Well nearly there

Haystack the shoot pin up, with his bird

Only a short time to go and it will be our first shoot of the new season, everything is in place.

Captain of Shoot and Haystack the Gamekeeper were up at the farm tonight to feed up before Monday.

Do not forget our little get together at the Duke of York, Fir Tree from 1930hrs onwards on Saturday 04/10/08, a couple of drinks, a catch up with old friends before our season starts, Girlfriends, Boyfriends, wives, Husbands or lovers welcome, it is after all nice to say thank you to those who allow us this small pleasure in life.

Very much hope to see you on Saturday, but if not Monday is a must.

Every little helps

We should not forget those who every now and again come up and do some work with us on the shoot, especially those who do not enjoy the shoot days themselves either because they are too young and/or at school; here is a couple of them on poult day.

Grace with her new best friend

Rhiannon who has done a days beating last October half term, though no such luck this year as the school holidays do not fall on a shoot day

And we should not forget the old hands, Haystak the gamekeep and Captain of Shoot being suprvised

Plus all of the others, Conor,Teddy,Karl,John,Mike and Ollie, a big thank you.

What have we been up to

Since the end of last season the usual repairs and making good have been going on, we have continued to feed up in the hope of keeping last years birds that got away hanging around.

The cover crops have gone in, our small cover crop has failed us again, just not enough nutrients in the soil, quite simply we require shit and lime.

Johns cover crop has fared much better and should give us some good high birds. The picture below has been taken at the lower end of the field, the guns will be standing along the fence line which is basically at the edge of the wheat field, the birds (we hope) will be flying above the guns at quite a speed.

The poults are in the pens and doing well considering the weather, we have lost a few as the rains have been constant and the ground saturated, it appears for the moment we are beating the predators.

Getting the pens ready





The pens now with added poults

Snow, Snow and a bit More Snow

These pictures just about some up January.

The snow though very picturesque was a bit too heavy for a good days shooting.

Keepers day was ruined due to the blizzard conditions.

Rumors abound that this year we will have a dry and cold winter, nice if it happens.

XMAS & ALL THAT

December came along for the author dear reader it was quite a month, lost the xmas turkey (still haven't found the blighter) ended up having to cook a three bird roast after raiding the freezer and finding a goose, chicken and pheasent.

If any of the youngsters spot the turkey, you will shout out wont you.



Well apart from the fact you now know I lost the christmas dinner, Boxing day was another matter altogether. we had had some snow during the month the tempeture dropped and this bought in the woodcock i think we have good habitat for woodcock, unfortunately with warmer winters we are not seeing as many as we should. I shot one on Boxing day, an extra swig and toast to this wonderful little bird ensued at the end of the drive. the day as a whole went well and a nicer way to walk off Xmas dinner, I cannot think of.


The author having a pop





Habitat which should be ideal for woodcock

What about the real workers

Well most certainly Tim(Lab) Hector(GSP) have done an amazing amount of work this season, Tim ran it on his own last season and it is Boris's (by process of elimination, the Springer) first season.

Through the season we have had Ben & Rosie two more Springers, Tess the collie and on odd occasions others, we still do not have enough dogs to get into every nook and cranny, but those that we do have done us proud.

November

Well, NTL/VIRGIN ruined my old account when they upgraded my download speed, only the so and so's did not tell me I would lose my account, there are several words to explain what I think of them dear reader but that is not for today, for today we have transferred everything across from the old blog onto the new and can carry on with what is important, namely shooting.

November turned out to be quite a funny month weather wise up here in the North, we had one day where the rain was relentless, perhaps the worse day in several years, in shooting terms the day produced some good birds, it really was the weather that spoilt that particular day.

We had high winds which produced two of the best shots I have seenboth from the barrles of Mike (pictured) Rosie and Ben (The Dogs in the picture) may appear to be looking the wrong way but such was the wind the birds were gone before you knew it, which made the shots even more special.

The duck have got up well all season and with high winds a 10 - 12 foot lead was the order of the day to down these birds.

We went for some straw spread in certain areas with some super dupa feed mix so as to make the birds work for there food and hoping to keep the birds from wandering to far and before the rains really kicked in they worked very well and we will no doubt continue with this next season.

So that was November, but here are some more photo's of the shoot, unfortunately the woods in the pictures are not ours to shoot, I am sure you can imagine the battle we have keeping the birds where we want them.