scolopax

So we did, just shows you how much I notice. He must have given up on us. He was here for years taking flak. Not much changes

Konor. I have only speed read your posts. But the shear quantity and length of each once gives an overall impression of a rather unhealthy obsession with David

Minor almost negligible damage. It’s grass ***, it will grow back. i think people jump at any opportunity to label them vermin and treat as such.

I wouldn’t have been there. Shooting boar with any form of night vision / thermal is abhorrent.

Give it a rest. Who are you to tell him to retire from the forum! ? Conor has posted and contributed to this forum for many years. He is the only staff member of any of the shooting organisations to do so. Agree or disagree with policies of his employer I for one, and no doubt others, appreciate the fact that he is even on here.

Genuine high birds falling on hard ground can split or have the skin torn. So there may well be more wastage than you think.

Sad tale, and becoming much more common in recent years. I only have a year or two left on my game shoot as the better part of the farm is under compulsory purchase for an electrical converter house for offshore wind energy, we are 20 miles inland. They also want the two woods as they are line of sight screening for the development.

All pay the same % tax on our earnings, certainly.

It’s a joke, we as individuals use the council services, whether we earn £15000 or £150000 we all use those services more or less to a equal extent (it could be argued the rich us them less), and we as individuals should pay equally, cannot conceivably see how it should be linked to the value of a property or to property at all. Some thing based on the electoral roll would be much fairer, it could be called a Poll Tax or something similar

A lot of shooters I hate to say have no knowledge of how out various wild quarry species are faring. this guidance is just that, to let shooters know which species in particular are not doing well and providing suggestions of appropriate ‘harvest’ levels for some of those which are seeing declines.

Should start looking in tractor cabs, almost every tractor I see going by, if it has a youngish driver, they will have a phone in one had, beyond a joke.

I was thirteen, would be fourteen in the November of that year, doing normal kids stuff. We never had much money but my Dad had a company car and free use of it and the fuel account, so most weekends were taken up with long drives into the countryside and picnics! In season I Really looked forward to going beating every other Saturday on a farm shoot. Now all these years later fortunate to run a pheasant shoot over that very same land. remember watching the strike and the picket lines on the TV, and being undecided on ‘which side I was on’, disliked Scargill though who just seemed like a shouty little man. A school friends cousin was a young copper who earnt a small fortune in overtime policing the picket lines.

I will confess I’ve only read the guidance quickly, but I thought that the recommendations were for all, inland and foreshore? Yes of course they are not binding, especially inland but they give food for thought and some real numbers as voluntary limits.

Recently published, not much to argue against but no doubt many will. Some wildfowl species are undoubtedly declining, so official advise on how to adjust our harvest rates etc is surely a good thing https://basc.org.uk/wildfowling/advice/sustainable-shooting-code-of-practice/

Lazy Cheats were using Thermal to spot the quarry then walk right up to it.

Might not be able to get hydration, I would get it out, found dead wood mice in similar situations.

Dogs in pain can lash out and bite the hand that is trying to help them. Simple as that. Hounds hung by a leg on wire are notorious for it. this incident with the pup is a non issue.

Read your report, sounds like a good trip. in lead I always liked 42 gram of 3’s. Although I have shot plenty with 1’s and yes, BB’s.

These are not Dark Storm. They are straight Black Gold with plaswads and a mixed steel 3 and 4 shot. Where I bought them told me they were loaded for the Danish market. Had them for quite some time now, although running low.

Hull Steel Game, 32 gram size 5. And Gamebore Black Gold 32 gram 3/4 shot (each shell had 2 shots sizes mixed), which are also my main duck load when wildfowling.

I suppose I am running down my meagre stock of lead, probably shot 120 lead and 30 steel at game this season. Could not tell the difference. Pheasants and partridge were killed with both, missed with both and some (a few) were pricked with both. My last purchase was a slab of steel ‘game loads’ and 100 Gamebore 35 gram steel 3’s ‘extreme game type’ loads which I will reserve for wildfowling. Both had biodegradable wads. My game shooting is flattish farmland and nothing extreme about it. So I guess next season I will be shooting steel for all my shotgun shooting, bar some premium non toxic (hevi shot and ITM) for wildfowling.

Or in other words, decided to have a last look around mopping up the breeding stock

1 ton per hundred birds as a rule of thumb, with maybe a couple of ton extra depending on the take by deer, squirrels etc (never underestimated how much wheat gets eaten by the unwanted. I would budget on 18 ton.

Facebook took over, easy to join, easy to use, easy to post photos etc. Everything that the Wildfowling Forum wasn’t. It was a lively and well used forum in its day, but sadly it’s time has past.

Yes, turn the clock back 50 years. But seriously there may be one or two places which specialise in releasing greys which might offer these type of days. But unfortunately I do not know of any. There was one local to me til last season, but they mainly did gun dog trials with grey partridge from beet, so the shooting was secondary to the dog work.