WalkedUp

About 3 years ago I picked up a pretty serious cryptosporidium infection, I was in bed for over three weeks and lost a couple of stone. The environmental health agency called me up and after reviewing my movements thought it was most likely I had caught the infection on the farm, from the sheep. My shoot day hygiene has always been laddishly lax, I quietly laughed at men who used hand sanitizer and wet wipes to get the blood and mud off their hands before 11s. Or the guns who refuse to handle shot birds in ungloved hand. The first bout of crypto was awful, I went for a few drinks after work on a Friday but as I was driving at 6am to the shoot the next morning I was sensibleand didn’t drink to excess. Nonetheless I woke up at 3am being very sick with a violently upset stomach at the same time. Sat on the toilet I was filling the wash hand basin to the side. I wretched and convulsed until exhausted and bleeding. My wife sent me a text message to say how annoyed she was that I had clearly got so blind drunk. 15 minutes later I had the strength to climb off the bathroom floor and stumble to my bed, I told her I wished I had been drunk as it would have taken the edge off that awful experience. Then 30 mins later the run to the bathroom again, a cycle that didn’t abate until it was time to get dressed to go shooting. We were walked up shooting woodcock over fell on the Llyn Peninsular. As I was taking two dogs if I had dropped out the trip would have been a disaster. My friend kindly drove the 2 hours instead of me. He is a good driver but despite the pit stops it was one of the worst journeys of my life. We walked a huge distance over the day, and I was exhausted, white as a sheet and passing blood. Still managed to shoot three woodcock. On the journey back I still couldn’t eat and felt awful, barely able to speak. Once home I didn’t properly awake for two days and then didn’t get out of my bedroom/en-suite for three weeks except after 14 days to go to the doctor to give a sample. The pain was incredible, constant ache to kidneys, abdomen and joints. I have walked and cycled to hospital with broken bones on different occasions but this chronic type pain was just constant day and night, co-codamol was a god send. Eventually it cleared up and I regained my fighting weight. The infection (I think) must have caused some permanent damage as every 6 or so months my intestines seem to flare up and I have the same symptoms for a few days. My wife found me in a hedge covered in sick and worse at the end of our front garden when I had tried to get home once and collapsed out of the car just short. I am currently in a bout now but have become blasé. We had booked a trip away with the children, I wasn’t being sick just the belly, fever and aches - as I didn’t want to disappoint them still took them away. Somehow between feverish bouts, 30-40trips to the bathroom a day, aching joins and crippling abdominal spasms I managed to take them rock pooling, rock climbing, play French cricket and swim in the sea. They loved it but since then I have spent the last two days unable to eat or get out of bed / bathroom, making myself much worse than I was before the trip. I probably should see the doctor again to find out what is going on but imagine they have enough on their plate with the pandemic. Anyway, moral of the story is - if you have spent the day picking up birds from fields or yards covered in sheep or cow muck, ducks from unknown ponds etc then make sure you clean, wash and sanitise your hands before tucking into your sandwiches. There is nothing manly about messing up your bowels.

Should be no problem, in fact I would be astounded if there was not good reason between the club and the deer. I got my .308 on initial grant. My advice would be to go for .243 first however, if your problem is just with roe and you don’t see yourself as likely to go out on the hills etc.

My local straw bales ground only stocks that cartridge. I was late the other day and so bought cartridges down there rather than mess about breaking into a slab in storage. Didn’t think about the fact that they were too light to cycle my semi auto so I had to manually rack each cartridge 🙈

If you do anything too much a clever dog learns to anticipate it. Mix it up and keep rewarding the basics. Even don’t always recall from a sit, go back to the pup to praise on the spot, then walk away again leaving it in the sit. So it doesn’t anticipate you coming back means it is time to hot foot it.

Where in the country are you based? BASC organise some day tickets.

Flighting a pond better later in the season. Get out on the foreshore for early ducks. The marl pits and little ponds near me are all full from the rain, will be good in a month or two. Do you feed the ponds?

Over the weekend saw a lot of farmers cutting hedges. On the beaches and coastal areas the restricted access for ground nesting birds runs until end of September.

That would be brilliant if I were closer, good luck with your sale. I’ll investigate a courier.

I’ve had days when you don’t even look at the bird you’ve just killed because the next one is on its way. And it can stay like that for hours, as if on a conveyor belt. You go out into the decoy pattern and they are still trying to land around you.

Did anyone watch the BASC pro game keeper / senior lecturer with his dog on Fieldsports Britain this week? I felt so bad for the guy, he was giving training advice and in the background his dog was completely ignoring every attempt at recall. In the end he gave up. There are times when you don’t want the dog to make a retrieve on which it is sent. Stop whistle, redirect or recall. Train using split dummies.

Thanks for the replies will have a look and see what I can get it for. RFD adds £35 so makes cheap rifles less appealing. The single shot Rossi looks unusual, would have been very tempted but the only info I could find on it stated it had limited accuracy so it probably wouldn’t replace my .17HMR as that’s suitable for foxes up to 100/120 yards.

Nice damsire

🤣 maybe but 61” would easily capture my three boys

I thought it may have be the one modelled in your profile picture? 🤔 Would have been more interested, but without seeing her from the front can’t be sure she’s an XXL...

😎

No space for another dog but would enjoy seeing pictures of the litter, alongside the dam and sire 👍

Good to hear it was still going strong. If that had been an expensive one that was pulled off the roof you would be crying.

I don’t know enough about Scottish law to advise upon use of lead, but IF that’s what the law says then it seems sensible.

Prepare for some flack 🤣 I use 36gm 3s https://gamebore.com/uk/cartridge/game/12g-magnum-steel

Great picture 👍

I need a .223 and don’t want to spend much. My three current rifles have cost me an average £163. Willing to RFD, prefer face to face within 1.5hrs of Chester. Let me know if you have any thing you are getting rid of. Must be screw cut, but other than that easy.

That’s true. I like shooting flaring pigeons. Killing them dropping into the pattern for me is pest control, but hitting a bird that has flared off at pace is great sport. With a dog you should be able to pick most birds, some get tangled in trees or bushes and are not retrievable but generally you should get most. I pick up runners or outliers as I go along. On flightlines I tend to pick as I go.

In my experience: Shape - when flying Stock doves have a rounded head that is conical on the body with no discernible neck. Flight - they have a more rounded wing and don’t seem to flap as much Colour - stock doves are always darker in the wing tip and lack banding. Their colouration is more similar to a dark juvenile word pigeon. Blue rather than grey if you can picture it.

Watch out for stock doves, very easy to identify from flight and shape but I have seen so many shot by accident.

Just thought it would be of interest for some to see working dogs. HPRs are handled very differently to Labradors etc as they are trained rather than handled. When working my dogs I have a motto, if I wanted to robot a dog onto a bird I can see then I would walk over and pick it myself. I’ve shot over spaniels in trials. Great dogs very different retrieving. Labradors are great dogs, very different at retrieving. All dogs have strengths and weaknesses. An HPR will never be the best hedge basher or the happiest peg dog. More visible if you watch 720 and 0.25x speed, but quite boring! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n_JF2O3ry3k Edited May 18 by WalkedUp