Howletts – 26th January 2013

Paul’s last official shoot day, but as before half guns could shoot as walking guns. After beating the Pine Trees I took my gun out of the slip as we walked College Wood through, but hinting at how my day would progress, I didn’t see a bird. Walked over to to see how Paul had got on and his beaming smile told me it had been a great drive and hanging from his hand was the reason, a lovely Woodcock. It was his first and we spent a few minutes admiring it before he slipped it carefully into his coat pocket; there was no question of it being hung on the game cart.

Well after lunch I was regretting coughing up my thirty quid. Even after Dave put me on a peg during Red Gate to replace Peter who had left early, I still hadn’t fired a shot. By the time we had finished the usual last drive the day’s bag was so low they abandoned having walking guns, blaming it on poor beating and us all staring skywards.

Luckily they added an extra drive to up the numbers, so I got to shoot from a peg again. We lined up from near Brenda’s along the back edge of Woodcock Pen, whereupon Joe, Mick and Nick started having a pop at the pigeons moving about as the wood was walked in from three sides. A Woodcock flew along the line from the left and Paul had a pop. He missed with his first shot and as it past over me, we both fired hitting the bird. It flew down and landed in the direction of the oncoming beaters.

As they got near at little terrier called Buster was running wild flushing pheasants, one of which flew straight over me and I dropped it. The chasing Buster ran over and preceeded to chomp on it, causing Dave to steam in and scare him off. The beaters were nearly on top of us when they flushed the hit Woodcock which flew a little way dropping down again near to Mick who picked it. I took a leaf out of Paul’s book and didn’t let the bird out of my sight.

So I ended with a Woodcock (probably a shared bird with Paul) and a cock Pheasant.

Bag for the day (2 birds for 2 shots)
1 Pheasant
1 Woodcock