Shooting Times & Country Magazine
That sinking feeling
With the promise of an orgy of snipe, duck and game, CMA is led by a lively local character among the precarious bogs of Northern Ireland
Snipe have always fascinated me since I first used a gun, but the opportunity to shoot snipe constantly and not as the occasional bird did not come my way until I had been using a gun for some years. My battalion was ordered to move to Ireland and the gun, as usual, went with me, and I then got my first experience of being able to shoot snipe constantly and steadily.
To begin with, we were in Co Down where the bogs were not particularly extensive, but were more in the nature of wet corners in the fields. These small pieces, however, are always most profitable, and if birds were at all wild would fill a bag as quickly as any of the large bogs. Here the birds were quiet and usually had good cover, with a reasonably dry lie, so that they were ready to stop and converse, while the shooter had the added advantage of a good foothold, which is so often denied him in the larger bogs and which is really the hardest part of snipe shooting.
I had to relieve a small garrison for a month with a platoon of my men while the unit normally on duty was taken out for annual training. The men were accommodated in huts on the outskirts of a small village near to an extensive and very juicy bog. Need I add that whenever the platoon had to be visited the bog was visited also.
This bog was alive with birds, but suffered from many drawbacks. It was really bad in places, so that it was impossible to walk it, and I then had no dog, which meant the snipe could only be shot when they were retrievable. I found that the first shot would put up the whole bog and while there was a great thrill in seeing so many birds rising, the bag was small.
Inevitably also, I would knock a bird down in some awkward spot and just as inevitably start to retrieve it, making good headway until I had nearly reached it, when the conditions would get really bad. Then over that last yard I would go through the mat of rush, up to the thighs, eventually to come ashore black, stinking and blasphemous.
My CO was a keen Shot and had been stationed in this district some years before when he had made the acquaintance of one whom, to prevent embarrassment, we will call Flanagan. He said that this man had been a keeper on a nearby estate, which may have been true, but now, I fear, he lived somewhat by his wits.
Anyway, we went to look him up. He was grand company and was delighted to see us, insisting that he must take us shooting, with many highly coloured and enthusiastic descriptions of the orgy of snipe, duck and game with which we should come on terms. We made a date and Saturday midday saw us at Flanagan’s
ready for the fray. Our guide and friend was more or less ready, and had with him a dog which, I think, had some labrador blood, but which looked as if it would really make a better guard than gundog; later events did little to dispel this opinion. We set off and did find a few snipe in the odd corners, but eventually came to a big bog that was Flanagan’s tour de force.
Shaky ground
It looked a bad bog and I said so, but Flanagan was definite that a course down the middle was as safe and easy as “yourself on your parade ground”. I, therefore, took off down the middle and was very soon wishing I was off it, for it was a ‘quaker’ and the sensation was exactly that of walking on a net that rose and sank beneath one’s feet, and which was, in fact, a platform of floating vegetation.
Halfway down the bog six teal rose and circled back overhead, so that I was able to drop two birds, but with the twist of my feet on the second shot they went through the net, and I was well up to the thighs in water. I felt the shock of the cold, but was intently watching the four teal, which swung round to come down the middle again like arrows, straight at me. I took out one bird but missed my second.
Then to my surprise they twisted again, to sweep low over me, to lose two more. I was elated and excited, but puzzled as to why they seemed not to have noticed me, but my bewilderment was short-lived, for I found I had sunk so far that only my head and shoulders were out of water. I was very scared, but controlled the impulse to struggle and, leaning to grasp a handful of rush, I slid myself out. It worked and I got back on to the net, picking-up three of my birds in the process.
Caught poaching
I came straight off the bog and taxed Flanagan, who had taken care to keep on dry land, only to be told, “Begod, Major, it was juicier than I thought”. There was little to do but laugh.
As the afternoon wore on, I thought we were covering a powerful lot of country and in my blissful ignorance trusted to our guide, but the uneasiness of Flanagan when an irate yell rang over the countryside from the far side of a small bog made me realise we were poaching. With a few remarks about “Yon miserable old crayther”, Flanagan led us deftly round the hill and we headed for home.
We made a stop at a small pub when Flanagan impressed all those present by a great craic about our prowess, while the seductive warmth of John Jamieson’s crept down to my toes. Mellowed by this and flattered by Flanagan’s exaggerations, we had one or two more than we had really intended and dusk had fallen when we took the road for the remainder of our journey.
“I found I had sunk so far that only my head and shoulders were out of water”
Flanagan voted the day a brave one and was all for repeating the dose. To this we agreed, but before the week was out I was moved to another battalion, which kept me from enjoying another day’s sport, but which no doubt prevented me from getting into a load of trouble.
This article was first published in the 1 September 1951 issue of Shooting Times.