pheasent shooting
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Well we live on a pheasant shoot.....
Actually a fast high bird is a challenge. That said, I wouldn't pay over £1,000 for a days shooting - so I just enjoy the results when the gamekeeper diverts us a few birds.
Personally I think walking up game is more in the spirit of Bushcraft, but I'd defend the right of people to breed and shoot game birds to my last breath. Remember it was the Norman French who introduced the pheasant - it has only ever existed to be hunted in the UK. Without them this farm would be bankrupt
Red
Actually a fast high bird is a challenge. That said, I wouldn't pay over £1,000 for a days shooting - so I just enjoy the results when the gamekeeper diverts us a few birds.
Personally I think walking up game is more in the spirit of Bushcraft, but I'd defend the right of people to breed and shoot game birds to my last breath. Remember it was the Norman French who introduced the pheasant - it has only ever existed to be hunted in the UK. Without them this farm would be bankrupt
Red
Where I live there are literally 100's around. Where I am sitting now I can count 7, largely males, walking around. In the winter we can be feeding up to 30 per day and the pheasants live along with our chickens. The local ones are so tame that later in the year the females bring their young to us so they can be fed. However, to answer the original question I have some reservations. Like Red I would defend the right to shoot but I wonder how good a shot many of the people who go on shoots, and spend lots of cash, really are. Could they handle really 'wild' birds', would they pay that sort of cash if they always went away empty handed? Personally I doubt it, and having tame/lazy birds is probably quite useful for those people. 
it's more of a sport than a lot of so called sports. it's not easy to hit a bird flying at 20- 30 miles an hour, in the rain and cold. Corporate shoots are not sporting, I'll grant you that and yes the beaters drive the birds so close to the guns, that even a hooray Henry after a skinfull of champers could hit the birds so long as he is holding the gun the right way round. but not all shoots are like that, Id not condemn the sport of fishing just because commercial fishing grounds use tanks to breed salmon.william# said:
Would you say that trout fishing in managed ponds was the same sport as trout fishing in the wilds of Scotland?
good point .
i use to live out in the country and the village i was in had a big pheasent shoot always found the odd road kill a nice suprise for the arga .
i supose with my only objection is the mono culture and the vast amounts of woodland used for them - and of course the almost always paranoid game keeper wondering what the hell u find so interesting about his woodland .
If they didn't raise pheasants though, our farm would clear fell the woodland and plant crops as there is no money in timber in the UK these days!
Red
Red
I think everyone has a good arguement so far and i also agree that bagging a bird
in the air is very sporting. Its just a shame to see loads of them squat in the road.
Pheasants that is ! not Peasants, although we've got loads of them around here too.
I think i might be one !!
in the air is very sporting. Its just a shame to see loads of them squat in the road.
Pheasants that is ! not Peasants, although we've got loads of them around here too.
I think i might be one !!
There is absolutely no denying the conservation gains of a pheasant shoot - lots of small spinneys and copses, game crops, wide headlands - all favour other flora and fauna, as does predator control.
Shooting reared pheasants isn't as easy as some (those who have never done it) think.
I do not like big corporate days. The shoot I used to part time keeper was mainly wild birds, we only put down 100 - 200 birds each year, yet the Guns remembered every shot.
Pheasants should not be thought of as targets and if you can't remember each shot you've taken then you've shot too many.
Shooting reared pheasants isn't as easy as some (those who have never done it) think.
I do not like big corporate days. The shoot I used to part time keeper was mainly wild birds, we only put down 100 - 200 birds each year, yet the Guns remembered every shot.
Pheasants should not be thought of as targets and if you can't remember each shot you've taken then you've shot too many.
I dont think there is much challenge i used to bushbeat for the farm over the road as a kid
in the uk and half the time you had to nearly kick the birds to get them to fly .
Ive been out shooting befor and had young pheasents come out of the wood to see what is going on.
We don't have many pheasent this far north. I grew up hunting grouse in the woods, where you have to be a quick snap shooter to get one. I've found when hunting pheasent, I raise my gun, take the safety off, put the safety back on, and take it off again, and that's about the right time to shoot.
First time I went pheasent hunting I was warned not to use my snap shooting style. We took the guns out of the car trunk, loaded them and stepped into the ditch. A bird got up in front of me and I made a snap shot and knocked it down - much to the surprise (and dismay) of my hunting companions who'd warned me against snap shooting. I went to retrieve the bird and found I'd knocked down two. Then my buddies were really ******.
I don't find pheasent hunting near as hard as grouse hunting, but it is still fun.
First time I went pheasent hunting I was warned not to use my snap shooting style. We took the guns out of the car trunk, loaded them and stepped into the ditch. A bird got up in front of me and I made a snap shot and knocked it down - much to the surprise (and dismay) of my hunting companions who'd warned me against snap shooting. I went to retrieve the bird and found I'd knocked down two. Then my buddies were really ******.
I don't find pheasent hunting near as hard as grouse hunting, but it is still fun.
Hi KAE1
I'm involvled in a small farm syndicate and agree with what you've said. We have half a dozen spinneys and if it wasn't for for the the coppicing they would be stagnent woods with no wildlife at all.
Open up the tree canopy and let some light in and you get ground cover, insect life, song birds, small mamals (good and bad) After a year or two an other wise barren wood becomes alive.
Plus you get some shooting and a brace for the table
As long as you're not greedy eveything complements one another and works in harmony.
So long as all the birds are taken home and end up on the table that's free range at it's best. IMHO
ATB Rich
Sounds just like our old set up smokoe. We had 1 x 30 acre wood and 5 spinneys. We coppiced 1 acre each year in the big wood.
These days landowners (grant related I think) seem obsessed with planting loads of trees within a wood but you get more life in the scrub/bramble etc.
After the storms in the late 80s everyone cleared the fallen trees and replanted, now they are having to thin out. I bet the woods that were just left hold a greater biodiversity.
Our little shoot stopped after a nasty encounter with sabs. They were looking for a local research centre, couldn't find it then stumbled by our small shoot.
There were about 20 of them balaclavas, pick axe handles, totally invaded the area.
Police vans, helicopters etc involved, then followed lots of hate mail to the landowner so he stopped the shoot for fear of his familys safety - great shame.
These days landowners (grant related I think) seem obsessed with planting loads of trees within a wood but you get more life in the scrub/bramble etc.
After the storms in the late 80s everyone cleared the fallen trees and replanted, now they are having to thin out. I bet the woods that were just left hold a greater biodiversity.
Our little shoot stopped after a nasty encounter with sabs. They were looking for a local research centre, couldn't find it then stumbled by our small shoot.
There were about 20 of them balaclavas, pick axe handles, totally invaded the area.
Police vans, helicopters etc involved, then followed lots of hate mail to the landowner so he stopped the shoot for fear of his familys safety - great shame.
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