The shooting season thread.

Anyone been out and about this year?

Been out today 9 guns, 47 birds of which I accounted for 11. Inc. first left and right at duck.

Musnt grumble. Pheasant curry next week methinks

unfortunately Ive taken on coaching Stoner Jr’s rugby team every Sunday which means not joining the local militia as I usually would. 🙁

my trigger finger is redundant…

But the local militia dont work on Sundays…

clay smashers R us
But it’s the prooving ground for getting invites to game days.

Handed my licence in years ago use to love but always enjoyed working the dog better.

Do you get extra points for bagging anything wearing red trousers and a Barbour?

Just moved to a new spot, so need to get my ear to the ground of the local militia round here. Could still get off to my older stomping grounds, but rather hoping I can find a nice local ‘family’ shoot round here.

Theres quite a few days on the pigeonwatch forum, get cheaper nearer end of season to the point of £100 for a 100 bird day last Jan

Been out a couple of times in the last few weeks inc a very nice day in Anglesey with a mate last week – my cocker wasn’t impressed though as she didn’t appreciate having to sit by me while I shoot!
Got a gun on a shoot in Ruthin for the rest of the season which is nice (half beating and half shooting) – should be going tomorrow but need to put some family time in.

wsiwyg earlier

I’m pretty sure that if I turned up at a shoot, I’d be about as far away from Grum’s photo as you can get.
Ex Swedish Army camo jacket, well worn Howies jeans, Muck Boots, wooly beany…
The townies would have a fit of the vapours… 😀

Just waiting with anticipation for the boar to get in through my gate.

I’m off out, I don’t shoot anymore as I have a knackered shoulder. I beat for 3 local shoots with my crazy Spaniel (they actually don’t want me there just my spaniel)!

There’s an official season for poaching?

my brother in law shoots every weekend. him and his pals have the permission of a load of farmers, who allow them to shoot on their land.

I have a freezer full of pigeon breast, goose breast, rabbit and pheasant.
keep promising to make a nice pie from it all.

It’s been too long for me, 3 years since clays and longer since a game day. Victim of personal budget cuts. It’s wonderful to get out, I enjoy seeing the dogs working, doing what they love and where bred for. Have to get my fix vicariously so keep posting.

@grum plenty of working class people wear tweeds. Trying to portray shooting as all range rovers and a rich mans sport kisses the point that it’s a basic country pursuit, a skill required to work the land and vital revenue for local business. You’ll see plenty of farmers, farm hands doing walk up shoots to control pests.

jambalaya……spot on mate
my bro in law and his pals are council house, working mens club type blokes.
they just like guns, like we like bikes. 8)

It was a reference from the article linked to in this thread:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/how-to-live-in-the-countryside

I was invited on a shoot last weekend, 8 guns, 18 pheasant, a wood pigeon and a couple of hares… Loads of hares this year but I let them run… Sadly the dogs tend to have different ideas. Pheasant pie for me this weekend!

Almost four years since my last kill. 8 pheasants. I’ let my FAC/SGC lapse soon after and haven’t bothered since. I shot for 25 years; airguns, rimfire, LBR and shotgun and then lost interest overnight. Strange. Still – I got back on my bike soon after and lost 50lbs in weight as a result!

Sold my 3 guns and handed my licence in a few years ago now. Used to enjoy the shoots, clays and even kept my own ducks and pheasants.

Bit of a thread hijack here , but I’d like to ask because i live in the south of France where hunting is extremely popular and during each season everyone is allowed in the local forest at the same time and a hunter recently turned and got me in his line of fire because he heard me through his ear defenders as i changed gear, which is a little concerning.
so my question is are all your hunting areas closed expressly for hunting then reopened or is everyone mixed in together including bikes ,horse riders , walkers etc , in the UK.

Anywhere that shooting is taking place here in the UK has any RoW closed while it’s taking place. I believe there is a legal limit on how close shooting can take place to any RoW. There would be very little shooting in forests, except for deer culling, we don’t have the large wild forests with large mammals like boar over here.
Pheasant and grouse are open field, with the birds driven by beaters into the open where the guns can get a good line of fire.
As a result, there is little, if any, risk of people walking, biking, etc, getting anywhere near the guns.
As I understand it, anyway; there may be others on here with more detailed info than I have.

Thanks for that count zero , i do find it disconcerting over here and tend to stay on the wider more visible tracks during the season our forest is very close to large populated areas and hence popular with many people.
Some of the best routes to ride were probably made by hunters in the first place and early this season sections were blocked with homemade obstacles , i personally left well alone but other riders have moved them.
I would much prefer the UK system where designated areas are closed then reopened.
All the animals are farm reared, then released the day before the season starts is this the practice in the UK or is what you shoot genuinely wild?

Pheasants are not native to the UK and although there is now a percentage of ‘wild’ birds their ancestors were all bred for shooting – all pheasants are bred for the shoot.
CZ, pretty sure you can’t shoot near a ROW but we frequently shoot near roads (albeit very small country lanes) – last weekend I was having a nice conversation with a lady and sons, who were over a wall on the road, while I was shooting!

Pheasants are not native to the UK and although there is now a percentage of ‘wild’ birds their ancestors were all bred for shooting – all pheasants are bred for the shoot.
CZ, pretty sure you can’t shoot near a ROW but we frequently shoot near roads (albeit very small country lanes) – last weekend I was having a nice conversation with a lady and sons, who were over a wall on the road, while I was shooting!

Anywhere that shooting is taking place here in the UK has any RoW closed while it’s taking place. I believe there is a legal limit on how close shooting can take place to any RoW. There would be very little shooting in forests, except for deer culling, we don’t have the large wild forests with large mammals like boar over here.
Pheasant and grouse are open field, with the birds driven by beaters into the open where the guns can get a good line of fire.
As a result, there is little, if any, risk of people walking, biking, etc, getting anywhere near the guns.
As I understand it, anyway; there may be others on here with more detailed info than I have.

I was out this afternoon and witnessed someone fire off two shots whilst stood in the centre of the road (small country lane), 10 or 20 yards in front of me. (I’ve passed the same group of people taking shots from the roadside on a few occasions.)

Another time I was out with the dog, strolling through a random field, and the dog ran round a blind corner, straight into the line of fire just as a guy was taking a shot at a pheasant. The dog ran back very quickly that day! Though to be fair, on this occasion we’d wandered off any ROW.

Then there was one time I was commuting to work, when there was some dude stood on the bridleway itself having some early morning target practice. Target out and everything.

In fact I can recall loads of times I’ve encountered people with big guns, and not once has there been any notice of anyone shooting. Aside from the sound of gunshots, of course.

we had our last grouse shoot today 37 brace shot 3 brace myself new personal best of a left and right 8)

no shooting within 50feet of a road with a white line on it, unless that road is on private land and you’ve got the land owners permission… tis the law i believe?

ROW’s aren’t closed around here, the shoot i’m a member of is a military syndicate using military land with bridleways etc going through it, the public still use the land whilst the shoots are on (as do they when the military using using it for training) we always get cyclists, horse riders, dog walkers and joggers either avoiding us or wandering through. (EDIT – if the public do decide to walk into a drive/gun line the drive is stopped until the public are out of the way)

pheasants are put down months before the season starts, normally in pens where they’re fed and watered, protected from foxes and flying predators as best as possible. pens are designed for the safety of the birds, but usually you get members of the public cutting holes in the pens to ‘free’ the birds, all this does is let foxes in 🙁 the pens are built with ‘pop outs’ which allow the pheasants to come and go as they please from the pen without letting predators in.

you can stand on a right of way and shoot if its part of the land you have permission to shoot on.

with regards to public safety.. safety is number 1 priority on shoots, no shots are taken at birds below 45degrees on our shoot, low birds, now matter how tempting they are are left to fly off, guns are always unloaded when the drive isn’t happenning, crossing obstacles etc etc. the shoot captain will throw anybody showing the smallest sign of letting safety lapse off the shoot. all members have a duty to report any unsafe practices.

our syndicate is made up of a real mixed bag from super high up army chaps, accountants, lawyers etc to MOT testers, IT bods and psych nurses. some go for the whole tweed thing, mostly its wearing the most suitable clothes for the situation.

i shot 9 this morning out of 11 shots taken, very happy with that… but for me its the vermin control (rough shooting) the rest of the year that i joined for, every saturday morning, dogs, friends, nature, picnics, pub afterwards. lovely.

I am afraid to say that it’s evident that a large percentage of French hunters behave in an irresponsible way, many signs in the forest are shot to bits and accidents are frequent in fact this year one hunter took his young son out hunting , accidentally shot and killed him and said afterwards i saw something move and thought it was a boar.
On the odd occasion i have spoken to hunters some of them have been under the influence which can be smelt at close range.
I suppose it gives MTBing a little more of an edge for the winter!

Thanks philconsequence i’ts interesting to learn what rules and codes of practice exist.
Their are clubs which exist and i’m sure behave in a responsible way but also we have many individual’s behaving how they want.

and the dog ran round a blind corner, straight into the line of fire just as a guy was taking a shot at a pheasant.

I call bollocks on this because

no shots are taken at birds below 45degrees on our shoot

^ this is standard and true.

Anywhere that shooting is taking place here in the UK has any RoW closed while it’s taking place

Which section of the firearms act or highways act says that?

I call bollocks on this because…

To be fair I didn’t see the shot being taken. What I saw was the bird taking off, from the ground, upon the shot being fired. When I came into view a second later, the guy was stood with the rifle pointing towards where the bird had been on the ground previously, and clearly a bit surprised about the dog being there. (either that or he was pointing it towards the dog!)

You can admire anyone working his dog, flushing, shooting & retrieving. Great empathy betwixt man & dog. Not overly fond of the big commercial driven shoots. I’ve been shot over whilst riding on a bridle way & seen guns shooting down bridle baths in front of me. Thankfully that shoot has been closed down now. relief all round.

keep promising to make a nice pie from it all.

I love to shoot but of all the words above these are the ones that mattered.

I went “hunting” when I lived in Provence. I was invited by a chap called Franc from the village. We walked around for a couple of hours with a 12 bore o/u apiece. There was no sign of quarry. No pigeons, rabbits, crows. Nothing. Franc joked “tous les animaux ont ete abbatus,” but I don’t think it was a joke.

The only thing we shot that afternoon was an old fridge-freezer that had been dumped on the side of a lane.

We went back to his house for a glass of chilled red wine. He poured then proudly opened his freezer door. The freezer was chock full of song thrushes, blackbirds and even smaller songbirds. I wanted to knock the bastard out.

I put down my glass and left. Never spoke to him again.

from what i’ve been told (could well be wrong) the rules are different in france on shooting. apparently most birds are considered fair game, but they can only shoot pigeons for one month a year so they pay big money to come over here and shoot our vermin pigeons.

i prefer it our way, couldn’t shoot a song bird… only shoot to eat, help clear vermin off managed land and clays.

My girlfriend picks up on 2/3 local driven pheasant shoots with her Labrador, one is a syndicate type shoot onrrented ground, the other 2 on large farms/estates owned by semi-toffs.

Her Dad has a gun in one of them. I’m not overly keen on that type of shooting, too stuffy for me, with old fashioned doffing of the cap going on, I don’t think there’s a place for it these days & if I’d paid to shoot anywhere I wouldn’t be bowing to the lord of the manor….

So, to that end, my shooting is restricted to some rough shooting with friends, got some permission on local farms as know most people through young farmers, and mates do work for a lot of farms locally. Hoping to get some more permissions next year and do a bit more.

Had my first day yesterday, 4 guns, 2 spaniels & a sheep dog….

Ended up with a bag of 14 pheasants, so a good result for a few hours out, was a brilliant morning too, enjoy being out as much as the shooting to be honest!

Making pheasant feeders this afternoon………

no shooting within 50feet of a road with a white line on it, unless that road is on private land and you’ve got the land owners permission… tis the law i believe?

Only if doing so causes a nuisance. If it doesn’t cause a nuisance, it’s all good. IIRC

And of course we’re talking shotguns here, FAC weapons are more strictly controlled (due to the multi-mile lethality range as opposed to the shotguns c. 70 yards with a trailing wind).