**** ******* Facebook bad news?

[Dougy]

Blimey there's ignorant folks on here, or folk that watch too much telly. 

 

As I mentioned earlier, for our shooting to continue we "all" that's "ALL OF US" need to look at what each one of us can do to keep it going. A shoot that I beat on has a deal with a game dealer and packed to supply game into the food chain. That's a 400 day shoot, not the biggest but it's avoiding the bad publicity by doing something and not nothing. 

 

 

[Scully]

20 hours ago, Salopian said:

I gave this a little bit of thought today and was wondering about these  commercial shoots that we all have locally .Let us say that these shoots have 100 days per season to shoot total ,possibly shooting 35 plus days per season, we hear of huge numbers being raised to cope with the demand .

But where do they keep these birds ? Stacked in cages or Barns to be released as the demand necessitates? Or do they just keep topping up as the season progresses kept alive in confined conditions ,dosed up with antibiotics to keep away disease and then released into the food chain to unsuspecting Guns .

It is a sorry state we have now got our sport into thanks in no small part to us all , including the national associations turning a blind eye to what is really going on.

Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot.

 

I’m seriously doubting how much thought you did in fact give this. Isn’t it illegal to keep birds in reserve to ‘top up’ ( as you seem to be suggesting ) as the season progresses? 

We have some very big shoots locally, and I’ve beaten and shot on most of them over the years; I don’t know of any which hold back birds to be released at a later date. 

[scutt]

On ‎09‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 23:25, KB1 said:

Foodchain blah blah blah…… everytime we try to portray ourselves as hunter-gatherers etc etc, as opposed to shooting for pleasure, we give the 'anti's' the upper hand!

If we gave a flying **** about the pheasant (live target) we wouldn't pull the trigger in the first place

Some people enjoy shooting, some don't …….. 

SO do you apply this to shepherds , beef farmers poultry farmers etc . all raise animals for the food chain and yes they are killed in a different way but they end up dead .

[FairImogen]

Perhaps 10% of the cost of syndicate(s) fees - arbitrary figure - could be used to fund prep and delivery of surplus to Food Banks.  I’m sure local Game dealers would be happy to accommodate 

[buze]

I'm a new shooter, and most of my pheasants are from what you would call a 'farm shoot's - we did 70 birds on Friday, for about 10-12 guns depending on the drive....

I took 8 braces home.. my wife and I probably shot 15 birds, so i think we are being fair. And we don't the same with every shoot we do, we come back with AT LEAST as many birds as we shot... It's our personal moral contract justification for shootings live game. We pluck the fat ones, we breast others, and all will go to the pots, make terrines, casseroles or be roasted during the rest of the year. Results is that we never have to buy chicken.

I think of guns were forced to pick up a fair share of what they shoot, it would simplify the problem by a LOT. I'm pretty sure everyone here is one of the 'good' one, but perhaps that would naturally limit bag size if you had to pack the back of that London guy land rover with 70 birds before he leaves the shoot...

[Scully]

How do you ‘force’ someone to pick up a fair share of what was shot? 

[buze]

7 minutes ago, Scully said:

How do you ‘force’ someone to pick up a fair share of what was shot? 

Dunno. You can force them to wear a tie, force them to pay a bill, force them to not wear a hoodie, force them not to shoot the dogs or the beaters, etc etc, if you WANTED to force them to agree to take game away (and not dump it by the side of the road) basically you could, too. Your prerogative. Dunno, provide lessons, get a deal with chest freezers brands, get creative, you guys are big business?

It's all a question of will. SURE many of them won't come back if you were to do that... But at least we might not get a ban on reared birds which would impact everyone else, JUST because of the big bag days...

As mentioned before, if the problem is not dealt with by the industry (you) -- it will be legislated for, and everyone will be the looser, not just the big estates.

[Salopian]

I think it needs to be pointed out that Midlands ( Catton Hall) Mid Wales ( Bettws ) (Robert Jones) ( Wayne Tuffin) due to Wayne's foresight  have all contributed to buying out Willow Game dealers from receivership and duly process and supply oven ready birds for the consumer.

But a Dealer can only supply a demand , if the birds in feather exceed the demand we end up with the situation we have now . I have been told  of at least nine 400 bird day  shoots taking place within the next two weeks. The keepers have obviously done a splendid job keeping that amount of birds 'at home ' since July . 

[Scully]

You seem to have the impression I’m involved in ‘big bag’ days or ‘the industry’ as you call it; I’m not. 

Is your post a serious suggestion? You cant ‘force’ anyone to do anything they don’t want to when it’s they who are paying your wages. 

 

2 minutes ago, Salopian said:

I think it needs to be pointed out that Midlands ( Catton Hall) Mid Wales ( Bettws ) (Robert Jones) ( Wayne Tuffin) due to Wayne's foresight  have all contributed to buying out Willow Game dealers from receivership and duly process and supply oven ready birds for the consumer.

But a Dealer can only supply a demand , if the birds in feather exceed the demand we end up with the situation we have now . I have been told  of at least nine 400 bird day  shoots taking place within the next two weeks. The keepers have obviously done a splendid job keeping that amount of birds 'at home ' since July . 

Care to name names to back up your insinuations? Hearsay won’t cut it I’m afraid. 

[buze]

49 minutes ago, Scully said:

Blah blah in a way attempting to have people waste their time replying

If you go to a pub, come out and vomit everywhere... How long will it take for you to be banned? Hold on, YOU are paying their wages, and they would refuse YOU? YOU, such an excellent and sharply dressed client? How dare they?

 

You can't shoot dead 50 pheasants and not have to deal with consequences. Is not refuse, it's actually food. For real.

 

[scotslad]

4 minutes ago, Salopian said:

I think it needs to be pointed out that Midlands ( Catton Hall) Mid Wales ( Bettws ) (Robert Jones) ( Wayne Tuffin) due to Wayne's foresight  have all contributed to buying out Willow Game dealers from receivership and duly process and supply oven ready birds for the consumer.

But a Dealer can only supply a demand , if the birds in feather exceed the demand we end up with the situation we have now . I have been told  of at least nine 400 bird day  shoots taking place within the next two weeks. The keepers have obviously done a splendid job keeping that amount of birds 'at home ' since July . 

 

Do u not think its possible to shoot 400 birds days at this time of year having released birds back in July??

Any shoot I pickup on will have done just that. Don't get me wrong it doesn't always work,soetimes it will be  astruggle/impossible to shoot the bags already sold in a bad year, 1 shoot I go too is in just that position this year

 

I have no idea wot common practices are further south but in my area 'topping up' just doesn't happen (and I do know a lot of keepers) quite a few shoots shoot 100 plus days a season.

1 shoot I can think off will be shooting 6 days a week till the end of the month (plus some days with 2 parties out) and ALL those birds will have been released in the summer and soe of those will be 'biggish' days.

I generally pick up 60 odd days but have seen me go close to 100 a couple of times and I have been around long enough to know by the condition and state of the birds if they have been kept in barns/crates etc.

I really do struggle to believe that is the norm, even down south, if it is that's shocking. I wouldn't beat or pick up for a shoot that did that and if the paying guns are not experienced to notice the poor quality of birds having no beating or picking up line would soon stop the shoots 

 

 

Wot needs to happen is either game dealers start selling game at a realistic price (considering their getting the birds FOC or charging to take them ) that should be pretty cheap.

Or ideally more shoots band together as u suggested above to form regional co-opertatives (ideally cutting game dealers out all together) evening joining together nationally for marketing/PR.

Pheasants and partridge are not hard to cook and bueatiful tasting birds there is no reason why they wouldn't be a market if sold at a reasonable price.

I'm sure if u were selling oven ready birds at £1-2 a bird instead of £4-6 a demand would very quickly be seen (and that shouldn't be unrealistic I bet companies are plucking and dressing chickens for pennies, so it should be easily possible to pluck and dress birds for that money and still make a profit)

It wasn't that long ago pheasants were getting £2-4 a brace, hell it was only 8-10 years ago august young grouse were going for £16 a brace, this year it was 2 quid for young grouse

[Scully]

16 minutes ago, buze said:

If you go to a pub, come out and vomit everywhere... How long will it take for you to be banned? Hold on, YOU are paying their wages, and they would refuse YOU? YOU, such an excellent and sharply dressed client? How dare they?

 

You can't shoot dead 50 pheasants and not have to deal with consequences. Is not refuse, it's actually food. For real.

 

You’re going to have to stop throwing out your toys and posting drivel if you want to be taken seriously. 

[motty]

39 minutes ago, buze said:

If you go to a pub, come out and vomit everywhere... How long will it take for you to be banned? Hold on, YOU are paying their wages, and they would refuse YOU? YOU, such an excellent and sharply dressed client? How dare they?

 

You can't shoot dead 50 pheasants and not have to deal with consequences. Is not refuse, it's actually food. For real.

 

Sorry, you can't force people to do things.

[catchthepigeonmutley]

On 09/01/2018 at 08:22, Mungler said:

It’s all about the demonisation of Shooting and the underlying class war against Shooting - we all live in castles, ride horses, drive range rovers and chase foxes don’t you know.

...and it's for that very reason that I wrote the following letter to the BASC magazine, and which they actually printed about a year ago...

I am sometimes astounded how some involved in shooting prefer to keep their involvement in it secret from people with whom they come in to contact.  Surely this can only be detrimental to the sport.  

At work I have a photograph on my desk that someone took of me on a shoot.  I have been surprised at how many people have commented on it; most want to know more about where it was taken and what sort of shooting I do.  Some people register some surprise that I shoot at all – probably because they have a pre-conceived idea about shooting stereotypes, an image which most shooters do NOT fall in to.  I like to emphasise that there is nothing special about us, that we are just ordinary people who shop in supermarkets, do the lottery, put the bins out once a week and need to work to pay the mortgage or rent. 

I have had many and varied conversations with colleagues about shooting, and there is definitely interest out there.  So much so that some colleagues have expressed an interest in having introductory lessons on clays.

At a time when shooting needs all the friends it can get, surely we can do ourselves a favour and not only talk more openly about our different shooting activities to our friends and colleagues, but defend our sport too by correcting the preconceptions of the public at large, not to say the half-truths and falsehoods banded about by the antis.  Rather than burying our heads in the sand and hope they will go away, we all need to be proactive by taking the game to them.

[catchthepigeonmutley]

On 09/01/2018 at 20:34, Dougy said:

I know allot of beaters,keepers and shooters that don't bother with any game after the shoot day. I feel that every single one of us whatever part we play need to look at what we can do to try and prevent the image of our sport getting dragged into the gutter. 

Unfortunately this is true.  I know of one person for whom shooting is merely for professional and social networking.  Not only do they not bother with taking a brace and tipping the keeper,  they also do not lower themselves to speak to beaters,  they shoot at any bird no matter how close or high it is,  and never get their hands dirty by dispatching wounded game, or picking up at the end of the drive as  ''they have dogs for that sort of thing''.    It is entirely probable that they have never even touched a dead bird.  If this sort of thing is on the increase,  shooting could start to go the same way as hunting before we know it.   

[Gordon R]

buze seems to be taking stick for using the word "force". Etiquette demands certain things, which shooters seem happy to comply with. Perhaps it should become part of that self same etiquette. Public opinion is something we have to fight against if this is to survive. If shooters are unwilling to make any effort or concessions, don't expect public support.

If we all take a step back the person referred to in the OP has a point, as has buze and others.

I can see both sides and there isn't a straightforward, immediate solution, but it is a problem I believe we will have to address. 

 

[Scully]

It is indeed a problem we all need to address, and I’m all for etiquette and tradition as regards shooting, but all that is required is for those who offer big days to ensure the resulting game meat isn’t wasted. 

The analogy with ‘banning’ vomiting drinkers is laughable. You simply can’t ‘ban’ anyone or force anyone to take birds they don’t want. 

There is a demand by some to shoot lots of birds, and this demand (rightly or wrongly ) has little to do with ‘sporting’ shooting, and there will always be those willing to satisfy that demand. The onus for disposing of those birds lays with those who supply them.

Some shooters couldn’t care less what happens to the birds and equally some shoots couldn’t care less as they’re not involved in the business of presenting ‘sporting’ birds for ‘sporting’ shots, but involved in the business of supplying lots of birds for people to shoot for lots of money. It’s a sad state of affairs admittedly, but the line between one and the other has become distinctly blurred. 

I shoot every weekend and the odd day between during the shooting season. We don’t shoot big bags ( less than 50 usually )  and I take as many birds as possible. They are are all used one way or another, but would I stop shooting if they weren’t? I seriously doubt it. If someone offers me a days shooting I have to confess that to reply with ‘well I’ll come if all the birds are used at the end of the day’, doesn’t even enter my head. 

The onus has to lay with the shoots themselves, to create a use or demand for the meat, but to suggest they try to force guns to take birds is frankly naive. 

I have suggested contacting meat processing plants before, with some type of business deal. The huge chicken processing plant just down the road from us used to take all our surplus game, such as hares. Just a thought. 

[wymberley]

If we're going to bring etiquette and shooting tradition into this, will just point out that there's no such thing as "8 brace(s)" when it comes to pheasant. A brace, yep, but after that it's by numbers - so 16.

[Mungler]

12 hours ago, catchthepigeonmutley said:

...and it's for that very reason that I wrote the following letter to the BASC magazine, and which they actually printed about a year ago...I

And that is why I left a FB group ‘dedicated’ to game cookery but who wouldn’t allow photos of dead game even when dealing with a cleaned carcass (much as what you’d find in a butchers shop window 25 years ago, or last week in France).

Fundamentally the message is ‘Shooting is quite a normal pursuit that normal people have enjoyed for hundreds of years and if you eat meat something has died (and dead is dead).

Consistently shying away from these two basic ‘facts’ is helping no one and feeds the growing mental separation that the rest of the world suffers from when they go to a supermarket and buy meat wrapped in plastic.

Whatever the ‘waste’ of the big estates is a drop in the ocean to what goes on in the supply chain to Kentucky Fried chicken, McDonalds or Bernard Matthews, and dead is dead after all. 

So why the big hoo-ha about Shooting and large estates? We’re back to the demonisation of Shooting.

The undercover KFC documentaries are old news now and everyone loves a cheeky Kentucky. But a documentary into Shooting adds the extra ‘class war’ ingredient and that’s the petrol on the bonfire here.  

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Absolutely!

[Scully]

30 minutes ago, Mungler said:

And that is why I left a FB group ‘dedicated’ to game cookery but who wouldn’t allow photos of dead game even when dealing with a cleaned carcass (much as what you’d find in a butchers shop window 25 years ago, or last week in France).

Fundamentally the message is ‘Shooting is quite a normal pursuit that normal people have enjoyed for hundreds of years and if you eat meat something has died (and dead is dead).

Consistently shying away from these two basic ‘facts’ is helping no one and feeds the growing mental separation that the rest of the world suffers from when they go to a supermarket and buy meat wrapped in plastic.

Whatever the ‘waste’ of the big estates is a drop in the ocean to what goes on in the supply chain to Kentucky Fried chicken, McDonalds or Bernard Matthews, and dead is dead after all. 

So why the big hoo-ha about Shooting and large estates? We’re back to the demonisation of Shooting.

The undercover KFC documentaries are old news now and everyone loves a cheeky Kentucky. But a documentary into Shooting adds the extra ‘class war’ ingredient and that’s the petrol on the bonfire here.  

This, this and this. ?

[wymberley]

24 minutes ago, Mungler said:

And that is why I left a FB group ‘dedicated’ to game cookery but who wouldn’t allow photos of dead game even when dealing with a cleaned carcass (much as what you’d find in a butchers shop window 25 years ago, or last week in France).

Fundamentally the message is ‘Shooting is quite a normal pursuit that normal people have enjoyed for hundreds of years and if you eat meat something has died (and dead is dead).

Consistently shying away from these two basic ‘facts’ is helping no one and feeds the growing mental separation that the rest of the world suffers from when they go to a supermarket and buy meat wrapped in plastic.

Whatever the ‘waste’ of the big estates is a drop in the ocean to what goes on in the supply chain to Kentucky Fried chicken, McDonalds or Bernard Matthews, and dead is dead after all. 

So why the big hoo-ha about Shooting and large estates? We’re back to the demonisation of Shooting.

The undercover KFC documentaries are old news now and everyone loves a cheeky Kentucky. But a documentary into Shooting adds the extra ‘class war’ ingredient and that’s the petrol on the bonfire here.  

Absolutely.

With regard to the quoted bit, many years ago WAGBI (yep, that long ago I think) produced a socioeconomic survey of those who shot. Unfortunately I can't find it. However, if I remember correctly (dodgy ground here) my group (skilled workers and some admin types) made up some 40% and a further 20% were made up of less skilled folk. This would reflect that when the remaining groups were counted they were a bit thin on the ground percentage-wise. I would hazard a guess and suggest that the 60% mentioned would have increased proportionately and also that a more current survey would go a long way in putting paid to the class war ingredient that Mungler mentions.

Over to you, BASC et al.

[catchthepigeonmutley]

On 14/01/2018 at 11:47, Mungler said:

Consistently shying away from these two basic ‘facts’ is helping no one and feeds the growing mental separation that the rest of the world suffers from when they go to a supermarket and buy meat wrapped in plastic.

Couldn't agree more.

 

Edited January 15, 2018 by catchthepigeonmutley

[KB1]

On 13/01/2018 at 16:49, scutt said:

SO do you apply this to shepherds , beef farmers poultry farmers etc . all raise animals for the food chain and yes they are killed in a different way but they end up dead .

Apply what?

[scutt]

26 minutes ago, KB1 said:

Apply what?

you said we don't give a ******** about the birds we shoot and kill .Sorry mate but I put a lot of work and evert to keep these birds in good nick before they are killed .