Then for me the best bit of the day, although they could not be shot due to them flying over the boundary, a covey of about 12 English Gentleman, dressed for Ascot, the redlegs are great sport but unlike the English they will never make it into the Royal enclosure. On the same drive some good pheasants taken as well.
We moved up to the small valley drive next and once again the partridge showed beautifully this time a covey of 18 or so redlegs, but once again being light on guns we could not take full advantage.
At this the poorer end of the shoot we have used straw bales with a super food mix in, we do not think it a coincidence that the birds showed so well we feel we may have hit things right with feed and the way we now make the birds take the feed.
The 11 acre cover crop produced two excellent High pheasants for Andrew who took them well and even more partridge pushes out of cover, this is the sort of day we could have done with being over subscribed as we are for the next two shoots, then all pegs would have been manned.
After lunch it was to the ghylls, the wind had built up by this time the dogs as usual were doing a sterling job, a single pheasant came down the line and I have to say it came at quite a lick with the wind behind it, I missed but Mike took it superbly, the ghylls produced some lovely birds and when the winds up you have to be on the ball.
This is the game cart just before I had to leave, and in my best east end barrow boy accent, don't you go looking for the quantity, you jus look at the quality of dem there birds luv.
Reported back to since the shoot the snipe field was a corker, in an earlier post I mentioned about the dingly dell pegs, Mike pulled off two fantastic snap shots, and it should not go unnoticed the shots that John pulled out of the bag, each and every shot, each and every bird taken were memorable for all, if we can repeat this over the remaining shoots we will have done our jobs well. A marvelous day, bring on the next.
