Outside Days » outer hebrides

Reprise: Idiot’s Guide to Booking Shooting

Howard — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 10:35:29 +0000

I make no apologies for dusting off this old chestnut and republishing. When the loonies, kooks and crazies stop asking questions that would require the publication of numerous volumes to answer, I’ll leave this one in the archive. Until then…

Subtitle: The Things I Really Need to Know to Make Your Day Work
We start booking shooting for one season before the previous season closes, and are in full swing planning for the season to come by the time March becomes lamb-like. Much as I love extended email conversations and playing phone tennis, tag, and catch with all of you, it helps if you’ve done a little thinking before we start. We work with so many different shoots, each offering a selection of different opportunities, that it’s hard to know where to start when the email says ‘looking for some shooting…prices and dates please’.

Knowing what quarry you’d like to shoot, where or when you’d like to shoot helps narrow the choices. Grouse are a possibility in northern Britain from August 12th to December 10th, but you can forget shooting in the Outer Hebrides until September, or being within an hour of London ever.

Do you care how many times you pull the trigger? How high the birds are? How far you will have to preambulate between pegs? Is your dog just for show, or do you expect to use its services on the day? Are you solo, or blessed with an entire team of compatriots eager for the off? Can you shoot any day except the first Tuesday of each month, or are you a weekend warrior? Gourmand content only with linen tablecloths and a selection of fine wines? Cottage pie or casserole in the shoot room? Fish and chips at the pub? Or sausage rolls and soup on the tailgate of the Landrover?

Do you have to be back on your doorstep for dinner at 5? Looking to stay in a sporting lodge complete with singing laird and scotch pancakes? Fancy a pub with a roaring fire that allows your dog to stay? Or maybe a B&B whose landlady has an encyclopedic knowledge of local watering holes?

I’m sure you get the picture. The more specific you can be, the closer to your dream spec I can tailor the day. Of course, giving me plenty of notice always helps…

Glorious Grouse from August 12th to December 10th

Howard — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 16:01:38 +0000

Two months into the grouse season and we are down to our last three days. From the Outer Hebrides to the Cheviots, the Lammermuirs to the Yorkshire Dales it has been an amazing season for grouse. Despite last winter’s cold spell, there have been record numbers in places across the country. Even so, demand has outstripped availability with days, whether walked up, over pointers or driven, being snapped up within hours of offering.

I warn every novice grouse shot that it’s an addictive sport, but that doesn’t stop you from making that ‘once in a lifetime’ trip…and rebooking (you know who you are). It’s easy to see how fortunes have been spent in pursuit of the king of game birds.

In two short months, we’ve enjoyed/encountered sunburn, frost, floods, fog, gales, men in skirts, and a long list of unmentionables. To the owner of the spare right boot left behind on the moor, it’s made it back to Wiltshire and is waiting for collection.

Next year’s waiting list starts here…well, the queue does.

Idiot’s Guide to Booking Shooting

Howard — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:00:44 +0000

I’m sure you get the picture. The more specific you can be, the closer to your dream spec I can tailor the day. Of course, giving me plenty of notice always helps…

A Lewis Year: Four Seasons Six Species One Day

Howard — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 07:00:00 +0000

Fortunately, excursions to the Outer Hebrides aren’t made or broken by the weather…for dour folk, the Hebrideans are weather optimists: whatever comes next, it won’t be the same twice. Very like the sport. After grouse, the odd snipe or passing plover, and a whatever the collective noun is for 3 salmonid species, we’d stretched FlyBe’s weight limit with kit and headed north.

All I can say is we didn’t see snow. There were plenty of coveys – Scottish National Heritage‘s commitment to mink trapping real seems to be paying off with groups of 5 or 6 replacing the twos and threes of previous seasons (turn numbers are on the up, too). The wind was determined to make its presence a factor: moments of absolute stillness, broken by the midges, had the dogs befuddled by lack of scent. A couple of hours later, and we had birds out-racing Superman and needed elastic for our hats. In between, we managed some excellent shooting, bagging braces of birds in great condition.

The variety of fishing normally offered by the island’s lochs, burns and rivers from boat and shore was supplemented by the challenge of a generous wind. It provided some excellent gifts (two minutes of video of our man in the Hebrides clinging to a rock by his prehensile Northern toes, fishing all the while…priceless), and plenty of brown trout. Their larger cousins rolled at the occasional fly, but stayed warm and wet out of the wind.

Well worth it for the sighting of a sea eagle and a peregrine sharing the same sky, not to mention stags, seals and numerous golden eagles, we still have a couple of spaces for walked up woodcock for this season, and are booking up fast for next year’s grouse over pointers. Get in touch and go wild.

Grouse Afoot: The Need for Speed

Howard — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:00:21 +0000

I’ve just stopped long enough to reflect on the truly glorious Glorious 12th we had in Yorkshire… I’m in the throes of complex packing for more walked up grouse (this time over pointers, not people) in the Outer Hebrides. You would think that with numerous seasons trekking back and forth, I would have mastered the intricacies of packing my 20kgs for FlyBe. Alas, I will still be racing to unlace my grouse boots at security (too heavy to pack).

These pictures reflect some of what I love best about fieldsports: great company, unbelievable weather (despite the Met Office forecasts otherwise), the best of British scenery and of course incomparable sport.

For years I have been championing the ‘outside day’ in all its beautiful forms. From an amble along a hedgerow in Wiltshire to small driven ‘farm days’ in Hampshire or Lincolnshire, to grouse over spaniel, pointer, or gun in Scotland and Yorkshire. I’ve even braved the mother-in-law to track down the US equivalent in No. 2′s native land. And finally the rest of the world has caught on.

Small driven and walked up days have been flying out the door with all the speed of grouse with the wind up their bums. I sent our mailing list a newsbite with the latest offering late last night, and by morning tea it was gone. If you like what you’ve seen in the pages of this blog, then the best way to find out about our days is to join our mailing list. We don’t share your data, or abuse the priviledge. And we certainly don’t expect a response to every newsbite (although we love hearing from you).