hounds from here at feeding time. this is the moor reality · with guests anthony dowson, paul...

countrylife white transparet

MEDIA INFORMATION 2017

54 www.thefield.co.uk THE BEST ON SHOW AT THE FIELD & COUNTRY FAIR, CORNBURY PARK, OXON, 10-12 JUNE

P054_THF_JUN16_APETHORPE.indd 54 27/04/2016 12:32

www.thefield.co.uk 69

and more than 20 pairs of other waders, including curlew, lapwing, oystercatcher, snipe, golden plover and, probably, redshank.

Why is this important? Hill-edge farming and shooting systems face significant eco-nomic, environmental and policy challenges, with issues as far ranging as water and carbon management, wildlife and livestock disease, and the changing nature of predator activity. This zone is known by policymakers and sci-entists as a “squeezed-middle”. It is under-researched and faces politics-driven land reform north of the Border and the sentimen-talism of a public divorced from the land south of it. The core challenge is that too often these “biodiversity-richer” farms are economically unviable and “harder-farmed” properties biodiversity-poor. This problem is likely to increase with government strategies for wood-land expansion and reform of the CAP.

So our priority is to research how to max-imise profitability in such grass-dominated systems but retain and enhance biodiversity. Communication with practitioners through advisory visits and demonstration days will be central to the farm’s activities. It will also host visits from politicians, civil servants and other conservation organisations, showing at a landscape scale the benefits of game manage-ment tools – overwinter feeding of birds; habi-tat provision and management; and proportionate and evidence-led predator con-trol – alongside economic farming.

Our educational activities in Scotland will be expanded to show children, parents and teachers how food and wildlife are produced and supported. As at Allerton, this will be a flagship community project at local and regional level, as well as being of wider, national importance.

The project has hit the ground running. The farmer cluster is particularly interested in pollinators, which fits with our plans for pol-len-rich mixes in game-cover conservation crops. Our neighbours have raised concerns about predation of wading birds and we sus-pect that at Auchnerran ours are thriving partly because of active gamekeeping. So already, the farm is investigating issues famil-iar to farmers up and down the country.

Adding an upland research base to the GWCT’s armoury of projects is a positive wild-life story. There’s much debate about wildlife, farming and shooting but hard evidence and practical knowhow are not so easily come by. Seldom does one have such an opportunity to advance them in the public sphere. This is our positive story. It’s an investment in the future of our landscape and we owe it to ourselves and to Britain’s wildlife to make it happen. John Shields is a trustee of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust.

1. Visit us at Auchnerran farm or at

www.gwct.org.uk/auchnerran to learn

more about the project.

2. Spread the word – this is an essential

project that the whole shooting, farming

and conservation community needs to

get behind.

3. Donate – our benefactor has invested

considerable sums bringing farm

operations up to date but the ongoing

research that is central to the project

needs your support if it is to be a success,

so we are asking everyone to give what

they can. Every donation, small and

large, will be helping put practical,

evidence-led land management at the

forefront of UK conservation.

Above: the farm comprises 20% arable land (left) and holds a flock of 1,500 sheep (right). Below: curlews (left) and hares (right) flourish

HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED

P067_THF_JUL16_GWCT.indd 69 24/05/2016 16:11W W W.TH E F I E LD.CO.U K

63

of those who notice Captain Ross’s achieve-ment in shooting swallows with a pistol have a word to say except of admiration of his marksmanship and ingenuity… but that there was anything reprehensible in killing parent birds in the very act of feeding their young occurred to none.” But the Squire does bal-ance his comment by continuing: “A more pleasing example of his skill with the pistol is mentioned by ‘Nimrod’. A black wafer being stuck on an ordinary playing card backed by a board and set up at 14 yards, Ross hit the wafer 155 times in 300 shots: he missed the card only twice.” (NB: a “wafer” would be little bigger than a postage stamp.)

Meanwhile, the “swallow match” pistols have survived to tell at least a part of the tale. In their original case, they are a pair of .44-bore rifled duelling pistols by John Man-ton & Son of Dover Street, London (no 9131), with London proof. Nicely finished, they are functional rather than elaborate but with fine touches in classic John Manton mode: recessed patent breeches, rollers, v-shaped pans and back-sights. These features sug-gest a date of 1822 or a year or two later. The trigger guards have horn finger-guards but, interestingly, one trigger still has a doe-skin cover that was probably to help with the careful purchase needed for such precise and sensitive shooting. The case has a circular brass escutcheon inscribed “H. Rofs, Esq, July 5th 1825”, recording the date of the match.

A target in the case shows that Keith Neal, no stranger to shooting Mantons, tried his hand at firing the pistols at a similar range but at a stationary six-inch target. He noted that

the pistols could be separately identified: “No. 1 has deep score marks under the side nail. No. 2 has two score marks under the side nail. NB: No. 1 shoots the better.”

Ross went on to shoot competitively at Wimbledon. An outstanding live pigeon shot, he won many competitions, in particular the Red House cup in 1828, shooting over five days against the finest shots from Britain and Ireland at birds released from five traps at 30 yards. This was followed by winning

the Blue Riband, “grassing 76 birds out of 80”. As a rifle shot he captained the Scottish team for the Elcho Shield 11 times, shooting in it eight times, with team members who often included his sons, and in 1862 and 1863 achieving the highest score for Scotland, although by then having entered his sixties. In 1867, he topped this by winning the cup of the Cambridge Long Range Rifle Club, which

extended up to 1,100 yards, an extraordinary test of nerve and eye-sight at the age of 67.

After his wild twenties, Ross had settled in Aberdeenshire where he briefly tried his hand at politics (he served as an MP between 1831-4, first for Aberdeen then Montrose), married, had five sons and focused on family life. His love of stalking was to play a major part and he was a deadly accurate shot at deer. This was something of great impor-tance to him because he would hope never to risk a shot unless he was certain of kill-ing the beast. In his introduction to Macrae’s book he writes: “I cannot accuse myself of having often wounded deer, because I make it a rule never to fire at deer beyond the range of a 150 yards, and then only if I had a good steady view… However well men may shoot at a small mark on a target at a long distance, I venture to implore them to think of the mis-ery and pain they may cause to poor deer for years by reckless shooting.” This was sensi-tive advice, just as Purdey was introducing his express rifle (Ross was not a fan because it encouraged long-range shots). Nonethe-less, his deer-stalking feats were impressive. In 1828 he rented the Fealar estate, near Blair, from the Duke of Atholl and wrote: “I shot 87 deer that season to my own rifle. I worked hard. I was always up at 3am and seldom back to the lodge before 7pm or 8pm, walking, running or crawling all the time.” Twenty-three years later he was still stalking hard: “In 1851 I shot 118 deer in Mar Forest. During that season I killed 13 in one day with 14 chances. In 1837 I killed 75 deer in Suther-landshire. These are my three best seasons.”

Far left: Clinker with Captain Ross up, by John Ferneley senior. Left: the “Swallow Match” duelling pistols. Above: carrying handle inscribed “H Ross Esq July 5th 1825”. Below: W Keith Neal’s shots at 20 yards with Ross’s Swallow Match duellers

P060_THF_JAN17_HORATIO.indd 63 30/11/2016 15:22

www.thefield.co.uk36

Creating a shoot virtually from scratch

involves an enormous amount of dedication

and hard work, so the syndicate decided to

expand the membership to 16 guns, eight to

stand and eight to walk, taking turn about on a

shooting day; in practice, the younger, fitter

members tend to beat to their peers. O’Hare

was elected to the role of shoot captain, Wilson

agreed to take on the task of syndicate secre-

tary and everyone shares the feeding and sea-

sonal workload. Feed areas are fenced to keep

sheep out, cover strips of kale or turnips (vari-

eties that can be used by Alderson to feed his

sheep at the end of the season) planted and the

flight pond dug. The syndicate shoots eight or

nine days through the season and over the 10

years, the bag has risen from 14 grouse, a par-

tridge, 97 pheasants, 11 woodcock and a couple

of snipe in the 2003/4 season to 48 grouse, 19

partridges, 212 pheasants, 21 woodcock, one

snipe and 16 duck in 2007/8. Five years later,

the bag had built to 435 head, the emphasis on

quality rather than quantity.

Most of the members live locally and the

syndicate is very much part of the community,

starting every shoot day with guns and beaters

gathering for breakfast at the Bay Horse Inn,

in Great Broughton, where I joined them at

9am on 7 December last year. The Bay Horse

has become the unofficial shoot clubhouse,

hosting syndicate meetings, shoot teas and the

end-of-season dinner as well as the breakfasts.

Landlord and landlady Simon and Trudy

Howard served all 20 of us with such military

precision that we were fed and into position at

Broughton Banks by 10. The walking guns

and beaters were Alan Petch, Stewart

Husband, Nicky Tyerman, Simon Staples,

Stan Fowler, Paul Ryan, Adam Robinson,

James Harland and Alan Jackson, plus the

only woman on the team, Jenny Freeman, a

dental nurse during the week and an energetic

flanker on shoot days. O’Hare, with his cocker

spaniel, Ruby, and labrador, Ralph, was pick-

ing-up behind the standing guns, who

included syndicate members Eric Wilson,

Dave Oddy, Hugh Thomas, Simon Dyson, Pete

Ryder, John Padgett and Godfrey Chapman,

with guests Anthony Dowson, Paul McInnes

and myself. I do not normally shoot when

commissioned to write a report but the syndi-

cate insisted and Padgett made the supreme

sacrifice, kindly giving up his gun to me.

It was a glorious, crisp, December day and

the weather was perfect; enough cloud cover

to take the glare off the bright, wintry sunshine

and a light south-easterly wind to give birds a

bit of extra momentum. The first drive,

Warren, was out of the old, natural woodland

of oak, ash, hawthorn and blackthorn, with a

stand of Scots pine above, growing on the steep

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Godfrey Chapman (above); James Harland and

Anthony Dowson (below) with some of the

quality, hard-flying pheasants the guns faced

Sally the clumber

(above); Nicky

Tyerman; and Hugh

Thomas (below)

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“So, you’re all here,” he boomed, in an accent

that seemed a blitzed-up mix of Scouse,

Scottish and north. “Excellent, we can eat.”

Over breakfast and a haggis refuelling, we

made a book on the Macnabbers’ chances.

William Parry, ex-cavalry, ex-right-hand man

for Jackie Stewart, founder of the Wessex Wild

Plum Company – 4/1. Richard Duncan, spon-

sorship and partnership manager for Land

Rover, youthful, handy with rod – 7/1. Daryl

Greatrex, MD of Holland & Holland, very

useful with gun and rifle, less so with rod – 9/1.

Tom Lewis, owner of gaff and therefore inside

knowledge, 3/1. Paul Graham, decent shot, no

known fishing form, 33/1. Nick James, head

boy of Pol Roger Champagne and with enough

shooting and fishing experience to make Lord

Ripon look amateurish – 2/1 favourite.

We split the runners into three teams, with

one heading for the hills the following day, the

other to the silvery (actually brownish) Tay,

the teams to swap rods for firearms at noon.

Generally, Scottish salmon catches were

disappointing in 2014 and so we set forth with

more hope than expectation. After an hour’s

hard driving and a medley of some of the worst

Eighties disco hits we arrived at the Luncarty

beat of the lower Tay, where she elbows herself

through a collection of small houses of the sort

harbouring gnomes and called “Dunroamin”.

There we met our gillies, John McCallum, who

won individual gold in the 2008 Common-

wealth Fly Fishing Championships, Morris

Meikle and Jimmy Chin, who announced he

was “just there to make the tea” but neverthe-

less carried a forest of spinning rods rigged

with Flying Condoms, Bouncing Bettys and

enough heavy metal to make Black Sabbath

take up the harpsichord in sheer chagrin.

Chin’s chin was lifted. “Yesterday this part

of the river produced 40 fish, with 100 being

taken from the Tay as a whole. So there’s every

chance of a salmon,” he said as two rods

boarded his boat while the other two started

fishing the opposite bank. It was 9.15am and

fish were showing all down the beat. “It was a

fair bit colder last night,” said McCallum. “That

makes the cock fish realise it’s time to spawn

and makes them more aggressive and willing

to take.” Sound travels better in water and

somewhere in the Tay’s depths a fish was

prompted. There was a bellow of triumph, a

splash of net, a flash of silver. Tom Lewis, who’d

never caught a salmon, had one on his second

chuck. Thirty minutes later Daryl Greatrex fol-

lowed suit. For two of the party, the least ex-

perienced fishermen, the Macnab was on.

Above: just one more grouse and then we really

must go home. Right: Tay for two. The previous

day that part of the river had yielded 40 fish

PDFQDE�MDQ��LQGG��

46 www.thefield.co.uk

Bristol, watching the drab, Midlands land-scape pass by, I pictured myself donning a stripy blazer, chucking a hamper in the back of the Jag and, with a throaty roar, scarf flying in the wind, speeding off to the river to have my first experience of fishing bamboo.

It wasn’t quite like that.Rawson and Perrin met me at Bristol

Parkway in Perrin’s day car, a Volvo. “No, you don’t need do anything,” he said, watching me nervously as I tried to lever open the tailgate to load in my stuff. “Just press this button here, look, and it does it itself.” It did as well.

They fish a seven-mile stretch of the Little Avon, which runs through the vale of Berkeley in South Gloucestershire. They are members of the 100-strong syndicate there. The fishing begins in front of the castle and runs down as far as the kennels of the Berkeley Hunt. It’s not as exclusive as it sounds, costing them about £50 a year.

As we park up beside an old pack-horse bridge, Perrin tells me that you can hear the

hounds from here at feeding time. This is the oldest pack of foxhounds in the country and there was a time when they could run all the way to Berkeley Square in London. They’ve had their wings clipped a bit since then but still have 6,000 acres of the Vale to go at, which is still a fair run out.

As we tackle up, Rawson hands me my rod for the day. It is a 6ft 8in #4 with a mortised butt section. Other than looking rather beauti-ful, this thickening of the butt stiffens the action, making it faster and less of a shock to those, like me, who are used to carbon. It had been flamed to darken the natural honey colour of the cane and was balanced with a Rawson & Perrin click-and-pawl reel. The set-up was simple and elegant.

The river was not quite the southern chalk-stream with well-manicured bankside where I had envisaged first casting cane. The Little Avon is a deep cut, narrow channel, over-grown with alder and willow. We’d had days of rain and the slow flow looked coloured and

Above: Rawson & Perrin cane rods and a click-and-pawl reel. Below: fishing the Little Avon

P044_THF_MAY16_FISHINGANDCARS.indd 46 06/04/2016 09:37

THE FIELD COMMENT


Driven grouse-moor management needs to move with the times, says the Moorland Association chairman, Robert Benson

Moor realityAL

AMY

years moor owners along with NE and peat partnerships have blocked thousands of kilo-metres of these hill grips and revegetation of hundreds of hectares of peat is ongoing. “Cool” burning of heather, which does not damage the peat or the moss, provides a mosaic of habitat for all moorland birds and is vital in the control of what would otherwise become a massive fuel load with a high wildfire risk.

We accept that some old management regimes have to move with the times, that re-wetting of peatland and introduction of sphag-num moss is key on deep peat where it is missing and that moor managers have to em-brace other outcomes as well as driven grouse.

Others have to accept that without this management for grouse, these moorland areas cherished by millions of open-access visitors would be much the poorer, as has happened in the Berwyn Hills of North Wales. In the late Nineties, the last 10 moors stopped manage-ment. The keepers disappeared and there was a very significant decline in moorland birds. GWCT research shows that between 1985 and 2002 lapwings became virtually extinct, golden plover declined by 90%, curlew by 79%, ring ouzel by 80% and black grouse by 78%. It is no surprise that hen harriers, like other ground-nesting birds particularly prone to fox predation, also declined by 49%.

We must strive for a representative assem-blage of birds of prey on a landscape scale. Not every moor will have suitable habitat for every species but it is possible across neighbouring moorland managed for grouse. We want to see more hen harriers nesting on grouse moors and seek a management tool that guards against their colonial nesting.

All this is possible so long as driven grouse-shooting continues on a sensible scale. A few walked-up days will not provide the revenue to pay for the management. Passionate owners together with their dedicated, knowledgeable keepers form a tremendous force for conser-vation and improvement of these moorlands. They invest very largely their resources year in, year out – and continue to do so even when their whole shooting season is cancelled.

SOME of the worst weather in living memory in parts of the north dealt a cruel blow to grouse and other moor-

land-nesting birds. In early May through into late June it was very cold and wet, with frost and even snow on the higher ground. Hen grouse in some areas were not in prime con-dition for nesting due to heather that was very late to green up and cotton grass that did not appear. The combination of these factors, and no insect life for those chicks that did hatch, was disastrous and the survival rate was very poor on the high, wet and westerly moors.

The more easterly, lower and drier moors have fared better and reasonable days are being enjoyed by owners, their guests or teams of paying guns.

This season gives us a timely reminder that the grouse is a wild bird unique to the UK and that its breeding success is very much in the hands of many elements we cannot control. It is this that should make the allure of grouse so special for moor owners, managers and guns.

A series of good years has been described as the “golden age of grouse”. In 2014 grouse numbers had returned to pre-war figures largely on the back of a new generation of land-owners picking up the reins of their family estates along with new owners investing in new techniques. Advances in management methods, better equipment and an increased labour force have helped make this possible. But they have also started to build an expect-ation of a good season with big days every year.

Medicated grit has been a wonderful tool but it must be used wisely and only when nec-essary. Monitoring of the worm burden is essential. Given everything in their favour, wild red grouse will reproduce remarkably well and in years when this happens, it is important that numbers are reduced to the carrying capacity of the moor for the winter and this may necessitate some large days sometimes involving expert teams of guns. We need to identify the optimal grouse population per moor and must not seek to intensify man-agement to keep pace with an ever-increasing density of grouse. Chasing records will not

help to win support for driven grouse and can lead to bad decisions for other wildlife.

Driven grouse-moor management brings huge benefits to the uplands, their economy and biodiversity. This is recognised by other stakeholders and where more can be done, change is underway. The Moorland Association is working hard with Natural England (NE), in particular, to try and ensure that these areas of the uplands deliver the other socioeconomic and environmental outcomes identified. The challenge is to manage red grouse numbers to provide a consistent and reliable resource for driven shooting while delivering improved function of the peat, leading to better capture of carbon and improved water quality. Better biodiversity, driven grouse and grazing are other outcomes agreed by the stakeholders.

Draining of the uplands was carried out after the war with 100% government grant for agricultural production. Over the past 20

Medicated grit has been a wonderful tool but it must be used only when necessary

P007_THF_OCT15_COMMENT.indd 7 01/09/2015 17:43

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“So, you’re all here,” he boomed, in an accent

that seemed a blitzed-up mix of Scouse,

Scottish and north. “Excellent, we can eat.”

Over breakfast and a haggis refuelling, we

made a book on the Macnabbers’ chances.

William Parry, ex-cavalry, ex-right-hand man

for Jackie Stewart, founder of the Wessex Wild

Plum Company – 4/1. Richard Duncan, spon-

sorship and partnership manager for Land

Rover, youthful, handy with rod – 7/1. Daryl

Greatrex, MD of Holland & Holland, very

useful with gun and rifle, less so with rod – 9/1.

Tom Lewis, owner of gaff and therefore inside

knowledge, 3/1. Paul Graham, decent shot, no

known fishing form, 33/1. Nick James, head

boy of Pol Roger Champagne and with enough

shooting and fishing experience to make Lord

Ripon look amateurish – 2/1 favourite.

We split the runners into three teams, with

one heading for the hills the following day, the

other to the silvery (actually brownish) Tay,

the teams to swap rods for firearms at noon.

Generally, Scottish salmon catches were

disappointing in 2014 and so we set forth with

more hope than expectation. After an hour’s

hard driving and a medley of some of the worst

Eighties disco hits we arrived at the Luncarty

beat of the lower Tay, where she elbows herself

through a collection of small houses of the sort

harbouring gnomes and called “Dunroamin”.

There we met our gillies, John McCallum, who

won individual gold in the 2008 Common-

wealth Fly Fishing Championships, Morris

Meikle and Jimmy Chin, who announced he

was “just there to make the tea” but neverthe-

less carried a forest of spinning rods rigged

with Flying Condoms, Bouncing Bettys and

enough heavy metal to make Black Sabbath

take up the harpsichord in sheer chagrin.

Chin’s chin was lifted. “Yesterday this part

of the river produced 40 fish, with 100 being

taken from the Tay as a whole. So there’s every

chance of a salmon,” he said as two rods

boarded his boat while the other two started

fishing the opposite bank. It was 9.15am and

fish were showing all down the beat. “It was a

fair bit colder last night,” said McCallum. “That

makes the cock fish realise it’s time to spawn

and makes them more aggressive and willing

to take.” Sound travels better in water and

somewhere in the Tay’s depths a fish was

prompted. There was a bellow of triumph, a

splash of net, a flash of silver. Tom Lewis, who’d

never caught a salmon, had one on his second

chuck. Thirty minutes later Daryl Greatrex fol-

lowed suit. For two of the party, the least ex-

perienced fishermen, the Macnab was on.

Above: just one more grouse and then we really

must go home. Right: Tay for two. The previous

day that part of the river had yielded 40 fish

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Editor: Jonathan Young

Circulation: 25,910 (ABC Jan - Dec 14)

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He and his gamekeeper, Peter Bell (about to celebrate a quarter century of continuous ser-vice), have turned the shoot into a gem. When we visited last October there was a strong westerly wind adding a curl to birds that were already daunting.

For the first drive, Corries, the guns stood in a deep valley facing a young hilltop conifer plantation. Livestock farmer Simon Clark, his fingers stained blue by sheep dip, was on peg six flanked by Athens-based Nicolos Moschos and Yorkshire-based Vanessa Evans. Using his grandfather’s EM Reilly side-by-side, Clark made light work of the racing, dropping pheasants. The drive began slowly but soon wave after wave of Kansas-cross pheasants was crossing a frantically busy line.

The second drive, Triangle, really high-lighted Bell’s skill at showing birds, his discip-lined beaters producing a steady trickle of pheasants and partridges over the entire line.

Anna Vainer despatched bird after bird with elegance and style, living up to her repu-tation as a steady shot. Ably assisted by loader Rob Moscrop, a teacher from Longridge Towers School (attended by the Vainers’ two children), she bagged about a dozen birds, all of which were marked by her whimper- ing blue Border terrier, Spencer. “He’s not cold or unhappy,” she assured us, “He’s just not normal. He sounds miserable because he hates being tethered during the drive. He loves retrieving birds and has a mouth as soft as any spaniel.”

By now the weather, always threatening, had become unpleasant, the fine mist of driz-zle turning into sheeting rain. “On a day like this, you really need guttering,” quipped

crumpling a storming 80ft partridge look effortless. He’d remain on his shooting stick between shots while he scanned the horizon, then rise unhurriedly to nail a bird on the beak.

To his left was Nicolos Apostolopoulus, whose daughter is married to Walgate’s son-in-law’s brother, so is “family” through marriage. “In Greece there is no such thing as formal, driven-bird-shooting,” Apostolopoulus said. “We only really walk-up birds and there is no real structure to the day. Pheasant-shooting in Britain is as good as it gets and a real highlight of our season. We usually spend the winter in the UK catching up with family and making the most of the opportunity to wear proper tweeds,” he explained, wiping the raindrops from his shooting glasses.

Andrea Shelley as she tugged at her smart new Holland & Holland waxed cape. The four female guns regularly shoot together all over the country. “Unlike some all-male teams, we don’t put any pressure on each other – we are just out to have fun and enjoy each other’s com-pany,” she said as she loaded her Brown ing Midas. Along with her husband, Andrew, she runs Thimbleby estate in North Yorkshire, which has a strong reputation for the excel-lence of its grouse- and covert-shooting

We were thankful that warmth and eleven-ses beckoned in the shelter of one of Walgate’s cowsheds. Beef consommé topped up with sweet sherry, accompanied by sausages hot from a Thermos, provided sustenance before Vainer handed round a couple of dark choco-late slabs the size of an iPad to share between guns and beaters. To the party’s relief, Walgate decided to shoot through rather than stopping for lunch. “When it is as wet as this, it’s not fair on the guns, beaters or birds to shoot late. Plus, the clocks changed yesterday, so we will lose an hour of daylight this afternoon. Getting every-body motivated to go back outside once they’ve started to dry out and been warmed up by the fire is never an easy task,” he said before usher-ing the guns back towards the vehicles.

Remarkably, the penultimate drive, known as the Dams, equalled the previous one in terms of bird presentation. On peg seven was octogenarian Rob Anderson, a lifelong shot. Leaving every bird but the very tallest, he made

Left: Sharon Simpson. Above left: Vanessa Evans. Right: Anna Vainer, who had been given a day for four guns as a birthday present by her unavoidably absent diamond-dealer husband

P049_THF_DEC15_CORSEHOPE.indd 51 30/10/2015 14:52

OWNERSHIP/INVESTMENT

• 98% reader households participate in shooting

• Households own on average 5 guns

• 76% of readers own a dog

Source: Time Inc. reader survey ‘14

www.thefi eld.co.uk

and it makes it a bit more challenging, so you do get a bit of added satisfaction. Not that this drive needs to be made any more challenging; it’s one of the best on the estate. I shoot here two or three times a year, not just because it’s local but also because it is so friendly – and, of course, the quality of the shooting is great.”As we made our way back to the house for tea, we agreed that we had had a wonderful day but, if forced to be honest, we had to admit that the birds had won. Of course, this is just what Swaithe wants to hear. From Didbury, near Ludlow, he has been at Buildwas for fi ve years. “Developing the shoot has been a con-tinuing thing,” he explained. “Even though the estate had once been laid out for shooting, the woodland had been left untouched for a long time, and getting that back under control is one of the major efforts. We still have long-term plans for where we need to keep thinning the woods out and also making better roosts for the pheasants, and all sorts of other elements. We have a dozen drives at the moment and we are in the process of developing new ones. Today, for example, the second drive was af-fected by the low sun, so it would be good to have a bit more fl exibility. And, of course, we

want to get all the drives to the standard of our top drives. We need to clear better flushing points and improve the positioning of the guns. Those stands on Oak Rafts have worked so well that it has made us think more about how we can be imaginative with positioning. That drive still needs a bit of work, though – I think we could open the canopy out a bit more.”

With the end of the season in prospect, Swaithe was obviously planning a busy sum-mer: “We want to increase the size of some of the release pens, improve the habitat, and have some new drives for next season. We are get-ting to know the warm places that the birds like, so we’ll plant some larch to create roost-ing areas that will stay warm in the winter. I’ll be putting down Kansas-cross birds again, as they are very good at coming back.”That’s perhaps just as well on this particu-lar shoot, as so many of those birds cruise by unscathed, above the line.

Let days are occasionally available at Buildwas Park and accommodation can be organised. Call the owner, Richard Perkins, on 01283 221323 or 01283 215195 or email [email protected]. The website is www.buildwaspark.co.uk.

39GIVE THE FIELD MAGAZINE THIS CHRISTMAS. VISIT WWW.MAGAZINESDIRECT.COM/BYY5

Standing behind the line at Traps One we cheered ironically when a bird hit the ground

David Kempster had a satisfying day, killing the highest cock bird in a fl ush

P036_THF_JAN16_BUILDWAS.indd 39

20/11/2015 11:48

2017 FEATURES LIST

DATE FEATURE COPY DEADLINE ON SALE

Feb Sport abroad 19 Dec 19 Jan

Mar Conservation 26 Jan 16 Feb

Apr Sporting dogs 24 Feb 16 Mar

May Wild food / fi shing 30 Mar 20 Apr

Jun Top shots / Top kit 26 Apr 18 May

Jul Game Fair issue 24 May 15 Jun

Aug Grouse 29 Jun 20 Jul

Sep Gundogs / stalking 27 Jul 17 Aug

Oct Partridge / clothing 31 Aug 21 Sep

Nov Pheasant / Christmas presents 24 Sep 19 Oct

Dec Christmas 24 Oct 16 Nov

Jan TBA 26 Nov 14 Dec

TESTIMONIAL“We have been successfully advertising in The Field for decades. As a magazine, it o� ers

interesting content on all matters countryside with a seductive wit and incomparable

insights into fi eldsports. It gives us, as a brand, that extra credibility when advertising

our lessons, courses and gun room as Jonathan Young, the Editor, would never include

anything that he had not tried and tested or truly believed in himself. We believe it to be

an eminent magazine in its fi eld and each copy is read by many!”

Jo Chauveau, West London Shooting School

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76

example: I was recently fishing the Exe in Devon. We had caught nothing all day as the sun was out and glittering down the pools. Also, sadly, there was a distinct lack of fish in that river in 2015. I wasn’t really concentrat-ing, just casting automatically and letting the fly take its natural course. I was watching the sand martins as they flickered over the water and wondering when they would depart. Suddenly the world went still. The sand mar-tins no longer existed, the birds were silent and everything around me took on a dream-like quality. Nothing seemed to have changed in the conditions and yet I knew that within the next couple of casts there was a taking salmon. All my senses told me so. My instincts were as sensitive as a butterfly’s antenna and I looked at the river with complete con-centration. I cast and nothing happened but I was still in a trance-like state. I cast again and the line tightened just as I had known it would. Sometimes I have had this feeling and yet have failed to catch; yet I am certain that there was a taking fish there. Why it didn’t take I can’t possibly say; probably I messed up the cast, used the wrong fly or presented it too fast and yet I am sure that my instincts have been correct.

AN ODD PRESCIENCEI can give no logical or scientific reason for this “feeling”. It just happens sometimes and mostly it proves itself right. Perhaps there has been the smallest and subtlest change of light or barometric pressure; maybe we can even smell the difference. I don’t know. But something has turned the fish “on” and this transmits to the experienced countryman and he knows that he’s in with a good chance.

My friend Hugh Falkus talked about it in his books, Sea Trout Fishing and Salmon Fishing. “Recently,” he wrote, “this odd prescience has become more and more pronounced, espe-cially after long, quiet periods when nothing has been moving.” He pointed out that it manifested itself with a sudden tingling of the senses, that somewhere close by was a taking fish. In Falkus’s case it was a “tingling of the senses”; in mine, the world takes on a dream-like quality but both are the same, primordial instinct. The Editor has experienced it, too. “It’s not just in fishing,” he told me. “When rough-shooting I am acutely aware of where my companion is on the other side of the covert or hedge, even though I cannot see or hear him.”

There are also times when I am certain that the day and the river are dead. There is no chance of catching a salmon and it would be sensible to go to the lodge or the pub for a large drink. But I am not trance-like with this

up and find out. We haven’t got one of those eggs.” And so I climbed up the straight trunk, which was like a ship’s mast but with foot-holds, and, sure enough, as I reached the nest the hen sparrowhawk flew out allowing me to collect an egg, put it in my mouth for safety and scramble down again.

I tell these true tales of the long-tailed tits’ and the sparrowhawk’s nests to demonstrate that Jonny possessed the country “sight” from an early age and, also, in knowing that the old squirrels’ drey had been put to another use, he was a true and knowledgeable countryman.

Jonny always seemed to have an uncanny instinct for country things. He was only 10 years old when these incidents took place but he already knew the ways of animals, birds and fish. We cast our lines together all the time, and roughly in the same places, whether it were for salmon or trout, pike or chub, and always Jonny did better than I. The reason was simple: there is, I am sure, a sense that goes back to the beginnings of the human race, which is our hunter-gatherer instinct. This has been largely lost through the centuries but in certain people who have lived all their lives close to nature and have spent a great deal of time either fishing or rough-shooting, this sense, feeling, sight, call it what you will, is still there in abundance. Jonny had it from a very early age and, because he was my close friend, he sometimes shared it with me.

One year we were fishing that most north-ern of Scottish spate rivers, the Dionard. We came to Heather Point. “There’s a taking fish

He was only 10 but he already knew the ways of animals, birds and fish

in that run at the head of the pool, Mike,” he informed me generously, after he had caught three himself and I had not even hooked one. “It’s just where the fast water begins to slow down.” Sure enough, when I cast in the spot he had indicated the line almost immediately went tight.

As the years have gone by, I have devel-oped this “sight” myself. I’ll give you an

Above: a young lad developing an understanding of fly-fishing and the landscape with his father. Below: a long-tailed tit returns to its nest with lining material

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P075_THF_JAN17_COUNTRYSIGHT.indd 76 28/11/2016 14:47

35www.thefi eld.co.uk

FLIES BY NIGHTFor those who would like to spend a

night beside a river, Fishing Breaks offers

two-day/one-night fi sh camps on

chalkstreams in Hampshire and Wiltshire.

Prices start from £250 for small groups

and families from June to August. For

details, call 01264 781988 or go to

www.fi shingbreaks.co.uk.

Simon Cooper’s Life of a Chalkstream,

published in paperback by William Collins,

is available from Amazon and all good

bookshops, RRP: £10.

These gliding, wraith-like birds are anglers’

nocturnal companions as they criss-cross the

land in search of fi eld mice. I am fascinated by

how they work; graceful, sublime and effort-

less in fl ight, their beauty belies a deadly pur-

pose. They pause mid-fl ight, drop out of the

sky, then reappear a moment later with a

mewling mouse between their talons, which

they silence by squeezing the life out of it.

In the river that never sleeps the undoubted

monarchs of the night are the otters. They are

often described as shy but in the dark and in

the habitat of their choosing they are bold and

unabashed. Long before you see them you will

hear them. Otters have no qualms about

announcing their presence, calling to each

other with high-pitched squeals that resemble

a form of mammalian triangulation. Sit still on

the bank and they will pretty much ignore you

as they cavort, dive and swim in what appears

to be nothing more than exuberance. Otters

will travel miles and miles in a night staking

out their territory, and they certainly waste a

huge amount of energy doing it. Occasionally

they will get serious, gathering in a pool to

hunt, diving and re-diving, surfacing each

time with a rasping cough as they refi ll their

lungs until, eventually, one whiskered head

appears with an eel, fish or crayfish. Eating

prey is a brutal affair done at speed.

Dragged on to the bank, skin, bones and

shell are torn, crunched and swallowed

accompanied by a disturbing sound that

you will be glad to hear end as the otters

pour themselves back into the river,

heading off to their daytime holt.

With the otters gone, there is a def-

inite pause in the predawn ritual. The

denizens of the night have headed home,

leaving a smooth river and dew-damp

meadows shrouded in a light mist. The

silence and stillness is pervasive, almost

comforting, until it is broken by a gentle

slurping sound from the reeds. If it weren’t for

the preceding silence you’d never catch this

sound but locate its source and you’ll see a tiny,

shiny grey/black serpent-like head emerge

beside a reed stem. It is an eel, patiently wait-

ing for a damselfl y nymph to crawl up the reed

to hatch in the fresh air. But the latter’s effort

will be in vain. As the nymph strains to push

through the surface tension, the eel will casu-

ally suck in his morning meal.

And so, as the sun rises the day shift returns

and the familiar order of life on the river

resumes. Yet, somehow, no matter how great

the day that follows, the magic of the night will

stay with you for an awful lot longer.

The Avon takes on a mythical quality gliding

through Salisbury, Wiltshire, as daylight fades

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www.thefield.co.ukGIVE THE FIELD MAGAZINE THIS CHRISTMAS. VISIT WWW.MAGAZINESDIRECT.COM/BYY5

Clumbers were originally introduced from France by the second Duke of Newcastle at Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire in the late 18th century. They are noted for being able to work steadily in dense undergrowth, they can be strong swimmers and all have pink noses. Although their early history is sketchy, their voice suggests their forebears may have in-cluded basset hounds, Alpine spaniels and even St Bernards. Historically, the clumber has been favoured by royalty, including Prince Albert, Edward VII and George V. Today they may be found in the homes of the Princess Royal, their society president, who has two at Gatcombe; Lord and Lady Egremont at Petworth; and at Hatfield House, home to the Marquess of Salisbury, so something of their royal and aristocratic attraction remains.

But the guns and beaters assembled at the granary at Firle Place for a four- drive day are bound not by royalty but an unswerving love for the breed. Still, it is hard to escape the notion that owning a clumber is like being a member of the Bentley Owners Club or at a gathering of those who have competed in the Cresta Run.Graham Tweed, CEO of Kronch dog foods, has come with his one-year-old clumber, Dexter, who has his own Facebook page with 18,500 friends. “There is something very spe-cial about owning a clumber. They are cer-tainly not run of the mill,” says Tweed.Then there are Debbie and John Zurick, the latter immaculate in his Purdey keeper’s tweed, breeders of clumbers and mainstays of

Clockwise from far left: Chris Patterson with Firle; Maddie retrieving a hen bird; Chris Raper with Boots; and Debbie and John Zurick with Ziggy and Zeus

Boris, Bolt, Boots, Max, Betsy and Ash

Graham Tweed with one-year-old Dexter of Facebook fame

P038_THF_NOV15_CLUMBER.indd 40

24/09/2015 17:05

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hounds from here at feeding time. this is the moor reality · with guests anthony dowson, paul...

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