Mixed bag in the Dales

John Marchington enjoys a very prosperous day’s shooting in remote Yorkshire, as he drops a grouse, a woodcock, a pheasant and a blackcock

How many men, I wonder, have shot a grouse, a woodcock, a pheasant and a blackcock in a single day? Quite a few, I imagine, but if I restrict the location to England the number will no doubt drop sharply.

One recent autumn day, I found myself struggling into waterproofs for what promised to be a very wet and squally day’s shooting in a remote Yorkshire dale. A bad draw for my butt number did not make me bend into the slope of the hill any more cheerfully. After 20 minutes I was several hundred feet up when the first of a series of really heavy rainstorms swept down from the high fell.

I crouched with my back to the wind and watched the Guns and beaters winding below me as they fought into the weather. One of the Guns had devised a remarkable rain hat from a thin steel rod and a polythene sack, which, he had told us as he tied the retaining cord under his chin, would keep him dry while we got wet. As I watched, a gale-force gust mistook it for a kite and practically throttled him.

Fortunately, by the time the first drive began the rain had eased.

But, as I had anticipated, the grouse crossed the butts at the higher end of the line. Perhaps it was as well, for the horizon of my butt was about 20 yards, which is a bit drastic for the first few shots of the day.

The fortune of the draw again put me at the wrong end for the next drive, but I had a grand view of some fine strong coveys sweeping across my neighbours. I noted, not without a certain wicked feeling of glee, that very few grouse dropped, in spite of some heavy firing. Then, with the beaters only 200 yards away, a single grouse rose in the middle of the line and sped for me. Unable to fire forward, my first barrel behind missed, but a rather desperate second dropped the bird on the farther bank of a small beck.

In the right spot

We dropped down 200ft for the final drive before lunch. My ‘butt’ was a stone wall with a couple of peat sods on top, but this time I was in the right spot. The drive was not due to begin for some time, and I was reflecting upon the possible advantages of resisting the first butt when I was startled by a cry of “over” from my neighbour.

Instinctively I looked forward at ‘grouse level’, only to sense a movement high overhead. A single blackcock had been disturbed by the beaters moving into position and was now hurtling over me. As always with one’s best shots, I made no conscious effort. I must have raised my gun, released the safety, swung and pulled, but I do not remember doing so. One instant I was wondering what the noise was about and the next the bird had crumpled. It was not only a ‘gallery shot’ but the first blackcock shot on the moor that season.

However, fate squared the account by sending a stream of grouse over the next butt; nothing more over mine. Eventually, the beaters appeared over the hill and I was beginning to think longingly of lunch when nature struck. The wind suddenly rose to gale force, and in an instant we were engulfed in the heaviest hailstorm I have ever experienced. The noise was fantastic. For a few seconds I glimpsed the beaters bent double in an effort to progress, then they disappeared into a white wall of movement.

Once again I hibernated into a compact ball of waterproofs, eventually emerging somewhat deafened. I knew the blackcock was dead before it struck the ground and expected little trouble picking it. I was wrong. It was some minutes before I spotted several feathers leading down a bank into a small beck, which was now a minor torrent. The bird had been carried several hundred yards before being trapped against a projecting rock; but for this, it would have been well on its way to the sea.

Lower slopes

We had driven the grouse for the last time, and the afternoon was to be spent pushing out the lower slopes. For the first drive the beaters had to move at right angles across a 40-degree hill, through narrow fingers of woodland that had crept upwards wherever they could find protection from the elements in the numerous small gills.

I set off at a fast pace to link with them around the top boundary of the drive. The rain had increased, and as I walked into it, head down, I missed a chance at another blackcock, which rose 20 yards ahead. I linked, and we set off towards the waiting Guns. It was slow, hard going but the occasional crackle of fire showed our efforts were not for nothing. With only 100 yards to go, a strong Yorkshire dialect called: “Cock forward,” to be followed by two quick reports and a single higher up the hill. Silence, then a movement ahead.

A woodcock had turned back and was flitting through the trees, heading straight for me. I was standing on the edge of a clearing some 30 yards wide, and as the bird came into the open it spotted me and turned sharply uphill. I dropped it first barrel.

The beaters filtered into the line of Guns and we moved as one across the open ground to the deep gill, bagging a couple of hares on the way.

The gill is a fascinating place, starting as a wide and gentle valley and narrowing, steepening as it climbs. A beck races through, giving a constant sensation of movement and life to the place. We left the Guns at the lowest end and pushed through away from them. The object was to move the pheasants into the narrow top end, leave a few beaters in the gill to stop the birds running back, then bring the rest of the beaters in from above. I took the highest flank and walked where the trees met the bracken, getting a marvellous bird’s eye view of proceedings below.

For the first few hundred yards nothing happened, then a blackcock burst from the bracken ahead. He set out across the valley, then swung down towards the Guns, passing beneath me and gathering speed. Judging from the outburst of firing, at least three Guns considered him their bird. Even so, he only folded to a solitary last shot.

The line moved on slowly with increasing difficulty as the sides steepened. High above me, the extreme flank beater rattled a patch of bracken. A familiar whirr of wings, and there was a cock pheasant planing downhill straight over me. It never occurred to me that I might miss.

A grouse, a blackcock, a woodcock and a pheasant. It really had been a glorious day.

This article was first published in the 2 December 1965 issue of Shooting Times.

“A woodcock had turned back, heading straight for me. I dropped it first barrel”

“A blackcock had been disturbed by the beaters getting into position and was hurtling over me”

“The fortune of the draw again put me at the wrong end for the next drive, but I had a grand view”

“The woodcock spotted me and turned sharply”