mark g

the perfect woodland for holding pheasants would have to be a mix of larch and christmas trees, under planted with rhododendron and laurel and surrounded on the windy sides with leylandii, not native but nice and warm

we like many shoots have some neighbouring land that is shot by what you could loosely term as rough shooters, they are basically feeding our birds over the boundary, they are not shooting many but the annoying thing for me is that they shoot them 2ft off the ground and 10ft from the end of the barrel, its a disappointing end for a bird that you have put a lot of effort into rearing and i have always wondered what satisfaction they gain from this, its no more sporting than shooting a myxied rabbit really, our local irritants were out this morning and i almost stopped and offered them yesterdays roadkill, they seem that desperate to have a few badly smashed pheasants

it doesnt really matter about the number of applicants for any job especially so with keepering, its more the case of have you proven yourself, my bosses son in law has an estate in herefordshire, the keepers job came up and was advertised in shooting times, they had 74 applicants and interviewed 6 people, also its never worth applying for jobs on local estates as they tend to share info with each other as to who has applied for what job and are reluctant to nick keepers off thier neighbours estate for fear of upsetting them,

just get on and apply for it you have nothing to lose, owners are usually a bit more inclined to employ someone that knows the ground, keep relations good with the outgoing keeper and dont ever be frightened to phone him and ask for advice

if the keeper is leaving and you know the estate, apply for the job, i did exactly that and went single handed when i was 20 underkeepers wage should be at least minimum wage x40 hrs but shoots can and do take the p as there are always plenty of lads who want to do it, good luck and if i hear of anything down here i will let you know

its mostly the dole experts finding something to do when jeremy kyle has finished, there was a really elaborate fantasist on pistonheads a few years ago called himself jon dokic if i remember, went on for a few years

to be fair gixer and i dont want to get involved in any arguments the pic of that target does look like the gun needs a clean, if that was at 100 yards the impact is going to be 3-4 inches right at 200 yards and the group is not really that tight either, it could be something as simple as the target you are useing though, i just draw a 2 inch cross on a sheet of a4, it offers something more precise to place the crosshair on than a round bull and means i can calculate adjustments to the scope from the size of the cross if that makes sense

i wouldnt worry too much about how they fly early season, guns and most importantly employers only seem to remember numbers and most crucial are the january ones as they are the last ones they have to remember, i shouldnt really say it but when anyone discusses the success or otherwise of any particular shoot i have heard numbers discussed 99 per cent more than how the birds performed, pure blacknecks do the business for us in january

i find them the easiest for holding also, they take to handfeeding better than any other breed, not many gamefarms do them these days though

it can be quite difficult to tell that its a cock calling as they very often will shut up and lie low when you get anywhere near them only to start again when you have gone our birds have been hardly feeding at all for the last week or so, the dogging in is mind numbingly boring and i am getting a bit behind with other jobs but its the only thing we can do until the weather turns a bit harder

i went round our cover crops early on and dug a few pools with a jcb and lined them with damp course plastic, then filled them with water, still dogging in from first light until dark, some of the old time keepers this time of year would have a gun with them whilst dogging in and knock off the gobby cocks around the boundaries, i had a few hundred birds today that kept makeing for a corner of a field of stubble turnips, turned out to be a gobby cock behind the hedge calling them out to him, he will be getting a surprise one morning very soon

i am not inciting anything its just an observation, i have seen buzzards eating each other during the last 2 hard winters, is that inciting freezing weather?

i had to put on 2 200 bird days last week, one monday one friday, sunday night we had a display 10 yards from one of our best drives and thursday night one about 100 yards from 3 drives we needed for friday, birds were off roost before dawn and running both days, i hate fireworks

we use scarecrows to deter them a bit in the release pens along with a couple of old motors, you have to move them regularly and it dont stop them all but it helps a bit, one thing i found is that we lose a few pheasants to trains on a railway line on one side of the estate and buzzards like to feed on them, also buzzards are not great at judging the speed of a train especially in cuttings or either end of a viaduct

docter optic seem to have finer recticles than usual

it doesnt happen like that though does it? we have several different teams of legal poachers shooting our boundaries, and with the exception of the proper shooting estate next door, all of them shoot pheasants as though they are robots killing vermin, its all about numbers and how many they have shot, thats what annoys me, i spend all summer in bloody awful hot sheds rearing them and then along comes some cretin with a few feeders and shoots them as if they are myxied rabbits, if they were a bit more sportsmanlike about it i would not mind so much,

we have a similar situation on 2 of our boundaries and funnily enough both of the legal poachers are former policemen, i see them as just another pain in the ****, thankfully they work public sector hours and someone is usually up and dogged in before the smart ***** think about getting out of thier pit no contest

farmers count rabbits,pigeons and crows differently than we do, they go 1, 2, hundreds of them everywhere

if you are mostly doing foxes out to 150 yds i would stick with what you have , you will not gain much by spending on an expensive scope, i like a fine crosshair, meopta have a nice fine crosshair and so do the edgar brothers optimate range, i would have either of these in preference to the more expensive shmidt and bender which has a fairly thick crosshair

the viz used to run a character series entitled the thieving gypsy ******** it only ran for a few issues and was quite a few years ago, they are probably worth a few quid now rogers profanisaurus is always good for a few new profanities

stick a new pot and piston on the 026 they are about 55 quid from mister and fairly easy to fit, if you are set on buying new tfm superstore do good prices on stihl, if you are chucking the 026 i wouldnt mind it for bits

sorry for the interruption but if you are needing to send your dog after ducks on a pond, then they are reared mallard that wont fly because they are fed at the pond, trickle a couple of bags of wheat or barley or whatever they are on to a point a couple of hundred yards from the pond and then feed them there, a lot of people gave up with reared ducks because they found it difficult to get them to fly, feed them away and they will fly really nicely

ah yes sorry, i cant get to grips with the reply and multiquote buttons

i always find that the trigger is the weak link in accurate shooting with factory made rifles, i have just been shopping around for a 204 as replacement for my old cz 527 in .222 i bought a savage 12fv with the accu trigger heavy barrel and synthetic stock, but to be honest i should have had the cz rebarreled in 204, the savage is a nice rifle but the trigger is **** compared to the cz trigger, the american drop test legislation precludes any american rifle manufacturer from fitting a good trigger for fear of being sued, big hint if i was looking for a 204 now i would look for a cz 527 or a brno fox with the set trigger and get it rebarreled with a heavy barrel in a calibre of my choice and find a stock for it to go in,