patridges

[proTOM1]

I was just looking through the topics and noticed alot about pheasants but not much about patridge and was woundering how many guys on here put patridges down on there shoots ?

[the_commoner]

i dont put any down myself but the syndicate i shoot on put down manily partridge, about 75%, a few duck and the rest are pheasant.

[MattSoanes]

Ive put down 150 12wk old red legs this year aswell as pheasants, only got them tuesday ( been raining since!!) they seem happy enough though at the moment

[reggiegun]

Ive put down 150 12wk old red legs this year aswell as pheasants, only got them tuesday ( been raining since!!) they seem happy enough though at the moment

We have had no look with holding partridge, we have tried having them in their own pen with roof on and letting them out a few at a time, also tried putting a few in smaller pens inside the pheasant pen and letting them out, and just releasing them in the pheasant pen with the pheasant poults.

Just dont seem to hold them on our land, no trouble with pheasant though.

 

Regards,

 

Reggiegun

[Sprinter]

We put down partridges, all english too and it is very gratifying to see some of last years paired up and with broods. It has to be said that we do have excellent habitat for it and the landowner is mad keen to see them about so does everything he can to encourage them. We do have two dedicated partridge days in late september but the days always seem to be more about counting coveys as they slip out the side of drives rather then bagging them

 

I also beat about 25 days on a 95% dedicated partridge shoot, although these are all french. The small days are 200+ here

Edited August 12, 2010 by Sprinter

[reggiegun]

We put down partridges, all english too and it is very gratifying to see some of last years paired up and with broods. It has to be said that we do have excellent habitat for it and the landowner is mad keen to see them about so does everything he can to encourage them. We do have two dedicated partridge days in late september but the days always seem to be more about counting coveys as they slip out the side of drives rather then bagging them

 

I also beat about 25 days on a 95% dedicated partridge shoot, although these are all french. The small days are 200+ here

 

Hi,

 

Is you ground fairly flat, what crops are on your fields, just trying to get a picture of what partridge seem to like.

 

Regards,

 

Reggiegun

[JonnyR]

We put down 100 on 2 years running and shot all of 3 of them. See them around but not in great numbers, so i guess they all b*gger*d off. The land we have is quite flat with a lot of woodland and grass for grazing cattle. some stubble but probably not enough. Also it is very wet and they don't like it.

 

I have resigned myself to paying for Partridge shooting on Salisbury plain, which is fantastic.

[Sprinter]

Hi,

 

Is you ground fairly flat, what crops are on your fields, just trying to get a picture of what partridge seem to like.

 

Regards,

 

Reggiegun

 

Ground that the commercial shoot is on is flat as a witches ***. Birds are beat from large blocks of maize. Crops on the land are standard rape/barley/wheat rotation.

 

The land we put the english down on is flatish but does undulate a bit more (but with nothing you could call a hill!!). Crops are std rape/barley/wheat but with the odd field of fodder beans and the odd one of maize. Stubble in some areas is not turned until spring, where rape is put in it is direct drilled through the stubble. However large areas are allowed to run wild (sorry conservation managed) and the low areas are planted up as water meadows and higher land has super areas of mixed wild bird cover with (amongst many others) mustard and sunflowers within. There are areas of young woodland with clear ground beneath and more scrubby stuff with plenty of cover. Overall the birds can sit out on the stubble watching, feeding and sunning themselves but can dive into whatever form of cover they prefer with only a couple of wingbeats (not usually over a gun). We feed throughout the year although not laboriosly, ie all feeders are topped off towards the end of the season and any easy to get to ones are checked throughout the spring/summer.

[M ROBSON]

We put down redlegs and they hold very well on our shoot. It has several steep fields with lots of gamecrop strips and uncut field margins.

 

I use the "mirror release" method and it works very well. Put a row of small straw bales along one side of your pen, with a feeder and drinker spaced out in the pen. Then do the exact mirror image of this outside the pen and release your birds a few at a time. They use the outside bales, drinker and feeder as though they are still in the pen. They sit on the bales looking at each other through the wire.

 

Cheers,

Mark.

[proTOM1]

Well its good to see that others are putting patridges down . This year we have dropped the number we put down due to lots of things but mainly the boss lossing alot of money . this year we are down to 12000 french and 1000 english which wont get shot with a bit of luck anyway (part of a scheme) the days are all bar 1 family days in total 16 this year and will be shooting 300 to 400 bird days . Our land is all flat ish and you will be able to see a day on our shoot in the field mag later in the year

[proTOM1]

Hi,

 

Is you ground fairly flat, what crops are on your fields, just trying to get a picture of what partridge seem to like.

 

Regards,

 

Reggiegun

 

 

Ou land is flat but we have good maize plots with small spineys to hold the birds aswell as the best crop for patridges sugar beet and plenty of stubble fields with mustard in

[verminator69]

I put redlegs down aswell as pheasants and ducks the partridges do better than the pheasants,but if you have the right ground they are a lot easyer to do than pheasants.

I personaly prefer to see a mixed bag

[Highlander]

Pheasants are a lot easier than partridges to rear, keep on your ground etc but with some extra hard work and the right attitude partridges are far more sporting IMO.

[rowey]

I was just looking through the topics and noticed alot about pheasants but not much about patridge and was woundering how many guys on here put patridges down on there shoots ?

Ours is a mixed shoot with 2 early partridge days and the rest mixed. We shoot 10 days. 7 for the family and 3 let days with a couple of 300 bird days with the rest at 200. We put more partridge down than pheasants

[Sprinter]

Over that last month or so i have seen a dozen or more grey partridge broods from 2 week old bumble bees to almost shootable size and have seen several good coveys of 12-15 birds moving about. This may not seem much, but three years ago we seemed to spend much of our early season days chasing the same covey of around 6 birds all over the shoot. Hopefully this is just the tip of the iceberg as we dont routinely traverse large areas of cover so there could be more lurking around Roll on Mid-end September, i might even take more than two cartridges with me this year

[proTOM1]

Over that last month or so i have seen a dozen or more grey partridge broods from 2 week old bumble bees to almost shootable size and have seen several good coveys of 12-15 birds moving about. This may not seem much, but three years ago we seemed to spend much of our early season days chasing the same covey of around 6 birds all over the shoot. Hopefully this is just the tip of the iceberg as we dont routinely traverse large areas of cover so there could be more lurking around Roll on Mid-end September, i might even take more than two cartridges with me this year

 

 

I have to say i have seen plenty of young english over the last few weeks some good sized and some tiny little things but round us the french have also done well which is a change for the good as they are rubbish normally ,also plent of poults around which is nice as next to no one round us put phesants down . not starting till the 18th of oct this year which is good as have not got all the birds yet 10000 french down and out and about just waiting on 2000 and 1000 english

Edited August 27, 2010 by proTOM1

[squirrelhall]

You need a lot of land and alot of partridges to make it worthwhile also you need to keep them on release pellets to hold them

[rowey]

Over that last month or so i have seen a dozen or more grey partridge broods from 2 week old bumble bees to almost shootable size and have seen several good coveys of 12-15 birds moving about. This may not seem much, but three years ago we seemed to spend much of our early season days chasing the same covey of around 6 birds all over the shoot. Hopefully this is just the tip of the iceberg as we dont routinely traverse large areas of cover so there could be more lurking around Roll on Mid-end September, i might even take more than two cartridges with me this year

 

I love to see the greys but its not often we see them these days. The odd one is occasionally shot but when a gun is in the thick of it its hard to tell a grey from a frenchie when they have burst over a hedge so we can't be too hard on them. Makes me wonder if the mass release of french has helped their decline. Just a thought thats all.

[pete1dart]

We put down a few pheasant and a few partridge. We are bordered on every side by big estates which helps us out alot. All frenchies, we normally shoot between 50-60% of what we put down. Our land is flat with cover crops and one big wood. We also have 15 acres of mustard this year so that should help. Stubble and hedgerows are a must.