Now you’ve opened this article, probably due to my rather immature title, I would like to tell you all about a fantastic day I had at Ripley Castle on the 2nd November shooting the three greatest game birds around- the grouse, pheasant and partridge.
The godfather of shooting, Frank Boddy, kindly invited me up to Ripley Castle last week on one of his signature McRipley Days! James (Dad) was rather jealous and so bought a gun on the day too!
Days shooting and invites are like London buses so having just had a few days to get my eye in on the Isle of Muck, I was very excited to be put to the test in Yorkshire. You know it's going to be good fun when Frank calmly says on the phone “Oh, you’ll have some fun. Bring a few cartridges and we’ll get a few.”
We were meeting two competition winners from the recent Cordings Win A Peg competition along with Hillary and Noll from Cordings for dinner at the Boars Head Hotel in Ripley and arrived the night before after a pretty long journey from London. Congratulations to Charlie Noel-Buxton who won 2 pegs on a 400 bird day! What a prize! Thank you very much Cordings! Having said that, Ross Elder, who Charlie invited is arguably just as lucky! Both were great guys who brought along their better halves and all really enjoyed the day.
We were blessed by the weather on the morning over the 2nd, overcast and a light wind! To top it off, Dad and I drew pegs next to each other! We love it when this happens, it means I can keep a close eye on his misses! To be fair to him though and I’ll say this quietly, he doesn’t miss too much.
The first couple of drives were similar and both showing testing birds. We were beaten on a number of occasions but both Dad and I were sharper than usual because we were standing next to each other! We were also mic’d up via our communicating ear defenders with a little microphone on your lapelle so you can have continual banter throughout the drives! We have found that we only end up commenting when each other miss!
Dad was shooting with a Holland & Holland Royal Over and Under which Holland & Holland had very kindly lent him. I wouldn’t go near it in fear of scratching it but the gun itself is a work of art and according to Dad, very well balanced and a beauty to shoot with. I will say that he is one of your more loyal side by side users and so to get him to shoot game with an O/U is quite something, no matter what the gun.
Frank’s hospitality at Ripley Castle is spot on and after a great third drive with Partridges coming from all directions and some very high pheasants being pulled down, we enjoyed some Bull Shot and pork pies in the Bothy. Added to this, there was just about every winter warmer I could have thought of which was great for those not driving! Unfortunately as Dad and I share the driving around the country, this meant we had to stand and stare.
After refreshments we made our way over to Hardcastle and Heathfield Moors where we had a driven Grouse drive laid on! This was my first time shooting grouse let alone driven! I was on the end of the line with the wind crossing slightly towards the other guns but I did get some shooting though and I bagged a lovely one way out on my left. My first grouse! I then had a very fast one straight towards me which I shot in front of me but by the time it had landed, was a long way behind! Pretty sure I should/could have shot it a bit earlier. The were a lot of grouse about and the lower numbers had a large number over them, the ratio was 8:1 though...
The day ended with a large drive on the edge of the moor where the guns were placed along a river in a ravine which meant some corking birds overhead. At number 2, some of the best birds were behind the guns on my left so I enjoyed taking some very long and high ones. I felt like being kind to Dad so left the ones on my right for him on the end of the line. I did land one at his feet though just to keep him on his toes!
The day ended in the middle of a dark moor for lunch in the shoot hut which is an old stone building with no electricity but a lovely fire at the end of the room and lots of candles. There were graphs of the number of grouse shot each year dating back to 1878. If you were around in 1923, it looks like you had a cracking season! Lunch was brilliant and exactly what we needed before the 4 hour drive back to London.
Thank you Frank for a wonderful day.
Links
Ripley Castle Shoot
Communicating Ear Defenders
2 November 2011 by Chris Horne - GunsOnPegs, 0 comments
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