A bit of a knees-up

Idon’t often impress people when I shoot but last Saturday I very definitely scored 10 out of 10. The points were generously awarded by the excellent and experienced game Shot on the next peg to mine at the bottom of a valley during a very hot pheasant drive.

It was one of those drives where the birds were not only very high but very well shown, at least from the Guns’, if not from our keeper’s, point of view. The drive culminated in the tapping out of a long double hedge into which a series of flanking and blanking movements had already pushed a great many outlying pheasants.

If a keeper wants to save his birds he can, especially early in the season, arrange for them to be