A DAY IN THE LIFE

Alex Hatton joins a charming little syndicate shoot for its first day of the season, and takes pleasure in working his dog and mucking in on this ‘walk one stand one’ team effort

- Alex Hatton

Standing at a peg is not something I do very often, so when I was invited to a ‘walk one stand one’ syndicate day in north Wales, I accepted. It was to be this syndicate’s first day of the year, and so I was warned that a tweak to the way their drives work and a change in the placement of the feeders could work really well, or it could be really challenging. Bringing a gundog was welcome as not everyone had one.

The forecast was wet, so I packed my waterproofs and a warming soup for lunchtime. One of my Munsterlanders was in season, so it would be the 11-year-old Ilka accompanying me this time. She was up to it, but I would need to keep her a little calmer, as HPRs do naturally range more.

Following a shoot briefing (strictly no ground game or low birds), we were split into two teams, with the group I was with beating first. We allowed 10 minutes for the Guns to get into position and we walked to the first woodland. As I stood waiting to start, I certainly had a sense of a well-run syndicate – neatly carved out tracks in the woods for the quad, no rubbish, very tidy pens – there was obviously a formula that was working. With that we were off! I must admit it took a lot of restraint and handling on my part to stop the dog from ranging too much, as she could smell the pheasants the whole time we were stood there.