Why all the hassle?

bunny shooter

Reading a few of the threads here regarding shooting rights and pheasants etc are some people taking it a bit too seriously?

Is the number of birds in, or not in, 'the bag' more important than the actual hunt to some?

You never hear of lads arguing over who's shooting bunnies, foxes, magpies grey crows etc.

Discuss

MarkD.

Maybe its due to most clubs buying and rasing their own birds, they dont want non members taking advantage of club peoples hard work and hard earned money being taken advantage of by "outsiders" also bags limits/numbers is a common topic due to some people being greedy and wanting all the pie rather then sharing it. The motto if I dont get it someone else will comes to mind.
This is more relevant to pheasants rather then foxes/rabbits because no one rares them and puts hard work into getting a good crop of them compared to the attention pheasants get.
Pheasant is a delicasy(sp) to some and foxes/rabbits,crows/magpies are vermin to others.
Im open to correction on this, its an open forum so and argument welcome.
Thanks for reading

homerhop

The following are my personal views and dealings over the past 20 years involved in shooting.

Shooting Rights.
As a club member I am fully aware that we rely upon the good will of the local farmers to let us as a club shoot their lands. We are a small club partially because of the ground we have and the farmers insisting that they dont want lads who are not local on their lands. It is not our clubs policy but it is something that we have to agree to on the farmers requests. On average it probably costs me and a few other members of the club well over €200 along with our membership fees in stuff we buy or get done and never put in expenses for it because it is for the good of the club. As with all clubs there are a few hard core members that do all the work, now i do it because i enjoy it and I like to see the club get on. Our season as a club starts in june when we start getting the pens ready and ends up in febuary. During the season the birds will be there and all members will get a good season of shooting. We dont go around with the attitude that we few did all the work only us should get the best shooting. We do it cos we love our sport.
The problem arises when you get people who think they can just pull up in a gate and go shooting not giving one bloody bit that they dont have permission to shoot on that land. If they are local and show an interest they are gladly welcome into the club. If they dont want to join the club drive into the farm yard and ask permission its not that hard to do.
It irks me when i see posters on here who are involved in clubs and who see what is involved and will still take the attitude of if i get caught so what, and i really still cant get my head around a statement made in another post of poachers just being out to enjoy themselves too. Why in gods name get involved in a club if that is your attitude????
You are right you never hear lads giving out about shooting foxes etc but if i post a hypothetical thread about the beautiful 8 pointer i shot with my 12 gague there would be blue murder and calls from posters about getting me jailed etc, phesants is my game it is no different for me as a stag is for stalkers.

Bag numbers
Again I am quiet happy to go out and see the dogs get a good run, its the hunt, the chat with my shooting buddy and just getting away from the daily ****e ya have to deal with. Personally I cant see why some individuals go out and shoot 12 or 13 birds in one day and you see them in a months time bitching that there are no birds in their area. that to me is pure greed.

As i said its just my personal views and not an attack on any individual poster here.

tikkamark

Very well put homerhop.

An awful lot of graft goes into keeping club pheasant numbers up,so needless to say lads do get annoyed to hear of someone coming in to take advantage of there time and effort.

mairtd

I have to say I agree totally with the 3 post's above. We do all the work for the love of the sport and the club, so it's not very nice when you have people coming and shooting without rights and without any respect for the sport when they shoot 10 or 12 birds in the one day and expect there to be a constant supply of birds every day they go out.

cavan shooter

bunny shooter wrote: »

Reading a few of the threads here regarding shooting rights and pheasants etc are some people taking it a bit too seriously?

Is the number of birds in, or not in, 'the bag' more important than the actual hunt to some?

You never hear of lads arguing over who's shooting bunnies, foxes, magpies grey crows etc.

Discuss

To get pheasants on the ground a hell of a lot of work is needed between feeding them, vermin control and fund raising. We are a small club that routinely put out 120-150 birds a year in various locations. (as far off the road as possible). All though its small scale it really works. I spent 3 hours hunting a spot yesterday and managed to flush 6 birds ( I shot one but god did the dog do well:D).

Now 3 years ago, that same spot was fruitless and there were a lot of places that were similarily lacking in pheasants. And by hard graft we turned it around

As for membership We have a very sensible policy if you want to join and your local, live or work in the community or lived in the area or have links to the area (your welcome). All you need to do is be proposed and seconded by an existing member. So you have to do a bit of work getting to know lads.

In fact there are two members of the club who are from Dublin but visit once or twice a year to shoot with club members so we said they might as well be members. But its not just pheasants, last year we have had trouble from roving guns with hounds after foxes and going onto land that we would never shoot. There is an arrogance creeping in amongst some in the shooting fraternity of "I will go where I like and you cant stop me"

I don't know how to fix it?

Everything Homerhop said I agree with.

berettaman

I agree with everything Homerhop and Cavan shooter said. We run a small club in the middle of Wexford and yesterday we had different groups of lads coming out from the local town and shooting away, no bother.. It takes a hell of a lot to pay for, release, feed and protect birds but then these clowns turn up to shoot them...How can this be right?
Our club rules restrict shooting to Sat/Sun and it's like WW2 here today with the amount of shooting going on..

landkeeper

Bunny to me it's a matter of respect and appreciation what pisses me off are the lads who shoot where and when they want who give not a ****e about the landowner or anyone who does any sort of conservation/rearing they take all and give nothing back as a bare minimum the lad who has permission respects the land and the livestock and makes sure he keeps his nose clean it's in his interest to do so to protect his permission
yesterday i was visiting a lad i know his farm is a game sanctuary he has various crops grown for bird habitat every gate way is signed as '******** gun club sanctuary 'we were chatting when bang bang!!!! go on good dog fetch it back , from the next field ,4 lads shooting the linseed right in front of his house and car parked in a gateway with a big sign no shooting right above it wtf do they think they are if it had been me i'd have had the guards out and made sure they wouldn't be out for the rest of the season either cheeky feckers It's time some of these chancers were dealt with properly and prosecuted and licences revoked that'd soon put a stop to things
only this morning i drove up the road at our place and found one of the gates waving in the wind someone yesterday had undone the chain that secures it gone through and not bothered their arse to do it up again , now no-one has permission to be out there and i know it was shut yesterday morning there are 30ish bullocks and 100 ewes in that field they could have easily ended up on the road with whatever consequences

Double Barrel

I cannot add much to what has being said already.
Opening day for me is usually spent policing my own ground and with the help of the neighbouring farms we try and keep poaching to a minimum.

Signs only keep the honest out ..... boots on the ground keep the freeloaders in check.

tfox

I think it is referred to as " armed trespass " ?

lamper35

landkeeper wrote: »

Bunny to me it's a matter of respect and appreciation what pisses me off are the lads who shoot where and when they want who give not a ****e about the landowner or anyone who does any sort of conservation/rearing they take all and give nothing back as a bare minimum the lad who has permission respects the land and the livestock and makes sure he keeps his nose clean it's in his interest to do so to protect his permission
yesterday i was visiting a lad i know his farm is a game sanctuary he has various crops grown for bird habitat every gate way is signed as '******** gun club sanctuary 'we were chatting when bang bang!!!! go on good dog fetch it back , from the next field ,4 lads shooting the linseed right in front of his house and car parked in a gateway with a big sign no shooting right above it wtf do they think they are if it had been me i'd have had the guards out and made sure they wouldn't be out for the rest of the season either cheeky feckers It's time some of these chancers were dealt with properly and prosecuted and licences revoked that'd soon put a stop to things
only this morning i drove up the road at our place and found one of the gates waving in the wind someone yesterday had undone the chain that secures it gone through and not bothered their arse to do it up again , now no-one has permission to be out there and i know it was shut yesterday morning there are 30ish bullocks and 100 ewes in that field they could have easily ended up on the road with whatever consequences

I no a few clubs like that they take all and give nothin:mad: