Time for fibre wads
Having digested Tom Syke’s article Widlfowlingammo in your October issue and understood the need for steel loads around water, I was amazed to read that each manufacturer listed had plastic, rather than fibre wadding. Surely fibre wads must now accompany the environmentally driven move to steel, bismuth, and tungsten? Perhaps Tom missed an opportunity to comment on this. Leaving all those plastic wads around the foreshore cannot be right anymore.
I don’t shoot over water, but do see lots of elderly plastic wads still in existence, when dog walking. Clearly they are degrading very slowly and fibre wads would be more environmentally friendly.
Stephen Mason, via email Ed –
The cartridges we listed in October issue all had plastic wads because they were all steel shot. Generally steel loads need to be contained in a plastic cup to prevent the hard metal shot from damaging the barrels. The cartridges with fibre wads tend to have shot made of bismuth, which is very expensive. However, there are exceptions. For example, Gamebore’s Silver Steel has a biodegradable cup with steel shot, so it’s kinder to the environment.
I have been shooting, beating and picking up for 20 years and a recent weekend was the worst for me and one of my dogs. We were out on the first drive of a partridge shoot, as part of a team of four picker-ups. I stood and watched as birds fell for everyone but me. At the end of the drive I headed to the pegs with my dogs to sweep up what I could. One of my springers came back with a wounded bird, which I despatched and I gave her the praise and gratitude she deserved. It was at this point that I noticed a red patch on her right shoulder. She had
1∕ torn a flap of skin around 1 inches open on
2 barbed wire. I quickly gathered the dogs and headed back to my truck, leaving the rest of the team to finish the job. I managed to clean her up and dress it the best I could. A trip to vet for some stitches and a £200 bill later, she is back home feeling sorry for herself. There must be a better option to this archaic use of barbed wire?
I quite agree with you Rob that barbed wire is a severe hazard to dogs and humans alike. I’ve lost count of how many jackets have been ruined with a neat L-shaped rip from going through barbed wire; and one of my dogs hurt himself on this lethal stuff as well.
I also wonder about its intended effectiveness, as I often see cattle scratching their rumps on it. My father used electric fencing round our house, but that’s expensive and difficult to set up in the middle of nowhere. Further to Adam Cope’s trapping masterclass in your November edition (p36), I thought that readers might appreciate a tip that I picked up while teaching gamekeeping students at Sparsholt College in Hampshire.
Attach a cable tie to one jaw of the Fenn trap, run the other end under the box (or though a small hole in the side), then lightly tuck the tip upright. You will see instantly if the trap has been triggered as it will be whipped downwards when this happens. This is a great timesaver to anyone running a big trap line as you don’t need to look inside the box to check and, of course, the site will be less disturbed.