Took a wander over Begrums after work and bumped into Colin and Farm Hand cutting the stubbles.
‘Jump In’ he said; so I did.
6 for too many.
Latest
ESGT Novice Test – 15th July 2012
Our first “Working Test” and we managed 8th place out of 25 and a Certificate Of Merit.
Good Lad.
BWA Dog Test at Gore Saltings – 3rd June 2012
First ever test; cacking it. Harry did well though, especially with the two single retrieves over water.
Beaten to BWA Novice 3rd place by Colin.
BWA Photo Set HERE
Harry’s first shooting trip – 25th February 2012
Well, Harry and I have finally been out together with the gun this afternoon. Time to move on from cold game birds to something freshly shot.
Took him over Begrums and we sat together for half an hour in the little copses around the dried pond. Couple of tellings off for making a noise, but otherwise he didn’t fidget too much. As the purpose was to give him a retrieve, I took a rather unsporting shot and dropped a Pigeon that had landed in the trees above us.
He was good and stayed until sent out, had a sniff and a half arsed attempt at picking a couple of times, then tried to have a little hunt around. Recalled him and tried again with the same result. So I brought the bird in, got him to “hold” it for a few seconds and then took bird back out again.
This time he went out and retrieved straight to my hand.
Very pleased with him; good boy.
Bag for the Season (2011-12)
 Driven (41 birds for 101 shots)34 Pheasant 7 Partridge Wildfowling (1 bird for 2 shots) Miscellaneous (64 crustacea for zero shots) |
Limbourne Creek – 4th February 2012
Out on the foreshore again with Colin for our second attempt to shoot Limbourne Creek. Met up just off the A12 again at 6am. The light dusting of snow overnight was snaking around on the road surface behind him as I followed gingerly through the lanes to park up at the farmhouse. We walked across the frozen fields, over the sea wall and onto the marsh.
Directed to my spot, I stepped down onto the ‘sand’ in a little cut where my right leg disappeared past the knee, the ‘sand’ turning out to be sludge. Somehow Colin managed to walk out to the centre of the Creek and drop a couple of Widgeon decoys. Don’t stop moving is apparently the trick. Very little wind meant it didn’t feel too cold over the next hour as I watched Eric trying to make his mind up whether to get some sleep or watch the tide move in to lift the decoys.
Flying with the tide a small, fast duck landed next to Eric’s decoys, but soon realised something was amiss and lifted. Eric missed and so did I but luckily I hit him with my second barrel, leaving Poppy with the muddy retrieve of my first ever Teal.
A little later Colin managed to bag a Pintail, but Eric failed to connect with anything from a team of Teal that flew around the corner and up the Creek after a stir-up shot. Not much else moving around so we decided to call it a day. Walking back across the marsh, a skein of Brent geese flew over and a birdwatcher stopped for a chat and informed me that the bird of prey I’d seen chaced off by a crow was a hen harrier.
Many thanks to Colin, Eric and Poppy for letting me join them to shoot in such a wonderful place.
Bag for the day (1 bird for 2 shots)
Teal 1 (drake)
Howletts Shoot – 1st February 2012
Cock Day
Me – 4 for 15
Paul 1 for 9
Shoot 43 for 178
Howletts Shoot – 28th January 2012
Paul’s turn, 2 for 9.
Pics etc. to follow
Shoot stats. 41 birds and 164 shots.
Howletts Shoot – 21st January 2012
Beaters Day
Words and pics to follow
44 birds for 284 shots
Howletts Shoot – 7th January 2012
Guest day, so all hands to the pump …
As someone had pulled out I was able to invite Terry along and repay him for the two days on his shoot last year. He got to shoot eight drives, whilst I slogged my guts out legging it (literally) from one drive to another. Shouldn’t have as the cheeky bugger shot more on the day than my best day so far this season by putting 14 in the game bag (bad form to out shoot your host Terry ‘don’t cha know’). He made up for it by letting me get pissed in The L.B. afterwards, good lad.
His highlight of the day was “the retrieval of the last Pheasant, which had gone deep underground. The Black lab that pulled it out was lost from sight by all but its tail; great bit of retrieving.” He also mentioned the youngsters being “great lads and a credit to their parents, a really good advert for our passion of shooting.”
Another good day.
133 birds for 364.