GAME SHOOTING

An illustrated glossary of the terms used

The sport of  game shooting is one of the most popular and the oldest of all types of sporting shooting in the British Isles.  From its long history come many of the customs and terms used to the present day.  This page is designed to give the reader an insight into those terms and an explanation of their meaning and origin.

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Driven Shooting

Driven game shooting is one of the great traditions of British and Irish shooting.  The quarry is mainly pheasants although a number of other game birds and ground game can be driven.  In Ireland, driven snipe is very popular as is driven grouse in the north of England and Scotland.  The birds are driven by a line of beaters from either cover crops or from woodland towards a line of waiting guns.   The casual reader may think that this will produce birds that are exactly the same in terms of speed, height, etc.  Nothing could be further from the truth!   Driven birds are unpredictable.  They can be fast or slow, high or low and usually do not do what is expected of them.

There will generally be between five to eight drives in a shooting day.  Some drives may be similar but no two will be identical.  For each drive a line of between eight to ten guns will be positioned to receive the birds as they are driven towards them.  Each drive is from a different location on the shoot and each is designed to present different birds.  Driving pheasants is an art and the best gamekeepers pride themselves in the quality and the flying ability of their birds.  In many instances, the landscape has been planted with trees and cover crops to accommodate the birds and to ensure the quality of drives available on the shoot

.Walked-Up Shooting

The origins of walked-up shooting lie in stalking deer with dogs.  Over the last hundred years with the development of the percussion cap cartridge and breech loading guns, this has been developed into walking or hunting up game birds with gundogs.  Many driven shoots in Ireland include some element of walking-up within them.  This is generally done with a number of guns in a line, placed about 100 yards apart.  Using gundogs, generally spaniels, the shooting line advances, flushing birds in front of them as they proceed.  The guns shoot the birds or ground game as it is flushed.  The line is then brought to a halt until the shot game is retrieved.  On a signal from the shoot captain or gamekeeper, the line will advance again.

The Guns

The term "guns" refers to the individuals who will be shooting on a particular shoot day.  During the late 19th century and right up to the mid 20th century in many parts of the British Isles, game shooting was outside the financial means of many sportsmen.  During the last quarter of the 20th century, however, access to shooting and particularly game shooting has burgeoned throughout the country as a whole.  Traditionally the "guns" were kept apart from the other folk on the shoot as they were fee paying and were not required to perform menial tasks such as carrying their guns between drives, retrieve the birds they shot and in some cases, even load their shotguns!  Social barriers such as these have all but been broken down and, on the majority of shoots, the guns will also be the people who helped rear the birds during the close season.  Today this is how many game shooters have acquired for themselves the access to driven game shooting.  Some vestiges of the English class system do prevail in parts of the British mainland and in Ireland but, in the main, this has died out.

The Shooting Line

At the beginning of each shooting day the guns draw numbers that will dictate their position for every drive that day.  At each drive there is a shooting line marked out with stakes and numbers.  The gun, prior to the drive commencing , will take his or her position at the number they have drawn for that particular day.  This position is referred to as the "peg" and is marked out early on the day of the shoot by the keeper or one of his under-keepers.  Shooting can only commence when all guns are in position on the shooting line and after a signal, usually a blast from a hunting horn, has been sounded.  To end the drive and to signal to the guns that the drive has ended, another blast of the horn is sounded.  Shooting is prohibited after the second horn.

Beaters

The term "beaters" refers to the team of people on a shoot whose job it is to flush the birds for the waiting guns.  Under the control of the gamekeeper or the shoot captain, many beaters are spaniel enthusiasts who give up their time to work their dogs in the woods or cover crops that hold the game birds.   The number of beaters required depends on the size of the shoot, the number of birds released and the size of the anticipated bag of game.  Beaters are generally not paid on the smaller shoots, but receive some pheasants at the end of the shooting day and are invited for a day's shooting, known as the "beaters shoot" at the tail end of the season.   Contrary to belief, the beaters move slowly and quietly through the woodland, flushing birds as they go.

.Gamekeeper

The gamekeeper is a profession that has its roots firmly set in the days when the landed gentry ruled over many parts of Britain.  His job was to protect the game within the estate and to ensure that there were sufficient birds for shooting days.  In Ireland there are very few professional gamekeepers and those that are in full time employment are often assigned other work on the estate.  For the better part, game keepering in Ireland is carried out as a hobby on small, self-help shoots that are managed by a number of friends.   Pheasants and other game birds are reared and then released into holding pens at around six weeks old.  These pens are not sealed and the young birds are free to roam the woodland.  By careful and clever management and feeding, gamekeepers hold their charges in the area of the pens and then gradually coax them out into the woods and cover crops that will eventually become their homes.  It is from such places that the birds will be flushed later in the year as mature and, to all purposes, wild birds.

Pickers-Up

While the beaters are mainly spaniel handlers, the pickers-up are almost exclusively retriever handlers who, like the beaters, give of their time freely to work their dogs at a shoot.   In bygone days the guns rarely provided their own dogs for retrieving and relied on the host to provide sufficient gundogs to retrieve shot game.  It was the gamekeeper's job to recruit local gundog handlers to perform this role.  Today many field trialists use the opportunity of picking-up on a driven pheasant shoot to train and steady their dogs for the season.  The picker-up's job is to identify those birds that have been shot and to retrieve them for the gun to which they are assigned for the day.  On smaller shoots there may be one picker-up assigned to retrieve game for two guns, on bigger shoots many of the guns are assigned individual pickers-up.  This is an important job on a driven pheasant or grouse shoot and much reliance is placed upon pickers-up.

The Bag

A universal fact is that, in no matter which country one resides in, the first questions asked after a day's shooting is "how many did you shoot?"  In this country we refer to the number of birds or ground game shot as the "bag."  Its origins are simply in that shot game was placed in bags for transport and at the end of the day a tally of the birds or animals  was taken.  "The bag" just means the total  shot at the end of the day.  There are no limits imposed on the quantity of game or fowl shot in any single day day by any individual here.  Bag limits are, for the greater part, self imposed and we see no reason why this should change.   Enough is enough and all responsible shooters will only take what they need for their personal use.  In large driven shoots the bag may be as many as 300 birds each driven day.  It is the responsibility of the gamekeeper to produce these numbers for the paying guests.  The irony is that, no matter how much one pays for a day's shooting in this country, he or she leaves with no more than a few birds each.  The beaters, pickers-up and other helpers are usually given two birds each and the remainder sold to the game dealer.  The money received is used by the shoot to help pay for next season's birds.

Ground Game    

On driven shoots the primary and, in many cases, the only game permissible to shoot are game birds.   On occasions, however, it is permissible to shoot ground game.  This refers to rabbits and hares.  The host or shoot captain when welcoming the guns at the beginning of a shoot day, along with giving safety rules, will tell the guns whether or not it is permissible to shoot ground game.  Mostly it will not be allowed as ground game may distract the gun and shooting at it can be dangerous, especially if a line of beaters or guns are in the area

Woodland Rides

There will be times when a gun finds him or herself on a peg in a small, narrow clearing at the rear of a wood.  Woodland rides are an important part of woodland management, allowing light into the wood and providing a natural fire break.  The addition of straw on the floor will allow keepers to feed rides and thus keep birds in the wood.  Shooting in a ride is taxing and requires the gun to listen for birds and to anticipate their flight path.

The right & left is the art of shooting two birds with successive shots, not having reloaded and with the gun most likely remaining mounted on the shoulder.    Driven pheasants are unlikely to fly one behind the other, rather they tend to split up when approaching.  A right handed gun is more likely to take the right hand bird first, before swinging onto the left bird.  The important point here is that the first has to be killed before even contemplating a "right and left!"