Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Roughing it for wild birds in wild places
Some reckon that the very best Shots ply their trade away from the peg; here Tom Payne examines how to hold your own on a rough day
At the heart of it, rough shooting is about getting out there and finding your own sport. Often that means wild birds — and you often end up in wild places. You could be shooting over spaniels or you could be shooting over pointers, or even a few old labradors and a terrier.
While the concept itself is simple, the appeal is delightfully hard to pin down. For me, it’s about understanding your quarry and even thinking like your quarry. To shoot well on a rough day, you need good fieldcraft, so you need to be able to read ground and understand where birds might flush from, and you need good knowledge of birds themselves. Was that a snipe or a jack snipe? Is that duck too high? What even is it? Needless to say, if you can’t tell a pintail from a teal, you need to go back to studying.
Once upon a time, rough shooting was the only shooting there was, but in the Victorian period it became eclipsed by driven days. For a long time, driven days were thought of as being more luxurious and smarter. However, I think that, lately, rough days and walked-up days have taken on a prestige of their own. A person who takes a rough day, where they’ll end up encountering a number of species, really needs to know what they are about.
how do you practise for it? The best way is to shoot at absolutely every height, speed, angle and distance if you are at the clay ground. English Sporting certainly has its roots in rough shooting and time spent practising this discipline will pay dividends if you decide you want some rough sport.
On the nose
Most Guns will have their preferred style of rough shooting, including favourite seasons and quarries. Personally, I love bolting rabbits over spaniels out of the reeds. One thing to remember with any sort of ground game is that they seem a lot faster than they are. Most rabbits are missed high and in front, although they often give the impression you are behind them. Make sure to knock them on the nose.
I remember, some years ago, talking to the Editor of Shooting Times about a trip north he’d taken with some young guys who worked in finance. “All good enough shots,” he observed, “but they couldn’t read the dogs.” To be a good rough Shot, you need to be able to see that the spaniels are showing interest in a
Above: patch of ground or that your pointing dogs are about to come on to point.
As well as reading dogs, you really need to understand the weather. Heading out after a full moon in November can yield plenty of snipe, but you also need to know that they
“All you are hoping for is to get a shot — and hoping your ability is up to the challenge”
flush into the wind. You want to walk with the wind behind you and they will turn towards you, which is the perfect time to take the shot.
When practising for low driven game, it’s not always the speed that makes you think they are trickier. Distance also helps the deception, so keep calm when a covey breaks. One of the best ways to practise is to shoot the broken fragments of clays with your second shot. You may think this is a waste, but it will teach you several things.
First of all, you will be learning how to finish a shot. Secondly, it’s a brilliant way of learning how to react to a second bird in a covey, or a flaring bird such as snipe out of a bog. It’s amazing practice for wild game and your own shooting ability, so don’t ignore the shards. It has made world champions — and it can make top rough shooters.
The same technique applies when walking a river edge, ditch or boggy ground to try to flush the odd snipe, or a duck or two. You have your target species in certain spots, but you could always be surprised. All you are hoping for is an opportunity to get a shot — and hoping that your ability is up to the challenge. That’s the joy of rough shooting.
Old school
The classic mixed rough day — or ‘species day’ as we would call them when I was young — would involve two or three of your mates, dogs in tow, walking any piece of ground you could. Jumping teal splashes first thing in the morning, running dogs through rhododendrons for pheasants, open rough ground to try to catch out the odd partridge, then in around the old bracken and young silver birch trees to hopefully get stuck into the woodcock.
Of course, I’d always end the day by roosting pigeons. It was glorious — proper old-school rough shooting. At the end of the day, you feel such achievement because you have found your own shooting and trusted your own fieldcraft — and most likely learned a little bit more.
Safety, as always, is paramount. A rough shooter rarely stands in plain sight, holding his neighbour’s hand, and it is tough to practise that
situation on a simulated day. Instead, Guns must understand the lie of the land, and how the dog handler and dog work in front of them. You cannot shoot at quarry if you don’t know where it’s going or what’s behind it. When working ground where cover impacts visibility, communication is key.
I would strongly suggest that a rough shooter should be considered the best all-round Shot. I’ve seen many a top pheasant Shot come unstuck in a rough-shooting environment. That fast, low quartering covey of French partridges flushed from a rough bit of ground next to a stubble will catch them out more often than not. It’s completely different to a nicely presented partridge with ‘please shoot me’ stuck to the tip of its beak.
If you can find a clay ground that shoots Skeet, it is fantastic practice.
Low quartering, crossers, incomers and going away — all the angles are covered. The only thing missing would be rabbits, but they are easy to find on most good shooting grounds.
The grounds that have Compak Sporting are brilliant for practice and it doesn’t take long to do. You can stay on one stand and shoot the various targets provided and move to change the angles. It’s good practice for the rough shooter and very good practice for the pigeon shooter.
On the lookout
Rough shooting is really where the true countryman has the edge. The person that watches the habitats of the quarry they seek will be at an advantage. When you are out for an afternoon walking the dog, it pays to watch and study the very hedgerows you may be walking-up with a gun in hand in the near future.