Rope lead - fail!

This is what happens when you leave a young lab tied up with a rope slip lead!

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Bracken's first pheasant

 

We took Bracken, the 15 month old lab, to her first proper driven pheasant shoot today - and she behaved impeccably! She sat patiently but attentively at the peg (on her rather girly pink and white rope lead) and didn't pull or whine.

When we got the chance, we sent her for her first pheasant retrieve - this nice cock, which fell in plain view an easy distance away. And she went straight out and brought it back!

OK it wasn't the most demanding task, but that wasn't the point. We wanted her first introduction to driven game to be a calm and positive affair. There will be plenty of time for more adventurous work later.

As it happens, this was also my first pheasant this season too. I know readers like to think I'm constantly swanning around getting shooting invitations left right and centre. The truth is, it doesn't happen like that, and I rarely have the time to spare anyway. Still, it was great to get out and enjoy a modest driven day, courtesy of my mum who gave up her gun for the day. Thanks mum!

For the record, the total bag was 56 pheasants, a pigeon and a rabbit, between 8 guns. I shot just over my share, at 8 pheasants and the pigeon. The weather was dull and chilly, while the company was quite the opposite. It's a small, friendly shoot near Horsham in Sussex - just the sort of shoot I like best.

Splashing about in the lake

Had a lovely family picnic today to celebrate my birthday. No good for fishing - after all this hot weather the fish are struggling, and in no mood to take a fly.

But we did have some fun doing a spot of training with the duck dummy I bought at the Game Fair recently.

Skye showed how it was done, and Bracken picked up the idea very quickly, bringing the plastic mallard back in fine style.

And then we ate loads of cake. Can't think of a nicer way to spend a birthday!

Squirrel time

Today was the day of the annual squirrel shoot - a family affair with my dad handling the poles, me with the gun (the trusty pump-action Remmy), and assorted others as general helpers doing vital jobs like spotting the dreys and helping to lug the poles around the woods.

Along the way I was able to spot which rabbit burrows are active, in preparation for ferreting in a week's time. I was amazed how dark and orange the rabbit pee looked in the snow. In some places it was almost like blood. Perhaps it's that colour all the time and we just can't see it. Or maybe the weather has made the rabbits a bit dehydrated, so their urine is more concentrated than normal.

UPDATE: Daughter Emma, who's practically a vet (2 1/2 years to go!) has looked into this and tells me that blood in the urine can indicate Viral Haemmorhagic Disease, uterine cancer, or various rare conditions. However, there's also some documented evidence that a) the urine of perfectly healthy rabbits can vary from almost clear to dark orange/red, and b) one factor that seems to make it darker is cold conditions. So, unless all our rabbits have got VHD at once (unlikely), it seems that the cold snap is the cause, and the snow just allows us to see it. If you have any more info on this, do let me know.

Anyhow, the bag was five squirrels, a big improvement on last year when we saw next to nothing. One particular success was getting a squirrel out of a hole in a big tree, using the cunning tactic of lobbing snowballs into the hole.

For one drey, my Australian nephews abandoned the poles and used snowballs instead - it worked, and out came a squirrel!

Skye and Bracken came too - Skye doing her best to act like a proper gundog, and Bracken showing more interest in rabbit poo than anything else.

And when we got home they, er, helped me pluck a couple of brace of pheasants...

 

Black dogs, white snow

Not the easiest subject to photograph, especially when the dogs won't sit still! Eventually, by bribing her with treats, we managed to get Bracken to sit still long enough for this one:

She is still excited every time she sees the snow, and rushes around snuffling it - throwing it in the air with her nose and trying to catch the pieces as they fall.

Bracken is growing at a phenomenal rate, and had reached 8 1/2 kilos at the last weigh-in. All this cold weather doesn't make house training any easier, of course, but we'll get there in the end!

Cute puppy photos

 

 

I've been making the most of the sunshine, and a couple of spare hours, to shoot some of the obligatory cute puppy photos. Bracken is 12 weeks now, and if I don't get on with it she'll be a big hulking brute and I'll have missed the chance! More photos in my collection on Flickr here...

Tug of war

This is not the recommended way of training a young gundog, but it's good to see the two of them playing together!

It's a hard life

Phew, that was a big meal!

Bracken in her new home

We picked up Bracken today, full of apprehension as always with a new pup - what will the old dog think of her, will she be ok, are we feeding her right, etc, etc!

Well, so far so good! She's getting on fine with Skye (although Skye was unimpressed by Bracken's attempt to feed from her!), eating well, dropping the usual items around the place, and generally getting into mischief.

Of course she's brought the entire house to a standstill, no work getting done - isn't that what puppies are for?!

Not long now!

That's enough about tiresome antis - on to happier subjects: this young lady will be joining the Marchington family in a week or so (we'll have to get her out of the trouser-chewing habit pdq!). She was bred by Shaun, a Sporting Shooter reader and keen beater/shooter who lives in Reading. By concidence, I had bumped into him in the early days of the magazine when I photographed a shoot run by the father of Sheena, who was our sub-editor at the time. Small world!

Andy Richardson had been pushing us to get a pup earlier this year, but at that time the head ruled the heart and we stayed firm. After several weeks of campaigning by the kids, we caved in - with the result that we went round to Shaun's to view his litter of black labs.

No-one could resist this lot, and in a flash we'd fallen for this one, provisionally named 'Bracken' although Andy will pull my leg mercilessly about that, and we will probably change our minds several times before it's settled. They're almost weaned, and depending how that goes the current plan is that we'll pick her up in about a week's time. Expect this blog to be over-run with cute puppy pictures for some time to come.

Incidentally, last time we spoke to Shaun he had 3 male pups unsold - if you're interested drop me a line and I'll pass your details on.