Bloody hunt!

[Devon Fox]

Today was our first day out, one of our premium drives where we have released about 600 birds was first on the cards, not expecting to shoot many, but more to stir them up a little.

 

When we put them to wood, we spent a couple of days wiring gates to stop our babies wandering, one of the hunt gates was given special treatment as we noticed the birds were congregating there, when feeding we were counting good numbers and they were holding very well, thanks to the boss and his son putting in a lot of hours:good:

 

So today we started out, nothing, maybe 20 to 30 came over the guns, very disappointed as we had expected good numbers, one of the guests said he had seen a lot of birds running through the hunting gate and off into a leek field .......

 

The local hunt were there last weekend, must have come right past the pen, opened the fortified gate and left it flapping in the wind, they have screwed themselves because the owner when we phoned him said they were on a final warning as the last time they came, several gates were left opened and his stock were all over the place.

 

We spent 2/3 hours just trying to dog back what we could.

 

Just such a shame, we all support the hunt, but this has really peed us off.

 

The day was a good crack, only shot 10 birds because of time lost, also the nice sunny day didn’t help the cause, saw plenty of birds, cant wait until they start getting up to the edge of the atmosphere!

[anser2]

Why does this sound so familiar

[bignoel]

our hunts have a person who comes round behind hounds and feild closeing gates repairing fence. sounds like your lot are a lazey bunch .shut them out for a season or two that will open there eye's up.

[al4x]

if you shoot then the hunt should be told to stay away till the end of the season. You simply cannot have a hunt running through woods and covers with gamebirds in and expect to keep them about.

 

Keep feeding well and praying for some hard weather is about all you can do now and cross your fingers

[Devon Fox]

Thanks chaps.

 

We are lucky in that we can cover the ground where the birds have headed, so we have arranged ourselves into pairs to cover some serious dogging in, the hunt are finished on this ground now.

 

Unfortunately, up to now, we havent had a say in whether the hunt came through so we have had to make the best of it and its our best wood/valley, cracking shooting, and we havent had problems with the hunt disturbing the birds, they seem to have accepted the situation in years gone by.

 

The farmer said "they are too posh to close gates!", sadly relations are at an all time low with them now, you would think they would take more care considering the majority of the population do not like them, and we have always supported them and arranged hunt meets and shoots around each other, but alas, no longer!

 

Its sad, the basics of the country code, the unwritten law, close the damn gates!

[sandersj89]

Was that the Eggesford hunt?

[Devon Fox]

Nope, think its the Silverton hunt.

[sandersj89]

Did not think they went out your way so far, but looking at their county looks like they do now, some overlap with the Eggesford.

 

Used to know the master of both but only Eggesford now thougth use Silverton for fallen stock.

 

They used to be pretty good and ran a fence man who doubled up as terrier man.

[Devon Fox]

I am not 100% that it is Silverton, we have several that overlap as its nearer the Exeter border. i will ask tha farmer for sure. whoever they are, they are big time ******.

 

Dont think Eggesford come anywhere near us, we are a good 15-20 miles apart.

[Devon Fox]

Just spoke to the shoot owner, Silverton were the hunt.

 

It has now transpired that a scruffy,miserable farmer up the road (you know the sort,scrap motors in the hedges etc) has started putting feeders out on our boundry.

 

Its all a bit strange, some of scruffy blokes stock broke into our shoot, he must have seen all our pens etc and the wired gate, we are now considering that he may have popped down and opened the gate to poach/encourage our birds!

 

Night time visit to drizzle some burning oil into the feeders will put pay to his game.

Edited November 7, 2008 by Hot-Shot

[Baldrick]

If the hunt won't behave, get the landowner to rescind permission for the hunt to ride across his/her land. If it's a 5,000-acre farm, you'll have made your point.

 

If the open gate is the ***** farmer (one such type adjoins a farm I shoot on), confront him. He's bound to be sailing close to the wind, e.g. over-claiming on Single Payment, running his cars on red diesel. We ended up shutting down the shoot on the 300-acre block adjoining the neighbouring scrote.

Edited November 9, 2008 by Baldrick