The last knockings

As the season at Yeat Wood Farm draws to a close, Nick Ridley reflects on the past few months and looks ahead to the next gatherings

With the majority of shoot days “in the bag”, the numbers and percentages are looking good on the Yeat Wood Farm shoot. The Monday syndicate that bought four days have plenty of birds in credit and to a degree the pressure is off gamekeeper Andy Gray. That said, he is still keen to maintain the success for the remaining days and this means plenty of hard work, especially as the birds have been shot on numerous occasions and pushed around the 400-acre estate. Anyone that has had anything to do with game birds will know that as the shooting season progresses, it is imperative to try to hold the birds on the ground. This has been especially challenging this season due to a very mild November and December. Two factors that are key for creating a good habitat for pheasants are food and warm cover.

Cover

Yeat Wood Farm has relatively little cover for the birds. There are plenty of hedgerows that afford some protection and there are a number of young plantations but they have very little growth on the bottom. Improving this aspect of the shoot is high on the “to do” list. There is a 30-acre wood at the top boundary of the shoot and there are plans to improve the habitat in this area. With some of the covers on the more exposed drives past their best, the wood can be used as a late afternoon drive. The growth is predominately ash but these will be thinned out after the shooting season ends, allowing light into the bottom of the wood, which will in turn hopefully encourage some undergrowth that is lacking at the moment. In the meantime, a couple of feed rides have been cut and Andy has been using a mix of Bright Seeds Easykeep Original feed and wheat. The feed is designed to help hold game birds in a feed area and consists of cut maize, red dari, white millet, cut peas,