Making heavy weather of it

Imagine your perfect driven shooting day — a cheerful host, good hospitality, abundant birds passing over or across your peg, perhaps a faithful hound sitting meekly at heel, attentive to your every command, and, of course, you dropping the birds with a skill that makes your companions gasp.

But what about the weather? The classic shooting day would be cool, overcast and breezy. But why are these the most sought-after shooting conditions? Are they really what makes the birds perform best or are they simply what we have all been taught to want?

Gamekeeper Steven Fairclough is very much of that persuasion. He described his ideal shooting day as: “Rain the day before and through the night until about nine o’clock the