Organising a driven shoot (and other tales)

[Safarigent]

What were you expecting?
Poor prashantsingh got a case of sever acidity waiting for your write up.
everyone else, including me, sitting and waiting!

[Sakobav]

shooter great info now it explains why such shoots are so expensive here in my state NY there are few ranges the snooty ones who arrange such shoots or coordinate say in south Dakota etc but man are they expensive .... its not a reasonable at all

[ckkalyan]

I am thoroughly enjoying this work in progress shooter, love all the specifics and details - good work!

Keep it coming, when you are able

[shooter]

Arjun himseldf had more questions than the number of people killed by assault weapons as claimed by antis. So there were 3-4 months of rigorous correspondence. Not surprisingly, he wanted to do a bit of everything like duck shooting, game shooting, deer hunting, lamping for rabbits and foxes and pigeon shooting.
Please note this "pigeon shooting" is not for feral pigeon who people feed grains in town square. This refers to the wood pigeon. It is the same colour as a feral pigeon but has white collar on the neck and a white stripe on the wings. This woodie provides very good sport as it flies very fast, turns suddenly in the air and also has very good eyesight. (Look at it this way: A hawk preys on woodies; a woodie would need very good eyesight to escape the hawk. I have seen woodies become attracted to decoys from more than a kilometre away).

Woodie shooting has unlimited bag; being able to hit them is another matter altogether. Vikram has the distinction of bagging a woodie in his first shot.

So the final programme was as follows:

15 Nov: Arjun does shopping in london and then arrives at my place.
16 Nov: We leave for the shikarcamp; on route stop at a gunshop for some shopping. Duck shooting in the evening.
17 Nov: Big shoot Day; Rabbit/fox at night
18 Nov: Pigeon in the morning; deer in the evening.
19 Nov: Walked up shooting.

As you are aware, this is a very tight schedule. Such a schedule will not be possible in most places in the world including the UK. Also, as you can see, we had devoted very little time to each quarry and this time also included travel time. However since time was of essence, we somehow managed to come up with this schedule.

Now as you all may be aware, my favourite shoot is a duck shoot. This place where i was taking Arjun, was one of my favourite ponds for duck flighting and I have personally shot dozens and dozens of duck and geese here. Since my father was also joining us, I wanted to be extremely sure that we had a good bag.
So i made a deal with the game keeper, we would pay him double the money but we should be the first people to shoot ducks in that pond that whole season. In short the pond had been "reserved" for us till that day. This would ensure minimal disturbance for the wildfowl till the day shoot.
As they say, "shooter proposes, nature disposes" (no pun intended). That day would prove to be a day that I had never had before and bag that was unheard of in that place.

[prashantsingh]

Finally.
Keep it rollin' boy.

[ckkalyan]

"shooter proposes, nature disposes" (no pun intended). That day would prove to be a day that I had never had before and bag that was unheard of in that place.

Good one - shooter

Now, you have me hanging on to your every word, burn the midnight oil, I say!

[Vikram]

"shooter proposes, nature disposes" (no pun intended). That day would prove to be a day that I had never had before and bag that was unheard of in that place.

Good one - shooter

Now, you have me hanging on to your every word, burn the midnight oil, I say!

That was very well phrased indeed and I agree with CK.


Best-
Vikram

[shooter]

Day 0
Arjun arrives from India, along with my father. In his previous conversations with me, he had requested game meat to be on my menu. So on his arrival, in his honour, I cooked roast leg of deer.



Then we shared hunting stories and his exploits. Arjun proved to be very polite, respecting, likable and helpful with my household chores.
He was on jet lag so slept early.

Next morning, we packed to go to the shikarcamp. This proved to be a bit of an exercise as in addition to usual stuff, we had to pack the following:

3 pairs of wellies.
3 formal suits for shooting.
hunting clothing.

Our arms and ammo were as follows:

Browning 425
Beretta 682 sporter
Beretta 682 Trap (good for duck+geese)

remington 700 in .308
remington 700 in .223
cz452 in .17 hmr

plus 600+ shotgun shells (eley vip+ gamebore)
plus few rifle ammo (handloads for centrefire and hornaday + remington for the hmr)

Arjun waneted to do some shopping so on route we stopped at a shop called simpsons of newmarket:

http://simpsonsofnewmarket.co.uk/


As Arjun shopped, I spoke to Barry, reminiscing about the past times we visited this shop with fellow member hamiclar.

Arjun bought some stuff and i bought a knife from there.

One of my friends mr S found out that we had reserved the pond and called me up requested me to let him shoot with us. He was already at the estate waiting for us!

We hurried on to the estate and were greeted by S and Tony, the gamekeeper. In the pic below, my father is giving Tony some booze as a gift. In the wass behind, you can see pics of Tony fishing around the world, from siberia to argentina.




I am meeting S. We have shot together a lot. You will notice im not wearing any camo. Thats because we will be sitting in a blind and i will use the scarf to cover my face. in the background you can also see antique old fashioned wooden duck decoys:



Our hellos now over, we headed for the pond

[Safarigent]

Not only was he a gracious host, but an excellent cook, as brought out in the roast, as well as in the soup he made for me. I will let shooter disburse the recipe for everyone.
A discussion of his fire arms deserves another thread altogether.
Also may i add, after meeting his father, i realized the apple had fallen very near the tree!
What a gent he was and between the two of them, made my stay memorable! Potentially boring moments(for most people)like car rides were transformed into brilliant story telling sessions where uncle and Shooter regaled me with their experiences from the past.
Tony is an expert angler who has completed the Norfolk McNab too!
His boss ofcourse has completed the Original McNab

[Safarigent]

Still awaiting shooters midas touch.
Jinxed, this thread is.

[shooter]

We went to the pond and did a quick recon. to make the strategy for the duck shoot.

The pond had been heavily fed to attract the wildfowl; the wheat was still there: which means that the ducks will come in.
The wind was in the north ---> south direction: the ducks would come in from the south.

We put my father in the eastern hide (facing west) so he would have crossing right to left shots.
S would sit in the reedbed at the northern edge so he could shoot the ducksincoming.
Arjun decided he wanted to have me with him so we sat in the east facing western hide.



No sooner had we got into the hide, the woodpigeon started crossing overhead for roosting and partridge and pheasants started coming to the water for their nightcap.

"Steady" I had t caution the guns not to shoot else it would be good bye to the ducks. We would have pleny of these tomorrow, I promised them.

Soon we were rewarded with the first pair of mallard coming in; they stretched their legs and spread their wings to land and BANG BANG.

My father got the two, right and left, not bad.

Then another pair came and he got one.

Now the game was on.

The next flight flight, three more ducks came and Sheikh got one, Arjun and I missed .

Another 5 min and 3 more came, Arjun got 2 and I got 1.

7 duck in 20 minutes wasnt bad. That too in daylight; imagine how it would be at dusk.I told you it was my favourite place to shoot duck.

But we had rejoiced too soon. For the next two hours, no ducks came.

This was a new record. Never before had such a low bag been shot. The summer was the wettest on record and there was so much water everywhere that the whole county had been transformed into a marsh and the ducks had plenty of choice.

You can see the joy on Arjuns face. He informed me that it was the first time he had shot wildfowl.



We decided to call it a day and headed back for an early night. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.