Hunting time

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This month’s feature was by request from a reader who wanted to know about my day’s hunting in a bit more detail. I know many readers think that there is no way we can go out and shoot the numbers of quarry in a morning that a lot of hunters get in a week, but rest assured, with a lot of planning and patience you can get good numbers yourself.

I was one of those non-believers all those years back when I read the magazines religiously. I wanted to learn the trade and failed miserably many times, but I was not put off. I would tell myself, ‘These guys are hoarding days of quarry for the pics. There’s no way that they can shoot so much in one session’, but I was wrong. I was inexperienced in fieldcraft, I had no patience and I was in denial. All I wanted to do was walk around and expect quarry to jump out in front of me to shoot at. I still get a lot of those days when all the careful planning in the world fails miserably, and I might only get one shot off, or I shoot like an idiot, but that is down to me and no one else.

Watch and learn

Over the years, I have studied animal behaviour. I look at the areas where I see more feeding activity, and the times when that happens; when the birds like to go to roost and so on. There is so much that needs to be looked at to get what I call a ‘productive hunt’. Many a time, I have had people ask what they are doing wrong when they only get one pigeon or one squirrel and they feel deflated about it. I always reply with the same answer, “You are being successful. You’re going out after pests and shooting one.” There is no bag limit on what we shoot. We try to find as much to shoot as possible, but that takes years of getting to know your quarry and their habits.Once you’ve achieved that, you will turn a successful hunt into a productive one.