Last day for syndicate this season

[Scully]

Was really looking forward to this as due to one thing or another I have missed all but our first day back in November, but managed the last, this weekend just gone. 
At this time of year our syndicate days can just be a long dog walk really, with most guns going home with clean barrels, but over the last few seasons we have treated it as more of a rough shoot than a driven, and it seems to work well, it’s certainly more enjoyable. 
Called at the village cafe/restaurant for a latte and drove the mile or so to our meeting place. After grabbing all my gear and optimistically shoving 25 cartridges into my waistcoat pocket I wandered up to the new shoot hut. It’s not new, it’s a small old barn with no doors, but the roof is sound and it’s out of the wind, and the keeper ( retired haulier ) has kitted it out with straw bale seats and a fairly level table made from pallets with conifer logs for legs. It’s snug and cosy when all the guns and dogs are in there and the hip flasks are being passed around. 
It was good to meet up with everyone again after what seemed a long time, and to catch up with everyone’s news, swapped our respective covid experiences over the festive season and generally had the craic. 
The previous shoot to this one had bagged 11, and so the sweep choices reflected this, although it was pointed out that most of the syndicate guns and beaters had covid at that time, so there was a depleted number of dogs also. 
Anyhow, I put down 15 and after much muttering and light hearted accusations of subsidising foreign holidays and new cars when the keeper informed us subs were going up next season due to the increased cost of wheat, we set off. 

It had been decided we wouldn’t draw pegs, and do most of the drives in reverse, with almost all the guns standing as we had a good supply of beaters and dogs, and I found myself at the pointed lower end of a gulley with instructions ( and a sly wink ) from the keeper NOT to shoot towards the farm. As we stood chatting a hen took flight in the distance and I closed my gun as it headed for me. It was a fast moving bird by the time it got in range and quartered over me, and folded up to my shot and landed some distance behind us to be retrieved by the keepers dog. Big smiles all round, and apart from hearing a few shots and spotting five pheasants flying over the farm, nothing more came my way. At the horn I slipped my gun, jumped in the keepers motor and drove it up the hill to join the others. We had bagged four birds. 
The next drive in which I was beating, consisted of only a handful of unseen shots and was fruitless apart from a missed cock with both barrels right at the drives end. 
Was stood facing a thinned out cold wood on next drive, and started to put my gun up to a woodcock before realising it was out of range, which jinked along the hedgerows and didn’t bother when a cock clattered through the foliage at no more than head height. Mate on my left missed a cock with both barrels, and another shot a woodcock with his second barrel before the horn was blown. 
I was placed on the corner of a wood at a point of which is, earlier in the season, a very hot peg, but as **** law would have it, not one bird came in my direction. 🙂

Lunch back in the barn. A single malt the former ( he died late last year ) landowners friend who made an annual appearance as a guest, brought as a gift last shoot, was passed around, washed down with coffee brought by a gun who has a mobile coffee van; pork pies, sausage rolls and a liberal supply of Nigella and Tomato chilli preserve all made for a leisurely lunch, and then the struggle back outside on cold stiffened limbs where I had a bit play with a mates gorgeous SO 2. As I’ve said many a time, I’m not a Beretta fan, but I would dearly love this shotgun. It has stunning wood, a good palm swell, a Monte Carlo stock, trap fore-end and the colour case hardening is glorious. To top it all he had it Teagued just before the pandemic, and it is a simply wonderful piece of engineering. Annoyingly it came up bang on the button. So many guns, so little time. 
Next I was stood at the short end of a large ‘L’ formed by two woods, and after being stood there for some time and beginning to think everyone had gone home, heard the weird whooping and a hollering of beaters. I saw a walking gun drop a very nice bird at distance, then the gun to my left killed a nice bird with his second barrel, the gun on my left missed a bird, then I connected with a cock heading towards me. Even though it stalled I thought it may fly on so gave it a second barrel and it thumped into the grass behind me. I missed a woodcock with both barrels, let a Jay be as it did that strange undulating flight from the wood over a dry stone wall, and that was it. 
I was walking gun on the final drive, where the only shootable bird to come my way was a distant hen which was killed with a second barrel, and that was that. 
I picked it and happily joined the others as they gathered all birds and after hanging them in the shed, the final head count was 19 pheasant and 2 woodcock, the latter both given to a gun who transforms them into pate. 

We all congregated later that night at the village cafe/restaurant for our annual end of season dinner, where glasses were raised to those no longer with us, lots of food eaten and drink drunk, and the keeper told us we had a return of 175 birds, which works out at exactly 50%. 
I have sometimes pondered leaving this syndicate for another where I would get a lot more shooting each drive ( for a lot more money obviously ) and have actually shot on it several times, but I don’t think I could, and am sure I would come to regret such a move. I have grown to cherish the people on this shoot; I have known them for many many years now, we’ve laughed together, and at times cried together, and they are simply some of the nicest people I’ve met. We just get on so well,  even the odd plonker ( every shoot has one ) doesn’t spoil my enjoyment or happiness at just spending time with such people. We’re a small well gelled crew; even the owner of the cafe/restaurant, his wife and son, take time to come beating when they have the time, and we just have a good laid back relaxed laugh in each others company. If I left I doubt I’d see them that often, and I’d miss that. 

 

Edited January 24, 2022 by Scully

[WalkedUp]

50% return is very impressive, excellent work and great write up. We need just 6 pheasant to hit 30% return which will be our best season. But we have no neighbouring shoots to trade escapees with. 

More important to enjoy spending time with the people you shoot with than shoot more birds. Stick do not twist. 

[enfieldspares]

Yes. 50% is very very good.

[JDog]

Good report Scully. It was good that you were fit enough to enjoy the day.

I have come to realise that it is the company which makes the day. In the past I used to be invited as a ‘hired gun’ but usually I knew no more than a couple of the others and the shooting was an exercise in filling the bag. I gave that up some time ago.

[steveshoots]

what a nice write up Ed

good reading and at times shooting is not always about killing loads of birds a good walk around and having a laugh with mates is what it's about at times.

[Walker570]

A lot more to a days shooting than just killing things Scully. Sounds like they are a good bunch to stay with.

Am I getting old or do the seasons seem to get shorter?

[Weihrauch17]

Excellent write up and well done, 50% with the mild winter we have had is amazing unless you are surrounded by other shoots.

[jeffgg]

Another good write up. Its not so much what you are shooting at but whom your shooting with.

[Scully]

Thanks all. You’re all right of course, a day out isn’t just about the bag size. 

[London Best]

Just now, Scully said:

Thanks all. You’re all right of course, a day out isn’t just about the bag size. 

Very true. Nothing could matter less. 
Good write up again. Thanks.