Schools Challenge winners drive off with new cars

Do you prefer a driven day or a walked-up day? This is the question our gundog writer Nick Ridley posed on Facebook.

It all stemmed from a conversation we had on a day’s shooting. Some of us felt a walked-up day was a more authentic form of shooting, while others preferred the genteel pleasures of a driven day.

A walked-up day takes stamina and skill. Shooting birds in a wood (which is something at which Nick excels) or along a hedgerow is a true test of marksmanship. You also have to be safety conscious and – if you have a dog – it must be well-trained.

That’s not to say driven game is a lower form of shooting. For some it represents the apex of our sport. There is nothing better than a wellrun driven day. After all, many of us wouldn’t get to go beating or exercise our dogs picking up if it weren’t driven shoots. Also, to see a keeper’s hard work come to fruition with well presented birds and the Guns coming away smiling is very rewarding.

However, a season doesn’t go by these days without the mass dumping shot pheasants being reported. It is a worrying state of affairs. Many shoots are under pressure to make money and provide good sport, but at what price? The obsession with ‘big bags’ could cost us our sport. Two students took home an MG3 hatchback car each after winning the 2018 Schools Challenge Grand Final.

Chloe Applin, a sixth former from Chew Valley School in Somerset, was tied on 18 clays after shooting the first 25 birds of the final but pulled ahead by scoring 20 on a second 25-bird layout.

Charlie Madden, from Orchards Academy, Kent, had been positioned in the first cage after shooting the highest score in the qualifying rounds and winning the Schools Challenge Winter Series competition a few weeks ago. He secured his win and marked himself as a young shot to watch after scoring an impressive 24 out of 25.

The annual clay shooting competition is run by The Oxford Gun Company and set up to encourage young people into the sport.

David Florent, managing director of Oxford, said: “Over the years the Schools Challenge has grown and grown and this year we have had our biggest year to date.”

Lodge Hill MG Abingdon donated the MGS as prizes for the winners. Runners-up Naomi Chapman and Charlie Lovatt each won a Yildiz shotgun, while other placed shooters won clothing and kit from Fausti and Eley.

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