Jim Neal

As long as the rules don't get changed and you can stay within them there's no reason why not, I feel. Wish I had something to shoot at, none about in the woods I've looked at recently.

The radius of a circle with a 100 mile circumference is 16 miles. So allowing for the wiggly shape you'd make on a map doing a 100 mile ride it's probably going to take you a bit more than 20 miles from home in places. Possibly stretching what some people would call "local" but really who gives a monkey's? Lots of people are capable of thinking like a grown up and deciding whether or not they can do what they'd like to do, without breathing and spitting all over other people.

I experienced the awesome power of one of those jets at an air show a few years back. The sonic force of those engines actually makes your insides jiggle about, a very weird feeling!

An interesting watch.

I've got a Primos "Power Crow". Not sure what has happened to it, but it has started to sound more like you're shoving your finger up a duck's backside. I'm guessing the reed has become damaged (how?!) or slipped in its mounting. Nothing I can see to take apart/refix or modify in any way. The only way I can make it sound OK is by constantly pulling the rubber tube away from the end of the mouthpiece, and also pushing one of my top teeth into the split in the mouthpiece, to separate the two halves which seems to help. Going to get one from CMS I think, and try that out.

In your friend's case... presuming you mean she is working with children who have covid.... would it help if those children had been vaccinated? Of course, they wouldn't be there in all likelihood if that's the case. But unfortunately the nation-wide strategy is formulated from a statistical point of view. It sounds very cold saying like this but she is witnessing a tiny minority of covid patients from the age group least likely to suffer the worst effects of the virus. It's just that this is now her life at work. Horrible to witness, I'm sure, I don't envy anyone in that sort of job 🤔

Not picking on you personally but I think this is a common misunderstanding. Vaccination doesn't prevent infection; it's not a forcefield stopping the virus getting in to your body. Vaccination just means your body's got a pre-loaded battle plan so it can start fighting off the virus straight away, because it isn't learning from scratch how to attack that particular virus. Unless I'm behind the times, up until now medical experts have been saying that they are unsure as to whether a vaccinated person could still transmit the virus or not. I wouldn't chance it by presuming a vaccinated person is unable to be infectious, therefore doing the youngsters first still leaves the vulnerable.... vulnerable. Therefore it is illogical to "vaccinate the young so they can get on with their lives". The whole point is to vaccinate according to the demographics; to prioritise the groups who are statistically most likely to die or become seriously ill. The younger generation can still get on with their lives, unvaccinated, safe in the knowledge that it would be a 1 in several million shot if they were to snuff it from covid.

I'm sure you're not wrong in as much as they are opportunistic when it comes to what humans accidentally or deliberately make available to them. What is in their crops tells the story I suppose. I always shoot the odd one that's full of bird table stuff, or what looks like the remnants of someone's sandwich, but I'd guess 95% contain what you'd call "natural" food. But haven't really shot many to find out lately, I'll let you know when I do!

Don't worry about hunting. As soon as he realises that scent = game = the fun he was born for, he'll have no problem getting stuck in. You just have to keep him working close. It's stopping the dog chasing flushed birds that you have got to really avoid in a rough shooting scenario. You want him sitting to the flush & shot, not darting off like a greyhound after a bird and then emptying the rest of the wood in front of you before you're anywhere near in range! Keep us updated mate, I'm genuinely interested in how it goes

I'm sure this massive reduction in the amount of rape in the ground has caused a big shift in where a lot of pigeons are residing. I wonder if they've either a) found a new alternative to it, or b) have started to congregate more in the areas that rape is available. Not many reports of decent bags decoying in the last month or two, some flocks reported.... I'm only guessing but I'm sure that collectively on this forum we don't have 100% coverage of all of the country... maybe a lot of pigeons have simply sneaked off to somewhere they don't get hammered? Or are they indeed getting shot in numbers, but not by people who are on here, or know people who post here to report it? The woods on our shoot are virtually devoid of pigeon. They're never heaving with them but you could at least expect a dozen or so shots if you popped out for the last hour of roosting and knew where to look. Over my Christmas break I made quite a few sorties out in the afternoons, to my usual spots plus a few reconnaissance missions to places I rarely check. There's virtually no pigeons coming in, just the odd single or pair flitting about. I walked through a block of mostly pine plantation, well over 100 acres of it, during the last hour before sunset and didn't see anything apart from one bird that pulled up to land just as I walked under the same tree. Not sure who was the more surprised, I didn't even get the gun mounted before it was too late 🙄 A very large chunk of our land is grazing. Of the arable, there's only one small field of rape I can think of and that's not getting any attention. Normally when that field has got rape sitting over winter there's dozens of pigeons sitting up in the little spinney that overlooks it, and they're up and down like a tart's drawers all day long. But at the moment, zilch! I last shot a pigeon coming home to roost on the last Saturday of November! Maybe there's been some sort of pigeon pandemic wiped a lot of them out? Coovid-20 anyone? 🚕 🚖

Just to be clear I wasn't trying to present evidence to back up the claims that there's loads of perfectly good birds being dumped. I was demonstrating that a simple google search brings up lots of results on the subject, and most of it we can perceive as being anti-shooting propaganda as I said above. In my opinion it's mostly just highlighting a few places with bad practices and sloppy procedures that need to sharpen up a bit. I bag my carcasses etc up in bin liners, double-wrapped, and put them in the general waste bin. Took a bit of stamping on, the week I had 12 pheasants, several pigeons and a brace of geese 😲 I can't imagine that's illegal if the birds are for my own personal consumption and not being sold or given away. I know of one very well known estate in my county that uses an incinerator.

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&sxsrf=ALeKk03F1lOnrVOnWHIiPvGuwawFeejBVw%3A1610057920495&source=hp&biw=1567&bih=978&ei=wIj3X7jnG4KalwTGla2YDg&q=dumped+pheasants&oq=dumped+pheasants&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzoCCAA6BQgAELEDOggIABCxAxCDAToGCAAQCBAeOgQIABAYUIsOWMI8YNFBaAFwAHgAgAFQiAGDCJIBAjE3mAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWc&sclient=img&ved=0ahUKEwi4x6qT7YruAhUCzYUKHcZKC-MQ4dUDCAY&uact=5 Sift through that lot and make of it what you will! I don't doubt it's mostly anti-shooting propaganda, misrepresentation of the facts etc etc... This one contains a video where it actually looks like some of the carcasses have been breasted out, even though the estate concerned had stated they were birds unfit for consumption and were therefore disposed of. Regardless of whether the meat gets taken off the birds and used, if shoots are going to dispose of "waste" like this I'd like to think they could learn lessons and do it a bit smarter so as not leave themselves, and therefore shooting in general, open to possibility of being secretly filmed and splashed all over the press.

Does anyone know whether or not the "no-shows" have caused their intended vaccine dose to end up being wasted?

I'd imagine the way to go, once the intended recipient is contacted, is to ask them what protocols they follow when receiving second hand computers in order to stay on the right side of data security. If they scratch their heads and can't come up with a lucid response the answer would be to proceed with caution or not at all. I'm sure this must be the no.1 question on the lips of potential donors so you'd presume they've got this angle covered!

As utterly narked off as I am from my own personal perspective, about losing the rest of my syndicate & rough shooting days this season, at least we are a low-cost low-risk endeavour and we'll survive - unlike many of the commercial shoots, I fear. Our syndicate took a general consensus last March and decided to go ahead as normal - a major part of it being, as Walker quite rightly points out above, if we go to order our birds next year and the game farm has gone bust then we've been part of the problem causing their demise. As Lloyd illustrates, the numbers start adding up to eye-watering losses. In excess of £30k turnover lost for that chap, it's not loose change, it's life-changing. As a rough example, If a commercial shoot has lost its last 10 days of the season due to this lockdown, you could be looking at between £50k and £100k or more of lost turnover, depending on the scale of the shoot. Some shoots will be sponsored by the Lord of the Manor and will carry on, licking their wounds, but there's bound to be many that simply fold leaving individuals with a mountain of debt and keepers out of work. I really do feel bad for them. There may be a silver lining though, with some big commercial shoots folding. Game shooting may morph back into something it was many years back - still the big estates doing expensive big-numbers days, but more of your smaller scale working man's type shooting and more farm shoots having informal rough & walked up days. I think this would both make shooting more accessible for those who enjoy it but either can't afford it or just can't get in anywhere, and also help make the sport a bit more low-key and maybe, just maybe, take a bit of heat off us from the antis who bemoan the practices of releasing game in large numbers in concentrated places "to be slaughtered en-masse". So maybe there is a glimmer of positivity to be salvaged from it, but I feel the hardest times are yet to come for those who rely on shooting for an income

Nothing wrong with a game of "leapsheep" ! They've been doing it in Wales for centuries 😁

Nonsense And Instability?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5SqHJMTKZx5sYhlltXJvB1Q/give-a-laptop From that page, looks like the best option might be: https://www.business2schools.com/donate I'm sure if you can find a local school and contact them they would advise on procedure. What operating system is installed on the laptop? It depends if they want the machine to be up and running with the operating system installed, or a completely blank canvas onto which they can install what they need. If the latter, the old fashioned way you would do it would be to reboot and go into DOS mode, then enter the command format/s which would completely reformat the hard drive. Things have probably moved on a bit since then though. If you've got the original Windows disc, or a "recovery" disc, there might be an option from that to restore it back to factory settings. You might even be able to do it from within Windows itself but I'd guess the "reset" may be a partial one so you'd still need to go through it and delete some stuff. Maybe a call to a local computer shop might help, my knowledge is a bit out of date now I think!

Yep that might work as a slightly safer alternative to sodium hydroxide but it's not as powerful 👍

You can't go round your mate's house without being reported these days mate.

How many 'flu deaths are being recorded this winter? https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/influenzadeathsfor2020 If I've read this correctly, they've basically given up distinguishing between covid and 'flu and are just calling it all covid? Or am I not interpreting this correctly?

As a last-ditch attempt if nothing else works, maybe half a cupful of caustic soda chucked in there and rinsed through on cool (hot will fizz it all off too quickly and may have dramatic side effects). It will certainly eat up any gunk blocking things if that's the problem, but you don't know if it would knacker anything else like internal surfaces or more likely seals, o-rings etc. As I said, absolute last ditch if the only other thing you'd do is chuck it in a skip. Most proprietary oven cleaners are based on caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) if you're struggling for a source of it.

You need to stop clicking the links in those emails.... 😁

Is it just me who read that as "many more penises...." ?! 😅

I was in the supermarket today. In the herbs & spices section I spotted those jars of "lazy" garlic and the earlier posts in this thread sprang to mind about them not quite tasting right. So, I reached up to take one and inspect its ingredients.... only to find that some numbskull had taken the top off the jar and not screwed it back on. I have no fear of getting bitten by a vampire tonight, or for the next few weeks. And yes it doesn't exactly smell like freshly pressed garlic...