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.

Another Day They Cannot Take From Us

Well the best day so far, everything seemed just right and boy was it. The Ducks got up well.

Then for me the best bit of the day, although they could not be shot due to them flying over the boundary, a covey of about 12 English Gentleman, dressed for Ascot, the redlegs are great sport but unlike the English they will never make it into the Royal enclosure. On the same drive some good pheasants taken as well.

We moved up to the small valley drive next and once again the partridge showed beautifully this time a covey of 18 or so redlegs, but once again being light on guns we could not take full advantage.

At this the poorer end of the shoot we have used straw bales with a super food mix in, we do not think it a coincidence that the birds showed so well we feel we may have hit things right with feed and the way we now make the birds take the feed.

The 11 acre cover crop produced two excellent High pheasants for Andrew who took them well and even more partridge pushes out of cover, this is the sort of day we could have done with being over subscribed as we are for the next two shoots, then all pegs would have been manned.

After lunch it was to the ghylls, the wind had built up by this time the dogs as usual were doing a sterling job, a single pheasant came down the line and I have to say it came at quite a lick with the wind behind it, I missed but Mike took it superbly, the ghylls produced some lovely birds and when the winds up you have to be on the ball.

This is the game cart just before I had to leave, and in my best east end barrow boy accent, don't you go looking for the quantity, you jus look at the quality of dem there birds luv.



Reported back to since the shoot the snipe field was a corker, in an earlier post I mentioned about the dingly dell pegs, Mike pulled off two fantastic snap shots, and it should not go unnoticed the shots that John pulled out of the bag, each and every shot, each and every bird taken were memorable for all, if we can repeat this over the remaining shoots we will have done our jobs well.

A marvelous day, bring on the next.

Up to his neck in it

Well almost, Friday night last Captain of Shoot, Haystack and Silage decided to go and feed up, this in the pitch black down a steep embankment on to boggy ground, you can guess what happens can you not dear reader.

Captain of Shoot has a Dr Foster moment, steps into a puddle right up to his middle, as a gentleman I would have saved dear old CofS, but dear reader I was not there.

The saving as it was, was left to Haystack and Silage (Laurel & Hardy would have been proud), a comedy of errors neither wanting to get too close in case they sank, CofS sinking ever deeper as he still had a bag of feed on his shoulder pleading with the lads to help him, I am pleased to report that CofS was evetually pulled free minus his wellies.

As I was not there the need to be gentlemanly was not so pressing and it is only now that I have stopped laughing that I can tell you the story.

Tomorrow shoot 3 report, from supafeeds to super shot, and quality birds, Until tomorrow then dear reader.

Another Day They Cannot Take From Us

My apologies dear reader, I am somewhat late with my second report. It was a foggy day to say the least though the ducks done us proud once again.

We have refined a couple of the drives after the first shoot, we had some extra beaters, Mrs farmers Wife and Number One Daughter of Mine, they worked like Trojans a special well done to them.

Mrs Captain of Shoot also joined us, she is hoping to be a regular gun all of these ladies most certainly made for interesting conversation at lunch time, no stories of big game hunts from Teddy and Ozzy when they were boy soldiers in the Crimea, none of the exploits of Haystack. But things had to stop when scatter cushions were mentioned for the lunch hut.

There are always within lunch huts across the country higher levels of topics that we gentlemen guns attend to, most recently how stupid the video ref was at the rugby world cup, how much better arsenal are than chelsea, the price of wheat and/or barley and is it not about time that the countryside organizations forget the egos and get together under one organisation to speak up for all country pursuits.




All in all a rather good day.

A Rusty Coloured Devil

At last it has been spotted an old wiley dog fox. Haystack and Silage have been dispatched to deal with it.

We have had quite a number of Partridge taken, hopefully a couple of stints should see this devil packed straight back to hell.

Another Day They Cannot Take From Us

I almost started with " what a Glorious sight", I realised of course that that would be really stretching it.



From L to R we have Teddy, Les, Mike, Alastair, Haystack the Keeper, Captain of Shoot and Steve, noticeable absentees Myself taking the pics and Andrew who was at the back of the Land rover doing I know not what, I had thought he had raced off to bag himself a good position for the ducks.

Other absentees, Ozzie get well soon, Silage who is back at college, John hard at work, Conor at school & Ollie in Saudi they will we hope all join us soon, and jolly good it will be to see them.

The day was mild, a shame as we had had some nice cold mornings leading up to the shoot, but to the ducks, we had an unexpected disturbance that put up the 250 plus duck before we were in position with the dogs. What an awesome sight, each and every duck flew well and high. We were to say the least surprised just how quickly they got up to shootable height, especially first time out in previous seasons they have started quite low and throughout the season got higher quicker, not this lot. As always we limited the amount of duck to three per person or when Captain of shoot feels enough and blows the whistle for the end of the drive. We will, at a couple of shoots flight in the ducks as we have at least 70 birds from previous seasons, it also makes things a bit more interesting.

The next couple of drives, due to the very mild weather, produced a couple of birds a piece though the dogs, Tim (lab) Hector (GSP) Ben & Rosie (Springers) worked well, it was also the first time all the dogs had worked together, that in itself is always worth watching. If this little lot could not find a bird they were not in there.

To the old barn for lunch, the banter dear reader is not for gentle ears.

After lunch it was a walk and a half for Andrew and myself, all the way down to the dingly dell amongst the pixie houses, as you can see from the picture an ideal spot for pixies and high birds, Andrew is getting ready. This is part of a much bigger drive taking in the snipe field (see map).



The picture is a bit deceiving as the time you get to shoot is no time at all, but any bird you drop you feel is good shot, as the foliage drops from the trees pegs 4 & 5 will be much sort after.

Again our last two drives in the cover crop produced little today, given a few frosty mornings we will see change, but for this little merry band that is what it is all about dear reader, not the size of the bag (27 today), but the variety, duck, partridge, pheasant, snipe and rabbit, it is the variety of the weather and of nature itself, we know we will have good days we know we will have not so good days, because with the company we keep and the little bit of the countryside we have, we cannot have a bad day.

Something for the young 'uns

This next drive we call The Ghylls I have hidden 3 pheasents in the picture, it is just something for our youngest shots to do whilst Dads read the blog.

So Haystack, Silage and Conn first one to find all the pheasents wins a prize from Captain of Shoot.

Another Drive

It seems that some of the drives lend themselves to artisic interpretation and some just do not. This one is Bottom End Drive, it is one of the two failed crops so we have to hope for the best.

The Farmer may have helped us out though, due to the price of wheat & corn, he has decided to grow his own (hopefully enough for us aswell).

He has used an adjacent field to sow the crop, if we lose out a bit on pheasent we may gain on pidgeon.

Raising the bar

After No1 son of mine decided to ridicule my previous effort of drawing the drives on computer, I have upped my game for the Small Valley Drive sketched in all its glory.

Worse is to come for Captain of Shoot, No1 Son of Mine commented on seeing original paper drawings I see captain of Shoot has had his crayons out.

The little whippersnapper has some horrible jobs to do next he is on the shoot.

A mixed bag

OK I admit it trying to do drives one by one was somewhat time consuming, so you can have the whole lot in one go. Feel free to come up with better names for the Drives.

OUR SHOOT

I will have to nominate Captain of Shoot for beater of the year, for two years him and his dog have more or less beat single handed, plus the work he puts in every Sunday, we keep up a feeding regime through out the year I think he deserves recognition.

Still plenty to do before our first shoot on the 8th Oct, but we will take a breather on the 6th for a pre season dinner to say thank you to Wives and Partners.

Two concerns 'Bottom end and Cover crop drives' both have failed crops due to the bad weather earlier in the year we have worked hard to make sure what is there is keeping the birds, so far it appears to be working, let's hope it continues.

The Dogs no longer come with us on a Sunday, but it wont be long before they get going, I'm pretty sure they are as much looking forward to the season as we are.

What to do

Sunday just gone was quite an important day on the shoot, it was the day we decided where the drives were, how we will bring on the birds to the guns and where best to place them.

This is always a good day as your anticipation levels rise tenfold, you just know 'not long now'.

Our first drive of the day is always the ducks, two ponds have been created in a valley, reeds between the two. I will at this point tell you dear reader, that this shoot has come about through one man, Captain of Shoot has created what the rest of us guns enjoy.

The 450 odd acres we shoot over have been a labour of love for the dear old Captain and a great job he has made of it. The farmer and his wife to are wonderful people who have allowed us this privilege The hardest part is for guns 7 - 10 as they need to get behind the ponds without disturbing the duck. The thing that is not seen in the sketch is the different heights and the distance the guns will be apart.

Below a rough sketch of the drive



We managed five of the drives all now pegged out, this year we can pick and choose the drives we do, this is a first for us, it appears that it is to be my job to rough sketch all the drives, so I will be having to choose some imaginative names over the next few weeks.

Please leave your suggestions in the comments.

It's a start

Welcome, it has taken nearly four years but at last, a blog about our shoot. Plenty has gone on, in those years but I aim to start from this season. Perhaps one of the most important jobs has now been started!!

The sloe gin for Boxing Day.


I should out of politeness introduce myself, I am Vice-Captain of Shoot, along with Captain of Shoot, Haystack the keeper and Silage the under keeper, we make up the working & feeding party of 'Our Shoot'.

Over the coming year and beyond you dear reader shall hear more of us and the Guns both regular and passing that join us on those very special Mondays.
You will come to know, in particular the shoot reports as they will be titled 'Another Day They Can't Take From Us', you will find that we have strong opinions about our sport and those that would destroy our enjoyment.
But enough for now, I shall post as often as I can and recall some of the trials and tribulations of 'Our Shoot' and the fun of it all.