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SHOOTING
GAZETTE - MAY 2005
This morning was
the last morning of the doe season and I could have done with one more
for the larder. I set out for a small wooded dean close to home. It
is an old railway cutting which has been planted with hardwoods. It
is good for winter stalking when the ash poles are bare. Once the leaf
gets out and the willow herb gets up, the deer become very difficult
to see and the only real chance is when they come out to feed on the
arable fields above. With so many lush pickings in the covert, they
do not always feel the need for this – that is one of the plus
points of forestry plantations; the deer have to come out on the firebreaks
to feed.
At the first light the wind
was a light S.Easterly so I set out down the old railway line to an
open patch of bracken. This is a favourite spot of mine. Stalking without
due care and attention, I bumped a doe who must have been feeding right
by the back gardens in the village. Even if I had spotted her, this
would hardly have been a good place for a shot. At one time ‘the
village’ would not have given a bugger, but ‘the village’
has changed for the worse, like so many other things. She did stop to
peer over a fence at me, which would have given me a possible head-shot,
but head-shots are things that I do not do. The old line is normally
good creeping, but it was still covered in a crust of frozen snow –
not conducive to creeping – so I slogged on with the wind nicely
in my face until I came to my favourite waiting point from which both
sides of the line, including the bracken bed can be covered. There I
settled down to wait and watch. I have recently invested in a back pack
to carry all the necessary widgets. It also has a frame that unfolds
into quite a comfortable seat. We old men like a bit of comfort with
our sport. Another bit of recent comfort is my New Zealand tripod. This
has telescopic legs which can be adjusted to an almost infinite combination
of positions to provide a comfortable and steady rifle rest –
definitely a ‘good thing’. So there I sat and glassed and
glassed and sat, until I saw – well, bugger all, actually. Then
a nasty chill on the back of the neck told me that the wind had backed
N.Easterly and had made my position both cold, from a personal point
of view and useless, from a stalking point of view. So I crunched my
way back through the snow and went home for a pipe and a pot of tea.
By the time I got home the wind had backed again – S.Westerly
this time. A backing wind is always nasty and unreliable.
So endeth my doe season.
It is likely to be my last in this country. I sampled one Northumbrian
winter without hunting (when the F&M was on) and did not care for
it greatly. This rotten government has decided the Dragon Lady and I
to do what has been niggling at us for some time – to emigrate.
So we are selling up the place where we have lived in great content
for over 20 years and moving – where? That is not certain, but
somewhere where hunting is still a fact of life and the climate is kinder.
I went to speak to the Dee
Wildfowlers, the other day and what a grand lot of sporting folk they
are. A very good audience too, by which I mean that they laughed at
my jokes. This is another good reason for emigrating – I am running
out of audiences who have not heard my stories before. I am too old
to think up new ones and the old ones definitely need their filters
changing. The Dee men were wonderful hosts and absolutely understood
the importance of whisky, when it comes to public speaking. I shall
always treasure the look on the Barman’s face when I asked for
a ‘sextuple whisky’ – well, a ‘small whisky’
is nowt but a dirty glass and you can’t fly on two-stroke, you
need Avgas. The Barman’s face fell when I reappeared later –
‘You don’t want another of them things?’ he said rather
nervously. I soothed him down and assured him that I did not –
a quadruple would do very nicely – I still had some singing to
commit. At the Dinner I had the honour of sitting next to the Chairman
of BASC – a most charming man – my host was rather nervous
about this as for some reason he was convinced that I did not think
much of BASC and he is quite right – I think of it very seldom.
