Get the best out of your day’s shooting

Ensure you’re invited back with our advice on peg etiquette, choosing the right gun and the joys of rough shooting

If you’re on your own, your dog should be bombproof, with a lineage even longer than your own and no need of a lead. If, like the rest of us mere mortals, your beloved hound requires a semblance of control, please ensure it’s attached to a vision of such elegant pulchritude that all attention will be focused on the handler rather than Fido.

When it comes to your own etiquette, the long list of unforgivable sins includes being a greedy shot, poaching (whether birds or paramours), tucking into low and slow targets, using Snapchat during the drive and gluttony (of either solid or liquid kind). Always remember that placing a gun in someone’s hands provides an insight to their soul.

Make sure you’re fun to be around, don’t drop names (either human or shoots) and regularly tell your host that you haven’t had so much fun in ages. Don’t forget to tip the keeper (and loader, if it’s ritzy), but also leave ‘something for the house’. How much? It’s a thorny subject, yet best never to appear mean for the sake of a tenner or two.

Finally your ‘thank you’ should be swift, entertaining and not too short—at least two pages—and definitely not sent via email. There’s nothing worse than a letter that starts ‘I’m so sorry this is so late’. Send a generous bunch of flowers to your hostess, too. It goes down well and moves you up her list, which is often more important than his. Mark Firth