A Lincolnshire day with small bores

There’s nothing like the banter of close friends to set the tone for a day’s shooting, and from the moment I walk into the Admiral Rodney hotel in Horncastle it’s clear the nine guns tucking into a full English are here to have a good time. Relaxed, easy going and friendly, most had arrived from their farms in the Shires the previous evening, although Justin Maeers was looking remarkably alert having endured a nightmare journey back from Belgium, where he had been racing historic cars. The group has been invited by friends and business partners William Main and John Briggs to shoot driven partridges in the Lincolnshire wolds, although this September day has a twist following Main’s chance encounter at a clay pigeon shoot with sporting agent Richard Gray, who shoots all but the highest pheasants with his own .410.

“We got talking about using .410s on driven days,” the host explains, “and I decided to take a day where everyone would have