As good as game ever gets

I have spent the best part of the past 10 months anticipating my favourite of all shooting and cooking experiences. Not only is walked-up grouse, in my opinion, the very best fieldsport, but the young birds are a delicacy — sweet and tender, complex and savoury, powerful yet rather delicate.

There’s more, though. I am rather ‘into’ grouse, you see. I’m a bit of a geek on the moors. I love the habitat and the locations, the sheer sense of otherworldliness and this, as much as the prospect of the sport and supper to come, is what drives the excitement.

Walking-up grouse must be among the toughest physical challenges in the field of game shooting. Uneven, heathery, near-vertical ground, that swings alternately from bog to rock, can be festooned with clouds of midges or break the leg of even the most wary.

Then there is the weather.