I sometimes find when you are out shooting, that you can judge a shoot on how well (or badly!) you and the rest of the Guns shoot, which really shouldn’t be the case, so I was more than happy to go and visit one of my favourite shoots as a spectator.
I shot with my family at Castlesteads Shoot near Carlisle last year and had the most fantastic time, however, was I judging the shoot on the fact I was finally hitting birds or the running of the shoot itself? So when I had the opportunity to join a group of friends as “official” photographer and occasional loader at Castlesteads, I jumped at the chance to visit the shoot again and see if it was just as fantastic when you were spectating.
The previous day we’d had a great day’s walked up shooting at another estate, shooting grouse, rabbits, pheasants, woodcock and duck, so now the boys had got their eye in, there would be very few excuses to miss...
We were met by Keith and his team of beaters in the lovely little shoot room on the estate for a coffee and a nip of sloe gin to steady the nerves. Thank goodness they had steadied the nerves, as the first drive produced an enormous amount of birds!
A team of ducks sped off the nearby pond, streaming upwards before coming specks in the sky, leading to some very ambitious shots! The rest of the drive was filled with constant shooting and swearing as the guns tried to hit the pheasants that got up from the game cover in front of us and shot up like rockets over the guns heads.
The end of the drive found the guns with wide grins and frantically filling up their near empty cartridge bags for the next drive.
We were set out in the bottom of a gulley for the second drive, with the option to shoot some tree top birds behind us and streaming pheasants over the brow of the hill. A delicious soup and sausages followed the end of the drive and a chance to wind each other up over those missed birds.
The third drive offered the guns some fantastic partridges, whipping along the wind over the guns heads and shooting one of these certainly put a stop to all the banter about missing from the last drive! The guns standing further down the line in the deepest part of the gulley saw some cracking pheasants coming off the wood at the top of the hill, flying straight over the guns heads to the wood behind them.
The fourth drive saw more streaming pheasants from high up game cover, well presented by the team of beaters, who included Keith’s grandchildren, giving the whole day a really welcoming family feel.
For the final drive the guns were spread around a wood, where they stood in anticipation for what Keith had promised would end the day with a bang (if you’ll excuse the pun)! As the wood was on a hill, when the birds appeared out of the wood they were already over the tops of the tree, giving the guns both obtainable and slightly more orbital birds to choose from. By the end of the drive, the ground was littered with empty cartridges, the pickers up had a respectable amount of work to do and the gun’s smiles said it all.
The last drive left me in no doubt that last year’s brilliant experience was not down to my shooting and that Castlesteads really is a gem of a shoot, one that I would sincerely recommend to anyone, although I almost don’t want to in case we can’t go again next year!
Many thanks to Keith and his team of beaters for showing us a truly fantastic day.
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Castlesteads Shoot
7 December 2011 by Louise Benson, 0 comments
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