Ground rules

Where it is safe to do so, should shooting ground game be permitted on a driven day, upholding the tradition of rabbit pie once more?

- JONATHAN YOUNG

Of all shooting’s little rituals, none is more sacred than the shoot captain’s homily, delivered with a solemnity usually granted only to the Lord’s Prayer. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you could just stop talking for one moment – and that means you, too, Charles – we’re numbering eight, moving up two, from the right. Pick up your cartridges, please. No woodcock, no pigeon until the first gamebird’s shot, and no ground game.”

As with the sacred text, it’s so well known that we seldom stop to consider the content. But perhaps we should, especially the bits concerning what’s excluded from the sporting menu.

Over recent years, there’s been a gradual drift away from what are loosely described as ‘big bags’. What actually constitutes a big day varies greatly – I’ve found it’s usually a hundred birds more than a Gun normally shoots – but standard gun-bus chatter will usually agree that anywhere between 80 to 150 birds is a “proper sporting day”.

And so it is. Sort of. Divided among a team of eight, that means 10 to 19 quarry each, most of those accounted for by the Guns occupying the middle pegs. For those on the wings of the line, they’ll have a few chances but they could be far busier – and have a more exciting day – if we reviewed the prohibition on certain species.