in the year, are a step too far.

The deer report’s suggestion that females could be culled much later in the year is a step too far

I was whisked back to an uncomfortable memory from 2019, when I was called by a farming friend to locate and despatch a mortally injured fallow at the end of our scorching June. She was tucked upside down in a ditch and her noisy, laboured breathing indicated that she was still but barely alive. The first glimpse through

“The day that sort of thing doesn’t bring you up short is the day to hang up your rifle” thick layers of summer bracken added the stomach-churning detail that the ageing doe was also very heavily pregnant.

I won’t go into the graphic detail of what is required of the deer manager at this point. If you don’t know be grateful you’ve never needed to find out, and if you do know you won’t desire any reminders. I’ve lived a full and active life, have hunted, butchered, cooked and eaten just about every legal quarry in these islands. I have accompanied

12 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

my livestock through the abattoir and even done my bit with sharp knives in hunt kennels. However, I have no shame in reporting that in the maelstrom of life and death I also left my breakfast in that ditch.

Later that day I called my old stalking mentor for advice; perhaps I was simply not cut out for this any longer. Was I merely a reasonable amateur stalker playing at deer management? After a sharp intake of breath and long pause, he replied with both the wisdom and reassurance I craved at that moment: “No, I don’t think it’s a problem to react like that, after all we do care properly about our beasts.”

After another pause he continued: “Indeed, the day that sort of thing doesn’t bring you up short is probably the day to hang up your rifle.”

Perhaps we should all be careful what we wish for and particularly what our government masters wish upon us.

Richard Hardy is a Dorset landowner. Passionate about the flora and fauna around his Wessex chalkstream, he is an obsessive tree planter, stalker and terrier wrangler.

ALAMY

he seasons are a changing.

Only the wisest of pheasants remain to strut with vigour, barren hedgerows protect the snowdrops at their feet and, on a bright day, it is just possible to fool yourself that the sun’s rays contain some warmth.

In idle moments my thoughts flit to newborn lambs in the paddock and those cherished early hatches of Grannom or falls of hawthorn on the trout stream.

I am in contented connection with my surroundings, aware of both occasion and opportunity as the pages of the calendar above the Rayburn turn.

However, the younger me wasn’t anywhere near this patient. The February grey squirrel grasping the leafless branch was fair game so why wasn’t the retreating covey of partridges or flaring mallard? The wild brown trout were back on their gravel runs and rushing pool tails well before April, so why did I have to wait for an arbitrary date? It was particularly unfair because the opening day always seemed to be a weekday, when school would demand the attention wild game so richly deserved.

Alan Edwards is Conservation Manager at Bywell, a Purdey gold award estate in Northumberland

Gamekeeper

Hedgerows are vital to the ecology of the countryside, providing a haven for wildlife, and we should be doing more to regenerate them

G

ood habitat is the foundation of a successful wild bird shoot.

Without this structure of ideal living quarters, wild game will simply not exist on your land.

One of the most important building blocks in the creation of a wild game utopia has to be hedges. These agriculturally derived structures are important to both wild game and a diverse range of threatened wild birds and mammals.

Emotions run high when it comes to the future of the great British hedge and these vulnerable structures now protected by law. Some view the hedge as a hurdle in the way of greater efficiency in an ever developing countryside. Others see them as an untouchable asset that must be preserved at all costs.

Replanting tired ‘bog-brush’ hedgerows could help to encourage more wild game and other birds

Habitat diversity When I worked on the moors, Natural England had a way with words. As a process to classify the many stages and state of heather growth and death, on more than one occasion the terminology for damaged, overgrazed and dying heather was ‘bogbrush heather’. The wording described perfectly the desperate and unhealthy state of the heather — a gnarled, twisted stem, with growth above stunted and devoid of value to anything.

“Why has no one fathomed out that replanting hedges might help wildlife?”

I have been thinking and looking at hedges now for what seems like weeks — every time I go for a drive I’m looking around to see what others are doing.

Many miles of new hedging are being planted and I can’t help but notice that the vast majority are on roadsides.

Within the landscape, very few hedges are being established and my feeling is that someone has set a trap for wildlife already under great threat. As the hedge grows and develops it will attract birds to nest and shelter, but the close proximity to traffic can only spell disaster for many species searching for a toe-hold in what could be described as a naked landscape.

As I look around I see ‘bog-brush hedges’ and they are not exclusively on other people’s land; we have plenty.

In my youth, while travelling on the school bus, the journey of about 10 miles or so was through a landscape dominated by stock farming with a good percentage of arable mixed in. Hedges proliferated and surrounded almost every field.

On more occasions than I care to remember, my school day never happened as I ducked out and spent the best part of the day scouring the landscape looking for all manner of wildlife. Bird nesting was something you did to learn about the countryside. From the bus the hedges

14 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

looked ideal, though I soon began to learn this was not the case. Hedges were trimmed back ruthlessly every year.

The stock grazed the base of the hedges and stark bare stems were the result. A tight wire-type growth dominated as a consequence of the relentless cutting.

I can’t remember seeing berries in the autumn. Birds were all but absent, though I did not know why then.

More birds However, as my journey of discovery continued, I investigated other areas around where I lived. I found out that when the hedges grew denser and were accompanied with berries in the autumn, many more birds frequented them and the bird nesting was more prolific.

Forty-plus years later I still occasionally take this journey and the hedges look exactly the same now as they did then.

I suspect the birdlife will be even less and it’s desperately sad. Why has no one fathomed that perhaps replanting some of these hedges might benefit wildlife?

Many of these hedges have been in this bog-brush state for some 80 years. Perhaps it’s a reflection of how much we have devastated and destroyed the countryside that used to have such an abundance of wild game and wild birds.

D. MOORE

In late January we were busy adding another mile or so of new hedging at Bywell. This major investment in the basic and long-lived hedge forms the skeletal foundation from which greater habitat diversify can develop. For several years we have been adding, replacing and rejuvenating hawthorn-mixed hedging on the estate. I will probably not see the benefit of this work but hopefully future wild bird keepers will reap the rewards.

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Wildfowling

Left up the creek An Essex saltmarsh splash look like a great spot for a last-gasp outing on teal but they prefer one to the other, as Simon Garnham discovers

W

“

D. ROGERS

rong place again, dog,” I muttered, as a third group of teal arrowed past out of range, inky black against the greying dawn, before settling into a creek some 100 yards from us. Tess was unmoved. Some you win, some you lose, her look seemed to say. But I was less phlegmatic; marsh time in February is at a premium and I didn’t want to miss any opportunities.

My little piece of Essex saltmarsh has two main flightlines and today we’d chosen the wrong one. Tess and I were hunkered down near a splash that I’d been feeding right out on the ness — much used by birds hugging the water’s edge. But this morning, the teal had chosen flightline B, which is over the creek that cuts a deep scar into the middle of the saltings.

It leaves an island of alkali grass, sea aster and sea purslane at high tide

distance away, offering no shot despite my whistles and scattering of decoys. To move or stick it out?

As so often happens on the morning of an adventure, I’d slept badly. At midnight I’d let the dogs out under a moon so bright the world was cast in negative and the cockerel crowed, fooled into heralding a false dawn. The sounds of the estuary were carried in stillness over the ploughed field that divides my house from the

filled a flask and set out into the night. The weight of a bergen on my back again was pleasant, not this time filled with ammunition, rations and water as once it had been in Afghanistan and Iraq, but with an assortment of decoys. And Tess and I made good time down the sunken lane that leads to the shore.

On both sides of the track the land has given up evidence of thousands of years of farming, trading and hunting.

“Brent geese hummed their bass tones as we splashed along the water’s edge” water’s edge. Wigeon, greylag, teal and mallard were all audible as well, as were the lonely cries of curlew on the breeze.

Wigeon Later, tucked up in bed, I dreamed of wigeon over Lindisfarne and geese over Montrose and woke early to find the moon gone and darkness descended. I dressed quickly, keen not to disturb the sleeping family,

16 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

Crop circles suggest Saxon dwellings, a golden Celtic stater struck while Boudica was alive, flint arrowheads and lead musket balls all show that our forefathers have lived and worked in the village for millennia. Tess and I formed a tiny part of a long tradition.

A barn owl hunted alongside us as we listened to the crunch of my waders on the stone lane, the salt tang and damp scent of seaweed growing ever stronger. As we crested

Wildfowling

Almost silhouetted in the gloaming before the dawn, the birds take to the wing over the creek

the sea wall, the lights of the estuary stretched before us, blinking their warnings to captains of cargo ships and sailing vessels.

We carefully negotiated the narrow footbridge — Tess picking her way over the slats — and slithered through the frosty litter of the highwater line on to the sucking marshes.

Redshank, the saltmarsh sentry, jumped with a mournful shriek. A sibilance of wigeon wings and fastflying specks over the water to my left flickered away, the cock bird’s

hummed their bass tones on the shimmering estuary as we splashed our way along the water’s edge. Apart from the songs of the river, the world was silent.

At the point where land meets tidal water, as far from civilisation as I could be, I threw down the backpack and unsleeved the gun. The first flecks of dawn glinted in the eastern sky as decoys were untangled, scarf and hat donned against the chill and calls hung ready around my neck.

The best of vigils followed as the

to crouch in haunted creeks among a stinking world of saltwater and mud.

My reply was never better illustrated than on this morning when the mist and a smoking fire from a farmhouse — small enough at this distance to be a toy — blurred the borders between earth, sea and sky.

It’s a magical place and to be a part of it is truly a privilege.

But there were only a few minutes to consider these ethereal things before the practical matter of the hunt was at hand. Three dark shapes flitted with lightest of watery warbling whistles to settle to my right. They were followed by a pair and finally by a group of four teal, all intent on sheltering in the creek — away from walkers with their dogs — resting on the gently rising tide. The sun started to burn off the mist. A peach and apricot dawn began to unfold over the distant harbour.

Gorged And so we return to my dilemma.

The decoys looked appealing 30 yards to my front. I knew the corn on the splash had been gorged upon only 20 yards to my left. Mallard and greylag are generally less inclined to pitch straight into the creek where the teal had landed, instead tending

Simon with Tess the dog in the peach and apricot dawn

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 17

Wildfowling of nine or 10 teal was too strong a temptation to ignore. Slipping and slithering, Tess and I headed to the water’s edge and waded slowly towards the unsuspecting birds.

Bent double and breathing hard, I scanned the water’s edge: 90, 80, 70 yards away and closing in, the teal jumped in a group at a distance of perhaps 40 yards. Flying hard with a whisper of whistles and pinions, they lifted almost vertically. I aimed at a bird in the centre of the pack and it staggered and seemed to hover.

Aiming again, I shot the second barrel and it dropped while its companions made good their escape.

at escape and Tess soon brought her to hand.

They were to be the only successful shots of the outing. Brents swam through the decoys. An egret circled.

Huge flights of waders followed the main channel of the estuary, heading east and back to their breeding grounds. Wigeon and teal considered coming in as the tide rose, tantalisingly close as I called. One had a narrow escape

Lightly pricked Tess didn’t need to be sent. She bounded over the uneven ground caused by runnels and rivulets along the water’s edge and threw herself into the creek. The teal was still alive and had hidden itself somewhere on the far side.

Tess hunted the area into the wind as I caught up and hastily reloaded. It was a good job I did because the bird, a female, lifted again, apparently only lightly pricked.

A third shot finished her brave efforts

Bundled up against the cold, Simon waits in the magical landscape

18 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

Tess retrieves the injured teal from the water

“Tess bounded over the uneven ground at the water’s edge and threw herself into the creek” — I can only imagine it was in a gap in the pattern of 34g of No4 steel shot.

But no more birds were added to the bag; the light grew and we headed home for bacon and eggs.

Later that evening, as the moon rose, Tess and I ventured out again for a second flight over the splash as the teal returned and enough were harvested to make a meal. But that’s a story for another day. One tiny bird but a huge store of memories had made for a magical morning.

Gun theft

All is not yet lost

All legally held firearms will soon be noted in one central database

Our licensing system means that it is easy to check provenance of a firearm but a new database will be even better, says Diggory Hadoke

A. HOOK / R. FAULKS, D / GOULD / M. TREMLETT

S

hould you find a Purdey under the bed when an aged relation shuffles off this mortal coil, there will be a few procedures to follow before you can safely consign it to your gun cabinet as its official new owner.

The appearance of an unlicensed shotgun is not uncommon and the police take a sensible view of this reality. They want unlawfully held guns to be ‘in the system’ so they make it easy to legitimise them. You simply have to contact your local police firearms unit and explain the situation, tell them you have a certificate and that you found the gun.

The police will then make sure it was not stolen by checking the National Firearms Licensing Management System. This relatively new facility is not perfect but, in

theory, it will eventually contain all legally held firearms in the country and make it easy to check their passage of ownership.

Any system is only as good as the data inputter and it is not at all unusual to find information stored is out of date or incorrect. This might be because someone has not got round to updating the system with

Auctions are not good places for criminals to sell stolen firearms because they are listed

information from a letter or a form, or has incorrectly noted a serial number or bore size.

Lost record The incorporation of a national system has not been smooth. In 2013 South Yorkshire Police were criticised for losing the records pertaining to 9,000 licence holders and their firearms. The data was simply not being put into the system.

At the time BASC’s Bill Harriman said: “South Yorkshire Police has an abysmal record when it comes to firearms licensing so this revelation comes as no surprise to me. When BASC members started receiving letters, we suspected something was wrong with police record keeping. Neglecting to record critical information such as changes of

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 19

Gun theft address or changes of firearm could potentially undermine the [police’s legal] duty to preserve public safety.”

Hopefully, things have improved and the idea is to make it quick and easy to find out who has what gun and where it came from. This is what the police do when they look up your old uncle’s ‘unofficial’ Purdey. If it comes up as belonging to someone else, they can check back to see why that is.

Authority to own It may be that the gun does not appear on the database because your uncle had it for 50 years, from the days when a shotgun certificate was ‘authority to own’ and no specific guns were listed on it. In the 1980s the police had no idea how many shotguns there were in the country.

Assuming the gun you found is not recorded as missing or stolen, or used in a crime, you will be able to put it on your certificate and claim ownership.

However, what if you came back from holiday and find your house burgled, your cabinet opened and your guns gone? All is not lost, as there

“Thieves used a sawn-off Purdey — they destroyed a £175,000 gun to steal £1,000” is a system for trying to recover the firearms, and it makes life very hard for criminals trying to sell them.

The Gun Loss Register — a centralised international database of stolen guns intended to increase the chances of their recovery and deter theft — is an extension of the idea first applied to artworks, the Art Loss Register. The latter is said to have recorded more than 5,000 stolen guns over the past 25 years.

It was launched in 2018 and if you register a gun as lost or stolen, it will be immediately flagged on databases.

This works in tandem with the police lost and stolen firearms list, which is circulated to registered firearms dealers by individual forces.

Auctions are not a good place to sell stolen guns, because they are listed with serial numbers and perused by a lot of people. Holts could recall seeing only one gun that was later claimed as stolen, and that was an antique.

A firearms inspector poses for a photograph with seized and handed in firearms at the Met in 2017

20 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

With some of the strictest gun licensing laws in the world, the UK is a very difficult place to profit from the theft and sale of sporting guns.

Guns used in crime are more often imported military weapons. Even the Army reports a few losses each year.

A 2011 report claimed 300 guns went missing from army facilities in a fiveyear period.

Sporting guns are of little use to criminals. In 2017 there were fewer than 1,500 incidents of criminal use of firearms recorded. Over the past 10 years, there were fewer than 400 crimes involving long-barrelled shotguns logged.

Woodward sidelock If you own a traditional sporting gun, the likelihood is that most criminals would not be interested in it. A gun shop near London was raided some years ago and the thieves took a few £1,200 Berettas and left the £20,000 Purdey and Woodward sidelocks.

That is not to say you are immune if you have nice guns. I once saw a Purdey 20-bore sidelock, engraved

by Steve Kelly. It had been stolen in Ireland and sawn off at the hand and the barrels. The thieves had used it to rob a post office of around £1,000 then buried the gun, in a plastic bag, in a bog. They destroyed a £175,000 gun to steal £1,000.

If you have a family story of a gun having been stolen, you could still claim it back. Many gunmakers record thefts in their ledgers, so if someone calls in to check the history of a gun, a note saying it was stolen in 1954 could begin a rather interesting conversation.

A friend of mine has such a story.

His grandmother’s Holland & Holland was stolen from her house in the 1970s. If my friend can find the serial number and do a search, he could claim ownership if it turns up in a shop or auction.

A cache of firearms seized by police included a sawn-off shotgun

Wildfowling

Why this fine sport needs our support With leases being terminated, fewer new recruits and the 21st desire for instant gratification, is wildfowling in trouble, asks Mike Swan

L

“

ook at that; the most beautiful place in the world.” Those words were uttered by a fellow Swansea undergraduate, as our coach returned from a field trip 40-odd years ago, and they took me centre stump. We were passing over the elevated section of the M4 that crosses Port Talbot in Wales, looking at the bright lights of the steel works and the oil refinery alongside.

That concrete jungle represented the prosperity that had sent him, a steel worker’s son, to university. But to me it was the despoiling of Margam Moors, where 30 years ago thousands of white-fronted geese wintered, roosting on the sands and grazing the sweet grasses of the marsh.

Such a change would not happen now because the ‘moors’ would surely be a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), so relatively safe from development. But if the moors had been saved, would the grandchildren of the old boys I met there still be wildfowling? I doubt it; aside from the fact that short-stopping means Siberian whitefronts no longer come to Wales, I suspect the moors would be a shooting -free National Nature Reserve.

S. FARNSWORTH / D. GOULD / C. MCCANN / L. CAMPBELL

Erosion I suppose the good news is that this was one of the last major wetlands to be lost; since then, SSSI designations have done much to prevent big-scale development. However, erosion of habitat continues and bigger ideas come up too; it is not so long ago that Boris Johnson, as London Mayor, was proposing a major airport that would have been hugely damaging to the Thames and Medway marshes.

But from the wildfowler’s point of view, opportunity is still being lost,

Whycanweshoot greylags but not other flourishing geese species?

because loss of shooting agreements continues. Many will remember with sadness the end of fowling on Pagham Harbour because the council decided to end the lease.

More recently, one of my clubs, the West Glamorgan, has had its

“Give it five years, then you will begin to know your marsh and put birds in the bag” lease terminated over a big area of National Trust land. How sad that an organisation devoted to conserving our national heritage cannot see the place of traditional fowling within it.

Wildfowling is not for everyone.

Indeed, as my old friend Ian Coghill once said, you need to be a touch romantic to get the point, as well as being canny enough to make it work.

Successful wildfowlers are the ones who do not expect much shooting and are prepared to study the shore and its inhabitants in all its moods, so they make their own luck. As a result, they are often a bit secretive, and not too quick to tell you all their tricks.

If you join a club, don’t expect to immediately be given all the hard-won knowledge that can put

22 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

a bird or two in the bag. John Forsey — who is celebrating 60 years in the gun trade and 58 with the Kent Wildfowling & Conservation Association — will be well known to many readers for servicing the needs of the wildfowling community.

“Some of the new entry think they are joining a syndicate rather than a club, and they give up when they don’t get much shooting to start,” he said. “I always advise people to give it five years; then you will begin to know your marsh and put more birds in the bag.”

Declining membership While some of the bigger and more progressive clubs are doing fine, some face declining membership and difficulty in recruiting young members. I’m not sure this is only a wildfowling issue as I certainly see signs of the same thing across shooting more broadly. As the father of two teenage boys, I count myself lucky that they both show an interest.

As parents, we should not expect our offspring to automatically want to do what we enjoy, and I think clubs miss a trick here. While they can easily welcome young family members, these alone will not automatically provide enough new blood. We need to recruit newcomers from outside, to balance for those that do not take up the sport, so keeping the entry requirements simple is surely a good idea. Many clubs also offer a non-wildfowling associate membership, which allows shooters to show their support, pay their BASC subscription through the club and enjoy the social side of membership.

While my father took me fowling to start with, he soon loosened

Wildfowling

As a sport, wildfowling is very much a waiting game — do not expect to get much shooting to start with

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 23

Wildfowling the shackles. When I went to college, I started exploring the marshes of North Gower, as well as my native Kent. If only the freedom to experiment that I enjoyed were still there. It still is in Scotland — where access to the foreshore is a fundamental right — but rules imposed by Natural England (NE) and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) make life more difficult.

Public scrutiny The numbers that can be out on the marsh at one time are often limited, so pre-booked permits are normal. Clubs also fear that if they do not impose a tight rule book, their wildfowling consents will be restricted. Add on a worry about ever closer public scrutiny and you will find it rare indeed that a modern fowler has the freedom just to pick up the gun and go when conditions seem right.

It also seems that wildfowlers are often the victims of well-meaning but ill-advised officialdom whenever wildfowl counts are low. Perceiving a statutory duty to protect numbers, local NE and NRW officers try to restrict bag numbers and wildfowler visits, partly because they can. But they do nothing to address the many other issues from dog walkers to jet skis that persistently, and sometimes deliberately, chase the birds away.

Wildfowlers will quite rightly say that they were there before the concepts of SSSIs and SPAs were invented, doing their thing quietly and unobtrusively, and they were often the only ones fighting the developers. What they do is largely unchanged but they face ever tighter restrictions while the new and very

Stanley Duncan saw the need to protect wildfowling when he set up WAGBI in 1908

real threats go unaddressed. Why is it, for example, that NE and NRW have not mounted a publicity campaign declaring illegal use of jet skis outside of their designated areas the wildlife crime that it is?

Even being a club officer is harder than it used to be, with negotiating

“It is rare that the modern fowler can pick up the gun and go when conditions seem right” consents, dealing with leases, as well as day-to-day stuff such as organising meetings and handling the finances.

Add the need to be ever vigilant for bad PR and it’s easy for the poor committee to spend most of their free time running the club, rather than wildfowling.

Having started fowling in the late 1960s, I grew up in a time when there were several waders still available to

Our marshes are safe from development, the birds still live there and fowlers still want to shoot them

24 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

us. We did not shoot that many but in early season, when the wildfowl were still far away to the north and east, they offered both sport and food. Today it would be something of PR disaster to suggest that we should be allowed to shoot the curlew. But protection in 1981 did nothing to stop the decline of our home-breeding birds, because it did not tackle the issues of habitat loss and predation that remain the real problem.

However, for me as a fledgling wildfowler, a brace of curlew made a successful trip out of a blank and a delicious dinner for four. Walking-up redshanks from the creeks was also great sport, with very edible results, and the bar-tailed godwit is one of the most delicious things that flies.

Flourishing Asking to have some waders back on the list is surely a bridge too far, but what about brent and barnacle geese? Both species are flourishing after protection and the change in agriculture since the 1950s, and there is no scientific reason why they are protected and greylag geese are not.

Even if over-shooting were an issue pre-1954, the network of refuges around the coast gives plenty of sanctuary for both species now.

So is wildfowling really in trouble?

I think not. The marshes are relatively safe from development, the birds still inhabit them and there are still many people who want to do it.

But petty restriction and progressive erosion are both ongoing, and we wildfowlers could do with the support of all who shoot to ensure we are not sidelined to “death by a thousand cuts”.

Gun storage

What you should do Srip the gun down into its three parts. If it is wet, mop off any moisture, particularly on the woodwork, and leave to dry.

Safe and sound for next season We want our guns in great condition so how should we store them, asks Richard Negus

T

R. FAULKS

he usual way I care for my when I put them away at the end of the game season is as follows: Intermittently strip the gun.

Make free with gun oil, drenching ejectors and breech so they look like the aftermath of a shipping disaster in the Straits of Hormuz.

Give the barrels a cursory glance followed by a quick pull through with a bore-snake and a liberal glug of oil.

Obvious rusty bits are soused in even more oil and the woodwork is wiped over with a handkerchief — or jumper sleeve if closer to hand.

I then open the cabinet and replace the guns, barrels facing upwards, to sit in their pool of oil and await the start of the charity clay shoot season.

A light coating of oil will protect your gun

It turns out this is all wrong. I called my friend Adam Bragg — who refurbished the woodwork on the old AYA No 3 I bought — to ask him for advice on how to store an older gun.

Talking him through my end-ofseason routine, I clearly heard his tut of disapproval down the phone line.

So I invited him over to show me what I should be doing; I made the tea while he stripped the Lincoln and AYA.

Barrels up Keen as ever to learn, I sat beside him as he went through what we all should be doing when we put our guns away at season’s end. Then I asked him how guns should be stored — we’ve all seen them displayed in gun shops with their barrels up.

Do not do this at home. Placing your gun in the cabinet with its barrels down means any excess oil will run away from the woodwork.

Store them this way and when your gun comes out of its hibernation you will not be not faced with a mess of grease and wobbly woodwork.

For the record, my Hatsan will be pressure washed on 21 February and get a squirt of 3-in-1 oil as always. It is Turkish and tough.

Spray on some solvent to degrease the action, using a cotton bud to clean all the nooks and crannies.

Using a paint brush, apply a light film of gun oil all over the inside and outside of the action.

Barrels should first be scrubbed with a wire bore brush. Then place a patch in your bore rod and push through until a fresh patch comes out clean. A very light smear of oil can be applied using a bore mop.

The outside of the barrels require thelightestofoilingwithacloth.

The fore-end requires very little attention as regards metalwork, but the woodwork will.

If your gun’s woodwork has any mud or blood on it, particularly within the chequering, remove it with an old toothbrush.

Scratches and small pits in the woodwork can be removed by a gentle rub with the finest grade of steel wool,working in the direction ofthegrain.

Using a clean duster, rub down all of the now scratch-free woodwork.

Apply a layer of beeswax to the woodwork. Adam used a mahogany stain wax on my Lincoln, while the AYA received a coating of clear beeswax and turps. The woodwork is then buffed with a bootbrush and rubbed over with a lint-free cloth.

Reassemble the gun, using a cloth to hold the barrels to avoid fingerprints and the ensuing salty residue that can cause pitting.

Finally, if the guns are to be stored for any length of time, beeswax and turps can also be lightly smeared over the metalwork too, creating a barrier against damp.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 25

Game cookery

Piatti puliti please!

James Chiavarini uses every scrap of the game he shoots in his restaurant

I

grew up in a large Italian family and everything was centred around our rough shooting restaurant, Il Portico. Come the end of season, the diners would inevitably tire of the usual ways to roast a game bird, and we would look for new, yet traditional, recipes that respected the law of zero waste.

My grandfather told me I could see how successful a restaurant was by looking in the bin. To squander good food through lack of knowhow is for fools and slackers.These recipes proudly use every morsel of your quarry, with the second two giving you “due piccioni con una fava sola” or two pigeon dishes from one bird.

ROE DEER WITH FRUTTI DI BOSCO This recipe is perfect for the yearling doe I shot recently (There is no finer feast, 5 February). With younger animals, you compromise a little flavour for the tenderness of meat, so a tang to the sauce works wonders.

When preparing wild game, I like to match the dish to its surroundings.

A little fruit of the forest is a nod of reverence to the quarry. Piatti puliti!

In English, clean plates.

Ingredients 1 PUNNET OF RASPBERRIES 1 PUNNET OF BLUEBERRIES VENISON OR PIGEON STOCK A. SYDENHAM

SALT AND SUGAR TO TASTE RED WINE 4 VENISON STEAKS OR CUTLETS

THE METHOD Serves 4

1

If you wish to use venison stock for the sauce — which I highly recommend — put the bones from your butchered carcase into cold water with a large onion cut in half, a small handful of pink peppercorns, 2 carrots, some celery sticks, salt, and a few bay leaves.

26 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

2 3

Boil to reduce down for a couple of hours until you have a nice stock.

Season the venison with salt and pepper and pan-fry on a high heat for a couple of minutes each side until it is nice and rare in the middle.

Remove from the pan and wrap up

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The simple fruits of the forest sauce complements the flavour of the venison beautifully

to rest somewhere warm while you make the sauce.

4

Add the berries to the pan you cooked the venison in. Over a low heat, squish them with red wine and a ladle of stock until you have reached the desired consistency. Season.

Game cookery

PASSATELLI IN PIGEON BROTH

Ingredients FORTHEPASSATELLI 4 EGGS

Italians always argue about food. I’ve seen these arguments descend into deranged family brawls. There is only one subject they seem to agree upon, and that is the magical healing power of a good broth. Migraine? Pigeon broth will fix that. Aneurysm? Quit moaning and eat your broth. So the doctor gave you three weeks to live, but have you tried my broth? You get the idea. I offer no assurances that this broth will cure you of all ailments. But it is true comfort food and is perfect after a cold and wet day in the field.

Ingredients FORTHEBROTH 8 DRESSED WOODPIGEONS 1 LARGE WHITE ONION, HALVED 2 LARGE CARROTS A SMALL AMOUNT OF PINK PEPPERCORNS RED WINE A HANDFUL OF BAY LEAVES

A PINCH OF SALT AND OF NUTMEG 200G BREADCRUMBS 200G GOOD-QUALITY PARMESAN CHEESE

THE METHOD

1

THE METHOD Serves 4 Put all the ingredients into a large saucepan and add around 5 litres of cold water. Bring to boil and then reduce over a very low flame. Leave it to simmer for a few hours until reduced by half. Take out the birds and place to one side to use for the pâté. You can either strain the broth of the vegetables for a clear liquid or leave them in for a more textured dish.

Refrigerate for a few hours.

WOODPIGEON AND GAME OFFAL PÂTÉ My grandmother Rosa viewed wasting food as nothing short of riotous blasphemy. As a boy I would help dress pheasants with her on our back porch. My little hands were the perfect size to gut the birds, so I’d happily rummage through the cavity until I plucked out the heart and liver.

Fried in lard with onions, they made the best pâté I had ever tasted.

My grandparents settled in London after World War II, and owned a little cafe where Rosa soon earned the nickname Rizla Rosie, due to her precision in portion control. If a diner ordered cheese on toast, it was said she would slice the cheese so thin that you could roll a cigarette with it.

In homage to Rizla Rosie, this recipe uses up the pigeon meat after making the broth, as well as the offal.

THE METHOD

1

Cut the offal into small pieces and sauté with the chopped shallots

28 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

Whisk the eggs with a pinch of salt and a pinch of nutmeg. Add the parmesan and breadcrumbs and knead well until it is all incorporated.

If it is too dry, add a little stock, and if it is too wet add more cheese.

2

Wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest for a couple of hours. To shape the pasta, you can run it through a course meat grinder, or use a potato masher with smallish holes. The pasta should be around 4cm to 5cm long.

3

When ready to serve, boil the broth and cook the pasta in the liquid until done. It won’t take long at all, so keep pulling a piece out and testing until you’re happy.

until well cooked through. Season and add a little brandy to the pan.

Place to one side to rest.

2

Remove the pigeon meat from the carcases, add them and the cooked offal to a food processor with the butter and blend until smooth.

Place in a suitable mould.

3

Melt a good amount of extra butter in a pan with some fresh thyme, pour the mixture over the top of the mould, and leave in the fridge to set. Serve with gherkins and toast.

Ingredients 400G OF GAME LIVERS AND HEARTS (CHICKEN LIVERS WILL ALSO WORK) 4 SMALL SHALLOTS 2 PIGEONS THAT YOU USED FOR THE BROTH 200G BUTTER

Every Wednesday

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Gun care

Don’t skimp on cleaning your gun When it comes to gun care, it pays to spend a little extra on the right product, says Barry Stoffell

S. FARNSWORTH / A. HOOK / A. GEARD / J. POTTS

T

he world of product marketing is a murky one indeed, and for those of us on the receiving end it can often seem like the art of adding a word or two to justify extracting a few quid more.

Unsolicited use of the word ‘artisan’ is an increasingly popular method of hiking prices these days, while adding the word ‘wedding’ in front of the word ‘cake’ is apparently carte blanche to engage in shameless profiteering — though your betrothed may disagree.

It is perhaps for this reason that I have been asked on numerous occasions by those new to the world of shooting if it’s worth paying the premium attached to oils and solvents sold specifically for use on firearms.

Is ‘gun oil’ any better than any other oil you’d pick up at the hardware shop? And what about cleaning fluids?

Won’t good old WD-40 or 3-in-1 do the same job for half the price?

To answer this, it’s necessary to take a closer look at what guncleaning chemicals are actually required to do, and what they should contain to help them do it.

The simple truth is that your shotgun is essentially a pair of metal pipes. Of course, there are the ejectors and cocking springs and a trigger that moves a few millimetres, but that’s basically it. Because of this, there is a very limited amount of metalon-metal friction, and none of it at particularly high temperatures.

“General-purpose oils have little practical use in a shotgun” On the other hand, your gun has a large surface area and is regularly exposed to wind, rain, blood, sweat and, occasionally, tears. All this conspires to produce the greatest single danger to your gun — rust.

Many general-purpose oils — and indeed some budget gun oils — are some variant of bearing oil, which has a very high slip coefficient. These products are excellent for use in cars, bikes and even aeroplanes, but have little practical application in the average shotgun. This means

30 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

there is really no justification for letting the can of 3-in-1 anywhere near your firearm.

Serious damage If you look hard enough, it isn’t hard to find someone who claims to have been cleaning their gun with WD-40 for decades without any issues. WD-40 was one of the first general-purpose lubricants to appear in an aerosol can back in the 1950s.

Unsurprisingly, the ease of use led to it being adopted by some people

WD-40 is great for many things but cleaning guns is not one of them

Gun care

Using quality products to clean your gun will ensure it gives years of reliable service

to clean and oil their guns, but regularly doing this to your pride and joy could result in serious damage.

Though the formulation of WD-40 does effectively drive out contaminants and moisture, it also strips away other oils and greases.

A liberal dose prior to storing a gun stock-down in the gun safe will result in the surplus chemical dribbling down and into its action, eventually removing vital lubrication from places behind the sideplates where you cannot easily replace it.

Damage to the soft-solder that holds the rib to the barrel is also possible over time and, in extreme cases, this can result in the rib delaminating from the gun. The fine oil finish on the stock and, on automatics, any plastic or rubber part, can also be damaged.

In general WD-40 is best reserved for the gears of your bike or that squeaky gate.

In fairness to WD-40, most gunsmiths will tell you that overenthusiastic application of cleaning products, even ‘proper’ ones, causes almost as many problems as neglect does. Among them are surplus oil soaking into the wood at the head of the stock, excess grease on the hinge-pin or ejectors attracting gunk and burned powder and forming a rubbing paste that slowly erodes the metalwork.

Precision instruments Rifles, both full-bore and rimfire, are in many respects the same. Though they are far more of a precision instrument than your shotgun, it is still rust that is the primary enemy.

While some hunters obsessively clean their barrel after each use, the average deer stalker might — if they’re lucky — fire one or two shots each outing. Therefore build-up of corrosive copper in the bore is minimal, only requiring a scrubbing with solvent every 30 rounds or so.

Chemicals developed to clean and protect the rifle bore will, after application, be easily removed with a bore-snake or a few runs through with a patch on a jag. But any product that leaves a residue behind will certainly affect the accuracy of the gun, sometimes by a surprising amount.

Like shotguns, there are parts of a rifle that can’t be easily reached, such as the trigger mechanism and safety catch. It’s vital that as little surplus product as possible gets into these places lest it cause problems that you can’t see.

Most purpose-made gun oils have a light, pure mineral base, and are also designed to be sympathetic to the oil finish on wooden stocks.

Many products are now available as two-in-one cleaners and lubricants,

While it’s important to look after your gun, overuse of cleaners can cause damage

meaning the spray contains a solvent to remove plastic fouling and powder build-up. In these dualaction products, the solvent evaporates and leaves the oil behind to do its job protecting your shotgun against rust.

Some products, for example those from Napier of London — used by both Purdey and Westley Richards — also incorporate additives specifically formulated to protect your gun.

Napier’s proprietary VP90 vapour phase inhibitor was developed in 1990 to address rust problems that emerged following the amendment

“Given the potential for damaging your gun, it’s an extra £3 well spent” to the 1988 Firearms Act that meant shotguns had to be stored in a gun safe. Guns that had never been a problem in the decades spent hanging above the fireplace were now locked away in a different environment.

VP90 exudes a chemical that adheres to and protects metal surfaces. In the vapour phase it will penetrate anywhere that air can get to, including the mechanism behind the firing pin, and forms a protective layer on metal surfaces.

A can of WD-40 in Halfords costs around £5; the equivalent-sized can of shotgun cleaner and lubricant from Napier UK is £8. Given the potential cost of damaging your gun, that’s an extra three quid well spent.

And if you spend the rest of the month avoiding anything with ‘artisan’ in the name, you’ll have made that £3 back in no time.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 31

Rifle test

Sako Finnlight 2 Built on the model 85 action, with a sleek synthetic stock and a range of useful options, Sako’s lightweight rifle is a winner, says Bruce Potts

T

he new Finnlight 2 — based on the hugely popular Sako 85 action — is a leap towards stalking rifle perfection.

There is still the well-proportioned synthetic stock, stainless steel construction and fluted barrel to reduce weight but with the addition of a tough Cerakote external finish.

It offers the right blend of features that will appeal to many British stalkers. It is also chambered for a very good variety of cartridges and is available in left-handed version.

Visually, the stock is what hits you first and on picking it up, you are suddenly aware of how light it is, coming in at 2.6kg (5.7lb). It balances perfectly around the supporting hand in front of the action.

Cheekpiece

J. POTTS

The original Finnlight stock was a black moulded synthetic Sporter-

type and this version is improved by the addition of a new adjustable cheekpiece, which gives the choice of differing heights so you can alter it to achieve your desired eye alignment.

“Visually, the synthetic stock hits you first — then surprises you when you pick it up” Adjustment is made using a single button inset into the right side of the stock. A gentle push and the comb of the stock is lifted. It moves and locks very solidly, due to the twin supporting aluminium pillars that also stop rotation or twisting.

The stock material is a fibreglass construction for weight saving and

The adjustable cheekpiece is both very handy and fast to operate and there is a left-handed option

32 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

strength. It is dubbed the RTM — or resin transfer mould.

The pistol grip and the quite short fore-end provide grip, not in the form of chequering but through built-in ribbed rubber panels. These are amazingly tactile. The recoil pad is a soft black rubber and can be unscrewed to add spacers to adjust the length of pull.

You also have a very good solid bedding area that mimics the action profile. It achieves perfect harmony that translates to superior accuracy in the field and in all weathers.

Action, bolt and barrel The 85’s action is very smooth due to the bolt guide/raceway design and positive feed system. This is via the control round feed-type bolt face design that allows direct engagement of the cartridge rim in the magazine.

The cartridge is cradled into the chamber of the rifle rather than flipped up and pushed. It not only improves reliability but also reduces risk of damaging the tip of the bullet.

The bolt face has a three lockinglug arrangement that allows a low bolt lift and fast cycling of the action — these faceted lugs run in the raceways incredibly smoothly. The claw extractor and sprung ejector spur ensure a fired case is removed from the rifle without fail.

The action is made from stainless steel, as is the barrel, then coated with the impenetrable Cerakote. This is applied as a satin non-reflective grey/ gunmetal and is extremely durable.

Rifle test

Manufacturer

Sako

Model

Finnlight 2, 85

Calibre

.308 Winchester

Barrel length

20.5in

Weight

2.6kg (5.7lb)

Overall length

40.5 inches

chamber while still keeping the trigger locked and safe.

Finally, the Finnlight has a detachable magazine system and in .308 Win holds five rounds in a double staggered formation. Always reliable and well made, they are released via another nice feature, the Total Control Latch, which stops any accidental premature release of the magazine.

On the Finnlight you have to press the front of the magazine in a little, while simultaneously depressing the release latch to eject the mag.

Magazine

5 shot in .308 Win, detachable

From the bench

Safety

Lever with bolt unlock button

Trigger

Single-stage, set trigger as option

NEED TO KNOW

Stock

Adjustable cheekpiece Sporter synthetic

Price

£2,695

Importer

GMK, 01489 579999

The barrel on the Finnlight is short at 510mm or 20.5in, giving an overall length of 40.5in. With the sound moderator fitment via the 14mm/1 metric thread, this helps to keep the rifle short. The rifling twist of 1-in-11in means bullets from 90-gr to 220-gr will stabilise. The slim Sporter form is further lightened with six nicely rounded flutes cut along three-quarters of the barrel length.

These reduce weight, aid in barrel heat dispersion and look really good.

A decent trigger is vital and this rifle has one. You can opt for the normal two-stage unit or order a set trigger option — what we used to call a hair-trigger. The two-stage model broke cleanly at 3.15lb with no creep and a predictable clean sear release. You can adjust the weight from 2lb to 4lb, but I’d leave it alone.

The Sako is a lightweight rifle, so I did not want to burden it with a heavy scope or sound moderator, however good they might be. A Leupold Compact scope fitted the bill very well, as did the .30-cal Schultz & Larsen aluminium sound moderator.

Factory ammunition-wise, I had the usual suspects plus a nice subsonic load. Though .308 subsonics are not deer legal, they make an interesting fox load to keep handy.

The Winchester .308 subs use a 185-gr bullet with expanding head.

From the Finnlight’s 20.5in barrel it gave 1,047fps for 450ft/lb energy and 1in groups at 100 yards. With the S&L moderator fitted, the muzzle report was no more than a light cough.

From the regular deer-legal loads, the best were the Hornady Superformance, with its 150-gr SST bullet

The built-in rubber inserts are really grippy, which is a bonus out in the field

travelling at 2,816fps for 2,642ft/lb and 0.75in groups.

This was closely followed by the Norma 150-gr Ballistic Tips and 150-gr Sako Gameheads. They achieved 2,722fps and 2,714fps and 0.85in and 0.95in groups respectively.

In fact, the lead-free Federal 150-gr TSX or heavier Sako Oryx 180-gr shot equally well. Take your pick.

For reloads I liked the Berger 110-gr varmint bullets in front of 41.5 grains of H4198 powder. These make a superb small-species deer or fox load and were incredibly accurate in the Finnlight, producing 0.65in groups at 100 yards and 3,008fps.

The 125-gr Ballistic Tips with 41.5 grains of RL10X powder achieved 2,978fps for 2,462ft/lb and sub-1in groups. The best all-rounder for deer would be the Hornady InterBond 165-gr at 2,723fps and 2,717ft/lb with 45.25 grains of RL15 powder.

Above: the detachable five-shot magazine feeds flawlessly

Handy plunger The safety lever operates in the forward position to fire, with rearmost as safe, which locks both the trigger and the bolt. The model 85 also has that handy plunger forward of the main safety lever which, when depressed, allows the bolt to remove a cartridge from the

The Finnlight 2 is super smooth with a nice fast and low bolt lift

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 33

Rifle test

Even with a scope and sound moderator fitted, the Sako Finnlight 2 is super-light, handles excellently and retains accuracy

T

he Sako Finnlight 2 is not a range gun — it’s an out-and-out hunter and the better for it because no compromise has been made in its styling or ergonomic function.

Even with sound moderator and scope fitted it’s a lightweight, easily toutable stalking rifle.

It sits low on the shoulder when slung and moving around, and it is

“Muntjac don’t hang around so the Sako was up and on aim and the trigger squeezed” no strain, either, when you need to manhandle it in and out or over logs, branches, hillocks and so on.

The smooth Cerakote finish means there are no worries about scratching it or rust, and equally important reduced reflections that might spook a deer.

That stock, with the cheekpiece or comb up or down just feels right and controllable, giving confidence in the shot, and those rubber inserts are really grippy.

I had a few trips with no-shows — whether it was me or the deer, who knows. Finally, the night before the Finnlight 2 had to go back, and loaded with 110-gr Berger bullets waiting for a fat Charlie to appear, out popped a muntjac.

They don’t hang around and they do fidget, so the Sako was up and on aim and the trigger squeezed before he could make his exit. Recoil was light, noise reduction very good and the rifle’s deadly accuracy inspired a confident shot.

CONCLUSION For all intents and purposes, the new Sako Finnlight 2 has improved on what was a pretty perfect lightweight stalking rifle.

The overall lightness and superb handling make it ideal for all types of stalking, for long treks on the hill and manoeuvrability in dense woodland or from a high seat.

ItstoughCerakoteoverstainlessconstructionmakesitshighlypracticalanddurable in all climates. And the accuracy remains the same, due to the free-floated precision barrel and very good bedding of the synthetic stock. The adjustable cheekpiece is very handy for correct scope eye alignment and is there if you need it or not.

Addtothisanaluminium-bodiedscopeandmoderatorandtheFinnlight is still a super lightweight, durable and highly accurate stalking rifle.

Accuracy

Lightweight or heavy bullets, this Sako shot them all very well.

19

20

Handling

Sublime handling, feels part of you.

19

20

Trigger

Sakofactorytriggersarealwaysgood.

18

20

Stock

Ergonomicallyexcellent and enhanced by the adjustable cheekpiece.

19

20

Value

A great-value lightweight rifle.

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20

SCORE

34 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

93 100

Gunroom

Bill Harriman

Straight-pull bolt-action rifles are nothing new — the Austrian-designed Mannlicher from the 1890s was used in the muddy hell of World War I

The revolutionary Mannlicher M1895 rifle

F

erdinand Ritter von Mannlicher (1848 to 1904) was one of the most prolific firearms designers in history. He designed en bloc clip-loading systems, rifles, magazines and some of the earliest self-loading firearms.

While his designs had an international significance, it was in Austria-Hungary and Germany where they were the most influential. All of Austria-Hungary’s service rifles from 1885 until the end of World War I used box magazines with a Mannlicher clip, as did Germany’s Model 1888 Mauser service rifle.

Mannlicher’s clip was made from pressed, spring steel and was an integral part of the magazine that would not function without it. In use, it was pressed into the top of the magazine where it locked. When the bolt was pushed home the first cartridge was rammed into the chamber. After the final cartridge was loaded, the empty clip fell out of the bottom of the magazine.

These clips give very high rates of fire but without them, the rifle became singleshot only. The ejection hole also allowed ingress of dirt into the action. This was probably not an issue while on manoeuvres in the sunny Tyrol but in the muddy hell of the trenches during World War I, anything that might affect the operation of a rifle had potentially fatal consequences.

While the ability to load five cartridges into a rifle’s magazine in a single action was highly advantageous, it was the Mannlicher’s straight-pull bolt action that really gave very high rates of fire. In most rifle actions the bolt unlocks by turning the handle through 90°.

However, with Mannlicher’s system there was no need to lift the bolt handle.

Simple rearward pressure made the bolt unlock. After the empty case had been ejected, the soldier simply pushed the bolt home again to pick up another cartridge

“The ability to load five cartridges was highly advantageous and the straightpull action gave very high rates of fire” from the magazine and ram it into the chamber. The Austrians called the straightpull the ‘ruck-zuck’, which is not only a corruption of the German for back-andforth, but is slightly onomatopoeic as it mimics the noise made by the bolt.

The fact that straight-pull rifles were around in 1885 illustrates my oft-repeated contention that there is very little new in firearms design. Straight-pull rifles such as the excellent Blaser are often hyped as new technology, but I am afraid the evidence does not sustain this claim.

The straight-pull action earned it the name ‘ruck-zuck’

L. GIBBON

The earliest Mannlicher designs had a big drop-down locking wedge that was adequate for blackpowder. However, the pressures generated by true smokeless cartridges necessitated a stronger action and the 8mm Model 1895 rifle, used by the Austro-Hungarian Army throughout World War I, had a rotating bolt head with large lugs that engaged the receiver.

I had a spot of luck recently. Not having spent all my Christmas money, I left a speculative bid with a local auctioneer for a Mannlicher Model 1895 stutzen short rifle.

Fortunately, nobody else was interested and I was able to buy it for the very low reserve price.

This model was called the Extra-Korps Gewehr. It was issued to soldiers such as artillerymen and telegraphists who needed a rifle that was shorter than the full-length model. Later it was much favoured by shock troops, who found its short length handy in the confines of a trench.

My stutzen was made by the Steyr Arsenal in 1917. Its stock has wonderful patina and the metal a lot of original blue, so careful cleaning is called for. I was overjoyed to find it had an original sling.

Mannlicher 8mm x 50R cartridges have not been loaded in years and have to be adapted from other ammunition.

Experimental work goes on apace, with my learned junior at BASC to try to find a solution. A 7.62mm Russian case shows promise and I will keep you posted — hopefully, we won’t blow ourselves up in the process.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 35

Conservation

WITH MIKE SWAN

Sowing seeds for success

DRMIKESWAN ISHEADOF EDUCATION ANDTHE SOUTHERN REGIONAL ADVISERFOR THEGAME &WILDLIFE CONSERVATION TRUST

Strong crops will help your shoot show better birds

The cover crops you put in place for the new season should benefit all sorts of birds and creatures as long as you choose them well

D. IRELAND / R. FAULKS / P. QUAGLIANA / ALAMY

O

n our last couple of shoots of the season, I noticed that one of my cover plots was all but gone, so started pondering what to do to make a better job for next season.

It has been weak all winter and I’m lucky that it lasted so well in the mild weather. In an average year, with a bit more frost and snow, we would have been stymied earlier.

In common with most of our crops, this plot doubles as a patch of holding cover and a conservation crop for farmland birds. I therefore like to grow a mix of things, to support a range of species, but the downside of this is weeds — the more complex the mixture, the less the likelihood you can find a selective herbicide to control weeds without killing many of the constituents of the mix.

Over the past few years, we have had a problem with amaranth in one or two of our plots. A weed of warmer climates than ours, it has become a real problem for many shoots in the south, germinating quickly when the

soil warms up. It is pretty drought tolerant, so competes especially well in warm, dry weather. You might not mind growing it for cover but, once the cooler weather comes, it dies and falls flat, leaving you with nothing.

Established Now is the time to take a good look at your cover plots. Did they establish well and grow well? Are they still

of seeds, too many will compete with the mix. Selecting crops carefully, and working up a plan to control the weeds so they don’t choke them, is always a good idea. If you are growing a mix, keep to three or four things and choose for differing seed sizes to suit the widest range of bird species.

If your crops have been a bit weak, perhaps there is a nutrient deficiency, in which case a proper soil test in

“Apart from freeing nutrients for plants, lime also helps the structure of clay” standing up? What weeds are growing in them? Making notes about all this for each plot or strip in turn will allow you to formulate a plan to get better results. This applies to standard game covers and wildlife mixtures.

There used to be a fashion for letting wildlife plots do their own thing, with no input to help them grow, but this is a mistake. While a few weeds mixed in may well yield some useful wildlife food in the form

36 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

each plot is worth doing. Specialist conservation and cover crop suppliers will usually offer this service. It may cost a few quid but it is likely to be a very good investment.

We should also remember that we ask a lot of cover crop soils. They are mostly sited in places where we can show testing birds, so are therefore often on inherently thin or poor hilltop soils. Add on an expectation to grow year in, year out and you can

Conservation soon deplete key nutrients. I have rarely found a situation where adding organic matter is not hugely helpful.

A regular application of dung or, failing that, something like composted garden waste, is always a good idea. As well as improving soil and offering nutrients, the extra organic matter will help hold on to any artificial fertilizer that you add.

Apart from the thinnest ones over chalk or limestone, most soils get progressively more acidic over the years, so a sprinkle of lime is another simple thing that is likely to help. In my part of the world, there is lots of flinty clay cap over the chalk that suffers from precisely this problem.

Apart from freeing nutrients for the plants you are trying to grow, lime also helps the structure of clay.

It clumps clay minerals into what almost amounts to granules, which improves drainage, allows the soil to warm up more quickly and helps root growth.

rather than a spring sown crop. The timetable for this is to cultivate and create a seedbed in May, spray off the weeds in mid to late June and sow the mix in early to mid-July, when there is some rain in the forecast.

Quality of sport All this may seem excessively complex but, like so many aspects of game and wildlife management, attention to detail can make all the difference. From the shooting point of view, most of us rely on our cover crops to show birds well, so we can maximise the quality of sport that we offer. While you might just get away with a weak crop, something that has grown well will help to guarantee success. Similarly, with wildlife mixes, a thin and weedy plot will surely be better than nothing, but something that has grown strongly will

always produce a higher yield, therefore supporting more birds.

Also, whether it be game cover or wildlife mix, a strong crop will last much longer, providing food and shelter into the hungry gap.

Wild birds such as corn buntings will beneďŹ t from latesown mixes such as Autumn Promise (bottom left)

New flush Every time you turn over some soil, a new layer of weed seeds from the seed bank is triggered into germination by the air and light. So as you finish your soil preparation and sow your crop, you trigger a new flush of weeds to come up and compete with whatever you have sown. The stale seedbed technique is an age-old way of trying to overcome this. In historical times the trick was to shallow cultivate with a harrow or similar, thus drying out the weeds and killing them, without bringing up a new crop from deeper down in the seedbank.

A modern approach is to prepare your seedbed, let the weeds germinate and establish, then give them a squirt of broad-spectrum herbicide such as glyphosate.

After the weeds have died back, you sow your crop with minimal surface disturbance, thus keeping the number of new weeds that germinate as low as possible. I have found this to work well to address the likes of amaranth, using a latesown, fast-growing mixture, such as Autumn Promise from Bright Seeds,

A soil test will show if any nutrients are missing

Minimal soil disturbance when planting cover crops will help to control weeds (top)

On your shoot

To have and to hold To get the most bang for your buck, order poults early, buy local and remember you can only shoot them once, says Liam Bell

T

he success of a season very much boils down to two things. How your birds flew and how well they held.

Much of a bird’s flying ability is down to stock selection, which also determines how much they wander and their overall health and vigour when first released. While it would be wrong to lay all the blame at the door of your game farm if your birds flew poorly and failed to hold, stock selection plays its part.

It may be that you have been delighted with your current dealer but they haven’t given you what you wanted. But if you want to change supplier, where do you look?

Always buy local if you can and go with someone who has been vouched

the morning of delivery, after they have dried off and had a drink and something to eat. Boxing the night before can work, but only if the poults are crated once they’ve cooled down and finished feeding, and if delivery is extremely early the next day.

Disaster Afternoon boxing and late morning deliveries are a disaster. In hot weather, the birds will overheat and become dehydrated; when the weather is unsettled, they can just as easily get wet and chilled. Late deliveries also mean the birds have less time in the pen to find their way about and settle in before nightfall.

Another advantage to buying local is that your order will be cheaper

P. QUAGLIANA / A. HOOK

“At 20 weeks old, birds won’t have much weight and lack the strength to pull away” for by a friend or that you have seen advertised in a place like Shooting Times. You want a rearer who supplies a shoot that hasn’t had flying problems, whose poults have raced away and crucially that offers afterservice help if something goes wrong.

There are several advantages to buying local. First, you will be able to pop across and have a look at the poults prior to delivery. Game farms are extremely busy during the summer, but most will be able to accommodate you if you want to have a quick look at the birds a day or so before they are delivered. They probably won’t have time to give you the full guided tour, but they are usually happy for customers to spend a few minutes having a look.

Buying local reduces delivery times and all associated stresses, and allows the rearer to box them up

in terms of delivery costs. It follows that the game farmer will be keener to keep your business and will make sure everything is as it should be and that you are only delivered the best.

If there are problems — and it can happen with birds from the best of game farms — the real test is how those problems are dealt with.

You don’t want to be fobbed off by someone you have never met, whose rearing set-up is several hours’ drive away. Someone with a list of excuses as long as your arm, who doesn’t want to know you once the birds have been delivered and the cheque is banked.

You want to be able to call your supplier and have them come to look at the birds or offer to replace any you have lost if the reason for the losses can be traced back to them. All this is more easily done if the rearer lives down the road.

38 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

On your shoot

If your rearer is local, it will make it far easier for you to go to have a look at their set-up

You can often save a few pence per bird by shopping around, but I do wonder if it is worth it. An extra 10 pence per bird as a poult is very little in real terms if the quality and back-up are good, and the strain exactly what you asked for.

Once you have decided where to source your birds, decide on the strain and count back from your first shoot day to the delivery date to make sure they will be old enough to shoot.

Pheasants need to be a minimum of 22 weeks old before they are shot. They may look old enough at 20 weeks, but they won’t have much weight behind them and will lack the strength to pull away and climb. As you can only shoot them once, it makes sense to do it when they are at their best.

Super-wild

Get a morning delivery if possible to give your poults time to settle in before nightfall

What strain you want will depend on a number of things. What works for one shoot or one keeper doesn’t necessarily work for another. There needs to be a balance between how they hold and how well they fly. Superfit, super-wild birds aren’t going to give you value for money if you only see them once and you end up with embarrassingly low returns.

Conversely, there is little enjoyment to be had from trying to show birds that don’t want to fly.

Decide what you want and when you want them and try not to be persuaded otherwise.

Make a decision about next year’s stock as soon as you can, put it at the top of the agenda for the shoot washup meeting and put in your order while it is still on your mind. Don’t be swayed by members who want to hold off ordering until the last minute, in the hope they will bag a bargain and save a few quid.

It seldom, if ever, works out cheaper in the long run.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 39

Gundogs A touch of cocker blood will widen the Clumber’s narrow gene pool

Lies, dam lies and sires

D. TOMLINSON

Do you think you know your dog’s pedigree because it has all the right papers? You might have to think again, warns David Tomlinson THERE’S SOMETHING so impressive about an official Kennel Club pedigree that you feel it must be correct. I suspect most of us trustingly believe that every dog mentioned is indeed an ancestor of the dog whose pedigree it is. So it comes as quite a shock to realise that a pedigree cannot be relied upon as the system of registering a dog’s parentage depends on honesty.

There’s precious little to stop a dishonest breeder making a false registration by naming a dog that isn’t the puppies’ sire — or dam, for that matter — on the registration form.

Many years ago I bred a handsome English springer dog. Due to changing circumstances the person he originally went to had to rehome him. The spaniel was unregistered but his new owner was impressed

not only with his looks but also his working ability, as were others who saw him. Requests came to use him at stud. His new owner, sensing a business opportunity, gave him a new identity so he acquired the papers of a pedigree springer that no longer needed them.

cent, which isn’t good. The lower the figure the better. However, the COI also depends on honest pedigrees, so it might not be as accurate as you would like to think.

Another story also illustrates the unreliability of pedigrees. A friend was planning to breed a litter of

“If it is true that Clumber breeders have introduced cocker blood does it matter?”

Stud fees for pedigree dogs are much higher than for those that are unregistered, so this was a smart move by the dog’s new owner, though dishonest. However, an influx of fresh blood from a healthy unregistered dog wouldn’t have done any harm to the English springer spaniel gene pool. The breed currently has a coefficient of inbreeding of 10.2 per

puppies from her field trial-winning black Labrador bitch. She did a great deal of research into suitable sires, looking for a dog whose looks and proven ability would pair well with her bitch. She eventually made her choice, a FTCh stud dog from a wellknown kennel and took her bitch to be mated. Upon arrival she was met by a kennel maid: the stud dog was

In association with Chudleys: over forty years of highly nutritious food for working dogs 42 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

www.chudleys.com DAVID’S VIEWPOINT

TIME FOR A BRUSH UP As the season ends, the spaniels get a tidying trim

I

know people who mark the end of the season by getting their shooting vehicle washed and cleaned. I did the canine equivalent by taking the spaniels to be trimmed and groomed, though I didn’t bother with the optional wash and blow dry afterwards. One of the perks of living on the sandy, free-draining soils of the Suffolk Brecks is that mud is never a problem, even in a wet season. Thus the dogs never get as dirty or stained as those that work in mud every day.

Retired spaniel Rowan tends to get very woolly, so she gets a short back and sides, ending up looking rather like a pointer. For a dog nearing her 14th

brought out from his kennel, which was in a row with a dozen other similar-looking black dogs.

My friend had no way of knowing whether the stud dog her bitch was mated with was the FTCh she had booked. She had seen the sire she had chosen a year before, so thought she knew what he looked like, but this dog didn’t seem quite right.

Outstanding To this day she remains convinced that the stud dog used wasn’t the dog she had paid for, but because her bitch

birthday she looks remarkably good, with not a grey hair to be seen. Like a freshly shorn sheep, she seems to be livened up by the trim, as she was cantering through the heather like an eight-year-old the day after her haircut.

With Emma the sprocker it was more of a tidy up, trimming the feathers on her legs, tail and undercarriage, as well as her ears and the top of her head. The result is a very neat and tidy spaniel. Feathers look attractive, but they do hold dirt and debris, so as she is an indoor spaniel it makes sense to keep her trimmed.

One of the advantages of having dogs groomed is that it reveals any cuts or injuries sustained during the season that may have gone unnoticed, as well as lumps and bumps that were hidden by fur but which might need veterinary attention. It’s also a time saver, as less fur means less time spent grooming. My groomer, Jan, is a friend who is a regular

produced an outstanding litter of puppies she decided not investigate any further.

Such confusion is not so easy to get away with dogs with individual markings, such as English springers, but is quite possible with solidcoloured cockers. I am sure the great majority of breeders are honest, but as in all businesses there are invariably a few rogues about.

One way to prove a dog is the animal it is claimed to be is by checking the microchip, but I’ve yet to hear of any stud dog owners offering the owners of bitches the chance to check chips to ensure they match up. It might well make sense for them to do so, as it would avoid any accusations of fraud at a later date.

Now that DNA testing of dogs is available at an affordable price (A test to end diseases, 5 February), an increasing number of owners are having their dogs tested to see if their parentage is what they think it is. I’ve recently heard of concern by owners of working Clumber spaniels that Unregistered springers can make a valuable contribution to the breed’s gene pool

Time for a tidy-up after the season is over

brusher (beater) on the local shoot, so she understands the needs of gundogs.

Her clients include a number of spaniels, but what she sees most now are cockerpoos. These are high-maintenance animals, requiring a haircut every couple of months. Not all dogs appreciate being groomed — the worst bite Jan has had was from a Yorkshire terrier.

Email: dhtomlinson@btinternet.com

DNA testing is suggesting that their dogs have cocker blood. There was an officially sanctioned outcross of Clumber to cocker in Sweden some years ago; descendants from this mating have been imported to the UK but these dogs are not part of this.

If it is true that certain breeders have been unofficially introducing cocker blood into Clumbers it is of concern, but does it really matter?

Precious If the dog still looks like a Clumber, works like a Clumber but is healthier than a pure-bred Clumber, I don’t think that there’s a lot to complain about. The COI of the UK’s Clumbers is currently a worrying 17.9 per cent, so anything that brings this figure down has to be a good thing. It’s a shame that we are so precious about breed purity that outcrosses are rarely officially approved of by either breed club or Kennel Club.

DNA testing is undoubtedly extremely useful, but I don’t think we should be too trusting of its ability to identify parentage. Some time ago I listened to a programme on Radio 4 about DNA testing in the US, with a number of people discovering that their father wasn’t who they thought he was. It puts into sharp perspective suspecting that your Clumber has a touch of cocker blood.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 43

C

ATING OUR BEST WRITE R B E RS EL

Drake expectations Shooting on the North Sea coast in the depths of winter is a chilly affair but when the ducks play ball it’s worth the hardship, says Colin Willock

W

e have made our first trip to our new piece of Wash land. We had high hopes. Two other members of the syndicate had been the previous week and caught the thaw. To catch the thaw after four or five days of really hard weather is about the luckiest thing that can happen in duck shooting.

The two who had scooped the jackpot found an insane pack of mallard waiting to hurl themselves over the Guns like kamikaze pilots.

One of the duo, who is a well-known warden of a nature reserve as well as a wildfowler from boyhood, said that he had only once before experienced a flight like it. The numbers of duck in the sky at evening flight was “almost frightening”.

As might be expected, the pair did not shoot as well as they are capable of doing. I gather it had something to do with the difficulty of picking a target.

Nevertheless the bag was impressive enough without being greedy. The ducks were back with their ardour undiminished at morning flight the following day.

A. HOOK / ALAMY

High hopes When our turn came 10 days later, we had high hopes. The place had been rested, fed and there was just the right amount of water on it. But duck shooting, more than any other department of the sport, is at the

“Insane mallard hurled themselves over the Guns like kamikaze pilots”

whim of the weather. Just before we were due to set out, the wind in eastern Europe took a deep breath and began to blow hard and cold across the North Sea. A blizzard came down over East Anglia on the Friday night. The washes froze solid. The day was chilly and wildly beautiful and not a single duck came near us.

For compensation we had the sight of thousands of wigeon working the unfrozen river half a mile distant and the constant clangour of Bewick’s swans arguing, no doubt, about whether they should make the trip down to Slimbridge where the West Country weather might be kinder.

44 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

The bag at the end of the day was more a rough shooter’s than a wildfowler’s: 13 pigeons, one rabbit, a teal and a mallard both picked-up — the result of some other gunner’s work probably the previous evening — deep frozen and in perfect condition.

I have repeatedly travelled long distances with great expectations, only to return empty-handed to my own front doorstep. There, in this unlikely surburban setting, I have gone out to my local modest flighting area simply for a lungful of fresh air and earned an unexpected bonus.

Thus it was the day after the abortive trip to the washes.

Grazing At this time of the year ducks are apt to abandon the sheet of water at which I normally flight and feed on some rough pasture on the far side of the lake. As a matter of coincidence, this greatly resembles the grazing on the washes.

This time it was we who were to benefit from the thaw that had followed us south. There was still a light powdering of snow on the ground but the flooded patches of meadow were now open. There were no ducks on them when we got there, but soon parties of mallard began to circle in the foggy twilight.

I do not often have a night when everything goes right, let alone one when everything goes right and I

Vintage Times have managed to shoot straight into the bargain. The latter part of the contract is so rarely fulfilled that I have little hesitation in reporting this occasion in detail, though certain of my friends, especially the barrister shooting companion who regards it as his mission in life to cut me down to size, will accuse me of bragging.

The first mallard were high but not too high. I got a right-and-left.

While we stood discussing flighting positions a single duck came over so high that I should, perhaps, not have fired. I did. It fell in the river.

The same happened, though possibly the bird was at even greater range, as I walked round in the half light to put the last Gun in position.

That was four for four. And in the pitch dark, I was lucky enough to make it five for five with a drake climbing at a great rate after being saluted elsewhere.

Fortunately, I did not have to shoot again. On a night like this it doesn’t do to go risking your averages.

Particularly if you hope to compete with the kind of gamesmen whom I seem to choose as close shooting friends. To deal with them I need a little luck sometimes — and I’m not talking entirely about the weather.

I have reported in an earlier issue that we had been visited by a yellow chopper whose intentions we suspected. There were no helicopters over our shoot at Selsey when we visited it recently, though I think some

“We had high hopes; the place had been rested, fed and there was just the right amount of water”

of us half expected to see one looking for our shooting party with a bomb slung underneath.

But the verbal shooting that broke out as a result of my complaint about being heli-poached had to be experienced to be believed.

Yellow peril For a couple of days the phone hardly stopped ringing. Calls from farmers who swore that their fields, and possibly pheasants, had been visited by the yellow peril.

Calls from the RAF, calls from the national newspapers , including the Daily Mirror, which later carried a

“You need a little luck sometimes — and I’m not talking entirely about the weather”

“I made it five for five with a drake climbing at a great rate after being saluted elsewhere”

two-column story about the chopperpoachers. It was a compliment indeed to Shooting Times & Country Magazine to discover that its pages are scanned for news items in the very heart of Fleet Street.

But the call I feel duty-bound to dwell upon was one from a serving Royal Navy officer who was also a keen shooting man. Though he recognised our fury at having to watch helicopters, with the most suspect motives, landing in the centre of our stubble fields, he pointed out most firmly that no RN air-sea rescue choppers are painted yellow.

I had foolishly assumed that the offending aircraft belonged to the Secret Service. Will the Navy therefore please accept my apologies?

Equally, my thanks to the RAF — whose choppers are yellow — for the promptness with which they investigated my complaint.

If nothing else, the incident shows that Shooting Times is keenly read everywhere from the ward room and officers’ mess to the newsroom of the most successful national daily in Britain.

The Mirror also deserves a pat on the back. Though it has often come out for the ‘antis’ in the past, its reporter’s story was completely free from any sniping at the shooting fraternity. He was simply reporting the facts.

This article was first published in the 24 January 1970 issue of Shooting Times.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 45

46 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

Mixed game

Game Cookery

Using the bones from game birds to make stock is well worth the effort as it can form a flavoursome base for many dishes, advises Rose Prince

I

n my kitchen, making stock from leftover bones or carcases is part of an economic plan. It is a simple process that extracts a greater value from the bones of game birds, yielding a second meal. It is wonderfully versatile, vital for creamy vegetable soups, making gravy or using in risotto or pilaf. But in its own right — as a clear, full-flavoured base

for a variety of warming and healthy broths — it is elegant, however humble.

You must mine the maximum amount of flavour from the bones. Game birds do not yield as much ‘essence’ as chicken, so add

good-quality low-salt or organic vegetable stock powder to the roasted bones. Make sure the carcases are clean, wiping away dried blood and removing bruised meat, both of which can make the stock bitter.

“A clear full-flavoured base for warming and healthy broths, it is elegant, however humble”

GAME BROTH

THE METHOD Makes 1 litre/four helpings of base broth Serving variations VEGETABLE: carrot, leek, celery, mushrooms GRAINS: barley, parsley oil FRENCH ONION: caramelised onions, croutons, gruyere cheese

1

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Put the carcases in a roasting tin, pour over the olive oil and turn the bones in it so they are well covered.

2

Sprinkle over the milk powder — this is a chef’s trick; the powder turns light brown during roasting and adds colour to the stock.

3

Roast the bones for 30 to 40 minutes until golden then remove.

Add a little oil to a large saucepan with the carrot, leek, garlic, celery, juniper berries, peppercorns and parsley and stir-fry over a low heat for 2 minutes. Add the bones, cover with the vegetable stock then simmer for an hour.

4

A. SYDENHAM

Strain the broth through a sieve, discarding the bones, and season with sea salt to taste. It is important that the flavour of the stock is satisfyingly powerful.

Clean broth — serves 2 This is the broth for winter ‘light diet’ days; sustaining yet very clean. Add a little olive oil to a saucepan with thinly sliced leek, button mushrooms and carrot. Fry gently until soft, then add 500ml stock. Bring to simmering point, cook for 2 minutes then serve seasoned with freshly ground black pepper and chopped parsley.

Ingredients 1KG PHEASANT, PARTRIDGE OR WILD DUCK BONES, RAW OR LEFTOVER FROM A ROAST 2 TBSP OLIVE OIL 1 TBSP SKIMMED MILK POWDER 1 CARROT, CHOPPED

Broth with grains — serves 4

½ LEEK, SLICED AND WASHED

For each person you will need 75g to 100g of pearl barley. Bring a pan of water to the boil and add the barley.

Simmer for 15 minutes until it is tender.

Strain then add the barley to 1 litre of heated stock — about 250ml per person. Reheat it if necessary.

To make the parsley oil, blanch a handful of curly parsley in boiling water for 1 minute, then drain. Blitz with 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, season with salt. Add a teaspoonful to each bowl of broth.

1 STICK CELERY, CHOPPED

1 CLOVE GARLIC, CRUSHED

French onion broth For two people, slice two sweet white onions very finely. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan then add the onions with a pinch of salt. Cook over a very low temperature for 15 to 20 minutes until they turn light brown —

4 JUNIPER BERRIES, CRUSHED 4 BLACK PEPPERCORNS HANDFUL CURLY PARSLEY 1.25 LITRES OF VEGETABLE STOCK, MADE WITH ORGANIC STOCK POWDER/CUBES do not let them burn. Add 400ml broth and a pinch of fresh thyme then let the soup simmer for another 10 minutes. Fry some torn pieces of ciabatta bread in oil for the croutons.

Place a few croutons in two ovenproof bowls, pour over the soup and add a handful of grated gruyere to each.

Place under the grill for 2 minutes until the cheese has melted then serve immediately.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 47

SPORTING ANSWERS The experts THE ULTIMATE SHOOTING QUIZ TEAM

The close seasons for female deer were shortened in 2007

BILL HARRIMAN BASC’s head of firearms and global authority on guns MAT MANNING Airgunner and journalist from the West Country BRUCE POTTS

Shooting Times rifle reviewer and stalker DAVID TOMLINSON Highly regarded writer and ornithologist LIAM BELL NGO chairman, Shropshire gamekeeper and keen wildfowler GRAHAM DOWNING Shooting consultant and sporting author TONY BUCKWELL Veterinary surgeon with a special interest in gundogs TOM PAYNE Professional shooting instructor and avid pigeon shooter JEREMYHUNT Runs Fenway Labradors and a professional gundog trainer TIMMADDAMS

C. WARREN / M. BEEDIE / M. MANNING / J. HALL / A. GEARD / A. HOOK / ALAMY

Former head chef at River Cottage and runs a shoot in Devon SIMON WHITEHEAD Author, professional ferreter and rabbit controller IAIN WATSON Keen stalker and senior CIC international trophy judge

Contact the team Email: stanswers@ti-media.com By post: Shooting Times, Pinehurst 2, Farnborough Business Park, Hants GU14 7BF

Deer season extension STALKING

I have taken up stalking and I have seen that the season for females was only extended to the end of March quite recently. Why was that, and is it not unethical to stalk females when they are so heavily pregnant?

The close seasons for female deer in England and Wales were shortened in 2007 from the beginning of March to the beginning of April.

This was because the Government recognised that more deer needed to be culled, and the longer days of March, when the woods are quiet after the end of the game shooting season, presented

48 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

a valuable window. The opportunity was also taken to align a new close season for Chinese water deer alongside the April to November close season, as it difficult to distinguish males from females in the field.

At the time, some stalkers expressed distaste over the culling of heavily pregnant females in late March.

However, provided a humane and accurate shot is made, there is no welfare issue in culling a heavily pregnant female because the foetus dies almost instantaneously. It is much better that the female and her unborn fawn or calf are culled together in March than for the female to be shot and her possibly still-dependant youngster to be orphaned in November. GD

Expert tips and advice

How much food, when?

GAMEKEEPING

We have caught and penned a few pheasants to keep as laying stock. How much breeder pellet do we need and when should we start feeding it?

A rough rule of thumb is a tonne of food per 100 birds, or 100kg for every 10 birds. To get the best out of the

birds, worm them early, allow them access to fresh, clean water and only use dedicated game breeder pellets.

We start ours on the pellets at the beginning of March and continue until we have picked the last egg in, say, midJune. Expect between 35 and 45 eggs per hen, and a hatch rate of between 60 per cent and 70 per cent. It can be great fun, but the learning curve for first- timers can be quite steep. LB

Native Britain

Plants, flowers and fungi of Great Britain at a glance Latin name: Heracleum sphondylium Common name: Hogweed Other names: Cow parsnip, cadweed, clogweed, eltrot, giant parsnip, madnep

Drinking from puddles VETERINARY CARE

I have often found my dog drinking from puddles. Are there any risks and how can I prevent her from doing this?

Rainwater itself is relatively clean, but when it forms puddles it can be contaminated by dirt, leaves, animal droppings, insects and litter. These contaminants raise four primary health concerns for dogs: leptospirosis; giardia infection; lungworm infection; and antifreeze poisoning.

Leptospirosis is caused by a type of bacteria that dogs can get by drinking water contaminated with the urine of an infected animal, usually a rat, mouse or another dog. Depending on the precise type of leptospiral bacteria, it can cause kidney failure or liver disease. The most common signs include abdominal discomfort, decreased appetite, lethargy and diarrhoea. It is usually included in dogs’ primary vaccination but the protection is not long lasting and an

annual booster is normally required.

Giardia is a protozoa parasite that lives in the gut. A dog becomes infected with it when it drinks water that has been contaminated with faeces. Giardia can also cause lethargy and diarrhoea but is not usually life threatening and is typically treated with enbendazole and/or metronidazole.

A further hazard of drinking from puddles is lungworm infection. Dogs pick up lungworm larvae from slugs and snails. If your dog drinks from puddles be sure to include lungworm treatment as part of a regular worming programme. Lungworm infection is becoming quite widespread in the UK. Antifreeze can be found in puddles near parked vehicles or at the roadside.

Never let your dog drink from these puddles because even small mounts of antifreeze can cause irreversible kidney damage in dogs. If you suspect your dog has ingested antifreeze, try to induce vomiting and immediately call your vet.

Always carry a supply of fresh water and a small bowl and offer your dog a drink between drives. TB

How to spot it and where to find it: Not to be confused with that invasive menace giant hogweed, our native variety grows to around 2m tall. Its ridged, hollow stem is roughly bristly and the triangular grey-green leaves can be up to 60cm long.

Flower heads are between 5cm and 15cm across with white or very pale pink flowers.

Interesting facts: Our native perennial is part of the same family as its giant cousin, as are fennel, cow parsley and ground elder.

The flowers give off an odour that is reminiscent of pigs, hence its common name. Despite the flowers’ unappetising smell, hogweed is edible — and is said to have a unique flavour. The shoots can be blanched and cooked in butter, the young leaves used as a flavouring for soups and stews, and the flower buds — which will be forming now — can be treated like broccoli. Even the seeds make an acceptable substitute for cardamom and the roots can be used like parsnips.

But a word of warning; hogweed can cause skin rashes and in some people they can be severe. In 2018 a man named Nathan Davies almost lost his leg after a rash caused by hogweed became infected. NJS

Puddles can be contaminated with bacteria so try to dissuade your dog from drinking from them

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 49

SPORTING ANSW

Stock fence scenario

Your young dog must stop being a family pet and learn to focus on you

FERRETING

One of the trickier spots on my permission is between two stock fences. Any tips on tackling this?

Ah, the harder spots: the areas that usually hold more rabbits.

I grew up ferreting in such areas and had to deal with stock fencing, horse wires and the dreaded barbed wire.

Barbed wire has vets bills and torn trousers written all over it, and the stock fence gives the rabbit an escape route away from the dog.

Make sure you have a few spare sets of hands, eyes and ears helping you. Surround the whole area with long-nets and lay a very small stopnet between the fence lines on both ends so there is no escape. You could also purse-net the holes or leave the ferrets to do their job.

If you have a lot of thick hedging in between, you may need a dog inside to exert some pressure, otherwise the rabbits will just walk out and sit tight before disappearing back underground. The only way is to tackle it then sit back to see where you went wrong or what worked. Experience is everything in situations like this but at the end of the day, if the rabbit’s not for bolting, it’s not for bolting. SW

Dogs, nets and ferretswill all come in to play

Breaking her bad habits GUNDOG TRAINING

My English springer puppy has been brought up in the house with the family but now that I have started to do some training with her I realise she’s developed a lot of bad habits when it comes to retrieving.

She’s six months old and I need to get her refocused on me and learning her job. How do I do this?

This is a common problem. Even though many people start with good intentions of having a family dog that is also a well-trained working dog, things usually go awry simply because busy households and impressionable puppies are not a good combination.

It is wishful thinking to expect a puppy brought up in this way to suddenly switch off to all the influences it has been under for the first months of its life and become a diligent pupil.

You have several options. You could consider moving the puppy out of the house into a kennel. It may be traumatic

for the youngster at first but if you become the major influence in her new life you will build a bond that will be invaluable as you begin to train her.

Alternatively, you can lay some firm ground rules in the house to try to avoid those bad influences that are undermining her work focus. Trying to get the family to see her as anything other than a pet will be difficult. If you want to keep her in the house I would suggest you do everything you can to try to firm up your one-to-one relationship with her and obviously impose a total ban on anyone throwing things for her to fetch, otherwise you will never achieve your goal.

To get her mind more fixed on you and to start retrieving to hand, you must work with her in a confined space and get down to her level. Instead of being chased under the bed with a stolen slipper, she needs to learn that carrying something and returning it to you gives her an even greater buzz than running away. So pile on the praise and start to build a partnership. JH

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Expert tips and advice

Bangers or burgers?

GAMECOOKING

I shot a few geese, breasted them and took the thigh meat from as many birds as I could fit in the cool box. I have 5kg of good goose meat and I would like to make sausages.

How do I do this?

By far the simplest way is to take the meat to the butcher — having pre-arranged to do so — and get them to make the sausages for you. Ask them to add 40 per cent fatty pork to stop the sausages being dry yet still full of lovely flavour.

If you prefer the DIY approach, you will need to mince the goose.

Purchase some fatty pork and mince as well. Mix both types of meat together with spices and seasoning.

You will also need to buy some skins. I recommend you get lambs runners, which is what get used for chipolatas. Use a sausage stuffer to fill the skins; remember that the thinner the sausages, the quicker they will cook, which will help to stop them drying out.

You could use the mince to make burgers too. They will taste the same but without the faff. TM

Shooting accurately through branches is a challenge that will take practice and determination

Finding a clear ‘window’ PIGEON SHOOTING

I struggle to shoot well when roosting. Unless I can get into a gap in the woods, I can’t get my head around shooting through the trees. Do you have any tips to help me overcome this problem?

Roost shooting in the correct conditions is tricky and many factors can affect the way you shoot consistently. Ideally, you want to be in a position where you have a good,

clear ‘window’ to shoot approaching birds, but this isn’t always possible.

Learning to shoot through tree branches is not easy and really takes experience to get your head around the challenge. But you can overcome it with determination.

My main piece of advice is that if you are in a situation where a nice window is blocked by branches, try not to let those branches distract you — you have to completely ignore them. Shoot through the branches, keeping your focus on the chosen bird all the time. TP

Antler casting time STALKING

Why was I seeing such a lot of roebuck still with antlers in the middle of December? There were none in November but in December I saw two and four-pointers.

Is this due to global warming?

I’m not sure if it’s global warming — it sounds like you either have had an influx of young bucks to your area, or that you might be seeing the same animals in different parts of your patch.

While it’s normal for roe to cast and to start to regrow in late October through November,

the period can and does extend beyond this, particularly in the case of young animals, some of which may still have their antlers on through December. This is then reflected in the period it takes for all roebuck to clean velvet in the following year. Some old bucks are usually reported as being clean by the end of February, while young animals still show velvetclad headgear in mid- to late-June.

It might be a good idea to set up some trail cameras, which will allow for easier identification of resident animals rather than relying on a fleeting view, which can make individual deer hard to identify. IW

Roebuck with headgear in December may be younger animals

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 51

SPORTING ANSWERS

Skittish woodpigeon AIRGUNNING

I have permission to control pigeons on a farm where they have been decimating rape crops. It is difficult to catch up with them on the open fields because they come under a lot of pressure from pigeon shooters using shotguns, so I’ve been targeting them in the woods when they flight back to roost. The problem is that the birds are extremely skittish and usually take flight before I can get my gun in my shoulder. Can you offer any tips?

Teal have about 11,450 feathers — wildfowl have highdensity plumage

How many feathers?

GAMEBIRDS

As an over-worked pheasant and mallard plucker, I’d love to know how many feathers these birds have. Do you have any idea?

I haven’t managed to find statistics for the numbers of feathers on pheasants, partridges or mallard, but a count of feathers on a teal revealed 11,450, and I would

guess that a mallard would have roughly the same amount or perhaps 1,000 or so more. Wildfowl have a high density of feathers to keep them warm and waterproof; pheasants have rather fewer feathers, so perhaps around 6,000.

Swans apparently carry the greatest number of feathers of any birds, with as many as 25,000.

Intriguingly, 80 per cent of a swan’s feathers are on its head and neck. DT

Lengthening a stock VINTAGEGUNS

I have a nice sidelock that is too short. What is the best option for lengthening the stock without spoiling the appearance?

You have a number of options.

If the length you need to add is less than an inch, it would be best to choose a leather-covered hard rubber

pad. Shooters with new guns often specify these pads — they look very much in keeping with the gun, whatever its age. An alternative is a buffalo horn butt-plate, which works well to depths of up to half an inch.

If you need several inches added, I’m afraid wood is the only real option. A clever finisher will ink-in the grain and match the colour very well, but at a cost. BH

A good finisher can match the wood of your stock

52 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE

Airgunning efforts can be frustrated by decoying

You’re doing the right thing by targeting the pigeons in the woods. Building a hide is probably not the solution because it will restrict you to one area. My advice would be to make maximum use of natural cover and use a head net and gloves to keep your face and hands hidden, because patches of skin really stand out in gloomy woodland — especially when you are peering up at the sky.

You probably have a reasonable idea which trees the birds like to flight to, so make sure you set up comfortably within range of them. A thick tree trunk should make for good cover, and use your boots to clear the ground of dry twigs and leaves so you can move your feet without making a noise. Get your gun into your shoulder as soon as you see birds approaching because they will almost certainly spot the movement once they have pitched.

This should enable you to take shots with minimal movement and hopefully put more birds in the bag, but you also need to manage your expectations — you are unlikely to bag the same numbers as the pigeon shooters using shotguns over decoys. MM

Expert tips and advice

WHAT TO DRINK WITH WOODPIGEON It is fitting that so pestilential a bird as the woodpigeon is so very good to eat. While it can be roasted whole, spatchcocked or not, it is mostly the substantial breasts that are eaten.

My hunting and cheffing friend, Tim Maddams, likens the breast meat to venison crossed with duck, though I am always reminded of pig’s liver — in a good way — but with the texture of rump steak. Marinated in Madeira and a touch of garlic for an hour, fried over a high heat for two or three minutes each side then served with a sauce made from the marinade, it is superb. I was once presented with whole pigeon that was not so much underdone as still cooing, so I popped mine in the oven for a few minutes to cook through.

Continuing the Portuguese theme, my recommendation for a wine to accompany this dish is Casa Ferreirinha, Papa Figos Douro Tinto.

It employs three varieties of grape that have a day job in the making of port.

Apart from the fact that it possesses a whole basketful of fruit flavours, my take on this wine is that it fills the whole palate, with no part of the mouth disappointed.

At £11.99 a bottle, it is a touch over my selfimposed limit of a tenner, but well worth it.

I have long pondered the culinary potential of the collared doves in my garden, with their interminable and infuriating ‘coo-coo cook’.

But I am now too late, the law itself having stayed my hand.

John Hook

TO CATCH A FISH Sunray Shadow The Sunray Shadow is another must-have addition to your fly box.

Designed and created

by British salmon angler Ray Brooks in the 1960s, this fly has become a known salmon seducer. The story goes that Ray and his wife Margit

developed the fly during their travels of Norway to find the perfect salmon river.

The fly consists of the hair of a colobus monkey, though these days, anglers substitute this with goat hair and it works just as well. EW

Crossword / Compiled by Eric Linden/1444 Across 5 One doing the legwork on a hunt while others lead the way (4,8) 8 Circled around like a plover (6) 9 Know the score?

It’s a bore! (6) 10& 16 across An Alsatian, eg, wanders into the right region (4,6) 11 Those listening to the confessions of game despatchers (7) 13 Are Guns showing their appreciation to keepers by offering betting advice? (7) 15 Cappuccino topper providing padding for gun slips (4) 16 See 10 across 18 Rogues are upset with the game bird (6)

19 A strange conversation about BASC’s environmental concern (12)

Down 1 A commanding description of the shooter’s stronger eye (8) 2 Water where ducks take flight in the Atlantic, unofficially? (4) 3 Stewed horribly in hunting attire (6) 4 A game bird feed supplement that makes us clench our teeth together (4) 6 A mean choke set-up? (5) 7 Renting out land to a shoot where lettuce is growing on the outskirts (7) 11 A shoot reveals the soldier’s rank (7)

Solution 1442 / 5 February 2020 Across: 5. Digs 7. Gun Quarter 8. Insect 9. Roving 10. Rocky 11. Gun safe 14. Stephen 16. Scale 19. Millet 21. Plants 22. Ground game 23. Shoe Down: 1. Turn-bolt 2. Squeak 3. Party

12 A spontaneous squeeze of the trigger is caught on camera (4,4) 14 There’s a post office on the ground in Bazanty pheasant country (6) 15 Sir David gets a winter coat (5) 17 What stalkers might be aiming for takes a bit of bottle! (4) 18 Be charitable with a command for retrievers (4)

4. Stirrup 5. Drives 6. Glen 12. Full-time 13. Nest box 15. Pelage 17. Charge 18. Opens 20. Inch PRIZE WORD: GUTTING WINNER: L. PLANT, YORKSHIRE

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Cut out this coupon and send to: Shooting Times Crossword No 1444, Shooting Times, Pinehurst 2, Farnborough Business Park, Hants GU14 7BF Name: Address:

Postcode: Tel no: Mystery word: Rules: Entries must be received by 26 February 2020.All usual conditions apply. Solution and winner will appear in the 4 March 2020 issue.

Photocopies accepted.

SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 53

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SituationS Vacant

Underkeeper An exciting opportunity has arisen to join a dedicated team of gamekeepers at Warter Priory Estate.

Responsibilities: • Assisting with the management, care and welfare of our birds • Pest control • Equipment, vehicle and implement maintenance • Assisting our senior keepers on shoot days Required: • Full UK driving licence • Valid Firearms/Shotgun Certificates • At least 2 years’ experience of gamekeeping • It is vital you are able and enjoy working as part of a close-knit team.

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A vacancy has arisen for an Under Keeper on the Llanarmon shoot. The applicant must have previous experience of gamekeeping and will have responsibility for their own beat.

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Applications will be treated in the strictest of confidence. Competitive salary dependant on experience.

Please apply in writing with CV and covering letter to Euan McAlpine, Pen Y Bryn, Llanarmon DC, Llangollen, North Wales LL20 7LB SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE • 57

Alasdair Mitchell

Sharpshooter

We all suffer the occasional lapse of memory; let’s hope it is not while we are in possession of a firearm like David Cameron’s security detail

L

et us agree that a Glock 17 pistol is not really the sort of thing you want to find in the loo of an aircraft on a transatlantic flight.

I can only imagine the consternation of passengers and flight staff.

Fortunately, it rapidly became obvious that the gun was mislaid by a hapless personal protection officer accompanying David Cameron. This may have calmed things down a bit, but a few moments of mild panic are understandable.

We have grown used to tales of the police overreacting to mask-clad pigeon shooters, or small boys playing with plastic water pistols, so I suspect that some sniggered when we read the tabloid coverage of ‘Glockgate’. But gun security is a serious issue.

A few days after the aircraft incident, there was news coverage of a court case involving a leading property agent, originally based in Scotland, whose estranged wife had informed police that he had failed to secure his seven shotguns. It emerged that the certificate holder had not informed police when he moved his permanent address from Edinburgh to London. He was undergoing an acrimonious divorce when his wife found his gun cabinet keys hidden in a piece of furniture.

The case was heard in Edinburgh sheriff court. The QC representing the certificate holder told the court: “This was a malicious action on the part of the wife” and pointed out that the keys had been hidden and would not be visible to an intruder. His client pleaded guilty to failing to secure his gun cabinet keys, yet the Sheriff said: “Keys do have to be kept somewhere and I take into account that the firearms were kept somewhere else in an outbuilding.”

“The keys were hidden in a piece of furniture and would not be visible to an intruder” The certificate holder was given an absolute discharge. It seems the Sheriff was exercising a degree of common sense.

I know of a not entirely dissimilar instance where an estranged wife rang her soon-to-be-ex-husband and gleefully announced that she had found his gun cabinet keys and told the police, who were expected on the doorstep imminently.

The husband calmly explained that he had

relocated his guns when he moved out; the cabinet in question was being used by their adult son, who still lived with his mother.

In short, she had inadvertently dumped her own son in the ordure. Oops.

Breaches of gun security can come about through forgetfulness. Those stories about somebody driving off from a shoot with his gun on the car roof are not always apocryphal; I know somebody whose father did precisely that. An expensive mistake.

There are also occasions when a wellintentioned pursuit of gun security comes badly adrift. There are plenty of tales of avid recreational stalkers getting their rifle out of its slip in preparation for the shot, after hours spent getting in to a beast, only to discover that they have left the bolt back in the gun cabinet.

One friend of mine was scrupulous about security. We once stayed in small bungalow while goose shooting. He insisted not only on separating the fore-ends from his guns but also in placing the barrelled actions within their expensive leather cases up in the attic, where he chained them to metal pipework. He exuded an air of sanctimony… right up until the moment he discovered that hordes of voracious rodents had nibbled holes in his gun cases. I am sorry to say that I laughed.

DOG BY KEITH REYNOLDS

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