Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Is this the return of the wandering Gun?
Richard Negus wonders whether soaring running costs for farmers and landowners could create new opportunities for rough shooters
Gentlemen may stand at pegs, the rest of us make do with a bit of rough. Until the mid-1980s, this was largely the norm. Shooting driven game was, due to economics, a somewhat exclusive affair. The costs and logistics of it all meant that only those with large tracts of land — and no little spare change — were capable of hosting a day or days. In return, they would be invited by their guests and thus the shooting season was made for these lucky few and so the world turned.
Those with shallower pockets did not go without their sport, of course. Rough shooting was the norm for most. The availability of sporting rights and shooting access over farms and rough corners away from the grand estates was, to an extent, there for the asking. Payment for such access was sometimes offered in the form of a few crisp fivers; on occasion no more than a brace of birds left at the landowner’s back door was required.
However, when the milk lakes began to overflow and grain mountains teetered, the government incentivised farmers to diversify away from their core business of growing food. Farmers were paid to not farm, leaving set-aside — essentially land sitting in stasis.
It didn’t require the greatest of business brains to work out that all of the rough set-aside and unkempt woodland could still provide a financial return, despite it no longer being worked. Agents advised their landed clients of the opportunities
provided by commercial driven shooting. The returns would be high and the risks would be low, they said, and thus the small syndicates and lone rough shooters lost their affordable sport and a chapter closed in our sporting history.
However, the story of farming and shooting is an ever-evolving tale of highs and lows. Soaring fuel and fertiliser prices have dramatically impacted agriculture, with costs of inputs overtaking income from outputs. These stresses filter down to shooting, particularly commercial ventures. Add to this the lowered availability of chicks and poults and it is little wonder that 13% of commercial shoots have mothballed their operations for this season.
Whether we will see a return to normal next season is unknown,
“Shooting access over farms and rough corners, away from the grand estates, was there for the asking”
but it looks unlikely, with the war in Ukraine, the spectre of endemic bird flu and a global economy still recovering from the pandemic.
Knock on the door
Does this reopen a gap for the rough shooter? Can the wandering Gun reclaim the grounds that were once his or hers now that the commercial boys are withdrawing? I asked a few farming friends what their response would be to a knock at the door from a questing sportsman in search of some shooting.
Patrick and Brian Barker, from Lodge Farm, Westhorpe, are renowned naturalist farmers. They host two driven wild bird days a season over their species-rich arable farm. “I have an automatic suspicion of any stranger coming to shoot on the farm,” said Patrick.
“Do they know what they are aiming at? Do they know the efforts involved in habitat provision, feeding and targeted predator control that has gone into making the farm abundant with game and
wildlife?” This view calls into question the notion that simply pitching up at a farmer’s door adorned with a tie, an honest expression and a BASC membership card is a sure-fire means of securing sport.
Obviously, when rough shooting, you do need quarry to go after and to retain a sustainable head of wild game takes both effort and no little cash to achieve. I asked Patrick if offering to pay for shooting may work. “If the financial pressures on farming continue and we need to make up a shortfall, then selling some shooting could be an answer,” he said. “However, it would probably be better for us to sell a gun or two on one of our driven days. I am just not comfortable with the idea of someone we don’t really know walking around unaccompanied with a gun.”
Trusted hand
So how do you shift from being a suspicious stranger to being a trusted hand? Farms are businesses. If you can offer a service in return for shooting, not only do you positively impact that business, but the landowner gets to know you through your work.
I am in a position where, if I want to access new ground to shoot over, I can offer my hedgelaying services as a fair swap. Farmers need to employ the regular services of numerous tradespeople — electricians, builders, mechanical engineers and so on. If you can bring your skills to them, the door may well be opened to a more favourable response to a request for shooting permission. That being said, hedgelaying pays my mortgage and, sadly, my mortgage provider won’t accept pheasants by way of payment.
Another important point for the would-be rough shooter is to be realistic about what you are asking for. Many landowners who have a head of wild game on the farm enjoy a bit of shooting themselves. One of my farming neighbours relishes his family walkabout Boxing Day shoot. It’s the only day he shoots. His pheasants, he says, are “far too thin on the ground to share with others”.
However, the numerous pits and ponds that are dotted around the farm are home to countless small parties of duck. I asked him if he would consider letting out the ponds for shooting. He replied: “I’d never thought about that. I suppose if someone I knew wanted to feed them and shoot them a bit, I would go for that. It’s a bit of income, after all.”
“I am just not comfortable with the idea of someone we don’t really know walking around unaccompanied with a gun”
Another farming friend who I lay hedges for is less than enthusiastic about having strangers shooting on the farm. “The thing I most enjoy about my few days shooting on the farm is the craic, the fun of spending time with friends while enjoying a bit of sport. If I had paying guests, it would change the dynamic.” Would he ever consider letting out the sporting rights? “Over my dead body.”
Commercial value
Herein lies the problem. Landowners are aware of shooting’s commercial value and they need to realise every penny their land can make. The chances of happening upon a nonshooting farmer, who is oblivious of the price of a pheasant and will let you tramp his game-stuffed margins for the price of a well-plucked brace, is as likely as snow in August. I cannot think of anywhere locally, bar reserves, that is not already shot over.
Most game shooting in Suffolk is either farmers’ ‘friendlies’, a few long-standing small syndicates or the occasional commercial affair. But the feedback from all of my Suffolk farming friends is that letting their shooting is anathema, a notion only contemplated as a last resort to avert financial ruin.
Fellow contributor Jack Bell recounts a similar lack of availability for rough shooters in the wilds of his native Galloway. “There are endless syndicates of all sizes, nearly all the low ground is shot,” he said. “Most would probably get offended if you called it rough shooting, but in essence that is what it is.”
It appears, therefore, that a return to rough shooting as we knew it in the 1970s and 1980s will not be happening any time soon. The financial pressures facing agriculture nationwide have changed the rural landscape metaphorically and physically. Add to this the rise in shooting’s popularity and it’s little wonder that obtaining a bit of rough on the cheap is a rarity.
If you are after wild sport for little money, perhaps it’s high time you joined a wildfowling club?