Driven boar UK

[countrryboy]

I'm sure the UK pork industry would be in favour of it too.

So many negatives and very few if any positives.
Really the only chance would be inside a fenced area in Scotland so the hunting laws wouldn't affect any dogs used to drive them and no welfare issues about them crossing boundries ( dunno if the deer act applies to them,or even if it truly does permit u to cross boundries with a firearm, see dog tracking thread)

It's not just snowflakes why would any hunter want to introduce a method of hunting which will increase the chance of wounding.

 

[mchughcb]

You mean like pheasant shooting?

 

[Jagare]

I'm sure the UK pork industry would be in favour of it too.

So many negatives and very few if any positives.
Really the only chance would be inside a fenced area in Scotland so the hunting laws wouldn't affect any dogs used to drive them and no welfare issues about them crossing boundries ( dunno if the deer act applies to them,or even if it truly does permit u to cross boundries with a firearm, see dog tracking thread)

It's not just snowflakes why would any hunter want to introduce a method of hunting which will increase the chance of wounding.

What has the UK pork industry got to do with it. If ASF make it to the UK driven boar would be the least of there worries.
I've been on several small scale driven days that could have been easily held in the UK. You don't need a mass of dogs to hunt boar. I did one a couple of years ago, three dog handlers, two small drives and 8 boar shot. We then retired to the farm for a BBQ lunch and shot fifty pheasants after lunch. Great days sport on a small scale and a very social hunting. Infact there were more dogs on the pheasant shoot in the afternoon. Its good hunters are so ethical in the UK and that they recover every deer or other game they shoot at. Keep telling yourselves that the UK has more ethical and righteous hunting than johnny foreigner but i bet we are still hunting long after most of your hunting has disappeared in the UK.
I'm on a driven hunt on a thousand hectare estate next Saturday and had the offer of another shoot on the same day that i had to turn down. I'll be enjoying myself.

 

[countrryboy]

Wot I meant esp n UK context, u"d never be allowed to introduce driven pheasant shooting now if it hadn't been around since Victorian times, esp if u had previously only shot stationary birds previously. And quite rightly too
It's not about being better than johny f but surely u can't argue % kill rates and meat quality are the same comparing the 2.
Bad enough trying to run a pheasant shoot without dog walkers/ramblers walking throu it without adding fast moving heavy boar and CF rifles

Even if it was allowed u'd probably still be cheaper shooting them abroad ur often cheaper shooting driven birds abroad now

 

[Jagare]

I'm not saying you should or would have driven boar in the UK. I've stalked on many places in the UK where it would be quite possible to have a driven boar day if there were sufficient boar on the ground. Sure there are shots that miss there target and boar are wounded but all the driven days I've been on have a tracking team to hand. As i said it lucky no UK hunters ever wounds any animals . I understand there are hunting days in the UK where deer are moved to the waiting guns. Boar would be different because?
Meat damage seems to be a UK hang up. It never seems to be a problem here. We just want the animal dead in a ethical manner. Meat damage is very secondary.
In 16 years of driven moose hunting I've never seen a moose shot that had excessive meat damage and only once has the dog had to follow up a shot moose.
I agree that if driven boar was available in the UK it would not be cheap. I've bought a couple of days this year here in Sweden. Small days with a 20+ bag that i thought were very good value for money plus no air fare and all the other expenses that go with it. The days cost about what a morning and evening stalk shooting a cull deer costs in the UK.
The agent i use in Hungary has 300 bird pheasant days at 18 euro's a bird.

 

[User00014]

Another hang up to driven boar here is from a tracking point of view, unless you are going to get permission for tracking teams to cross boundaries for many km it’s pointless!

the furthest I have personally tracked a pig for is 3km after a drive hunt, 5-10in extreme cases.

personally I think there are more boar shot here from seats that are hit and not tracked than people let on.

it takes a very very skilled team of guns fluent in driven shooting to kill cleanly and even then it doesn’t always go to plan.

Also from a beating point of view, the dogs here are not trained to do it, when you are dealing with pigs you need good sharp dogs, not only to move the pigs but also they need to handle themselves should a pig turn on them.

using dogs that are not correcttrained to do the job will be Injured or in worst case killed.

also when tracking pigs you are in the hands of god, if you have to let your dog go no matter how well trained your dog is, you have to be prepared to deal injury or the possibility of your dog being killed.

Over the years being involved directly with the clubs in Germany I know of several extremely experienced dogs being killed while tracking.

I spent £400 on a protective vest for my dog but that doesn’t guarantee her safety.

 

[Jagare]

Another hang up to driven boar here is from a tracking point of view, unless you are going to get permission for tracking teams to cross boundaries for many km it’s pointless!

the furthest I have personally tracked a pig for is 3km after a drive hunt, 5-10in extreme cases.

personally I think there are more boar shot here from seats that are hit and not tracked than people let on.

it takes a very very skilled team of guns fluent in driven shooting to kill cleanly and even then it doesn’t always go to plan.

Also from a beating point of view, the dogs here are not trained to do it, when you are dealing with pigs you need good sharp dogs, not only to move the pigs but also they need to handle themselves should a pig turn on them.

using dogs that are not correcttrained to do the job will be Injured or in worst case killed.

also when tracking pigs you are in the hands of god, if you have to let your dog go no matter how well trained your dog is, you have to be prepared to deal injury or the possibility of your dog being killed.

Over the years being involved directly with the clubs in Germany I know of several extremely experienced dogs being killed while tracking.

I spent £400 on a protective vest for my dog but that doesn’t guarantee her safety. View attachment 145525
[/QUOTE
£400 for the dog vest is cheap insurance. It cost me nearly that amount to have the Kopov sewn up after boar strike. Needless to say he has a vest now.

 

[Whitester]

Driven hunting is very exciting and I can see the draw but I’m more in favour of one shot one kill and I don’t see how you can guarantee and clean kill while shooting a running boar.
I know that sounds a bit anti and I’m really not against it and probably very un educated on the subject but I don’t like the idea of a badly hit boar.

 

[Lateral]

Driven hunting is very exciting and I can see the draw but I’m more in favour of one shot one kill and I don’t see how you can guarantee and clean kill while shooting a running boar.
I know that sounds a bit anti and I’m really not against it and probably very un educated on the subject but I don’t like the idea of a badly hit boar.

Based on the way we are taught to shoot deer in the UK, this is very understandable, and when shooting deer, I have exactly the same attitude. However, should this also apply to driven bird, pheasant, grouse, partridge, and pigeon ?

Many, many birds are injured, and require dispatching, but this is deemed acceptable. Why ? Just apply the same to boar.

All shooting requires a certain level of skill, which comes from practise, and experience, driven boar is no different.

 

[Whitester]

I take your point on game shooting but I think it goes further. Maybe all shooting disciplines should require a certain level of competency . Why should anyone be able to shoot live quarry unless they can prove they have the necessary skill needed to do the job properly.

In the times we live in there is possibly room for this unless we want to leave ourselfs wide open to Critism from antis.

just a thought

 

[Lateral]

I take your point on game shooting but I think it goes further. Maybe all shooting disciplines should require a certain level of competency . Why should anyone be able to shoot live quarry unless they can prove they have the necessary skill needed to do the job properly.

In the times we live in there is possibly room for this unless we want to leave ourselfs wide open to Critism from antis.

just a thought

Sorry, THAT is one of the scariest ideas I've heard in an awful long time. A competency test before being granted an FAC !

The anti's won't give a damn, they are what they are, and that's another thing we just don't need. I don't care how long you've been shooting, or how good a shot you are, there is always the possibility of a shot not going to plan.

 

[mchughcb]

The only antis on this thread are people who think the anti bogeyman is out there.

 

[alwhitt94]

The way I look at it is boar in the uk are classed as vermin and if it was a fox, rabbit or a rat would you have the same consideration I think if a test is taken before you go out then i don’t see why there would be any problem, in regards to injuring it happens in every kind of live shooting I’m only thinking of other ways to take the boar as have heard that in the FOD they have been trapping to try and cut down on numbers but seems like a bit of a waste.

 

[Sash]

why Isn’t anyone doing driven boar in the U.K. yet?

As per usual, we have had a bit of thread creep. So, to try to address the OP’s question:
1) In the UK, it’s far more about safety than anything else. Not culture, dog training, or a wish to ensure that we achieve clean kills. But England, in particular, is small and very densely populated, with a network of public footpaths that cannot realistically be closed for a shoot. And the vast majority of estates cannot lay out a drive (remember: the guns both face and fire OUTWARDS) that would give genuinely safe fields of fire for the 15-25 guns that you would expect on a continental battue. Plus backstops etc.
2) But the inability to drive boar with more than two dogs is a huge issue; substitute sufficient willing and keen (human) beaters and the cost goes up exponentially.

So its not an issue of “yet”, IMHO. It’s “ever”.
I’m off to France for the first of my 3 days of boar next week. I have never yet thought for one second that the setup there could successfully be transplanted into the UK but, if I change my mind by the end of February, I will report back with metaphorically bowed head!

 

[CarlW]

The only antis on this thread are people who think the anti bogeyman is out there.

I think that's a fair criticism of many of us Brits, myself included. It's good to be challenged on one's established 'truths'. Thank you, @mchughcb .

Kind regards,

Carl

 

[alwhitt94]

As per usual, we have had a bit of thread creep. So, to try to address the OP’s question:
1) In the UK, it’s far more about safety than anything else. Not culture, dog training, or a wish to ensure that we achieve clean kills. But England, in particular, is small and very densely populated, with a network of public footpaths that cannot realistically be closed for a shoot. And the vast majority of estates cannot lay out a drive (remember: the guns both face and fire OUTWARDS) that would give genuinely safe fields of fire for the 15-25 guns that you would expect on a continental battue. Plus backstops etc.
2) But the inability to drive boar with more than two dogs is a huge issue; substitute sufficient willing and keen (human) beaters and the cost goes up exponentially.

So its not an issue of “yet”, IMHO. It’s “ever”.
I’m off to France for the first of my 3 days of boar next week. I have never yet thought for one second that the setup there could successfully be transplanted into the UK but, if I change my mind by the end of February, I will report back with metaphorically bowed head!

I don’t see why it couldnt be done in Scotland

 

[Lateral]

I think that's a fair criticism of many of us Brits, myself included. It's good to be challenged on one's established 'truths'. Thank you, @mchughcb .

Kind regards,

Carl

I can't comment on the "Anti" situation in Australia, it may be very different to the UK, but I think a good test, is if you're happy to post pictures of yourself on Facebook public pages, with the animals you've shot, using your real name, rather than an alias !

I know people who have had very close shaves with them. Some of them just protest, but there is an element, who are very violent !

 

[Jagare]

I'm with Lateral Re,the competence test. I have a simple rule. If I'm hunting a game animal i want to be the best shot i can be for the type game animal I'm hunting.
I hunt driven game so i put in a lot of practice for that type of hunting. If i did a pheasant shooting again i would practice that. If i booked an African trip why would i not practice with a DG rifle till i was competent. Why would i spend good money on a foreign driven hunt and not prepare my self to try and give a good account of myself.
You don't train for driven game by watching wild boar fever 1-8. It should be down to each individual hunter to be as competent as they can. There's no excuse not to put in the practice if you want to hunt.

 

[Lateral]

I'm with Lateral Re,the competence test. I have a simple rule. If I'm hunting a game animal i want to be the best shot i can be for the type game animal I'm hunting.
I hunt driven game so i put in a lot of practice for that type of hunting. If i did a pheasant shooting again i would practice that. If i booked an African trip why would i not practice with a DG rifle till i was competent. Why would i spend good money on a foreign driven hunt and not prepare my self to try and give a good account of myself.
You don't train for driven game by watching wild boar fever 1-8. It should be down to each individual hunter to be as competent as they can. There's no excuse not to put in the practice if you want to hunt.

Alan,

Sadly, we don't have the number of training facilities you have there in Sweden.

I think there are maybe a handful of driven boar/deer ranges in the country, and only one cinema I'm aware of, which fortunately, is only about 20 mins from my home (Holland, & Holland). However, they charge £150.00 p/h for one shooter, and an additional £25.00 p/h for additional shooters. On top of that, you'll do circa 35-40 rounds each.

The outdoor ranges are cheaper, but shooting in the open, and pretty repetitive.

I would love to go to H&H more often, but the cost is prohibitive. A great shame, when it sits unused most of the time.

 

[shendy]

What about driven Muntjac?