Howletts – 11th January 2014

Arrived at the shoot lodge and looked at my phone to see that Stuart had sent me a text at 6:30 that morning to say he couldn’t make it and that I could shoot that day. Rushed back to Billericay for the gun, stopping on way to let poor Harry have a quick 5 minutes hunt about, seeing as he was going to have to spend the day at home again.

As I walked down Mapletree Lane, looking forward to shooting the alternate drives to usual, I could hear gunshot from the direction of Blackmore village. Just my luck, they had decided today was the day to shoot Joey’s first and Home cover second.

Although I left my leggings and ear defenders at home in the rush,

0 for nil shots on Home from peg 7 – (one of Paranoid’s cigarette butts in one ear and an acorn in the other).
0 for nil on College Wood from hot peg 2 in the woods
2 for 3 from a flooded Gravel Pit, standing at the top of the shit pile track. They added this on as an extra (probably due to the poor college wood drive) and I managed a nice hen bird which received a few prasing comments (a far cry from last week’s poor show and public bollocking)
0 for 0 on Split (after being treated to a Fenton moment by Laurie’s dog, which tore after a few deer that came out of Split)
3 for 4 from last wood drive of day (watched Woodcock fly along just inside woods, gawd knows why I didn’t have a go)

Bag for the day (5 birds for 7 shots)
5 Pheasant