GROUND GAME AND SAFETY ISSUES

David Tomlinson makes valid points about safety while in the shooting field (Too close for comfort, 31 October). Still very active in my eighth decade, having enjoyed a lifetime shooting, this is a topic that i feel very strongly about.

There should be no shooting at ground game, especially foxes. There are a lot of foxcoloured cocker spaniels about — i see them frequently on shoots — which in cover could easily be mistaken by an excitable

Shot, thinking he is doing the keeper a favour.

i was the guest at a shoot in Fife recently where the host — father of the keeper — said this, indicating that the keeper would attend to any foxes in the line of his work. Surely a few pheasants eaten by a fox is a small price to pay for the loss of a working companion?

F. Murray, Edinburgh

The Editor responds: at a shoot lunch last week, i had the pleasure of sitting next to an 86-year-old.

12 • Shooting times & Country magazine He told me that, when he was a boy, the bag on the syndicate we were on was made up of grey partridges and hares. i asked him if there were ever any accidents. He replied that there weren’t. i agree that foxes can easily be mistaken for a cocker but i always feel aggrieved when a hare runs out behind me, in an area where they are plentiful, and i can’t raise my gun to it. patrick galbraith asks what our perfect sporting moment would be (Editor’s letter, 31 October). Mine would be a night under a just-waning moon somewhere on the norfolk coast. The tide would start to drop off by 6.30pm or so and, as the pinkfeet were left high and dry, they would start to think about flighting to the fields.

The first i would be aware of would probably be the croaks of a small bunch passing by, then i’d hear a call somewhere out over the mud in front. a quick couple of whistles — two fingers jammed on to the tip of your up-curled tongue — might steer a lone bird to you or persuade a small bunch to swing closer. Then, there they are; crossing the cloud lit by the moon. Hit or miss, it will always be my idea of the best, the wildest sport.

S. Trinder, by email a new member of our shoot has recently raised a matter that i had never considered before; should spent cartridges be recycled through municipal waste disposal systems?

We are strongly encouraged to recycle waste and most local authorities provide separate receptacles for recyclable and non-recyclable items. Most plastic items are recyclable but i have heard that black plastic is not. Even so, while some cartridges are produced in black, many are of different colours.

We are all anxious to do what we can to preserve the environment and not leave spent cartridges on the ground.

Have you any views as to the appropriate method of disposal? J. Hollow, by email