So, it's a beautiful November morning and
we're here in Worcestershire at the Shakenhurst shoot and hopefully we're going to be shooting pheasants.
It's a great day, beautiful blue clear skies pretty cold
and pretty solid ground frost this morning
and a nice little bit of wind, hopefully it's gonna be a fab day.
This is really when pheasant shooting
gets into its own, those late November
early sort of December days. The trees
are all clear of leafs, the birds are holding nicely on the feeders
offer some pretty good sports.
I'm here today in my Deerhunter Woodland Tweed suit.
Nice and warm,
plenty functions, good deep pockets
hopefully this will keep me nice and
comfortable so I can focus especially on
the birds. Great mid-season day and
hopefully there's going to be some action.
Morning, I'm Martin Stratton
I'm here at Shakenhurst on this fine chilly sunny
morning we were about to the first drive.
So, an interesting start to the day, great
birds off that drive. Took me down their
centre over here to my right. I managed
to get four difficulty, being today the
Sun there's always an excuse and mine
was right there in front of us today so
couple of birds when they first got on
top of me couldn't see them until the
last minute and I need a little bit
snatchy, but I took a couple of nice
birds crossing over to the right towards
Martin. Always good to shoot one of his
birds is heading in his direction.
You can feel him getting all excited about
it and ready to take it and then it dies
in front of him. So, hopefully that's
going to be a good start to the rest of the day.
Shootings not just about
shooting, it's also about the banter,
about the camaraderie, about spending some great
time with your friends.
If that means stealing their birds, so be it.
What a fabulous start to the day. We've had three drives, first one
was a little quiet for me. Second one was fantastic, the birds didn't fly
quite as I was hoping, the wind
and maybe the sun
the bright sunshine today kind of made them a bit nervous
but there were a few in there that were worth shooting.
some epic birds and great fun to shoot.
I've also had a great day picking a few
of Martin's birds. He's either been at my
left or my right most of the day, so the
great thing about shooting with pals
is the opportunity of shooting their
birds for them as the birds are flying
towards them you see them getting ready,
getting very excited and if you can just get your timing right, shooting them just as they're about to mount the gun,
it's like poetry emotion.
That's part of the day of shooting it's
not just about the great sports, the great environment, the great company
also about being a little bit cheeky
with you sporting birds as well. But here
at Shakenhurst, this evening is very
good. Good mix of landscape, some woodland
some field, some parkland
so there's a great variety of different
birds both the style of birds and also
the species. We've seen some lovely pheasants and some cracking partridges.
Moving away from the tress, changing directions and making some very fast targets.
Just about to have some elevenses or lunch and
hopefully a very fun afternoon.
So far it's been a great day.
What a fabulous way to finish the day,
what an epic drive. Lots of birds
shooting up and down the line. I'm right
over here on peg 1, which is right on the periphery of the line, but I still had plenty of shooting.
Lots of crossing birds coming through the trees, lots of snap
shooting birds that you don't know
that are coming, all of a sudden are on you.
Every now and again, you'll see a bird come straight down the line,
nice tall bird with its wings set and
fast and very challenging shot. So,
something for everybody in this drive. But,
it's been another fabulous day. Right from the
outset, that bright sunshine, not
entirely sure where the birds are coming from
flying in front of the Sun and then they're on you.
Through great hospitality, lovely
lunch and great friends great time to
spend with your pals out in the field it
really has been a magical day. This is my favourite tine of the year.
Not only has the seasons change, all the colours in the woodland the leafs are off the trees and
the woods are alive with life even
though it's coming into winter. but to spend
time shooting, enjoying ourselves with a
group of like-minded people, this really
is what life should all be about.
It's not just about us at shooting it's all
the guys behind the scenes, the beaters
have put all the work in to get the
birds over us but without those guys this simply wouldn't happen.
All the Dogman and the pickers up and you've
seen all the woodland around us as a
hive of activity spaniels, labradors, retrievers all shapes and sizes
collecting the birds that we've dropped.
it really is a community type event
brings everybody in the countryside
together and it's really privileged to
be part of such a fabulous day and also
such a great way of life. Now, hopefully sit down have dinner tell tall stories
about our epic deeds of derring-do
during day and then hopefully we can all
come together and do it again but what a fabulous way to finish off another
incredible day in the countryside.
So, ya know fantastic day all in all. The
guns are being outstanding today it's
got some really good testing birds
yeah very enjoyable day, very fun day
very social day and a lot of good bird
shot today so happy with that. We got a
strong team of beaters, generally have 14
or 15 beaters and four picks up. We've got a
big expanse of wood here so the beaters
make a real difference in the wood
drives there's a lot of ways to get
around especially early on in the season
when we get into the woods everything
takes a lot of rounding up and getting
over the guns yeah they've done well
today so a shoot wouldn't happen without them.
The pickers up are key
key they work very well today because of
them we got to the bag and they found
everything that we needed to find.