Preparing the small rough shoot for a few pheasants
By Old Keeper.
MUCH is written these days about either starting a pheasant shoot or maintaining one that’s been up and running for some time. The large, keeper run shoots are well aware of how to manage their charges and the vast majority of keepers I’ve known over the years have been both dedicated and experts in their field. Unless you’ve been involved as a keeper few people would realise the extraordinary amount of work and sheer number of hours a gamekeeper puts in to keep their charges happy and healthy.
However, there’s one other sort of shoot that seldom gets too much publicity and that is the small rough shoot. Huge numbers of shotgun shooters have land over which they can shoot and many of these small rough shoots are often used as just that, and why not? They can take little or no work and if you’re lucky and your land is situated in a suitable spot it can provide enough sport to make a trip there worthwhile.
Over the years I’ve been involved in several such situations and they’ve always been an enjoyable experience. Although some of them have been just that, small!
The smallest and probably the best of them ran to about 60 acres, however, because of its location and the nature of the land, it provided a totally disproportionate amount of sport for very little input. Most, though, will benefit enormously from some work and in reality this need not involve the rough shooter in vast amounts, and in return will make what is already a pleasant experience that much better.
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