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Horrendous Shoot Day - What Can We Do?


matth12321
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Evening All,

So long story short I organised a shoot day for a team and it was no where near acceptable -

- The bag was supposed to be 150 birds and we didn't even have 30 shots  - one of the guns didn't even fire a shot 
- They had 5 beaters including the keeper who was carrying a gun in the beating line and seemed to have more shooting than us.
- There were no stops or flags and at one point we watched the a number of birds walk through the gun line
- The keeper told us this was the first day to shoot some of the drives but one of the pickers up said they did the same drives on a walked up day the day before

No one tipped the keeper but after talking to the team we would like a refund as the day was nowhere near like described, this has been denied by the shoot is there anything we can do?

TIA
Matt

 

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Sad state of affairs , how on earth can they put on a 150 bird day and the team of guns only had 30 shots and the beating team only consisted of five people  , also I don't think the keeper should be carrying a gun neither .

Maybe there isn't much you can do but I know one or two who would have certainly made it difficult for those who were running the so called shoot unless they got there money back .

How much were you charged for the day ??

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This is not on. Hopefully you have some agreement even if it is only the advert for the day's shoot. Then you need to set out your case for recompense. If they wont pay up then its like every other service failure through the courts. Under 10k then small claims after you have gone through a fair process of pursuing a refund. 

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Name and shame for sure.  Other than the occasional Keepers Day I have never known a Keeper carry a gun in the line. Sounds like you got ripped.  How much did you all pay ?

A sort of standard 150 bird day today with all the normal trimmings is getting close to £500 per gun if not more so we are talking close to four and a half thousand.

The weather has caused some disruption but this does not appear to be the case here. 

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sounds like fraud to me...............was  the keeper carrying a gun to protect himself :lol:

 

the worst ive been turned over was at a keeper organised shoot...and they slipped 20 cold birds in the cart from the previous shoot.....we surrounded him at lunchtime and told him his fortune  and ended up 40 birds over and no overage to pay no tip and a very nasty taste in all our mouths.........

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6 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

A shocking report, I wonder if the shoot has done this before?

They don't appear to be running things properly for their customers.

Unfortunately without the shoot name we can’t know.

We had a 100 bird day in Devon quite a few years ago, by lunch I had not fired a shot and we had 10 birds in the bag for about 20 shots. The keeper then took us to some ponds with some nice friendly duck that he would get up and we can shoot at as well as driving a small wood for pheasant. 8 ducks shot not one pheasant seen. Total bag 20 pheasants and 8 duck. We had only paid a deposit so renegotiated the price for the day that afternoon, which the keeper was not happy about. He had the choice of our price which was fair or nothing. He was going to take us to court but as you can imagine we heard nothing. 

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11 hours ago, Walker570 said:

Name and shame for sure.  Other than the occasional Keepers Day I have never known a Keeper carry a gun in the line. Sounds like you got ripped.  How much did you all pay ?

A sort of standard 150 bird day today with all the normal trimmings is getting close to £500 per gun if not more so we are talking close to four and a half thousand.

The weather has caused some disruption but this does not appear to be the case here. 

No doubt , like you Walker we have seen over the years on shoot days just about everything that can go wrong on the day do go wrong and one or two more we never thought existed and yet I have never known a bag so way off the mark as the one on this thread .

To get a 150 bird day on most shoots you would need more than the six drives on the shoot itself,  , so if for any reason one that was planed couldn't be shot like say the hunt went through it the previous day or some other disaster happened then you would have another drive to fall back on .

The main reason for a bad day is the weather , this you cannot do much about , heavy rain is not nice but you have to grin and bear it , if the guns decide to pack up at dinnertime because the conditions are getting to bad then normally a compromise can be agreed with the keeper or the shooting agent .

I can only remember in at least the last 15 years we have called the shoot off twice at dinnertime , once about four years ago when it rained so hard throughout the morning they gave it till dinner and most of the guns were so cold and wet they said enough was enough and called a day , and the only other time I can remember was through thick fog , again we went through till early dinner and if anything it was worse when the guns came out , that day we shooting Partridges and the fog was that bad you couldn't see the next peg or medium to high Partridges , the guns were then offered another day later in the season if they wanted it .

 

  

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Unfortunately this happens all too often. I had a similar experience when I booked a day for a team of friends in Essex. 

Everything seemed well set up and well run but unfortunately they were a bit short on birds. We are all decent shots, and several of us are keepers so know what 150 bird days look and sound like.          At lunch we quietly counted well under a 100 hanging up then magically one mediocre drive later we had over 150 for a crazy amount of shots. We all knew roughly what we had killed, and they didn't tally up. Would have much been better to be honest with us, and everyone would have left happier and the keeper would have got his tip!

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On 11/11/2019 at 07:53, rimfire4969 said:

Unfortunately without the shoot name we can’t know.

We had a 100 bird day in Devon quite a few years ago, by lunch I had not fired a shot and we had 10 birds in the bag for about 20 shots. The keeper then took us to some ponds with some nice friendly duck that he would get up and we can shoot at as well as driving a small wood for pheasant. 8 ducks shot not one pheasant seen. Total bag 20 pheasants and 8 duck. We had only paid a deposit so renegotiated the price for the day that afternoon, which the keeper was not happy about. He had the choice of our price which was fair or nothing. He was going to take us to court but as you can imagine we heard nothing. 

 

What if the deposit is more than you think the day is worth? 

Lots of shoots are asking for 50% or many 100% up front. 

3 hours ago, kennett said:

Unfortunately this happens all too often. I had a similar experience when I booked a day for a team of friends in Essex. 

Everything seemed well set up and well run but unfortunately they were a bit short on birds. We are all decent shots, and several of us are keepers so know what 150 bird days look and sound like.          At lunch we quietly counted well under a 100 hanging up then magically one mediocre drive later we had over 150 for a crazy amount of shots. We all knew roughly what we had killed, and they didn't tally up. Would have much been better to be honest with us, and everyone would have left happier and the keeper would have got his tip!

 

Did you raise it as an issue?

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10 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

Did you raise it as an issue?

We did suggest that the bag as told didn't quite match our expectations, however he told us we had some sort of fantastic number of shots. We had no way of proving it other than a lot of years experience so left it but showed our feelings through tips.

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Went to a shoot in Gloucestershire last season. Similarly ripped off. 
Only 5-6 beaters present and it was clear very early on that the birds just weren’t there .Supposed to be 150 bird day, but struggled to make 100.No reduction or explanation offered.Just said mention the day was short when you come to re book.Surprise surprise- when it came to this year to book a day, no recollection of the earlier discussion to reduce cost.

I now never book anywhere where they are asking for 100% payment upfront(50% deposit -no problem)

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