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Pheasant shooting is one of the most common game shooting there is. An average bag on a pheasant shoot 50-500 birds. High driven pheasant fly about 100yds in the air. Pheasant is a wonderful poultry meat, tasting like rich chicken. The game keepers of the estate breed the young chicks at the end of a season ready for the next season. most people use number 5 cartriges for pheasants.
There are Quite a few different people involved on a driven day, there ae the game keepers, beaters, picker ups, and the guns. The guns are the people that actually pay to shoot. Shooting is quite an expensive hobby. At tiny, tiny shoots you can pay about £50 per gun per day and then there the average shoot where you pay about £250 - £700 and then there are the big shooting estates like Chatsworth, Balmoral etc, where you pay over £1000 per gun, per day, But places like chatsworth and balmoral have an extremely high quality of game, intresting shot, beautiful scenery and hospitality.
Pheasants like to go in woodland, maize and meadows, so if you go on a pheasant shoot, you will most likly go through them terrains and maybe some others.
Usually you can take your gundog or the picker ups have them, these are highly traing dogs, trained to retrieve your dead game. the best gundogs are ones with soft teeth, there are loads of gun dogs and here are a few, labradors, springer spaniels, cocker spaniels, german pionters, vizzlas, the most common by far is the labrador.
Various sub-species of the pheasant have been introduced over the years and a great many will and do interbreed and it is unlikely to now that there are pure forms in the wild in Britain, , other than ornamental pheasants. This constant cross breeding has produced an endless plumage variation. The most commonly seen are the so called old english and ring neck those with and those with out white collars.
In simple terms the cocks are a striking orange-gold colour with glossy green heads and long, olive brown tails. The red wattles around the eyes are less pronounced outside breeding season but, generally clearly visible. There are innumerable variations and combinations in the width of the white collar, the barring on the tail feather and the forewing, upper tail coverts, legs, underparts, and the crown of the head. The hens, at a cursory glance, appear to be buffish in colour with dark brown markings but these on closer inspection, can be immensely varied in patterns.
Cock pheasants will start laying claim to their territories in late febraury although half hearted sparring will occur throughout winter. Fights rarely become serious and often one bird will back down before a blow has been struck. As the spring progress the tell tale double crow and drum of wing of the territorial pheasant is increasingly heard. Territories vary in size considerably and can cover several acres usually a mixture of arable land and woodland edge. The more woodland edge, the more possible territories and, conequently, several small irregually shaped woods will provide a better potential for breeding success than one large block of forest.
The pheasant chicks lives on more or less insect for the first 2 weeks. At 10 days the chick can fly a short distance, often enough to reach thick ground and cover. The chicks are relatively independent at 4 weeks, the brood generally stays together for about 3 months. Full plumage is obtained at about 17 - 18 weeks and they reach full adult body weight at 22 weeks.
Driven shooting accounts for the majority of the annual bag of pheasant in britain. This can vary from very informal half beat/half stand days when you may get a few shots to extremely efficient and calculated shoots with keepers, beaters, pickers-up, game-carts and walkie talkies.
The former, usually managed on a DIY basis, will generally be on a small acerage and, consequently, will have a limited number of drives which can often mean that all the available cover is beaten out each time it is shot. Naturally, such land should only be shot 2 or times a seaso. Some keepers managed to feed their birds out to surrounding drive so effectively that they need to shoot their release coverts. In simple terms a straight line of beaters moves slowly through cover flushing the birds steadily from about the middle onwards.
Flushed to early, the pheasant which is not capable of flying great distances, is likely to drop back in it before reaching the guns. Without a long rest, it will be extremely reluctant to fly again and if pushed, will usually dribbe out a head height. In a wood with sparse cover and plenty of birds, if they are allowed to run on to the end before getting up, they will come out in large flushes, producing little excitement for all but 2 or 3 guns. Driving pheasants successfully therefore is linked inextricably with good woodland management and the placing of the standing guns.
Pheasant can run extremely fast and hide in the thickest of cover. Walking up pheasants which can be hard work and the few shots well earned is often done with only one or two guns and their dogs, working smaller areas of more manageable cover than the driven shoots converts. Good thick hedges, sugar beet, scrub land and boggy reedbeds will often produce the odd bird but the excitement is in the unpredictability, when compared with driven shooting, and the pleasure in watching your dog work. The after christmas pheasant, especially the cock, is some what wiser and tends to run at the slightest sound but, though the bag amy be a small one, one remebers every shot, whilst on a large driven day things may become a bit of a blur.
As with any bird, always watch a pheasant you think you might have a hit until it is out of sight it is your job to ensure that the birds you have shot have been marked. There is nothing more infuriating than having to have to stop shooting in order to watch your neighbour hit because he cant be bothered. pheasants can fly 200 - 300 yards before collapsing. On both walked up and driven days it is important to stop shooting early to allow plenty of time for the birds to feed and go up to roost in peace. A great many pheasant released each year in order to guarantee the shooting. Managed carefully the can provide a superb testing targets but they are often over fed and over tame and sadly there are still too many people more interested in numbers than quality, though they profess adamantly that is still the other way round |
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