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Our little rough shoot


Wildfowler12
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  • 2 weeks later...

We covered some ground today!

 

Due to a couple of holidays, this week's shooting team consisted only of me, Kevin and of course, Rolo the Labrador. An unusually quiet journey meant we were booted up, and ready to start at 09:00 sharp.

 

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Having spent most of the first shoot covering ground at one farm, we decided to start at the other one, hoping it would be full of pheasant - well we were wrong! I don't know if it's the abundance of wild food, lack of cold weather, or if Charlie has been helping himself to a few too many of our birds, but they were nowhere to be seen! Our search took us through some really rough areas that we wouldn't normally brave. You can just about make out Kevin amongst the tall gorse.

 

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Rolo flushed a woodcock near the end, but we were both too tangled to get a shot off, and unfortunately this proved to be the case for most of the woodcock today. We flushed 9 in total, but only managed to shoot at 3 - all of which were missed :lol:

 

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Sometimes you get one of them 'up against it today' feelings, and upon accepting that pheasant may not be feature in the game bag, we made our way to one of the bogs. These have always shown the odd snipe, but for the last couple of seasons we've had to share them with these guys...

 

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However it seems to have to done the ground the world of good. The shallow pools are now brimming with cattle ****, and snipe numbers are booming. Every 40 yards or so they were lifting, in numbers between 1 and 4. After many misses from us both (I won't tell you the cartridge count), Kev finally put one in the bag!

 

A sudden sense of optimism came over us, so we took on the steepest turnip field in North Wales next :lol: well it won! The lack of guns (or rather dogs) was the downfall, as we just couldn't cover the ground properly. At least the views were nice :)

 

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And then just when we thought we were well and truly beaten, Rolo flushed a nice hen pheasant as we walked through the final area of rushes - It presented an easy shot, and I promptly folded it.

 

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Here's hoping for some cold weather soon!

Edited by Wildfowler12
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Looks some nice ground and you clearly enjoy yourselves there , you mention foxes could be having some birds , I am sure they are , as a wild bird shoot predator control would be a big part in maintaining the game bird population , that along with shooting cock birds only would have great long term benefit to the shoot .

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I like this.

 

I'm lucky to be part of a small, informal rough shoot. One of the better things that has happened to me and today's outing was a welcome boost. We get enough birds and enough variety to keep us happy. In recent years, some set-aside, a bit of feed and a few dogs have improved things no end.

Edited by yod dropper
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  • 1 month later...

I haven't done any write ups for some time now, and unfortunately it's because there has been nothing to write about! In the 10 years or so that I've been shooting this place, I've never known a season as bad. On all but 1 of the 5 'shoots' so far, we've had persistent horizontal rain, and saturated boggy ground, for very little reward!

 

I can't believe that we're practically in January and we still haven't had a frost. The weather has been far too mild for my liking. Nettles and ferns are still standing tall in some places, and the crops in the last 2 pheasant I've shot have been stuffed full of berries, despite the food bins being brimmed with wheat!

 

Anyhow, here's a couple of snaps from some recent outings...

 

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As usual, we are throwing the shoot open in January. Our members are free to roam the grounds whenever they like, with a limit of a brace of pheasant / week (no limit on wild quarry). This is my favourite time of the year. For me, there's nothing better than going out for an 'armed ramble' with the dog - Rolo to flush em, me to shoot em (hopefully), and Rolo to retrieve em :)

Edited by Wildfowler12
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Sorry to hear that the weather isn't playing ball in your favour Todd. How are the woodcock and snipe numbers there this season?

Good that you are "open season" now, I thoroughly enjoyed working Indy up there on my own, saw more pheasants that day than all season :lol: Indy flushed them, I shot one and then she duly retrieved the hen back to me. Happy memories :yes:

 

Good luck with the rest of the season. :good:

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The snipe are booming :good: If you were that way inclined you could fire a full box of cartridges off at them alone! Woodcock numbers are healthy this year, and there's plenty of hares about the place too (not that I shoot them but they're nice to see), we flushed 5 of them at TR yesterday!

 

It's just the pheasants that are missing :lol:

Edited by Wildfowler12
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