The Lynx effect … nullified

Parking on a track alongside my target wood today, I was greeted by the cattle herd. For them, the appearance of a human means ‘silage’ but they were to be disappointed. As I stood at the back of the motor assembling the .22LR, I was serenaded with a symphony of cow-farts and pissing. I stared …

Shotguns and Squirrels

The autumn wood can be a remarkable place. Not just for the display of rustic hues painting the leaf cover. The deciduous trees are fruiting, offering sustenance to birds, insects and mammals. Beech mast, hazel nuts, acorns, sweet chestnuts. I could add horse chestnut (conker) but the only animal that can peel that spikey kernel …

Caught Napping – Charlie Down

I met the Devil in the lane down to Garden Wood and he was as drunk as a skunk. Staggering around, his obviously blurred vision failed to pick out the approaching danger that I represented. Or perhaps he knew that my rifle didn’t have the requisite power to put him in my freezer? I was …

Scent, Stalking and Sanity – Why I Shoot

It was just after sunrise when I pulled open the curtains and cranked open the vertical blinds. The frosted scene outside warmed my heart, for today I was guaranteed my first ‘pass-out’ for nearly three weeks. I mentioned in my last blog my lovely wife’s cancer diagnosis and the enforced shielding before her op. Thankfully …

Soup-Time Charlie

The first thing that struck me as I set off into the wood was the deafening silence. Standing for a while inside the treeline, I looked about, searching for movement. Any movement. The flick of a wren's tail? An agitated blackbird? There was nothing. No breeze, not a sound. It was the morning after the …

Boxing Clever

Have you got as many weather ‘apps’ on your mobile phone as I have?  All of my half-a-dozen promised a morning of no rain. Loaded up for a session on the squirrels I hadn’t even got to the end of the road when I had to turn on the windscreen wipers. Not a deluge but …

The Renegade: Tenkara, Rimfire and Reynard

Driving slowly along the concrete drive into my main shooting permission this morning, I felt like the prodigal son returned. A grey squirrel scampered from the grass margin and sprinted along the track in front of the motor. It’s presence annoyed me, sullying my reputation as ‘the squirrel man’ on this land. Yet I didn’t …

Foxing Without Foxes

The call came through in the middle of last week. A panicky voicemail left on my mobile  by one of the estate workers. The landowner had asked him to call me. "Ian, can you call me back. We have a fox problem and the peacocks have chicks. We need the foxes gone!" We're talking a …

Hunter’s Musk: The Scent Of Gun Oil

The easing of lockdown restrictions this week has lifted my spirits enormously. As it has yours, I’m sure? A tentative call to ‘Landowner No 1’ to ask if I was welcome back yet, resulted in more than a positive response. I was virtually begged to return to take care of ‘those pesky squirrels’. A request I’m …

Monbiot and the Deer

Guardian newspaper columnist and conservation writer George Monbiot published a piece this week titled “I shot a deer …” I found it fascinating, from a ‘hunters’ perspective. George had (with noble intentions) put himself behind the rifle scope, to stalk and attempt to shoot a deer. Which he did, humanely. In this latest blog (prompted by …