It’s that time of year again

[Stavross 15,216]

I like looking through old year books, I had a look through one from Bell’s estate, I think that one was 1918 to about the mid 1920’s and what I noticed was the amount of wild game shot was much greater numbers than you get now, hares, grouse, wild duck, it just goes to show what effect the changes in farming methods have had

ive shot on gisborough estate at scugdale it’s very posh

ive got a quick story about gisborough hall. A good few year back when I was in my teens two lads used to take me fishing, at the time one of them ( Pete the shed ) was well into his pike fishing and his uncle ( nearly dangerous Brian ) had just started to get into it and they told me they had found a cracking lake that had some big pike in it and also you could fish live bait, so one morning we set off to this lake, when we arrived it was more like a big pond but with no one else there the three of us set up, not taking any live bait with us I set about catching us some seen as there was no one about, all I seem to be catching was golden orf and a few small koi, so we used them on a treble rig, by about 10am a woman came wandering over to us not looking very happy, nearly dangerous Brian point over to Pete the shed saying to her that he had brought us there, it turns out that he had missed the turning for where we were ment to be and the woman was lady guisborough and we were fishing in her ornamental pond, trying to get the gear in without her seeing her fish with treble hooks hanging out of them was a bit of a challenge, we were told in a very posh voice to leave and to count ourselves lucky it wasn’t the keeper that court us 

[Stavross 15,216]

Last big feed of the season, with only three shoot days left ( well two really as the last day is a clear up day ) we feed hard all the main drives, we have 4 main drives that are still holding good numbers of birds, it is very wet up there and it doesn’t show any signs of drying out, so this has put the mockers on two drives as the guns can’t go tramping across the crops to get in position, with a bit of luck the birds will stay where we have got them and I’ll be up for a hand feed on Wednesday or Thursday ready for shooting on Saturday

[Stavross 15,216]

[Baldcoot 2,352]

Out Saturday hope its a bit drier than the okie fenoky swamp this time ,drizzling wet at the minute so its not looking good but heho the birds will be in cover and sitting tighter than a Scottsman on rent day so fingers crossed for the bag 

[Sausagedog 7,381]

Think it's dry tomorrow and a wee bit warmer

[Stavross 15,216]

3 hours ago, Baldcoot said:

Out Saturday hope its a bit drier than the okie fenoky swamp this time ,drizzling wet at the minute so its not looking good but heho the birds will be in cover and sitting tighter than a Scottsman on rent day so fingers crossed for the bag 

Fingers crossed for you mate, on the up side if they are sitting as tight as our lasses sister does behind her sofa when the provy loan mans banging on the door they will flush well

[Baldcoot 2,352]

Bit of a mish mash day only 5 beaters and 6 guns wet,damp and cloudy but no rain .Only 1 pigeon ,1duck and 11 pheasants but we had runners and high birds and a nice nosh .

An anticlimax but still piss was taken ,shots were fired and nobody went home without a grin .The ground was lethal slippy ,mud leaves brash and slime as its been wetter than Corbyn on a Wednesday ,still we had a decent day and the dogs earned their crust as most birds were flushed from deep cover .

[Stavross 15,216]

We always struggle for numbers this time of year, what I find is the people who turn up no matter what are the ones you want to be with anyway and even if the group is small and the weather is sh*t with good people you can always make a day of it 

[Stavross 15,216]

A trip up to the shoot this morning for no other reason than a walk out and to take my mate up with his metal detector, after dropping him off I went over the far valley side and parked the quad up at the pen and walked all the forestry blocks that we don’t shoot and nobody from the shoot bothers going around, there was the odd pheasant and a large amount of deer, I came across two fox earths close to the tree line so gave a few minutes calling with the mouth call to no avail, I’m sure there’s many more earths amongst the trees and I’ve no doubt that they could be called out onto the rides, thermal would be a massive advantage up here, so after a couple of hours wandering around enjoying my surroundings I headed back over around the farm sat in the corner of the wood and picked off another three squizzers, one off a feeder and the other two on the side of a tree, one was a very pleasing 70 yard head shot, all I could see was it’s head sticking out from the side of the tree, so with fox bait in hand I headed over to pick my mate up who was over the moon that he had found military buttons, so both of us went home having had a lovely morning out

[Sausagedog 7,381]

That was a good shot Stav

[Baldcoot 2,352]

Cracking Stav ,fine shooting on a target as small as Corbyns brain 

[Stavross 15,216]

Cheers lads, I’d like to think the air rifle lads would be proud of me, they love a bit of precision shooting, where as I’m just happy to hit it

[si brown 8,486]

50 minutes ago, Stavross said:

Cheers lads, I’d like to think the air rifle lads would be proud of me, they love a bit of precision shooting, where as I’m just happy to hit it

never.. if you cant get a 5p sized group at 100yrd ya suck

[Stavross 15,216]

Day 6 tomorrow and there’s still loads about, as we approach the end of the season there will be no prisoners taken tomorrow, everyone will be told to get at them, there’s a few guests shooting tomorrow and they are proper shots, one been my mate Morris, so I’m expecting a good bag and some serious bird poaching which will no doubt lead to some good banter, I’ll be running the beaters so with any luck I can put on a good show for the guns 

[Stavross 15,216]

Day 6 over with and we couldn’t of asked for a better day, we had a full team of beaters and two full teams of guns, the morning definitely shot better than the afternoon but this might have something to do with doing the main drives early, mainly to show the guests what sort of birds we can produce on our little shoot, we had one lad shooting with us today who is a keeper on one of the biggest estates around here and helped us out loads at the beginning when the birds weren’t doing to well, it was lovely to be thanked off him and told that the birds over him on the first drive were stunning and as good as anything that they produce on their estate, we stopped for refreshments and were not disappointed with the soup and sausages and to wet our whistles sloe gin and champagne ( we really are getting above our station), a few more drives to finish the day off with everyone getting some shooting, the bag was 46 pheasants, 2 pigeons and 1 squizzer picked, so after running the beaters all day and been in the thick of it leading by example, showing these youngsters how it’s done I was more than ready to get to the pub for a sit down and pie and chip with a few from the shoot, only one proper day left and a if it flys it dies day at the end of the month, the season seems to have gone in a blink of an eye