Funny old season

[Blackpowder]

As per title its been a funny old season and not in a humerous way on the two shoots I am involved in those being a syndicate and a shooting association. Both rear the same number of birds 500 and both have only returned around half the usual bag of around 40,this past season lucky to make 20.

 

Asociation shoot first, our beat is rented from a north northumberland estate, coverts consist of mainly small softwood plantations, a piece of wild once quarried ground, and a block of rhodys. The farm buildings on this beat are leased by another party hostile to the association. In turn the land is leased to a next door farmer who has four acres of game crop around a half acre spinney right on our boundary. He also has cover crops leading from our woods towards his own ground. On our first shoot we barely saw 50 birds , despite there being an abundance two weeks before. Disappointment to say the least. Two weeks later ,a day before our second Shoiot I ventured to our ground in the dark and laid up until 9am. Nothing untoward happened. Still bothered I did the same on the shoot morning when,just as the pheasants were coming off roost I saw the grazing sheep starting to retreat and run from the bottom of a wood which runs up to the farm. A few minutes later a quad bike started up at the farm shortly to emerge into the field and wood flushing birds newly down from the roost. Next the bike and dog returned to the farm road, entered the compound which is the association base, did not see my hidden car where the bike and rider followed by the dog returned to the boundary wood and worked the birds away from our beat. So that was one mystery solved, the birds had been dogged off the beat.

 

Our syndicate does not have this problem where our main pen is the redundant walled garden adjacent to the farmhouse. Absolutely no interference here but our landlord recconed that two days after the birds were released into the garden/pen he saw very few. This was reflected in the bags and birds seen, again bags being scarcely half of what is normally expected. Theory is that perhaps initially the bulk wandered away from the pellet loaded feeders, into standing grain crops thence unable to find their way back to the essential vitamins and simply starved. Its going to be wing clipping next year for sure or building an enclosure within the garden.

 

It has been an open winter, many birds will have been able to find adaquate supplies of food throughout the early months without resorting to feeders. Time will tell.

 

On the plus side I have elsewhere had an excellent season with twice as many driven days as a guest than I have had in 54 years shooting, its been great living the dream. Here is an account of a few days.

 

30th December on the edge of the Lammermuirs last drive of the day with horizontal rain and a gale force winds. The Guns are strung out along the face of the wood in the same direction as the gale. I am number 7 second from the end. Pheasants come pouring over the top of the wood which is itself on a hill. Who says a wet pheasant will not fly. These are rockets , Guns 5,4 and 3 are getting the best off it picking of the less high birds, low does not exist. By the time they reach me they are an intimidating spectacle, 35 shells picked up and I saw only 4 birds fall. Fast forward to a small day in January among the Ettrick hills. First drive I am 8 at the end of the line, only 3 birds break out my side, decent targets but not overhigh where I have the satisfaction of taking all three first barrel stone dead. (Next drive 4 shots and not a feather touched)

 

Finally a day in Perthshire beside the river Almond sunk in a deep dean. I cant believe the hieght of the partridge which come across, three perhaps four fall and maybe one pheasant , but the partridge are indeed shots of a lifetime. Last drive that day with even higher birds find 14 shells at my feet and only two birds down. It has been a great expereince for me thanks to my kind hosts.

 

Blackpowder