adam f

Sorry Les, Yes I did get the PM, just say when and where and I'll be there - look forward to it!

Sold to Webber - I'll get it in the post in the next few days mate. Cheers

This was a gift and as I already have a cartridge bag, I'm selling this on. It is a English handmade leather cartridge bag, in burgundy. It has a hinge pin type lid - the type that stays open easily and doesnt flap over allowing easy access to cartridges. It holds 75 shells. The leather is lovely and soft and the bag is very well made. I'm unsure of what this cost - so I'm asking for £40? I'll include P+P for free. Adam

I'm selling my spare pair of shooting trousers as they just dont get used, they have been worn twice and are as new. Size is Medium - they would fit from 32-34" waist (Im a 32 and they are on the loose side) and leg length 32-34" (again, I'm a 34" leg and they are on the shorter side but fine once you have shoes on. They are made from a 'deertex' type silent material and are 100% waterproof and breathable. The camo pattern is Woodland Oak. They have a large cargo pocket on the left leg, and a small knife pocket on the right leg. They have velcro adjusters on the bottom of each leg. The trousers have a high back to keep the water of when bending over. They are lined so can be worn as a main pair of trousers, or when cold over the top of normal trousers. My main shooting trousers are also these and Ive been out in all sorts of weather and they have never let me down - even sat in soaking wet grass for an hour Ive been dry as a bone. £40 posted

Mine too! But for £200 with nice wood and sideplates - it's a little issue - dont even notice it now.

I'm after some help on one of my shooting permissons from someone with ferrets. The ground is overrun with Rabbit and I'm struggling to keep the numbers down by shooting alone. PM or post here if you fancy a few days out. Adam

I need an experianced ferreter to help out on one of my permissons in Dorset. It is overrun with rabbits and the owner wants an effort to make a dent on the numbers over and above what I can do with a rifle once a fortnight. There is also an oppertunity for a few nights out lamping with a rimfire accompanied by me. Can anyone help?

Ive been using 18 half shell deeks all summer, which have been OK. Nice and light to carry and seem to stand out and work ok on stubble and drillings, but Ive found a few times on the messy maize stubble or early rape that they dont stick out so well and the piddies often seem to fly over without seeing them. What other kit do you chaps recommend? I know a rotary is an obvious one but I'm consious of weight and bulk to carry. I'm confused by the bouncers, floaters, landers, flappers, cradles etc out there! I dont want to buy a mountain of kit to test it all, so what would be the no.1 piece of additional kit you would buy in addition to my shell deeks? Adam

I'd quite like to have a go at Wildfowling, but not sure about commitment to a local club. Ive not ruled it out, and am looking into it / appreciate the advantages etc, just not sure if I'd get the chance more than half a dozen times a season. I notice that BASC do a Wildfowling permit scheme, but I'm not sure exactly how it works or if any areas around Dorset / Hants are applicable to it? Can anyone help or explain how it works and my options? Adam

David, As per PM I'll talke this please. Adam

You have a PM

Picked up a new farm a few weeks back - a real beauty, right behind my house, 300 acres of mainly pasture but with a few small copses and a couple of maize fields. Ive not had a chance to shoot it yet due to work commitments, but finally got out this morning. It's a great rough shoot, a few wild phesent, pigeons, rabbits etc but the maize got cut on Weds whilst I was away and I have been chomping at the bit to get on it.... so I decided to have a few hours on it this morning. It took me all of 1 min to drive to the maize stubbles (which is a delight after shooting on friends permissons all summer which are up to 1hr away) I parked up and had a walk around - frustratingly the field was full of spilt maize cobs but most of them were empty! Looks like the pigeon had fun whilst I was away! Anyway I decided to give it a go - I only had 2 hours anyway as family over at lunchtime, and I was keen to 'christen' the shoot. I set up against a hedge - the steatlh camo net was perfect, invisable against the background. I chucked out just a dozen half shell deeks and sat back... the black stuff was everywhere, hundreds off them and they came in straight away, but as I mainly shoot for the pot I'm never too keen on shooting too many so I held out for a piddie... one came in after 10 mins and caught be by surprise but I missed! Anwyay I decided to shoot a few blackies which was good fun and great shooting... before I knew it an hour has passed and I'm getting low on carts, I had just the one pigeon which I was quite chuffed with, a high fast shot. With the clouds building fast and not long left I decided to leave the blacks and have a little walk to see if I could walk up a phesent - Ive not shot one before.... sure enough about 500 yards into the next field I flushed a nice hen out of the hedge and dropped her with the first shot as she flew away. Very pleased! I lost a few blackies in the hedge behind, and whilst it's not the biggest bag it was only a few hours work and it was great fun.

What a good post. We dont get mountains of piddies either, and as I shoot for the pot, I dont really want to shoot a ton, but most of the time its a dozen or so birds..mind you if I hit a few more the bags would improve! I rarely post as it can be intimidating when the guy posting before you have shot a big bag. Anyway I enjoy it whether I shoot 1 or 30... so maybe I'll post a bit more.

Nice one Les - looks like youve got the hang of the Fungi ID, very pretty those ones. Catch up soon.

Thanks all some excellent advice as usual! The flight lines are strong but didnt seem tight and low enough to shoot many on the flight line - saying that it was windy today and I wasnt hidden, so quite a few veered off slightly.. I'll give it a whirl on Sat and let you know how I get on!

A new farm Ive just picked up is dairy, and as a result is mainly pasture. There are a couple of maize crops but these havent been cut yet. On my first recce this morning I located 3 good sitty trees and a couple of strong flight lines across a pair of grazing fields. Will the piddies decoying over this or does there need to be a reason for them to drop in and feed? Is it worth a bash?

Thanks for all the advice. So it seems you do get what you pay for - but the differances can be subtle, on the other hand why skimp a few quid for a slab when we pay so much on other equiptment... Cheers guys..

Just topped up my stock of 12g carts this morning. One of my more local gun shops isnt that bad, and always has a good stock in and plenty of options - just compared them to Just Cartridges and they compare very well. I paid £54 for 250 30gm 6's of Eley Grand Prix fibre wad... ... anyway my point is that looking down their list of carts was like reading a wine menu! It got me wondering what your extra money gets you? The cheapest they had were something like £49 for 250 and most expensive were something like £70! This is on a like for like basis - same length, same wad etc etc... So what's the deal?

Ive only got the one 12g. What I meant was that doesn anyone have a similar cabinet (designed for shotties) and manges to squeeze a rifle in? Or do I need to buy a new bigger cabinet?

I'm waiting for my FAC to arrive, and just wondering if I'll need to change my cabinet? Currently Ive got a brattonsound 3 gun shot gun safe - will I be able to squeeze a rifle and scope in with my 12g?

Very true. After an hour I was something like 8 for 10 then I started thinking about it, it all went downhill!! As you say it's all about having fun not counting numbers!

After a few weeks off got back on the pigeon today. Very hard to find though... after an hours driving 3 farms all we managed to find was the odd dozen here and there. All of the fields bar one have now been either turned over or drilled now - they dont seem to be on the new shoots, finding them on the drilling was hard, so in the end we settled in against a thick hedgerow where they seemed to be roosting in the strong wind on the lasty stubble field which has greened over. Shot for just 2.5 hrs, but it was quite hectic - shot 12 birds (6 piddies, 6 crows) for 18 carts (my best ever average) and proved that having my stock steamed and dropping the comb a few degs has really helped. The shooting was great fun - the birds decoyed really well and were dropping in hard and fast making for some exciting shooting - I pulled off a couple of long, high fast birds that really surprised me! All the piddies were young birds. Really warm for Oct, out of the wind in the hide it was like mid-summer!

Landed a SWEET piece of permisson today.... for the life of me dont know why I didnt do it sooner! My house backs on to farm land on 3 sides - I have a few small permissons by they are all non farmland, and I guess Ive been so lucky with friends invites over the past year Ive been shooting, Ive not thought to aquire more... Anyway - today found me at the farmer who owns the field right next to my house for a non shooting related call, we get chatting and he is a REALLY nice guy. Long story short I tentatively bought up shooting and asked permisson... 'I dont see why not' he says!! Turns out he has more than just the 10 acre field next to me... 300 acres in fact - woodland, pasture and a bit of maize! Flippin result - all just over the fence from my house. There are a couple of other shooters I'll need to work around but Im used to that. Pigeon, rabbit, corvid, fox and the odd wild pheasent and partridge! Ive been very nervous asking face to face in the past - after today I wont be, just goes to show! Adam

Well done! We need more people like you! It's amazing when people dont know what they are eating... and then the reaction when they find out! Since Ive been shooting we buy very little from the butcher - with the fish I catch and the game we shoot it's pretty hard to eat better once you get past the 'plastic wrapper' syndrome...

Lovely bit of kit Les - look forward to seeing it in the flesh sometime!