I'm not going to post any substantiation here, because as I said it's water under the bridge now. If you're really so keen on the details I can PM you.
Pheasant shooting US style...!!
- Thread starter Tim.243
- Start date
Cumbrian 1
Well-Known Member
Let’s assume that your fairytale is true, but you made out that this is widespread and the norm but you only know of one case, but you still like to paint the whole industry and those participate with the same brush. In any industry there will be the occasional bad apple but to say it’s the norm is utter crap.
reiver
Well-Known Member
Seen that on a shoot nr me where they-whistle the ducks
in and then drive them back over the guns . Not for me .I don't say it's the norm, but I doubt it was an isolated incident. And when it involves a high-profile shoot, it taints the whole industry. A bit like raptor persecution really - may be not widespread, but enough of it happens to reflect badly on all. So yes, I stand by what I said about getting the house in order, because even if these malpractices are rare events the whole industry needs to work together to stamp them out if it is ever to have an overall good reputation.
Burying one's head in the sand by dismissing claims of malpractice as "BS" isn't the way to raise the profile of driven game shooting.
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Cumbrian 1
Well-Known Member
If it is water under the bridge/been resolved and you didn't want to post the shoot why bother in the first place.
If anything was let out the day before it could be Partridges also a few are left in a small pen as call birds (just like call ducks)
The reason I was given is a lot more cover is needed also a lot more birds...
I ran partridges one year also ducks (they held) the reg legs disappeared so we brought more pheasants which worked for the cover woods.
Sorry Tim as you said the other day about "challenging" people are challenging you, know you want to do it behind closed doors....lol
@Cumbrian 1
No. I have very good reasons for not doing so, which I'm surprised you're not already aware of.
To understand this just consider that hunting is a consumer-led industry, here in the UK as much as in the States.
When I lived in Texas this type of pheasant shooting was commonly on the menu on many game ranches - basically you bought a “50 bird day”, so they drove 50 pheasants in crates in the back of a pickup to the top of a hill and released them, launching them over the waiting guns down below. Customers want to shoot birds, and are willing to pay money for it, and so that’s what the market provides. I have, quite literally, been there and done that. I’m not particularly proud of it now, but back in the 80’s it was nothing unusual. It may not have been as brazen as in this video, and fortunately this was in the days before mobile phones and the internet existed, but it happened just the same. The same ranch also offered wild (and I mean wild) turkey, hogs and javelinas. I hunted those as well. The ranch existed then - and still does today - because there is a market for it.
However for all the disgust shown here, when it comes to a lot of the public (and not a few of the shooting fraternity) it will be viewed in moral terms as little different to releasing thousands of pheasant and partridge onto ground, so that they can then be driven in their hundreds over a line of paying guns. The birds might be out there a little longer, but the principal is really not that different. After all it wasn't that many seasons ago that "topping up" during the season was commonplace. As it is, there is now a market where 400, 500, 600, even 1,000 bird days are not unusual, and just this week I heard of a high-bird shoot where they suggested a shot to kill ratio of 12:1 should be expected. How have we got to the point where a ratio like that is something to boast about?
Whether from a crate or a pen, these birds are being reared and released for one reason and one reason only - our sport. Whilst the definition of the term "sport" might vary, from a hard-line moral perspective it is difficult to put a Rizla paper between them.
There is another thread currently running on here about bird of prey predation. Whatever the arguments about excessive BoP numbers, such actions come about because of the focus on money that seems to be behind some commercial shoots in the UK. It is often put down to “bad apples”, but after so many years, and so many bad apples, why does it still happen with such monotonous regularity? It is commercial pressure that is driving such behaviour.
What we see in the videos here may not be to our personal liking, but the worst excesses of our own game industry don’t suffer much scrutiny either. We can all sit here and say “yes, but I'm not like that, I only shoot wild birds/small days/flighting duck", but at the end of the day we are - in the public’s eye at least - all part of that same industry.
So a little more introspection, and a little less of the "holier than thou" attitude, might be in order before so vocally condemning our cousins across the Atlantic.
When I lived in Texas this type of pheasant shooting was commonly on the menu on many game ranches - basically you bought a “50 bird day”, so they drove 50 pheasants in crates in the back of a pickup to the top of a hill and released them, launching them over the waiting guns down below. Customers want to shoot birds, and are willing to pay money for it, and so that’s what the market provides. I have, quite literally, been there and done that. I’m not particularly proud of it now, but back in the 80’s it was nothing unusual. It may not have been as brazen as in this video, and fortunately this was in the days before mobile phones and the internet existed, but it happened just the same. The same ranch also offered wild (and I mean wild) turkey, hogs and javelinas. I hunted those as well. The ranch existed then - and still does today - because there is a market for it.
However for all the disgust shown here, when it comes to a lot of the public (and not a few of the shooting fraternity) it will be viewed in moral terms as little different to releasing thousands of pheasant and partridge onto ground, so that they can then be driven in their hundreds over a line of paying guns. The birds might be out there a little longer, but the principal is really not that different. After all it wasn't that many seasons ago that "topping up" during the season was commonplace. As it is, there is now a market where 400, 500, 600, even 1,000 bird days are not unusual, and just this week I heard of a high-bird shoot where they suggested a shot to kill ratio of 12:1 should be expected. How have we got to the point where a ratio like that is something to boast about?
Whether from a crate or a pen, these birds are being reared and released for one reason and one reason only - our sport. Whilst the definition of the term "sport" might vary, from a hard-line moral perspective it is difficult to put a Rizla paper between them.
There is another thread currently running on here about bird of prey predation. Whatever the arguments about excessive BoP numbers, such actions come about because of the focus on money that seems to be behind some commercial shoots in the UK. It is often put down to “bad apples”, but after so many years, and so many bad apples, why does it still happen with such monotonous regularity? It is commercial pressure that is driving such behaviour.
What we see in the videos here may not be to our personal liking, but the worst excesses of our own game industry don’t suffer much scrutiny either. We can all sit here and say “yes, but I'm not like that, I only shoot wild birds/small days/flighting duck", but at the end of the day we are - in the public’s eye at least - all part of that same industry.
So a little more introspection, and a little less of the "holier than thou" attitude, might be in order before so vocally condemning our cousins across the Atlantic.
With our birds also with the larger volumes then the chance of getting past as a low bird compared to a "good bird" is a much higher as guns are selective to a point. Planting a pheasant who has no chance of being a good bird or ever a chance to fly unlike our poults who develop each day getting stronger roosting in trees each night, By the first week most are up in the trees out the way and safe.
Our birds are free range get it wrong and they will wander and live quite happily in peoples gardens for a long time,
When I run my small shoot the nearest one was 4 miles and he had Mitch Blues who ended up with mine.
Lots of US videos of feeding deer with timed hoppers as they want to sit in a hut and shoot them!!
It is why a lot of people come here to shoot our estates, on the posted video also the likes of K Warren shooting deer with a .50bmg
What you don't and won't see is parties flying to the US to sit in a hut shooting fed deer or a planted bird who can hardly fly compared to who come here..
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landkeeper
Well-Known Member
At the end of the day it just depends on how far your own moral compass swings
People get outraged at 4 legged game be it deer pigs etc being hunted on 20-30,000 acre fenced areas or feral pigs shot from helicopters, yet quite happily buy a days pheasant shooting on a commercial enterprise .personally I have never paid a penny to shoot anything other than clays nor would I, its just not my thing and I've been incredibly lucky throughout my life that I've had access to sport from deer to snipe and everything in-between
Money is as they say the root of all evil and iffy practises are normally the result of the hunt for ££££ IMHO
I still am astounded that in this day and age there are eejits amongst the shooting fraternity that shoot poison and trap high profile bops and even after doing so are stupid enough to leave the evidence lying about it beggars belief !
The one thing that does annoy me with all the raptor poisonings is a lot of cases seem to be birds that have rat poison in their system something that could be as simple as having eaten a dead or dying rat poisoned in a legitimate pest control scenario. But it's always laid at shootings door
People get outraged at 4 legged game be it deer pigs etc being hunted on 20-30,000 acre fenced areas or feral pigs shot from helicopters, yet quite happily buy a days pheasant shooting on a commercial enterprise .personally I have never paid a penny to shoot anything other than clays nor would I, its just not my thing and I've been incredibly lucky throughout my life that I've had access to sport from deer to snipe and everything in-between
Money is as they say the root of all evil and iffy practises are normally the result of the hunt for ££££ IMHO
I still am astounded that in this day and age there are eejits amongst the shooting fraternity that shoot poison and trap high profile bops and even after doing so are stupid enough to leave the evidence lying about it beggars belief !
The one thing that does annoy me with all the raptor poisonings is a lot of cases seem to be birds that have rat poison in their system something that could be as simple as having eaten a dead or dying rat poisoned in a legitimate pest control scenario. But it's always laid at shootings door
El Majorero
Well-Known Member
Well I myself personally agree with your findings idea's and moral judgements.. Lucky enough to never have needed to pay for our shooting at any level. Sustainability, balance common sense and judgement.. Every thing has a level, its up to us the individual to find that level. The parameters of good, or at least the best we can each achieve lives within us.. My personal preferences may not be everyone's way, but it doesnt make them right nor wrong...
Well done mr. Landkeeper for speaking up for my thoughts it made much sense to me as a farmer and land owner in two extremes... It still comes down to that same thing.. Balance.
Well done mr. Landkeeper for speaking up for my thoughts it made much sense to me as a farmer and land owner in two extremes... It still comes down to that same thing.. Balance.
How can you keep pheasants caged up for 22 weeks (or more over the length of a season), then crate them up and release them on the day of a shoot and expect them to fly anywhere near satisfactorily after they have, at best only flown a few feet in an enclosed pen? What's more, they will scatter to the four points of the compass, not where anyone wants them to I'd have thought.
Not only does it present a very poor days shooting, but you have deprived those birds of any sort of quality of life. I have never heard of such a thing happening although I obviously can't know if it was ever done or not. Keeping many adult birds cooped up together is a recipe for a medical disaster, tail plucking, fights and cannibalism. And they'd have to be in close quarters, else how would you catch adult birds up in such quantity to put into crates to do the releasing on the shoot day? Apart from it being totally reprehensible, I don't see it as a model that would work in practice.
As for reared and released duck, I have seen good and bad practices. Duck reared and released early enough with the object of increasing and mingling with the wild population is one thing. You'll only get one go at them anyway and effectively will indeed increase the wild population. Having semi-tame duck on a pond eventually forced to fly by chucking some dogs into the water on a shoot day, where they don't fly high, do a circle and try and land on the pond is again pretty poor from the duck's point of view and indeed from the shooters. Again, reprehensible.
As for those big hundreds of birds in the day shoots, again I think there's good and bad. There's a school of thought that any days shooting where the bag is well into three figures is bad. That this quantity of birds must surely alter the area's flora and fauna adversely. That many of the birds shot are disposed of wastefully. Now this, I believe does (or has) happened. But again, don't be too eager to condemn all big shoots in this way. Many are well run, care for and improve their environment and dispose of their quarry responsibly. Personally, I wouldn't like to be shooting hundreds of birds every weekend (even if I could afford it), but the odd day that produces more than a bag consisting of a brace of pheasants, a partridge and a soaking to my underpants would not go amiss.
All forms of field sports have their detractors and all forms also have their bad practices. How many times do we experience or hear of deer being shot that have evidence on them of previously being shot by an air rifle or rimfire for example?
I think we should encourage any legal form of field sports, whether it's our cup of tea or not and roundly condemn bad practices the like of which appear in this thread in any of them. Especially the likes of that (ex)gamekeeper that culled those birds of prey in another thread on here.
Not only does it present a very poor days shooting, but you have deprived those birds of any sort of quality of life. I have never heard of such a thing happening although I obviously can't know if it was ever done or not. Keeping many adult birds cooped up together is a recipe for a medical disaster, tail plucking, fights and cannibalism. And they'd have to be in close quarters, else how would you catch adult birds up in such quantity to put into crates to do the releasing on the shoot day? Apart from it being totally reprehensible, I don't see it as a model that would work in practice.
As for reared and released duck, I have seen good and bad practices. Duck reared and released early enough with the object of increasing and mingling with the wild population is one thing. You'll only get one go at them anyway and effectively will indeed increase the wild population. Having semi-tame duck on a pond eventually forced to fly by chucking some dogs into the water on a shoot day, where they don't fly high, do a circle and try and land on the pond is again pretty poor from the duck's point of view and indeed from the shooters. Again, reprehensible.
As for those big hundreds of birds in the day shoots, again I think there's good and bad. There's a school of thought that any days shooting where the bag is well into three figures is bad. That this quantity of birds must surely alter the area's flora and fauna adversely. That many of the birds shot are disposed of wastefully. Now this, I believe does (or has) happened. But again, don't be too eager to condemn all big shoots in this way. Many are well run, care for and improve their environment and dispose of their quarry responsibly. Personally, I wouldn't like to be shooting hundreds of birds every weekend (even if I could afford it), but the odd day that produces more than a bag consisting of a brace of pheasants, a partridge and a soaking to my underpants would not go amiss.
All forms of field sports have their detractors and all forms also have their bad practices. How many times do we experience or hear of deer being shot that have evidence on them of previously being shot by an air rifle or rimfire for example?
I think we should encourage any legal form of field sports, whether it's our cup of tea or not and roundly condemn bad practices the like of which appear in this thread in any of them. Especially the likes of that (ex)gamekeeper that culled those birds of prey in another thread on here.
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