shovel leaner

Couldn’t resist that one Mi bad?

Sure it wasn’t rabbit guts

Don’t start me off . I’ve just watched Nigel Farage investigates . Exposing the illegal immigrants being put up in hotels and shown around Anfield . This country is properly F@cked.

The thing is wheat is a commodity and the price tends to be dictated by the stock market. I know the price the shoot pays is dictated that way . Good luck

Just looking at the wheat fields on the estate and they are about 3 weeks off they reckon. I was talking to the farmer and they have harvested the rape and the yield was down from 300 tons to 100 tons and he thinks it will be the same for wheat . £170 a ton for feed wheat this year . Stavross, the money you have saved on poults will be going on feed I reckon . What’s the saying “in one hand , out tother”. Look at this picture I took of a field on the estate, look how sparse the ears of wheat are compared to how they normally are . Not good .

A worthy winner

Anyone who has snared foxes has this from time to time . God knows how they do it , but a kills a kill and I’ll take em anyway they want .

All it is , is a sort of wire loop that forms part of the snare . It is designed so that a fox could not pull it straight and escape, but deer and badgers will . I’ve personally never had a problem with non target species as I put deer jumps on them and set them high , so badgers just go underneath. But a neighbouring keeper tells me that they do work and he has had badgers caught and pull free . He knows this because of the fur on the wire and claw marks in the ground .

A really useful tool for anyone involved in keeping game are snares. Done correctly I believe they are a humane way of dealing with problem foxes . They are also working while you are in bed . The ones I use now are compliant with the new guidelines and have a breakaway section, so if you snare a non target species ( badger) it will break away . They also relax when the animal stops pulling, so you don’t strangle them , they are just held until you get there and dispatch it . I’ve had a few this season in the snares . I check them twice a day , once in the morning and again in the evening to make sure they are set properly and haven’t been knocked over by poults or anything else . It’s always a welcome sight when you catch one . Here is a picture of a dog cub from this morning.

I have been struggling with the question, what is the perfect calibre for me to take around with me on my journeys around the shoot during the day . I may want to dispatch a fox in a snare , or shoot a squirrel or get a rabbit for the Larsen trap , or maybe a fox at 200 or 300 meters as it makes its way up a hedgerow. At last I’ve found the perfect solution to the age old question. Simples , I take two rifles, a 22lr and a .243 .

That’s a very kind gesture Stavross. Shame I can’t put my name down . I have a real problem getting gloves to fit me and L is too small for my great big mitts.

What a shame that it has to come to culling hares to stop them . They are vandals, and a parasitic scourge on society.

I’m glad the hmr is working for you . It’s interesting to hear impartial and constructive reports . Although not a hater of the hmr , I can’t see me having one . I like a 22lr for rabbits and squirrels. And a centre fire for fox . And I’ve also dropped more than my share of foxes with the 22lr and not just in snares either.

There are keepering jobs and there’s keepering jobs . Some good , some bad . I’ve been doing this one for about 15 years. It’s a lot of hours out of the house and no summer holidays. No summer evenings in the beer garden . My Mrs has been very understanding, but her patience is wearing thin now . She would like to see more of me . I rekon other 5 years and I will be done . I got into keepering relatively late at 40 years old. My only regret is that I didn’t start earlier in life as I have loved the job ( I didn’t enjoy the wet winter we just had though ) . I have been involved with diy shoots and they are great , everyone enjoys themselves, but there are always people who do more than others , that’s human nature. If you can be philosophical about it and accept the lazy b*****d, then there is no finer pass time.