Tomorrow

[shambolic]

First day of this years pheasant shoot!
Looking forward to it, so are the dogs!!
Some snaps from last season to get in the mood.

[shambolic]

LiamB said:

Lovely looking pair of dogs!

The gun isn't bad either..

Here are our little hunters, 2 Patterdales and a Lurcher

Lovely dogs!
Patterdales quite rare now and expensive!

[shambolic]

Ps 2 guns. One is a Winchester, the other is a beretta.
I don't shoot that often as I normally beat and pick up as I prefer working the dogs instead.
Most of my shooting is off season vermin control,(foxes, crows etc) occasional duck shooting and also some roe deer on the shoot.
Tbh I just love being outdoors for a day and have been brought up fishing and shooting since I was a toddler.

[shambolic]

Bitofbully said:

Munter said:

There is something wrong with people who think: Oh it's getting colder. Lets spend more time stood still outside, shooting animals for fun

Corrected.

I love that arguement that don't see the 12 months of conservation and work on the land, planting trees, shrubs, setting up feeders, keeping down predator numbers, which encourages songbirds and other wildlife.
Yes we shoot birds, but ours is a small syndicate where we buy in poults but also raise birds from scratch, on s good season we shoot 40% of total birds(out of 1500).
And yes it is fun but everything on our shoot is ate. If its badly shot and not fit for us then it will be fed to the dogs.

[shambolic]

LiamB said:

Lovely photos

I'll stop now

Dont I love dogs!
My two are already boincing( although in bed now) as they seen us getting gear ready for tomorrow. In the morning they will be bouncing off the kennel walls.
They just seem to know when it's a shoot day and totally love it.
You need to see a gun dog doing its job to see joy!

[shambolic]

shoebag said:

There is something wrong with people who find it "fun" to kill an animal. This forum is about loving animals not kiling them.

Ok then!
Better trade in my car for a Prius then FFS.

[shambolic]

boy said:

Not so sure about that. Although yes shooting is fun, and yes I'm a memebr of the BASC.

As the OP has already mentioned the anti shooting people don't seem to be interested in how much work goes into cultivating the landscape and monitoring /controlling predators such that the birds have cover and the poults arent taken by foxes etc. As an aside lots of other wildlife also benefits from this. Game shooting is actually very diffrent to poultry farming and any comparisons are not really valid in my opinion. On a driven shoot a small percentage of birds aren't killed out right, these are despatached in a humaine method once retrieved if required.

The shoot I work ones a small syndicate where the whole day is more than just about shooting birds, the guns all have a good lunch, a bit of banter and a good walk in the fresh air.
Anyway the dogs had a great 8 hour work out with Glen having two nice retrieves.
On the whole everyone had a cracking day.
Ps "only" 50 pheasants shot.
I dont agree with massive 200-300 bird days, ours is a lot smaller and all birds are used for our or dogs consumption.

Pps on average only 38-45% of total birds put down are shot
On our land we now have Black cock back which haven't bred there for over 20 years, and loads of other small song birds that the RSPB say are dieing out in other areas are now thriving due to our land management.

[shambolic]

On the tweed thing, I think you will find I wear tweed breeks as they are just about the best hard woven material for the walking through gorse and whin bushes.
More function over style.
Don't own a tweed jacket, just decent gore tex technical gear or a proper waxed Barbour. Again function over style. My wife does own a tweed jacket that she wears on shooting days but on a beating day she wears rough as gear the same as the rest of us.
Ps she is a fully paid up member of the RSPB and sees the benefits to the bloody hard work we all put in to the land every week.

[shambolic]

And as someone kindly said earlier I get more enjoyment of the whole experience of my dogs hunting, flushing and then retrieving the game that is shot. I probably get 10 times the enjoyment of my dog finding a shot bird in heavy cover than the actual shooting of it TBH.
Oh and the dogs totally and absolutely love their shooting day and go berserk on the morning of a shoot with excitement.
So I'm more into watching the fruition of months and months of hard work training my dogs (what they are bred for)) and the enjoyment they get from it too.

[shambolic]

Our pheasant pens are absolutely massive in fact both are a couple of acres in size with plenty of shelters, feeders and water.

[shambolic]

Simpo Two said:

Got to feel sorry for the OP really. His happy thread turned into a unresolvable punch-up.

Now here's a thought. People who shoot don't try to make non-shooters go out and shoot things. So why do non-shooters try to make everybody into non-shooters? Sometimes I think that as a nation we are too busy minding other people's business. Live and let live (OK bad choice of words but you get the point)

I had a great day and so did my dogs. The pheasants, not so much!

[shambolic]

Simpo Two said:

Okey doke:

Edited by Simpo Two on Friday 19th October 22:09

Loving your work
Lol