Shooting – and – fishing dot com

…like we did yesterday on the return leg of a trip from Scotland to Bristol, then you may like to break your trip by parking up for an hour or two and visiting the local shooting and fishing shop, Charles R Sykes.

The shop is fairly small, but packed with items of interest – not least of all the occassional ‘character’ customer – but that is another story. If you happen to bump into the same one as I did, give him my regards. How will you know him? Believe me, it will be obvious.

So to the shop; the proprietor, Mr Thomas Harding, is a keen gunsmith, and the shop carries a reasonable selection of rifles, airguns and shotguns. There is a good selection of rods and flies, although we did not get around to talking fishing unfortunately, having run out of time on the parking meter. However we did talk rifles, deer-stalking, authors, gundog training, gundog training equipment, gun dog training videos (sorry, dvds – I still call CDs records).

I was keen to find out a bit more about the ‘new’ calibre rifles, .17, which I had wondered about for rabbits. In the discussion we covered the impact that the high velocity had on the trajectory and consequently the range, the difficulty silencing them, the fact that they would allow a shot on a crow at a much better range than the .22 with shots out to 150 yards being practical, costs being 3 or 4 times higher for the cartridges than the .22. In short everything I could think to ask was discussed clearly and explained.

They carry a stock of dog training equipment, including leashes, whistles, dummies, blank firing pistols and dummy launchers. I would call before you make a special trip though to check availability of anything you especially want.

Contact details are as follows;
Address; Charles R Sykes, 4 Great Dockray, Penrith, Cumbria CA11 7BL
Phone/Fax; 01768 862418
Opening Hours 9.30 – 5.30 Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri and 9.30 – 5.00 Sat with Lunch 1.30 – 2.00 – Closed Wed & Sun

Website is Charles R Sykes, shooting and fishing

When I was a child we camped every Summer weekend and the two weeks away from home on the beach next to Portland Harbour (that’s right, where the 2012 Summer Olympics are going to hold their sailing events). My memories of that time are of fish and shellfish – we lived on them. Cockles five times bigger than the ones you buy from beach huts, with the occassional razorfish. Conger, bass, mackerel, pollock, wrasse, bream, whiting, pout, gurnard, flatties, garfish – all featured on the menu during that time.

Now I live in Scotland, and the mackerel are not to be seen until late July, apart from the odd scouting party. It has been more than twenty years since I have done any serious fishing, but the arrival of my Dad with his spinning rod and willingness to look after our dogs whilst spending a fortnight spinning for two mackerel (large ones though) tempted me down to the garage to find some tackle. Two quick lessons and no fish later (the lessons consisting of the statements “you’re still bloody cack-handed – use the other hand!” and “Don’t do it like that”) and I came to the conclusion it was a lot of work for little benefit.

Two weeks later Terri and I were down on the beach, a little after high tide, when the terns started diving within 25 feet of the shore – nothing except bigger fish would force the small fry to stay close to the surface when they are being dive-bombed by terns. After a hurried discussion I popped home to fetch my rod – ten minute return trip in the car.

Within thirty minutes I had the three mackerel above, all around the 38 cm mark, and was hooked myself. From the Thursday night to the Sunday, my tally was 6 mackerel, 1 sea trout and 1 lost sea trout. Now I am busy studying cookery again…

Tight Lines!

Ken

When I was a boy I spent my Summer holidays either sea-fishing in Dorset, where we camped on the beach between the mainland and Portland, or fishing and shooting in South Wales where I stayed with my two bachelor uncles and miscellaneous cousins.

 

One of the delights of staying in Wales was the weekly trip to Carmarthen for market day. The memories I have was of a buzzing collection of market stalls, selling vegetables, meats, cheeses and hardware, with lots of small shops where you could buy fishing tackle, cartridges, ham sandwiches and best of all, the still-meaty hambones that had been used to fill the sandwiches. Branston pickle was also a staple, and warm crusty bloomers that we spread thickly with butter, thick slices of cheddar cheese topped with thin slices of onion still pungent enough to bring tears to your eyes.

These memories flooded back yesterday when we went to a Scottish Farmer’s market in Haddington. Not that there were as many stalls as used to be in Carmarthen, but there were burgers from the well-hung meat company, served with a generous topping of fried onions and wholegrain mustard; the smell made your mouth water, and I confess we shared one, despite the fact we had a meal planned for lunch.

There were wool stalls, with alpaca wool garments and balls of undyed wool from named animals. The wool was incredibly soft, and the three alpacas on show were remarkably restrained, despite a couple of kids pestering them.
The stalls also contained a cheese stall which sold, not Cheddar, but a couple of local cheeses. The smoked fish stall was superb, although the only sample they had on display was a cheese. A pickle and chutney stall with biscuits to try before you buy was popular.

But what really took me back was J S Main and Sons, Saddlers and Agricultural merchants. I spotted a gun slip hanging in the window, and wondered whether they sold guns, so went in. Although there were no guns visible, they did have Hawke telescopic sights, gunslips, and fishing tackle.

If you are fishing up here and need to pick up some fly tackle, or to add to your fly selection, or are looking for a budget fly rod I would heartily recommend popping into the centre of Haddington and finding this agricultural merchant. Take your time looking over the fly selection, or just grab yourself some replacement mackerel feathers if you are sea-fishing; whatever you do, you will enjoy the browse, I guarantee it.

When I was in my early teens I was fearless catching animals; from rabbits, bats, rats, snakes I would try to catch whatever I saw. My first ferret was an escapee I found in the road at the end of our street.

Not knowing much about ferrets, it survived for a while on bread and milk before moving to a better home with someone who was more experienced with keeping the critters.

When we moved to Scotland we left behind our hens and bantams, bringing just our Abbysinian cat. Nick, my son, was desperate to have a pet; so was Phillipa for that matter; we palmed her off with two locusts but Nick was older and less gullible; he wanted ferrets.

Checking out the local newsagents in West Linton soon revealed that there was a litter of ferrets a couple of miles out of the village. Scrounging pallets and plywood out of a skip gave us the raw materials for a hutch. Three days and five pounds later we had two ferret kittens. One was an albino, the other was a polecat.

As they grew up the ferrets were a delight; they would lick food from your hand without biting; they would come when called; they would play bite with the gentlest of grips; they would chase the cat.

Then came the great day; taking the ferrets down the Dean to catch rabbits. Nick couldn’t come, so it was me and Pips. Now the problem with taking a four year old ferreting is you have to keep a close eye on her. The Dean was full of cattle when we arrived, but they were fairly quiet. I put some nets down, let the ferrets down the hole and stood back amongst the circle of curious cattle with Pips; dummy firmly clenched between her teeth.

One of the heifers stood on the edge of one of the holes. As it crumbled I noticed a few insects which quickly turned into a swarm of peeved wasps. At that moment a baby rabbit came belting out and got caught in one of the nets.

Now there is something you ought to know about my daughter; we took her fishing when we were on holiday and the kids were much younger, at one of the trout stew ponds somewhere between Cornwall and Bristol. Every fish you catch you have to kill and keep. I caught the first one, tapped it on the head with the priest and put it in the bucket. The hook was rebaited, and cast for Nick to catch a fish. Within minutes he had a fish on and eighteen month old Pips had the priest out of the bucket and was tapping it experimentally against her hand; funnily enough she had her dummy clenched between her teeth then as well.

Dodging the worst of the wasps, I caught up the rabbit just before Polly appeared at the hole, took one look at the cows and turned back down. I showed Pips the rabbit saying something soothing like “aahh – look at the baby rabbit” and making the mistake “shall we let it go?” which was not popular. After a hurried debate over whether she would really eat the rabbit or not I pretended to drop it and it shot off. So did Phillipa, in a strop, between the cattle in the direction of home 400 yards away.

Now I know she would have been safe negotiating her way home, but the difficulty would come when she arrived home without me. Not for her, but for me when I tried explaining to Terry. Trying to rush the ferrets out of the hole, whilst still avoiding the disturbed wasp nest, and keep the cattle out of sight of the ferrets whilst not losing sight of the daughter was one of the more complex problems I have had to juggle with.

Over the next few years though it got much simpler. I am going to see if I can find some of the ferreting videos we took; keep an eye on the site to spot it if you are interested.

There are two approaches to gundog training with rabbits; it used to be common practice to teach dogs to ignore rabbits and other ground game completely, and I suspect some still take that approach. This gave rise to the use of the rabbit pen as a means of teaching dogs to ignore rabbits. It is still used to teach the dogs control in the presence of rabbits, primarily for those people who do not train dogs over ground with a lot of rabbits.

There is something about ground game that can drive some dogs to totally ignore commands. If you are entering dogs into competitions then they must be able to ignore rabbits if necessary. Since I rarely shoot pheasant, I am more than happy to train my dogs to point any game, and since rabbits are dead common up here in Scotland, I have dogs that are trained to point them. As it happens this is one of the best ways of hunting rabbits with an air rifle. 

 To show you what I mean, here are a few photos. The first photo is of my old pointer with a rabbit at the edge of woodland. The rabbit pays him so much attention, but feels fairly safe next to heavy cover…

…allowing me to get close enough to take this second photo. If you blow the second photo up you can see reflections in his eye.

 

The third picture is of the old dog on point and the younger bitch backing him. If you study the photo closely, you may be able to see the rabbits eye in the bottom left of the photo.

Rabbits in a garden can be a minor catastrophe. I don’t mind a little bit of veg disappearing, and my wife can spare some of her flowers; the lawn they are welcome to keep short; but it doesn’t work like this! 

When I was growing up in the early seventies it was still not unusual to use sparrows as your first quarry with an air rifle; I was more fortunate than most because I also had access to a set of pig sties where rats abounded and the very occasional mouse survived. I still shot the occasional sparrow; they were very common then, and no, I don’t think that me shooting half a dozen or so made any difference to the population drop that occurred and from which they are only just starting to make a recovery from.

To be honest, I have had so much more fun from photographing sparrows than I have from shooting them that I have made sparrow nest boxes to encourage them; as well as turning a blind eye when they eat as much of my hens’ feed as the hens themselves.

By the way, for those of you interested in photography, the photos on this site were taken with a Samsung GX20 camera – more details available here: -

Crows are not the easiest of birds to shoot with an air-rifle; in fact I would argue that they are the most challenging of quarries and should only be attempted with a full-power air rifle where the range is sufficiently short that you are confident of hitting a one pence coin. The truth is that the range a shot is taken is not determined by the power of an air rifle, it is determined by how good a shot you are.

Why would someone want to shoot crows? There are two main problems that crows can cause that I am aware of; the first is that they take eggs; gamebird eggs and songbird eggs. The gamekeeper will not be happy with the loss of gamebird eggs and the implied bird losses for the following shooting season. I think everyone should be concerned with the loss of songbirds. Given the loss of habitat and environments that are needed to support songbirds, the reduced population is much more susceptable to losses of eggs.

That said I still think they deserve to be treated with respect and not fired at when they are beyond your abilities!

So the two best methods I know of taking crows. The first is to use bait to bring them within reach; I generally use a dead rabbit thrown out just before first light; any earlier and passing foxes or badgers will take them; later and you will be spotted. If you have plenty of natural cover and the patience to sit without moving for a couple of hours then you have a very good chance of bringing crows within fifteen yards or so. A very careful head shot can then be taken.

Crows get up late and go to bed early; if you can find their roosting places then put yourself in place an hour before dark, you have the opportunity to shoot with a reasonable amount of light still available. My most successful time with crows and an air rifle was at Mr Richard’s grounds next to Waunsaeson where the crows roosted in woods where the trees were barely twenty five feet high and I was waiting as it got dark. Never had permission to be there, but there was an element of mutual dependence; we helped him with his harvest, so the one time he caught me he didn’t say much. Don’t think he liked it though.

The gun I used to use at that time was one of the original BSA Airsporters, a .22 with marksman pellets, which was one of the most impressive pieces of engineering I have ever encountered. My Dad could shoot the yellow top from the washing up liquid 9 times out of 10 off hand at thirty yards. I never got that good, but close enough.

was a Spanish-made single barrelled 12 bore hammer gun with full choke and a thirty inch barrel. My Dad took me to choose and buy it from a shop in Broadmead, Bristol, long since gone. Living on the edge of Hartcliffe, a large council estate in the South of Bristol there was very little opportunity to try it out immediately; I had no shooting permissions around there, but we could shoot on my uncle’s farm in South Wales.

Dad needed very little persuasion to travel over to Wales for a weekend, despite it being a four hour trip because there was no such thing as the M4 then. We travelled via the Brecons, Heads of the Valleys, Severn Bridge; stopping for a coffee by one of the big rivers on the way.

Once at Waunsaeson we piled out of the van; I was so desperate to go and shoot a pigeon that I didn’t even go in for a drink but headed up over the three fields behind the house.

The gap between the fields that used to be gated was nearly knee deep in mud; having done nothing but read about shotguns for months I was very safety conscious – the old air rifles never threatened to explode if there was mud in the barrel! So I broke the gun and started wading through. Just as I got to the deepest mud, a hare got up on my left and started to run in a large semi-circle around in front of me; talking myself through the shot I positioned my feet with much sucking of mud, checking the barrel was clear; it was; the hare was now in front of me.

I dropped a cartridge in the barrel; no 4 shot from the back of my belt (not ocd, honest; just loaded with ideas). Lifted the stock up, keeping the barrel pointing down to the ground even though there was no-one around to get hit if the gun went off as I closed it; gun up to the shoulder, hammer coming back, swinging through the hare and the stock pushing my shoulder; hare rolling, stone dead.

I hadn’t been gone four minutes; when I got back to the farm I hadn’t been gone ten minutes and Harry was just coming out from hand milking the Guernsey house cow; I held up the gun and said ‘hey Harry, have you seen my new ‘are gun?’

There are few birds more handsome than those of the crow family. The magpie is particularly striking, with the contrast between ‘black’ and white making it one of the most recognisable of all British birds. It is perhaps only when you find yourself with a tame magpie, such as this one which was stealing food in Edinburgh Zoo, that you realise just how much colour there can be in a ‘black’ feather.

Unfortunately for it, the magpie has a reputation as a egg thief that is probably well deserved; I have seen one catch a fully grown young starling that didn’t have the sense to avoid it. The starling squealed desperately for its mum; immediately the magpie was surrounded by a screaming mob of starlings intent on rescuing the youngster. Still, life is tough as a young bird, and all the noise succeeded in doing was attracting a crow that came and chased off the magpie; the starling’s relief was very short-lived as the crow was much more efficient at the killing game.