Bag numbers

[jef]

We're struggling to find our birds this year, and all our neighbouring shoots are feeling the same. We've only shot two of our four days so far and numbers are way down on last year. Even when out feeding or walking the dog I don't see many pheasants in the fields "scratching" about. We get a lot of woodcock into our woods and they make up for the lack of pheasants. We also tried two new pens which are maybe less successful than we hoped. Anyone else finding the same?? We only release 200 birds as do the majority of the surrounding shoots.

 

Jef

[David BASC]

The shoot I beat on has been established for 5 years, we put down 1200 birds, shoot about 12 days and expect bags of around 50 – which we typically get plus or minus 15.

 

This year in particular we have seen the birds moving about on our land more than usual – so some areas at the weekend were practically devoid of birds, but other areas that are usually less productive had plenty of birds.

 

I always think that it is best to put your pen in the very middle of the shoot – or as close a to the middle as possible, and feed the birds out, and then beat them back – and never beat / push birds away from the pen and this could encourage them to keep wandering further afield.

 

Keep the pens well fed & watered, and plenty of cover, after all this is ‘home’ for the birds so should be the most attractive habitat for the birds on your shoot, so they will want to keep coming back

 

Here are some tips from BASC gamekeepers about stopping birds from wandering:

 

http://www.basc.org.uk/content/keepers_tips_on__stopping

 

Odd though that others in your area are reporting low numbers- is there a big poaching or predator problem in your area?

 

David

[KennyB]

same down this way for us anyway jef, the numbers are well down this year, 2500 put down only 42 this sat just not about,

 

kenny

[Millomite]

Ours are well up on last year, had our record ever bag and one very close to that

[McF]

Ours is only a small shoot we only do half days, we put 600 birds down and 75 duck this season, upto now we have had 4 out of 9 days and shot 99 pheasant & 25 duck.

But have heard from other shoots that there numbers are either down or up on last season, ours so far is about normal.

Edited December 22, 2008 by McF

[CharlieT]

We are showing very good numbers of birds although they have had the wanderlust this year and have needed more dogging in compared with past years.

[Sprinter]

A shoot that i am a syndicate member on is having it's best year ever. However one i help out on is struggling a lot.

[richie76]

then next farm on from the horse field i shoot breeds pheasants, i normally see loads roaming about on the side of the road and neighboring fields, this year especially i can drive past without seeing one at times

[jef]

I've actually gone through my game book this morning and it doesn't look as bad as I first thought. However I'm just not seeing the birds about and I'm not holding out much luck for our remaining two shoots. Hopefully, being winter, we will actually get some hard weather

 

Jef

[proTOM1]

both shoots that i run are well up this year on patridge but are down on pheasant and on duck down but only just .

One shoot put down 750 patridges and with 2 shoots left have shot 580 so am well pleased