Out with the beaters on a wet and windy day

[lakeside1000]

My first day beating for over 30 years, all I seem to do lately is shoot and fish on my own, so for a change I fancied doing something as part of a team effort.

So today on a very overcast and windy day I joined a very friendly team of beaters on a small syndicate shoot , the rain threatened us all day but we seemed to dodge the worst of it with just a mild soaking around lunchtime,

6 drives in all, through light woodland and standing game cover, with plenty of birds , the birds were slightly reluctant to fly due to the wet and windy conditions but sport was good with plenty of high and difficult birds for the guns, who all enjoyed the sport with a reasonable bag over the 6 drives,

I had forgotten just how enjoyable a day out like this could be, my only concern was that I would be able to keep going all day as I am now approaching my 70th and definitely feeling my age, so by the end of the last drive I was pleased to get back to the car for a coffee and home to a hot meal and my comfy arm chair ,

I'm sure I will feel a bit sore tomorrow but it was definitely worth it and I am already looking forward to the next shoot day.

But in the meantime its back to the pigeons on Monday with yet another permission coming in on Friday, yet another 80 acres of rape which is already attracting some attention from the local pigeon population,

A few years ago I only had 2 small farms to shoot on, since joining the local wild fowler's and meeting some of the local land owners I have lost track of the amount of land I have been invited to shoot pigeons on, only time will tell if these new permissions produce pigeons in any numbers, first impressions are very promising but as we all know the pigeon can be a very elusive quarry especially on rape, so fingers crossed.

[spanj]

Welcome back

[dead eye alan]

Great post hope you feeling OK today after your exertions yesterday.