Chinese Water Deer: A tale of hunting hubris, or is that being hunted by hubris?

The idyllic nature of this shot can never show the sheer agony my butt cheeks were in after a couple of hours sitting on the bare metal slats that had once supported the seat

There's two trophies: a full freezer and a great tale. Ticked those two off, nearly got the other kind too. Nearly. Pull up a log, warm your hands by the fire, pour yourself a tin mug of scotch, this one has to be the most SBW hunting saga yet

Long term readers will remember the blogger known as Shooter and his Mountain Lion hunt. In the intervening years his kids have grown up a bit and he's moved to the country. Back in touch I was delighted to accept his invitation to a walked up day which I'll tell you about later, obviously we agree to catch up next time I'm in the area.

The ACL [who features in a few of the more recent tales] and I had made the journey to the fenlands, a hundred miles north east of London, for Shooter’s walked up birds, we'd got chatting to the gamekeepers; they'd shown us some pictures of substantial Red Deer, we'd seen some bloody deep slots left behind by some even bigger deer, and listened to their tales of many many Chinese Water Deer seen on the thermal scope while Foxing. These are the closing weeks of the season. With a much needed freezer top-up on our minds before we sack most stalking off until the big boys are back in season on the first of August. We eere both keen as mustard to get out there

Having been the victim of the curse of the Bushwacker- where I invite you stalking, shoot two deer and miss a third while every deer you see will be siluetted against a farm house or scared off by a dog walker, the ACL had booked us in for a couple of stalks so he was inviting me Prudent

My favourite Russian saying : we wanted it to be different, it happened just the same

The usual early start, the usual delays for all the usual reasons, [misplaced firearms certificate, wrong socks, only one boot] then once on tbe road it’s the usual realisations that the usual X,Y and Z had been left behind. That exhilarating feeling of the open road, the frustration of rounding the corner into a slow moving morass of traffic, the inevitable phone call to announce our arrival would be significantly delayed and the surreptitious roadside consumption of banned foodstuffs

Fortunately the ACL is excellent company and has been avidly following the war in Ukraine and so knows all kinds of great stuff about it. that soaked up a couple of hours and we found our way to Shooter's place. Only driving past it twice

Shooter, the long suffering Mrs Shooter and all the little Shooters are all in fine fettle. The new house is perfect for playing Tom and Barbara The menagerie has expanded to include rare chickens, peacocks and goats have been ordered. Theres even a puddle rather optimistically being called the pond

Where as the ACL,has one rifle per task, all rare and charismatic, Shooter has a vast collection of rifles all as horrible as i remember them being. On the other hand his shotgun cabinet is as glamorous as a weekend at Downtown Abby and he’s the only person i know with ore than one 10 bore shotgun

After a hearty and sustaining lunch and some trading over a .410 we set off to meet the keepers

Norfolk is pretty big and pretty flat the fields are punctuated by drainage dithlches the locals call sewers. Great banks of rushes line the sewers. You can really see how a deer with water in its name would be at home here. The road kill count suggests there are lots of them. Every 200m there's another dead deer by the side of the road

Chinese water deer are natives of the Yangtze flood plain and Korea. They were introduced to Woburn Park, Bedfordshire, in 1896, and Whipsnade Zoo in 1929-30. I’ve not tracked down why they were deliberately released into surrounding woodlands from 1901 onwards, but that release is often sighted as the start of their spread. Since then there have been numerous releases, translocations, and escapes. Adapting to live in gardens, deciduous woodland, grassland, arable land as well as their native wetlands, coastal & marshland,

A small, even compact deer, a pale fawn colour, with large rounded ears and button-like black eyes. The Bucks are antlerless, but have moody long tusk-like canines.
A bit taller, and paler than muntjac, lacking that hump-backed look. They look more like a mini roe deer.
Between 82-106 cm long with a tail length 2.5-9 cm tails and about 42-65 cm at the shoulder Males weigh 12-18.5 kg; females 14-17.4 kg. Some study’s show them living to at least six years old.
As the name Water deer would suggest they seem to prefer wetlands adjoining woodland and fen, though they often range onto nearby farmland where they will feed in the open. They are most evident in the Norfolk Broads and the coastal wetlands. Although a feral, uncontained, population in the grounds of Whipsnade park inhabits parkland and dry woodland, with no wetland available.feeding mostly around dawn and dusk, on weeds, grasses, herbs and some browse. Although they often feed in arable fields, they seem to be eating weeds rather than crops.

The keepers drop me off and I walk to my highseat, wish I’d noticed what I noticed later. I climb up to find that the seat is missing, tentatively I settle onto the slats that once held the seat arse rest. For a while I manage to space out and even doze a little, but the sheer agony brings me back I roll my jacket up and that alleviate a some of it now I’m cold This is clearly what Buddhism refers to as the sheer unsatisfactoriness of existence Some very encouraging barking is coming from the reeds behind me to pass some time I spend a while twisted round looking into the standing reds and willing something to wander out what looks at first sight to be a car gliders silently past, a human head pops up , it’s the roof of a boat

Meanwhile at the other end of the field The ACL has found his highseat knee deep in water and looking precarious so he sets up shop in the hedgerow a while passes, a couple of Hares bounce past, a Fallow doe rocks up, spooked by something behind ACL. Weary of this life she sets herself down within range and waits to be shot, ever the gentleman stalker ACL decides it’s somehow outside of the pact between hunter and prey to shoot while they are both seated, not used to being ignored she waits a while and then ups sticks and toddles off in search of someone who will release her from the wheel of earthly suffering

Meanwhile back at the SBW end of things three deer have ventured out of the reeds if they turn left they’ll at the only buildings in the neighbourhood. I’m willing at them, trying to lure them in my my Jedi powers it’s actually working ….

ACL feels a bustle in his hedgerows and a little CWD saunters into range having got all his nerves out of the way with the Doe ACL turns theory into practice, pops his cherry and her right through the shoulder. Text book

His story proves something of an interruption to mine. There’s a fizzing whoosh from his moderator, the posse of three deer disappear. Spooked deer usually run them pause to add whatever scared them to the database, if they check and it’s looking like a false alarm they often resume their previous behaviour. I’m promising Artemis the earth and everything on it, for once she delivers and the three of them come back down their unseen camino towards me The X from the X Yz of left at home were my posh binos, the short comings of the Bushnells the ever cost conscious Shooter has lent me are becoming clear, but that’s the only thing that is, I resort to spotting through the scope the Deer’s on the right is wearing some pretty impressive mandibles

The balancing act: wait but don’t let chances evaporate while waiting for better chances

The bolt of the SR30!acts as the safety catch, by some kind of German engineering voodoo it snicks forward into battery without a sound our boy turns slightly to look up hill and catches one in the pocket behind his front leg the 120gr S&B blue takes the top off his heart and purées his lungs we are both unaware of this development and he takes off like South Side D’s Porsche for the first time in my life I’m completely invested in the trophy, they usually stagger and die, i e only ever had one run off into the last light and hail of a Scottish hillside I can’t bear to risk it he’s arcing back towards the reeds, he breaks stride and gets another one, staggers a bit and lies down twitching the other two are watching Muntjac doe points herself towards the reeds, the buck presents a shot, jumps to the bullet and legs it too. If it’s in the Reed bed that’s all she wrote the light is dying and the keepers and a dog are a long way off

A long time ago someone who gave me a rifle lesson told me he’d spent a summer reading the accounts of deer stalking written by army officers in the late 1940’s and 50’who brought the concept of Roe stalking home from Germany. smoking wouldn’t be bad for you for years, so smokes were a unit of time ‘Shoot the deer, then smoke a cigarette before going to look’

I’m still worried the Muntjac will have made it to the reed bed. I’ve not walked 25 meters before I find him must’ve pulled the shot a little, bullet entered third rib mashed things up a bit and destroyed the off side shoulder from the inside. Dead is still dead



Finally. The Money Pit a Heym SR30 in 6.5CM doing the job I've always believed it was born to do.

Ive just taken the picture above when suddenly it hits me, a wave of illation the joy of not having to hear my own whining as i look for my much fettled Lapua cases in the long grass beneath the high seat! Turns out there’s a lot to be said for factory ammunition i leave the spent cases where they fell, walk past where much needed seat from the high seat lies almost at the bottom of the ladder and head off to find the ACL

The Y is why did I leave my rifle sling behind?




Shultz and Larsen Victory in 6.5x55 Swedish Nice

He’s standing around looking at his dead deer with a ‘I always wanted one, now I’ve got one I don’t know what to do with it’ look on his face I give him a hug I remember that moment all those years ago, when I had the same face on ‘Sheeet I’m a deer hunter!’

Gralloch and back to Shooter’s place

Just because that part of the story ended on a high don’t think for a moment that the feral failure ends there oh no not for a moment

The hour back flies by but it’s been a long day Shooter is a wonderful host, and a fantastic cook we hang our deer in his outbuildings and set about the feast he’s laid on Pile of carbs and a bucket of Islay malts later we hold a snoring competition for a few wee hours.

“Are you still alive? I thought you were dead for a moment there”. “Why had i stopped snoring?”

I’ll leave it to you dear reader to guess who said what

A brief tussle with Shooter’s coffee machine and hit the road

Trying to learn the ground we set up near a wood we saw muntjac in on our walked up day. Not a lot happens. I start to regret not wearing a smock length coat. By now I’m not only cold but busting for a piss. Out of the high seat and out of the wind it’s a beautiful morning still sling-less I’m pissing with the money pit leaning against me Who should pop his little antlered head out of the bushes but Mr Muntjac, by impatiently raising the rifle when I should have made like a statue , I spook him

The ACL tells his usual tale of dog walkers and we make a shameful detour to the Golden Arches

We’re three little deer up, its a beautiful morning, we’re a hundred miles from home, neither of us is wearing sunglasses and ACL is making all kinds of rash promises to Mrs ACL regarding his arrival time

You could say its all going swimmingly. Could

As we walk over to the hanging Chinese Water Deer Shooter gasps in administration “you didn’t say they were that good! Those tusks are Bronze, or maybe Silver” I grab the CWD lift and turn to check the symmetry and im met by a sickening tale of rural vandalism. During the night something with immense bite strength has grabbed hold of the lowest part of the carcass and rented at it, trying to break it free from its rope the broken off tusk is nowhere to be seen, my broken dream lies all around










Best crack on with the butchery Chinese Water Deer have hair, but unlike other deer it looks almost fur-like and is hardly attached at all, moving the carcass onto a different larder hook it’s coming off in clumps The skin too seems barely attached, even this end of the season theres an impressive layer of subcutaneous fat, you call pull the skin off with no knife work The ACL has just been on a butchery course so Shooter and I are at our most encouraging

“You’re actually in luck today. You want to process your first deer and we're here. I don’t know if you know this but Shooter was in the Indian National team for butting in, and I’m an exceptionally gifted amateur, if you'd like us to mither at you and butt in while you do it, we’re standing by. ready to interfere.”

All bagged up and ready to go we wend our now weary way back home

I cant help but wonder what might have been, so I make one last mistake..I post the good side picture on Facebook

Next time it’s pigeons
Your pal
SBW

Driven Pheasant And Partridge In The UK

As part of my on going education in to fieldsports the blogger Shooter thought I should have a look at a traditional english driven game day. You should have seen the delight on Mrs Shooter's face when he asked her if she'd mind if I took her place at his side being his 'loader'. Having brought her beloved back alive from the first trip she was mysteriously and unexpectedly 'unavailable' a couple of weekends later.

I met up with Shooter at his place in the far far 'burbs, by the time I arrived it was late so we both turned in. Shooter cant sleep the night before a shoot and I cant sleep at the temperature he sets his heating to, so each of us is up half the night trying not to wake the other. Several times I hear Shooter shuffling about, between my fitful sleeps and torrid dreams of being trapped, sweating, in a bed full of very fat women with webbed feet - seeing as we are going to Norfolk this perhaps shouldn't be surprising - between the over-upholstered, semi-aquatic dreams and being awoken by thirst I find the time to read most of the fascinating The British Boxlock Gun & Rifle by Diggory Hadoke. Great book, crap nights sleep.

Despite both being up over an hour before our agreed time somehow we still manage to leave late. We spend the journey discussing adventure writing, recipes, firearms and seeing as it's where we are going telling our Norfolk stories.
The most windswept of English counties, a place long known for its flat damp landscape, religious fanaticism, poor transport links, and inbred locals (I dont know if they really have webbed feet but its a commonly held belief) .  It's also the home of the worst pizza I have ever seen. Tuna mayo UNDER melted Cheddar cheese. Not an experience I could recommend. Shooter seems to have enjoyed himself on his trips though. To him this is the fabled land of Partridge and Pheasant. Of driven shooting. A land he first imagined from the pages of books in his Grandfather's study back home in India. A land of dreams come true.

Driven Shooting. Nothing gets the Anti-Hunting brigade frothing at the mouth like driven game, so naturally I was keen to see what all the fuss was about. I've been to shoots a few times but this promised to be something very different.
The lads I have beaten for all chip in a couple of 100's per season to cover the grain costs, turn up for some fairly leisurely work days, and the more enthusiastic members of the crew spend a few nights shooting Foxes.
The beaters are either the guns themselves taking turns, or their kids. The bag is never impressive but a lot of competitive barbecuing goes on, a good time is had by all. There is no dress code, no one has a gun that cost more than a weeks pay. Most people have guns that were less than a day's pay. Simples.

Traditional Driven Shooting is something very different. All the numbers are much bigger. This is the other sport of kings, aristocrats the world over have this as a passion, it takes a lot of manpower for a very small number of people to shoot a very large number of what are essentially managed wild birds/ free- ranging farmed birds. Which perhaps has something to do with the strong feelings it evokes in the anti's.

To cut a long story short its a more expensive [and less hair raising] version of the French Battue, that most egalitarian form of hunting. Except it's big on pageantry and ritual, and is only egalitarian in the sense that anyone happy to drop the best part of a grand and up [way up] for a days entertainment can do it.
A line of Beaters 'Beat' (Battue) the cover and animals and birds break cover and come flying and running towards a line of people with guns, in France its Boar, Deer and Hare, here its Pheasant and Partridge with strictly enforced rules against shooting game on the ground. The only exception being that no gamekeeper can endure a Fox to live, so they're shot on sight by the Keepers and any armed beaters.

The French do driven shooting communally, the hunting committee dishing out the bag to all participants. Here the bag is sometimes the property of the shoot, sometimes belonging to the person who bought the day, the guns just get a token brace of birds to take home, and the rest goes to the game dealer to offset the days costs.

Driven game days are something of an anachronism, they take vast amounts of organisation and resources to turn a lot of birds raised, into comparatively few birds brought-to-bag.  Over the season 40% of the birds 'put down' is good and 50% exceptional. The Pheasant and Partridge are raised in pens, defended from crows, stoats, weasels, and foxes. If and when they reach maturity there must be cover crops sown for them to mooch about in, they could be left to forage for their own food but need to be fed to stop them wandering off.  When the season comes around a small army of Beaters are needed to get them airborne and another team, this time of Pickers Up, to collect any birds the guns have been able to hit and the dogs able to find. The whole spectacle takes place over a fair bit of countryside 'drives' are usually quite a way from each other so there must be a Beater's Wagon to move the troops about and everyone needs to be fed. All so eight 'guns' can enjoy a days shooting.

Everyone's money is good these days so you, or someone like me (except with money), can dress up as an Edwardian gent and be part of the fun. The estates, much like fine gun makers, are in the business of selling a dream. Just like Rolex they are selling a super-fine version of something quite basic. You can have a watch or a shotgun that does the job just as well for less than a days pay or you can have a superfine one that announces "I've arrived", letting you join the club of people who feel they need to let others know they've 'arrived'. If that's your kind of thing. There is a whole industry devoted to marketing this pagent of the edwardian sporting lifestyle with specialist driven shooting magazines full of articles about classic cars, fine wines and high end real estate. Their journalists have names like Tarquin and Arabella, they read like the society pages with coverage split between who was at whose house for a weekends shooting and how the latest oligarch and his stunning girlfriend have been welcomed into the local scene. Welcomed in the hope that Ivan and Natacha will bring some much needed cash.

The englsh class system is always entertaining to watch but I've never really felt I understand it well enough to explain it, to an outsider possibly the most puzzling part of the day's proceedings is the dress code. Why you need a dress code to stand in a field has never been adequately explained to me. 'Tweed and a Tie' was the instruction which kind of covers it but not really.
For the first outing I wore the only Tweed jacket I own, its grey and quite moth-eaten so wasn't really in the spirit of the thing. For part two I wheeled out my skip dived waxed cotton jacket, Shooter thought I'd had it from the year dot and that 'skip-dived' was idiom or understatement for 'I've had it a long time' nah I really did fish it out of a posh blokes rubbish bin next door to a building site. Its  smell marks the wearer as a dog-bloke and it's proper dogeared, its the perfect way to blend in when visiting a world where history is everything - it really does look as though its already given several generations of service. No johnny-come-lately would ever stoop to such an attempt to ingratiate himself.

We manage to make up for lost time and rock up at a very handsome pile in the early Victorian style. The Guns assemble in their "shooting gent' outfits. Some people really going for it with the tailored tweed suits which vary from as older than me to brand spanking new razor sharp tailored tweeds. In patterns from subdued to clown-wear. I like the lairy ones myself.

The Guns are an interesting bunch, retired gents and farmers mainly, all greatly looking forward to their days sport. Tradition has it that a wallet of numbered sticks is passed round, the numbers drawn denoting the order in which the guns are lined up. Whatever peg the gun is one he'll be a peg further on on the next drive and so on.
On the other side of the class divide the Beating team wear the classic outdoor wear we'd all recognise, surplace Camo of more than one nation, mismatched with waterproofs held together with duct tape. While the Guns are having their fashion parade in green wellies, the beaters will be fighting their way through the cover in boots and gaiters. Everyone wearing a shirt and tie. Even me.

The Beaters wagon trundles off and we follow in another sport's 4x4's. There is a bit of tromping across fields to be done, Norfolk's thick clinging soil making us look like deep sea divers in leaden boots. Shooter and yours truly struggle to our 'peg' and the whistle goes to announce the start of the first drive. The rule is if the bird has sky behind it it's safe to take a shot. Shooter is very disciplined about this and exceptionally courteous in letting several which I would have shot, fly on to the shooting lane of the next 'peg'. At the next peg but one an older, and super petite lady in furs-and-wellies is a very tidy shot with a cloud of feathers in the airspace above her for most of the drive . Unlike myself Shooter is lethal with a shotgun.  Pheasants and Partridge crash down behind us, twice delicious Woodcock fly past lamentably well out of range.

Each drive probably lasts about 30 minutes before the whistle blows. Trudge across the fields again and it's off to the next one. Sometimes the luck of the draw has us in the thick of it, sometimes were right out at the end of the line which dosent always pay off. The wind is like paint stripper, the mud is thick, we share a flask of Whiskey, and in the face of the wind attempt a shouted conversation about the aqua-dynamics of mud.

Four of these drives later it's time for lunch. Shooter and the other guns retire to the dinning room for their repast. I join the beaters and pickers up in a barn for a really sturdy soup and some sausages. The Beaters range in age from Twelve to late Sixty's and are drawn from all walks of life. Several of the young lads are in agricultural collage learning estate management and gamekeeping, the girls are very 'horsey'.

All kinds of people go beating, the common denominator seeming to be that they lived reasonably nearby.  The day is it's own reward; a day afield, with the dogs, banter with the other beaters, and a couple of birds. Beaters dont get paid a lot for beating but its all part of the interconnectedness of rural life, deals are done, favours swapped and collected on. Once you've dressed for the weather beating is a lot of fun, and if you're a dog person it's a chance to see the dogs working which only the most cold hearted wouldn't enjoy. As one of the girls remarked it's "cheaper than the gym".

During lunch I met TBG (the boy genius) and TUK (Techno Under Keeper) both of whom were top company. TUK lives on the estate, gamekeeping at the weekends and running his IT business during the week. TBG is his mate's lad and the only person who has ever explained HTML to me in a way that even I could follow, and he's only twelve! Literally a boy genius.

TUK and myself wandered around the estate for a while, chewing the fat, and sharing our mutual fascination with shooting lore.

There are plenty of traditional anecdotes about the guns and keepers:

Famous Woman X (often Kate Moss or Madona) turned up at our shoot in Heels (I've heard this one so many times I doubt either of them actually ever spends a weekend doing anything else)

Eric Clapton is actually quite a serious shot although he is to be mocked for having guns engraved with his own likeness.

The keepers had to shoot the birds from behind the visiting americans/germans to flatter them that they were hitting any birds at all.

All scandawegens are lethal shots and have amazingly; well trained dogs and super hot wives.

Lord X [owner of the estate] is a hell of a shot, his father wasn't so keen, but you should have seen his grandfather, now that was as shot/sportsman!

Vinnie Jones is very polite and a very very good shot.

That woman from the posh shooting press is actually 'a rubbish shot despite what she says on her videos and £20,000 gun'. This view is to be seconded by one of girls adding 'The way she suddenly develops a slight lisp in whenever lord so-and-so is within earshot, tells you just what kind of woman she is'

At the shoot down the road the guns has a whip-round to buy Old Tom the beater a new jacket, never having taken the trouble to speak to him blissfully unaware that he sold one of his companies for 300 kergillian and is now holding out for a better price on the other one. Thinks the guns are getting the raw end of the deal, he just likes beating but wouldn't wear his good clothes to do it.

Then there's the ticklish subject of etiquette, you can actually pay to go on a course to learn this stuff. Mostly the advice is just "Try not to make too much of a ____ of yourself".

In London we just introduce ourselves by first name with the implication that anymore information would be a disclosure too far, but in the country that would be a serious breech of etiquette, some of the older guys [65+] still used the family name-first name form of introduction.

A shirt and tie must be worn at all times, no exceptions.

For readers overseas:
Toffs all know each other, or at least of each other; while gun nuts can give you chapter and verse on any obscure calibre you care to mention, football fans can give you a play by play reenactment of games that took place before they were born, toffs all know each others family, scholastic, and personal histories.

" 'Mayo' Pushbarrow-Handcart, Stowe, I rode Biggleswade minor to third in the nerd racing"
[Biggleswade minor denoting the younger of the Biggleswade brothers, Stowe is a private school, nerd racing is racing on nerd-back]
" Andy Maitland-Bell, Eton, weren't you the one in old Cruikshank's class who was caught with a jar of mayonnaise? Badger's brother?"
"Haw Haw Yes that's me"

Some of you will think I'm exaggerating, trust me, I'm not.

The second half of the day is another four drives, but we'll leave that and the rest of the tale for another post.

More soon

Your pal

SBW 

Vintage Firearms: Krico Stutzen .243

Myself and our pal Shooter are off out for the day tomorrow so all the unfinished blog posts will have to wait until next week's 'Horse and Fish day' is over and slept off.
In the meantime Roestalker is selling this rather nice woodland stalking rifle a
Krico in .243, being Roestalker he's made a little video. Myself; being a bit lazy and having a growing appreciation for old rifles I'm reposting it.
Keep warm
Your pal
SBW
PS Eat like a Horse and Drink like a Fish - my birthday!

DeerStalking: The Search For Muntjac

 Trigger jerk: and it's sighted 1 sq high at 100 yards!

Shooter: "I've got some stalking! and one of my radiators won't get hot. What    should I do?"
SBW: You had me from stalking, I'm on my way

Because this report comes to you from the real world, not from the fantasy land where rich plumbers exercise their R8's on their way to exercise their R8's mid-week, it was more like "I'll be there soon, to soon-ish, early next month, or how's the month after that for you?" Eventually the day dawned, the radiator got hot, Mr Mercedes joined us and we set off for an evening stalk.

As usual we were plagued by bad omens and incompetence:

Shooter (driving): coming up on the left there's a field with a herd of Fallow, every time I go past, if they are there, I dont get a deer.
SBW and Mr Mercedes: Groan
Shooter: Look! loads of them!
Mr Mercedes: Groan
SBW: Jinx

The ground is a 300 acre walled (but not gated) estate to the north east of London, in an area we'll call Campo de Muntjac. It's home to some Roe and lots of Muntjac. The chaps who run the outfit are very friendly and funny lets call them The Keeper and his pal The Rumbler.

On a short drive across the we startled a small deer, and as we set up the shooting bench we disturbed a Roe. Hmm maybe we've swerved the jinx?

On the estates you're required to prove your proficiently with a rifle before stalking, on your first visit if you weren't asked to I'd take it as a sign of a poorly run outfit. At Campo de Muntjac they have a 100 yard range. Its traditional to make disparaging remarks about ones accuracy and eyesight before shooting. There'll be a good natured understatement competition, and you take your place at the bench. In the US I've been handed a rifle with the words "its hot and ready to rock" in the UK I just cant imagine anyone doing that. The Rumbler set his Howa up on the bags bolt closed on an empty chamber and I took my place at the bench, Mr Mercedes had already shot his super tight group and Shooter was telling The Keeper that I'm a famous blogger, no pressure then.

My sighter was within the 'ring of death' so I ploughed on with the second a definite improvement, the third looked better at first sight but is actually a square low as The Rumbler has sighted his rifle one high at 100 yards

As usual in england while the whole thing is deadly serious, due to our laws against earnestness no one can acknowledge that. As my group had tightened with each shot the guys were well satisfied and proceeded to regale me with the traditional tales of the German/Scandawegen/American who was here last week/ month who was SO bad even thought his rifle/scope cost SO much. Formalities out of the way we split up to take our seats, Mr Mercedes saw another Roe as he was taking his place.


As The Rumbler and I were setting off, who should reappear but our pal Shooter or "bolt-less" as he's also known. Made it all the way to his seat, without the bolt for his Remy. How we laughed.

Our highseat was pretty luxurious, it even had a roof. The Rumbler and your pal settled down to watch the wildlife, after a while there came a strange rumbling sound, like a brewery really. I ignored the first few but after a while I started to snigger and looked round, The Rumbler, for it was he, looked almost apologetic for a moment, but the couldn't keep a straight face either. Much sniggering ensues.

SBW: Are you hungry?
The Rumbler: I ate before I came out
SBW: Have some Chorizo it might settle your stomach

Our picknick was interrupted by the sound of a Muntjac's bark, and coming towards us too! We both glassed and glassed, I offered up a few prayers but Mr Muntjac decided against visiting our clearing and buggered off.

Shooting light faded fast and it was time to make for home. The Rumbler worked the bolt, so we could exit the highseat with an empty chamber and fumbled the round which promptly slipped between the slats of the highseat's floor. I've done this before and I cant tell you how delighted I was to see someone else make the same mistake (mine bounced off the metal rung of the ladder and The Bambi Basher was without mercy in his mockery).

As The Keeper arrived he was greeted with the sight of our butts in the air as we searched the grass under the seat for the dropped round.

The Keeper: You two look as though you're having fun
The Rumbler [pointing at his stomach] Its been awful, terrible rumblings
SBW: I had to give him some of my sausage
The Keeper:  Whoah! too much information!

More soon
SBW

PS be sure to check out Shooter's blog HERE

Shooting Clays - A Lesson Or Two

The very first day the clay grounds take delivery of those barn door sized clays, 

I'm going to be lethal! Honest.

This week Shooter and myself set off in search of the elusive obvious - aka went to do some clay shooting. After last summers debacle in the pigeon fields of Fife my confidence with a shot gun was at an all time low. Shooter had once told me 'I don't play favourites if it goes bang I love it' and I'd confessed to him that I'm a total lummox with a shot gun.

Being the optimist that he is he graciously retorted " I cant believe that; either you are lying, very modest, or you've never been taught how to do it".  Any sunny afternoon in the country is better than one in the city, and buoyed by the thought that if I couldn't break any clays I'd at least be able to chip Shooter's optimism  I  joined him for an afternoon at the A1 Shooting Ground.

What Shooter thinks he's going to need a score card for I'm not sure?

Shotguns are easy, in the same way that that fly casting and archery are easy, its just that everything about being human gets in the way of the true simplicity of what you're doing. You know those people who over complicate things? Put four of them in a row and they still wouldn't over complicate things as much as me. It's not that I couldn't think my way out of a paper bag, its more that I could think of 300 ways to get out, but be unable to decide which one seemed most appropriate.

His  modesty makes a very poor disguise-Shooter smashes them up

Shooter works tirelessly with me on the basics,  and all of a sudden the clays start to break. But then I lapse back into thinking about it. Doh! Every clay that breaks is another example of the beautiful Zen of shooting, if Shooter distracts me while the clay's in the air I shoot it, left to my own devices I try aiming like a rifle and miss, sometimes by miles!

Claudio and Teresa Capaldo have a really nice set up: 40 acres just inside the M25 (london's beltway). There's none of the moodiness I've seen at other shooting grounds, a really friendly place. Claudio is an Olympic coach and while I watched him give Shooter a few pointers I could see why. I've known a few experts over the years and watched them struggle to reveal what is painfully obvious to them, to students who clearly aren't getting it. An expert coach is a very different thing to mere coaching-from-an-expert. When you see the real deal in action its striking just how little they have to do or say to get the penny to drop. The Northern Monkey and myself once went to shooting ground just outside York and received some of the worst tuition I've ever seen, when we arrived we could both break clays, when we left neither of us could, if we'd paid to learn how to dispirit newbies it would have been a bargain.

Watching Claudio handle the gun was something of a revelation to me too. For a start he puts gun-to-face-then-to-shoulder rather than shouldering the gun then planting his face on the stock. The whole movement seemed more lively and fluid. His 'ready stance' was also more lively, the bead (a shotgun's front sight) always kept at nose level - this made the gun jump to his shoulder as though it was on elastic.

This is the moment when the penny drops: you can see the look of revelation on Shooters face - with very few words Claudio shows Shooter the elusive obvious

I have heard this explained a few times but there was something about the way Claudio says 'it shoots where you look' then with a few words brings the connection between gun and body into conscious awareness, setting up an anchor for  Shooters's grip on the forend so his hold would become consistant. 'Fingers lower on the pistol grip, when you get home get a screwdriver and move that trigger much further back' With these simple pointers Claudio changes the whole way the gun sits in relation to Shooters body.
The whole exchange can't have lasted more than 90 seconds. If I'd known how marked the change would look I'd have taken before and after photos.

Thanks to Shooter, a great day out, and an interesting lesson in how to give a lesson too, I'll defiantly be going back for some coaching from Claudio.

If you've got any pointers or advice please leave a comment.
More soon
Your pal
SBW

At Shooter's Place

Now that's something you don't see every day!

Popped over to Shooter's place yesterday on the way to the shooting ground to dust bust smash break clip miss some clays.


Once you step though the door of his unassuming suburban home you meet some evidence of his grandfathers hunting adventures. I don't know about you but I've never seen one of these before. Maybe I've led a sheltered life?


As ever lots of great tales were told, he introduced me to 'Lemon, Lime, and Bitters' [a most refreshing drink] and took me to the  A1 Shooting Ground all in all a great afternoon. Thanks mate.


More soon
your pal
SBW