Dad and I were very kindly invited to Kirk Yetholm, in the Borders, by Bill Hannan who runs the shoot there. Bill has sold a number of days through GunsOnPegs and wanted us to see the shoot and the fantastic land that he shoots over.
About a year and a half ago, Bill emailed me asking me to help him post his pictures on GunsOnPegs and I couldn’t help but email back commenting on what fantastic land it was for shooting.
Kirk Yetholm shoot was laid out for shooting a long time ago and you can see from the pictures that the woodland plots are ideal for drives around the valley. Apart from the woods, all the land is used for grazing so it is easy to walk over and to get to the pegs and also to find your birds after if you don’t have a dog.
We arrived at the Borders hotel in Kirk Yetholm to be met at the bar by Bill and Heather (Bill’s Wife) before dinner. Bill explained all about the shoot on how he runs it and it just increased our interest for the next day. He is a very meticulous person and despite openly not being great on computers or refusing to text (they will call if it's important!), he runs the shoot very efficiently to the benefit of all the guns.
The 9 guns on the day were from all over the country but were a great bunch and everyone seemed to get on well. Dad and I weren’t drawn next to each other this time but the communicating ear defenders meant that he was only a click of a button away to comment on his misses!
I’m not sure if I can explain the topography and scenery as well as it deserves so I have uploaded some pictures to help. To make the place look even more stunning, it was blue sky and low winter sun with a frost! These conditions aren't usually ideal for shooting but it didn’t seem to affect the birds at all, only the gun’s ability to shoot into the sun.
The drives we did were fairly similar in that they all showed some really testing birds using the woods on the valleys to great effect. Birds were usually flushed from above or near the top of the woods and some got open comments from all the guns as they approached, which not only piles the pressure on but usually results in a few bang, bang, b*gger’s!
Lunch was taken back at the Borders Hotel in a partly private room, which works really well for shooting parties. One of the best things about lunch, was there wasn’t too much food! I often find myself struggling to get up after some shoot lunches, feeling so full after clearing full 3 course meals so as not offend the host! This wasn’t the case and we made our way out for the ‘big one’ in Bill’s words.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t bang in the middle of the drive for the last one but there were hundreds of birds in there. However, this wasn’t such a bad thing, as although I had less over me standing at number 1, they were usually more challenging than the others due to the lie of the land. Without blowing my own trumpet, I brought down a cracker quite early on and was pleased that Dad came straight over our radios to my headset saying good shot!
This drive brought 85 birds into the bag which totalled 199 for the day. It was great fun and certainly a very enjoyable place to shoot and well run by Bill.
Links
Kirk Yetholm Shoot
7 November 2011 by Chris Horne - GunsOnPegs, 0 comments
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