Game Shooting - Documentory

[BroadAmbition]

Well to date, from the friends / peers I have conversed with there is a 100% failure rate of the on-line application of the 'New' style licenses.  They cost nowt which is fine.  Obtaining one at present seems to be impossible.  If the situation doesn't improve fast then the songbird population will be in trouble.  Expect to see a proliferation of Magpies and nowt much else

Griff

[grendel]

Charlie, I fully appreciate that, it just seems to me if you are going to put a stop to one type of licence, then you should have the infrastructure in place to issue the replacement type of licence to maintain controls over pest species before you stop the previous licence type.

In some ways I can agree with the theory of the stoppage of the general licence type, it gave widespread powers for pest control, but allowed pretty indiscriminate margins for that control, at least if you have to apply for a licence for the particular pest that you are controlling, then closer tabs can be kept upon the controls in place.

as for not issuing any of the new licences that replace the general one yet, that to me seems either very short sighted, as the pests will continue to proliferate, or an indication that the consequences of the ban were not thought through and that the infrastructure does not yet exist to enable them to issue the new type licence.

Let us hope they get their fingers out and get that sorted, before the pest problem becomes out of control.

I do have to wonder if the use of hawks to control pigeon numbers falls under these licences too, after all you could argue that the hawks are just doing what comes naturally when they predate upon pigeons.

I would imagine that once the damage suites start coming in for costs for destroyed crops and such due to the non issuing  of the new licences, then fingers will suddenly start getting pulled out.

using an example from your document, if one football club sues for loss of income from one match which cannot be allowed because health and safety conditions cannot be met due to lack of pest control due to a licence not being issued, that will probably amount to damages in the millions, I wonder how long NE can last under such pressures.

[Malanka]

Did anyone really think a blanket ban brought in within 24 hrs of the hew head of NE taking office, then he immediately brings in a blanket ban on the previous license system upon which hundreds of businesses and thousands of livelihoods depend, not to mention the immediate and devastating impact on song birds and crops being in place with 36 hrs notice was brought in with any impact assessment at all? If it was I would love to read it and know who wrote it ! One condition of the new head of NE's appointment was that his links to activism were to be "in the past". If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then his activism isn't "in the past" is it ? This ban does not appear to have been thought through in anywhere near as much detail as such a ban being introduced at this particular time of year and with a new head of NE in place should have been. Smacks of immediate impact activism for me.

I didn't have much time or respect for NE before and now if it's possible I have even less. Chris Packham may have won his little battle but at what cost and to whom?

[BroadAmbition]

What a great day out that was.  Left our place at 0530, got home by 2130.  Eight of us up to the Whitfield country estate, clay shooting competition a 4 x gun team event.  Breakfast en-route at the Moritz Arms off the A69, Dinner at the Ryther Arms near to Selby on t way home.  'My' team was/is 'Griffs Growlers'   Our long term ambition is to beat our other team 'Bobs Boyz'  We failed but this time by just the one clay target - that had em rattled.  Each team had 690 clay targets to go at over the day (Some of em were midis too)

Sixty five teams entered the fray on the day 'Griffs Growlers' came home in sixteenth place with a score of 585 and we could / should have shot better too.  There is always next year.  I used about 320 cartridges on the day, Eley Select Fibre 24G 7 -1/2

There was a team entered calling themselves 'Norfolk and Chance' (They came 29th)

Next stop, Lambton Castle later on this month for more of the same,

Griff

 

 

[BroadAmbition]

We woz at it yet again last Friday, had to change a couple of team members of 'Griff's Growlers' hence we scored much lower this time but still had a great day out.  This time at Lambton Castle.  Another team competition clay shoot.  7 x stands, 700 targets.  I used 400 cartridges this time.  Stopped off at the Ryther Arms for a team dinner on the way home, another 16 x hour day out.

That's them done with for this year.  A full year looking forward to them and they are over in a flash it seems.  Oh well, back to my local small shooting ground come this Sunday as per the norm

Griff

 

 

[BroadAmbition]

Jeremy Clarkson’s words of wisdom :

Fishing. It’s not one of my specialist subjects. I do not want to stand up to my gentleman’s area in an icy Scottish river and I’d rather spend my spare time in the pub, with friends, than sitting, by myself, on a damp canal bank with a bag full of maggots. Fishing, really, is for people who hate their children.

But, this morning, I feel duty-bound to come to the defence of the nation’s anglists, who are being blamed for an alarming drop in salmon numbers in Scottish rivers. There used to be a time when 25% of all the fish that left their birthplace came back. Today, it’s just 5%.

Those who enjoy animal rights say fishermen and fishermen women are to blame, along with farmers and bankers and possibly Mrs Thatcher, and conveniently fail to mention a couple of important points. Almost all the salmon caught by anglers are allowed to resume their journey after they’ve been landed. And, more importantly, the mouth of every Scottish salmon river is patrolled these days by an armada of hungry seals.

You want to get the salmon numbers up, you must do something about the number of seals. But what? Seals have big doe eyes and puppy-dog faces, and no one wants to see them being beaten to death with bats.

This, then, is the problem with conservation. Protect one species — and seals are very protected — and it’s going to have an impact on another. It’s all a question of balance and being sensible. Which, I’m afraid, is hard when our government is being advised by a Swedish teenager and Chris Packham.

Packham is a wildlife presenter on the BBC, and I like him. He’s a good communicator, fun to be with, hugely knowledgable about punk rock and able to tell a corn bunting from a reed bunting at 400 paces. He’s also a fine lobbyist. So fine, in fact, that, having teamed up with a former conservation director of the airborne wing of the Labour Party, the RSPB, he was able to convince the government’s conservation watchdog, Natural England, to announce that it is now illegal to shoot pigeons.

Now I’m not going to be silly about this. Last weekend, as the sun blazed down, I very much enjoyed sitting in the garden listening to the wood pigeons cooing away. It’s a sound that makes me feel warm and fuzzy. And I don’t hold with the argument that town pigeons should be hounded to extinction because they crap on your car. They do, but it’s not a big issue to get a hosepipe and wash it off.

However, I’m a farmer these days, and one of the things I grow is oilseed rape. I grew enough last year to make 100,000 bottles of vegetable oil.

This year, though, things are tricky, because a weed called black grass, which is immune to herbicides, is ravaging the crop.

And what’s left is being half-inched by pigeons. I’m told that I can try scaring them away with loud bangs and kites and statues of Jon Pertwee, but I’m also told by the Viyella army of local countrymen that none of these things actually works. You have to shoot them. And now we can’t.

Score one for Packham and Corbyn’s RAF. But hang on, because if there’s less oilseed rape, that means there’s less vegetable oil, which will drive demand for alternatives such as palm oil. And palm oil production is what’s destroying the jungles of Indonesia, and with them the orang-utan.

So what the do-gooders have done by helping the pigeon, which is as prolific as nitrogen, is kill more of Borneo’s endangered orange monkeys. And that’s obviously idiotic. Happily, there seems to be a solution.

For nearly 40 years farmers have been using a so-called general licence to shoot pigeons, because they’re protected under wild bird legislation, drawn up to save important stuff like the osprey and the golden eagle and so on.

In short, you could get permission to shoot certain kinds of common and unimportant wild birds, such as pigeons and crows and magpies, if it was bleeding obvious they were stealing eggs, pecking out the eyes of lambs or devastating crops. Well, thanks to Chris Packham’s lot, that permission has now gone.

There is one idea for keeping the pigeon under control. Simply remove it, along with the crow and the magpie, from the legislation covering wild birds. Then no special permission to kill it is necessary. It’s not as if this minor shift in the law would cause millions to take to the countryside each weekend in weirdo NRA combat strides, because to shoot a pigeon you need a gun, and you still need a licence for that.

But will the government allow a pigeon free-for-all? It should. It makes sense. We live in weird times, though, when governments in general and ours in particular are entirely detached from the real world. They seem to live in a universe full of unicorns and magic fairy dust. So there’s no way Michael Gove, who’s running the countryside this week, is going to say, “Lock and load, Farmer Giles. Let’s waste the motherf******!”

So what about this for a plan? We pat Chris Packham on the back and say, with a magnanimous smile, that he has won. A bit like remainers are being urged to do by Brexiteers. But then we carry on as before. A bit like Brexiteers are being urged to do by remainers.

Seriously, can you see the police being that bothered? Really? About the death of a pigeon?

And how would they ever know? A shotgun is noisy, but it’s not so noisy that it can be heard in the nearest police station, which these days is usually 20 miles away. And only open from nine to five. On a Tuesday.

Plod isn’t interested when I have a gate or a quad bike nicked, so I can hardly see a Swat team coming through the door with an enforcer ram because they suspect the pie I’m taking out of the Aga has four and twenty pigeons in it

[MauriceMynah]

Putting to one side for a moment Tom Lehrer's solution for pigeons, this matter should be put in the hands of the BASC (British Association for shooting and conservation, and not the British Association for Slaughter and Carnage as I first thought.)

Those in Natural England shouldn't have the responsibility to wipe their own bottoms let alone all the other issues for which their lack of knowledge is glaringly  apparent. I find few saving graces for that particular quango, it seems intent on proving itself inept at everything it was designed to stick it's grubby little finger in.

Though I might be bias!

[ChrisB]

38 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

Putting to one side for a moment Tom Lehrer's solution for pigeons, this matter should be put in the hands of the BASC (British Association for shooting and conservation, and not the British Association for Slaughter and Carnage as I first thought.)

Those in Natural England shouldn't have the responsibility to wipe their own bottoms let alone all the other issues for which their lack of knowledge is glaringly  apparent. I find few saving graces for that particular quango, it seems intent on proving itself inept at everything it was designed to stick it's grubby little finger in.

Though I might be bias!

A man after my own heart, because we all know:-

" All the World is in tune on a Spring afternoon when we are poisoning pigeons in the park"

I wish I knew who nicked my LP of the Great Tom Lehrer.

[Coryton]

42 minutes ago, ChrisB said:

A man after my own heart, because we all know:-

" All the World is in tune on a Spring afternoon when we are poisoning pigeons in the park"

I wish I knew who nicked my LP of the Great Tom Lehrer.

They're all on You Tube now.

You even get to see him...which I find quite interesting after many years of just listening to him.

[BroadAmbition]

One in the eye for N.E and Chris Packhams lot?

Griff

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Defra issues new General Licences

Defra has announced it is publishing three new general licences for bird pest control in England for the killing and taking of species such as woodpigeon, feral pigeon, carrion crow, jackdaw, jay, magpie, rook and Canada goose. They will take effect at one minute past midnight on Friday 14 June.

The licences will be fit for purpose for the vast majority of shooting and trapping undertaken in England. The purposes covered by the three licences will include:

• conservation of wild birds and flora and fauna

• preservation of public health and public safety

• prevention of serious damage to crops and livestock

Control methods allowed under Defra’s general licences will include: shooting, the destruction of eggs and nests and the use of cage traps such as Larsen traps, Larsen mates and multi-catch traps.

There is no need to apply for these licences but we recommend you download and read them carefully once they are available on the Defra website. They will remain valid until 29 February 2020.

These licences will not authorise the killing or taking of pest birds on European Protected Sites or within 300m of these sites. In such instances, you will still need to use the previously-issued Natural England licences GL26, GL28, GL31 or apply for an individual licence.

We appreciate that this is still not an entirely perfect situation and some confusion may remain, however, we will continue to monitor the situation and are on hand to answer your queries. You can contact the gamekeeping team on 01244 573 019 during the normal office hours.

Defra will launch a consultation on general licences this summer, so there is more work to be done and BASC will continue to fight for shooters' interests. 

We will provide more details on the general licences on our website once they become available – click here.

[ChrisB]

The e mail from BASC yesterday evening cheered up a rather miserable day. All we need now in Norfolk is for the rain to stop and the sun to come out.

[Vaughan]

18 hours ago, BroadAmbition said:

One in the eye for N.E and Chris Packhams lot?

[ChrisB]

THEY ARE AT IT AGAIN..

just come into my inbox.

 

[BroadAmbition]

My local Game shoot.  Sadly no longer run as a full seasons shooting venue for another year at least.

We do manage a couple of days though.  Yesterday was the first, the next and last for this season will be on the 27th Dec.  Crying shame that I couldn't take Macie dog with me though.  Still a good full day out with plenty of laughs

30:5g No 6, fibre wad.  Oh and apologies for the 'Photographer' casting a shadow,

Griff

 

 

[annv]

Why don't these people do something useful like go to Syria and stop the shooting their, it's nice sunny weather with lots of veg. John

[TheLaird]

The farmer I shoot for and me were concerned that the next thing was going to be the mammals that we shoot.

But we got the licenses back.

 

[TheLaird]

These are the ones we CAN shoot:

 

[BroadAmbition]

Tomorrow the 27th will be our traditional Christmas shoot.  A privilege for me to be in attendance once again, but such a sadness that Macie Dog no longer with me.  Chin up Griff, onwards and upwards

Griff

[SPEEDTRIPLE]

On 08/05/2019 at 00:54, BroadAmbition said:

What a great day out that was.  Left our place at 0530, got home by 2130.  Eight of us up to the Whitfield country estate, clay shooting competition a 4 x gun team event.  Breakfast en-route at the Moritz Arms off the A69, Dinner at the Ryther Arms near to Selby on t way home.  'My' team was/is 'Griffs Growlers'   Our long term ambition is to beat our other team 'Bobs Boyz'  We failed but this time by just the one clay target - that had em rattled.  Each team had 690 clay targets to go at over the day (Some of em were midis too)

Sixty five teams entered the fray on the day 'Griffs Growlers' came home in sixteenth place with a score of 585 and we could / should have shot better too.  There is always next year.  I used about 320 cartridges on the day, Eley Select Fibre 24G 7 -1/2

There was a team entered calling themselves 'Norfolk and Chance' (They came 29th)

Next stop, Lambton Castle later on this month for more of the same,

Griff

 

 

"Lambton Castle"? Please don't leave any litter in the grounds of my ancestral home. 

[BroadAmbition]

January 25th was the last day out Game shooting at our local farm shoot.  A good day had by all, we took the beaters out for a pub carvery after the field as is traditional for our last days shooting.  I shot like a blind one armed bandit - Well not even that good to be honest.  2 x Pheasant and 2 x partridge when I should really have had a dozen.  Missed not having Macie dog by my side tremendously.

A few team clay shoot competition days booked this year for 'Griffs Growlers'  -  Azerey, Whitfield and Lambton Castle for starters and of course every second Sunday at my Local clay shooting ground at Wroot. (This Sunday as it happens)

Griff

[BroadAmbition]

If it wasn't for this infernal  Coronavirus crisis we are under this is what I should have been doing today

Griff

[ChrisB]

I shoot throughout the year on the first and third Sundays of the month with Aylesham Gun Club who meet at Cawston Heath.

I have shot since I was 10 first air rifle, a .410 at about 12, single barrel BRNO 12 bore when 14 and a Luigi Franchi OU for my 16th. And have shot game and rough ever since.

I came to clays very late in life, except for 50 off a high tower at West Wycombe or laterly Taverham just before the start of the Pheasant season. In truth I will never make a good clay shot, just can't read them like the dedicated guys but I can more than hold my own in the field.

For me, in my present circumstances, it will be the company and banter that I shall really miss.

What this all means for our small, friendly rought shoot around the very Northern end of  The Ant is not clear at present. Shooting as a sport is facing all sorts of challenges and Coronavirus, I fear, will add to them.

[grendel]

can you find an online skeet shooting game you can all play against each other online?

[BroadAmbition]

Shooting as a sport is facing all sorts of challenges and Coronavirus, I fear, will add to them

I'm with you on that one, not the least is all of us having to move over to steel shot, that's coming down the tracks real fast now.  However this Coronavirus situation could push any decisions back a fair while

Griff

[Vaughan]

23 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:

I'm with you on that one, not the least is all of us having to move over to steel shot,

So instead of lead shot in your roast pheasant Sunday lunch, you now get rust?