turn a blind eye and go elsewhere ? ?

[chipper]

After a day out shooting, a strange conversation was struck up regarding the real 'bag size' at the end of the day.

 

The chat evolved about the game records diary back at the lodge. This chap attended a shoot, not a big shoot, all day there were only 4 drives. He was one of the guns, anyway, the whole day went, in his words, 'ok', one drive 4 birds shot by 2 guns (10 gun team). After each drive, this chap made a mental note of the picked up birds on the cart.

 

He said, 'it was a pretty easy to see there weren't many on the cart, if your maths wasnt good, you could hear there wasnt much banging from the guns'. So he was curious to have a nose on the records diary and guest comments, once the keeper had filled it in. Needless to say, he was 'confused'. He said, he'd put the figure of the bag between 130-150, with 150 being the very very max. The diary was filled in with a bag size of 210. He asked me, in such circumstances, what would i have done ? , i didnt put much thought in my rushed reply, which was, 'go elsewhere??'

 

What would you chaps do ? ?

[Andy135]

It's a difficult one as sometimes pricked birds (that were assumed by the guns to be clean misses) can be picked later in the day after the guns have departed, or birds not picked on the day can be found when picking up on a subsequent shoot day. In this case should the keeper add yesterday's birds to today's tally, (definitely not cricket IMO) or instead add them to yesterday's entry in the game book after the fact, which is what I think your post infers.

 

Did he charge you for 150 birds? Or 210? If you only paid for 150 birds then I'd say you had a bargain. If it were me I'd be back next season like a shot!

 

Two sides to every coin, and all that...

[fielddweller]

Next they will say horse racing is fixed!!

Fact is its common practice, not all as some are honest but it's a wide spread problem

Fielddweller

[OJW]

It's a difficult one as sometimes pricked birds (that were assumed by the guns to be clean misses) can be picked later in the day after the guns have departed, or birds not picked on the day can be found when picking up on a subsequent shoot day. In this case should the keeper add yesterday's birds to today's tally, (definitely not cricket IMO) or instead add them to yesterday's entry in the game book after the fact, which is what I think your post infers.

 

Did he charge you for 150 birds? Or 210? If you only paid for 150 birds then I'd say you had a bargain. If it were me I'd be back next season like a shot!

 

Two sides to every coin, and all that...

 

I agree, depends if he's being generous or ripping you off.

[chipper]

It's a difficult one as sometimes pricked birds (that were assumed by the guns to be clean misses) can be picked later in the day after the guns have departed, or birds not picked on the day can be found when picking up on a subsequent shoot day. In this case should the keeper add yesterday's birds to today's tally, (definitely not cricket IMO) or instead add them to yesterday's entry in the game book after the fact, which is what I think your post infers.

 

Did he charge you for 150 birds? Or 210? If you only paid for 150 birds then I'd say you had a bargain. If it were me I'd be back next season like a shot!

 

Two sides to every coin, and all that...

The team was charged for a 200+ day (i think he said 230(??). Well, the convo has a bit more to it..Hahaha.. The chap then had a quick word with the under-keeper, and he was surprised, with the answer he was given. When he asked why there appeared less birds on the cart, he was told. (along the lines of), 'we put a lost figure around 50 birds'.

 

Really ? ? ?

 

Oh well, all i can say (as a bystander) is 'Maybe'.

[scotslad]

Depending on wot the extra bit of the conversation was. As always often 2 sides to a story.

Also have they shot there before and always got the bag? and had a good day.

Sometimes things happen outwith keepers control and very hard to make the bag, as long as it is a 1 off and he really looks afer u next time they come back. But if that is the norm i would not be back,

 

 

There is a big difference between 150 (depending how accurately he watched the cart, also some birds may arrive laer on depending on how far pickers up have to walk or may be birds in there motors if park elsewhere?) and 210.

Its 6 birds per gun each, which u can argue is not a lot, but at 30+ quid a bird its £180 extra per gun. So in theory shoot made an extra £1800 that day

 

The only possible defence for the shoot is was there a clicker/shot count?? If they have fired 600-800 shots then fair enough the keeper has shown enough birds for u to shoot ur agreed bag and the guns couldnae hit them.

Amazing how selective some guns memories can be, picking up on a large shoot years ago, blethering to head keeper after lunch waiting on guns comin out, 1 gun came over to compain about the lack of shooting he had in the morning. On that shoot the game cart man also picks up all the empies up on each drive and records it all, head keeper just asked which peg he started on looked in the note book and rattled throu how many shots he had on each drive, guns face just dropped. Classic

 

It would depend on the day,type/hieght of birds, experience of guns etc

A good experienced team of guns will have a fair idea the ammount of shooting compared to the bag. Generally most guns will have a fair idea wot is being pricked, so possibly if guns are honest and 1/2 had a very bad day u could get a figure of 50 but does seem very high, but would depend on the hieght of the birds, possiby possible on very high birds??. (Althou only 1 per drive per gun)

But ur talking about 25% of the bag. if he is losing that ammount each shoot day he should be employing more pickers up.

 

 

To be fair if pricked birds are found from other days shoots they will usually be added on to ur day but chances are u will be leaving some for the next party so u could argue its 6 or 2x3's. Depending on the size of shoot may also have came fronm earlier drives that day

 

I was once shooting on a dog training day on an expensive hill partridge shoot, most of the others were keepers, subject of pricing came up. He was charging £40+ + vat a biird but he said due to the hieght and terain he expects to pick less so charges more, but he still hoped to be 85%+. But partridge could be hit set there wings and glide for quite literally miles the shape and hieght of the hills. So u should still only be charged with wot is in the bag at end of day.

[fortune]

I've seen some really sharp practices such as the guns on one shoot were truly useless and the dogs and beaters pegged more birds than the guns. The keeper went mad at the beaters walking out of the drives carrying clumps of birds. The guns didn’t notice this and the birds were left back in the drive to be added on the cart later. Another situation on another shoot was again where the guns were rubbish and on the same shoot there was a walked up party going on. Basically the walked up guys were being used to dog in to the drives and the birds that they shot were being left at strategic points so as to avoid carrying the weight and a bit later a quad picked them up and added them to the main shoots cart. No one seemed to notice. The walked up day finished before the main shoot and at the end of the day no one was any the wiser of what had gone on. Another skit on a shoot was where one of the lads was going over on another shoot and poaching birds with a silenced 410 and these were being added to the bag and the guns charged. 20 birds split between the keeper and lad. A nice little earner. The thing is that most of the guns were city banker types and didn’t seem to have a clue about what was going on or how many birds that they had shot. All they seemed to talk about was how big their bonus was this month. The most switched on guns were a load of Americans that had a wife or friend gun standing behind them counting the downed and hard hit birds and at the end of the drives they had their own record of shots per gun and the bird tally. They even had someone on the cart checking out the tally on the drive so a quad couldn’t suddenly turn up with 30 or 40 stiffies on it to be added to the bag.

[chipper]

I've seen some really sharp practices such as the guns on one shoot were truly useless and the dogs and beaters pegged more birds than the guns. The keeper went mad at the beaters walking out of the drives carrying clumps of birds. The guns didn’t notice this and the birds were left back in the drive to be added on the cart later. Another situation on another shoot was again where the guns were rubbish and on the same shoot there was a walked up party going on. Basically the walked up guys were being used to dog in to the drives and the birds that they shot were being left at strategic points so as to avoid carrying the weight and a bit later a quad picked them up and added them to the main shoots cart. No one seemed to notice. The walked up day finished before the main shoot and at the end of the day no one was any the wiser of what had gone on. Another skit on a shoot was where one of the lads was going over on another shoot and poaching birds with a silenced 410 and these were being added to the bag and the guns charged. 20 birds split between the keeper and lad. A nice little earner. The thing is that most of the guns were city banker types and didn’t seem to have a clue about what was going on or how many birds that they had shot. All they seemed to talk about was how big their bonus was this month. The most switched on guns were a load of Americans that had a wife or friend gun standing behind them counting the downed and hard hit birds and at the end of the drives they had their own record of shots per gun and the bird tally. They even had someone on the cart checking out the tally on the drive so a quad couldn’t suddenly turn up with 30 or 40 stiffies on it to be added to the bag.

 

Holy smokes, and i thought i've heard it all, that stunt takes balls of steel to pull.

[Blackpowder]

Near here some years ago a dodgy character rented an estate and decided to provide let days. His game rearing skills were pretty basic and when it came to shooting days pheasants were scarce on the ground. Now at the time say he was charging £25 per bird ot made sense for him to purchase dead pheasants from a game dealer and distribute those in the morning of the shoot in the picking up areas. Unfortunately he chose to pull this stunt on a party of experienced Guns and was rumbled. Exit one aspiring lord of the manor. I must say on the Shoots I have had beating upon and others shooting upon everything is above board and I often wonder in the latter if the cartridge count is being kind to us.

 

Blackpowder

[Underdog]

I know a keeper like this! In fact calling him a keeper is just wrong!

[Scully]

Nephew and a few mates were very recently at a paid days driven and were asked to pay for more birds than were actually hanging in the cooling shed on the understanding that the pickers up would gather up quite a few more the following day. They refused.

[Fatcatsplat]

Every time you shoot a bird, stick the empty in a pocket and add them up at the end of the day. Even on our little shoot where 50 is a great bag, we are always out on final count for birds pricked, missed, runners etc

[john12]

Once was on a driven day and had a couple of very steady drives to start with. On the second drive I was at the end of the line and the game cart came and parked up near me.

After the horn went had a steady walk over to the cart to talk to the lad. Where to my surprise I saw a large amount of French partridge. As the other guns came up I asked who had been shooting all the partridge as I hadn't even seen a partridge so far. Anyway no one had so approached the keeper who said he would have a look into it later we asked again to be told that beaters had picked them up and not to worry.

We weren't charged for the birds but I wonder if we would have been if we hadn't been switched on and spotted it straight away.

[chipper]

Once was on a driven day and had a couple of very steady drives to start with. On the second drive I was at the end of the line and the game cart came and parked up near me.

After the horn went had a steady walk over to the cart to talk to the lad. Where to my surprise I saw a large amount of French partridge. As the other guns came up I asked who had been shooting all the partridge as I hadn't even seen a partridge so far. Anyway no one had so approached the keeper who said he would have a look into it later we asked again to be told that beaters had picked them up and not to worry.

We weren't charged for the birds but I wonder if we would have been if we hadn't been switched on and spotted it straight away.

 

Thats funny, always be a gent and offer the benefit of the doubt Maybe the lad brought the wrong props to the wrong drive. hahaha..

[fortune]

Every time you shoot a bird, stick the empty in a pocket and add them up at the end of the day. Even on our little shoot where 50 is a great bag, we are always out on final count for birds pricked, missed, runners etc

That is only possible on a small scale. When the expected bag is many hundred the volume of birds going over is so high that there is no way that you can do that. Unless you let a hundred birds go over while you are watching the one that you might have shot.

 

Once was on a driven day and had a couple of very steady drives to start with. On the second drive I was at the end of the line and the game cart came and parked up near me.

After the horn went had a steady walk over to the cart to talk to the lad. Where to my surprise I saw a large amount of French partridge. As the other guns came up I asked who had been shooting all the partridge as I hadn't even seen a partridge so far. Anyway no one had so approached the keeper who said he would have a look into it later we asked again to be told that beaters had picked them up and not to worry.

We weren't charged for the birds but I wonder if we would have been if we hadn't been switched on and spotted it straight away.

No problem on a shoot where there is another shoot going on on the same establishment the same day or there is another shoot tomorrow. The birds will just get lumped onto someone else's cart figures. Each drive will be cut short of the total tally of shot birds and the tally will be right at the end of the day. total tally 250 >> actual shot 200 + 50 added. I've actually seen this and the tally was hit at lunch time so they said " we cant go home already, we need a couple more drives. One bloke said "I'll but another hundred birds" and his mate said "well I'll chip in for another hundred". Everyone had a super day and everyone went home satisfied. Good thing they wee all getting big fat bonuses.

[Alycidon]

You will always get pricked birds that show no obvious sign of being hit going on, maybe into another drive or hedges where they are picked up dead. You will also get a few birds pegged by beaters and pickers up dogs, thats life.

 

Given a good team of guns it is surprising how many 'missed' birds are in fact hit. I saw a hen pheasant a few years ago, gun in front of me missed it. I was picking up about 150 yards back, she flew past me and I saw her eye open and close, looked perfectly fine. She went another 70 yards and collapsed stone dead.

 

However this all looks like sharp practise here, certainly I would not go back. A good team knows about what their ratio is , we were just over 3 to 1 today which is about right over the season. So 300 shots at good birds and there is 200 on the game cart smells fishy.

 

A