London Best

You must consider your shooting to be just a hobby then, not a way of life as it is for some of us.

I do have a vacuum packer, and my own chiller. We pretty much live on game and venison here, year round. For the last thirty or forty years the freezers (note the plural) have always been full. I have been plucking and dressing game since 1961, although that was only half a dozen pheasants a season in those days. My wife also enjoys cooking and eating game. I must say I have never put a duck, or any other game, in a freezer with its jacket still on and then plucked it after thawing. Always dressed before freezing here. Mallard are not always ‘reliable’, as you put it. I have had a few that were a bit rough.

Pheasant certainly makes a good curry. Or a casserole. Or goujons. Or roast. I think the best of the lot is a roast pheasant eaten cold the next day with bread sauce. Actually, my favourite is whatever way it is being served on that day!

They have exactly that in South Africa. The shootings there are twice what there are in U.S. and half the figure for Russia.

I met an ex-pat Englishman in a bar in San Antonio, Texas in June this year. He had arrived in the U.S. to do some job for a British company for a week or two. He met a man in a bar who said ‘that job is carp, you need to apply for this job’. The Englishman replied that he knew nothing about said job. (I can’t remember now, but it was either fixing juke boxes or maybe one armed bandits). The American told him it was simple, just wing it through the interview and you will sort out the job when you get there. The Englishman is still there after twenty plus years. Now a retired American citizen. He said he could not believe how much he had been paid over the years and how easy life was in U.S. As a pensioner the government pay him over 3000 dollars per month pension, plus his private pensions. He has no intention of ever returning to U.K. He said, “all you need to succeed in U.S. is bullpoo.”

Not that I could afford one, but my thoughts with those sort of cars are always, “where would I put three labradors and two dead deer in that thing?”

You are right in what you say that a young (very young!) cock can eat better than a really old hen. But I rarely have the chance to obtain any pheasants before mid November and by then I think the “young cocks” are not so good. Hens are fairly reliable through the season I find, but if you get a last year’s bird of any sex it is only good for the stewpot. These days I no longer hang my game for very long. We don’t really like the ‘well hung’ flavour. Partridges I generally prep the next day or day after. Pheasants I usually allow two days, and I don’t leave even a cock bird a week even if it is hanging in the chiller. Also, I think pheasants don’t keep so well in the freezer as partridges, and certainly not as long as duck or venison.

Hens every time!

Only if you scatter them about when the gun goes off.

Too late, there already is. Due to the idiots who have been buying plastic wads for the last fifty years.

The bog standard 1100 which most people had was a complete piece of **** from day one. And the 1300 cc job wasn’t much better. I drove a few of each and none of them were any good.

I keep seeing images (in my mind) of a bloke with a hairy chest breast feeding.

I agree with the rest of your post, but there is no requirement for reproof after opening chokes.

They are in 65mm cases and I do not believe they are any slower than any other cartridge. I certainly cannot tell any difference when using them.

An old Belgian single barrel folder would be much lighter than a bolt action and folk are giving them away. And, in my opinion, six is too young. Wait at least a couple of years.