Hi from the UK

B

British gamekeeper

New member
Hi everyone. My name is Jan and I'm a professional gamekeeper/deer hunter from the Uk. I work on a 23,000 acre estate where we release 20,000 pheasants and also have a strong wild pheasant population. We also shoot over 500 deer a year. Mostly trophy bucks but also females to control the population.

We shoot over 20 full driven shoot days of up to 300 birds per day for a team of 8 guns. Also 15 walked up shoot days where we shoot over pointers or walk small rough woods to flush the pheasants forward to standing guns.

I've been a gamekeeper for 20 years. Married, with a small boy have 3 hunting dogs. Labrador, pointer and a jagd terrier for tracking any wounded deer.

Thought I would join Ultimate Pheasant Hunting to offer my experience to anyone who's interested and Also to learn any new methods and skills from you guys over the pond.

One of my aims in life would be to start a English ' driven' style pheasant shoot in the US as the only ones I'm aware of are the Blixtco run shoots. It would be great to give them some healthy competition!

Thanks for reading, Jan.
 
Welcome! always good to have a custodian of our sport from where it all began! Don't hesitate to go to the habitat forum and share the experience over there. Looks like our upland game is sliding to the numbers just like what you experienced, since the 1980's. Your vast estate I am sure is the result of some time and money from someone to make it work! We are trying preserve what upland bird hunting we can. Maybe you can give us insight into what programs are being used to reverse the trend? I tell people many years ago, I have never seen such whole-hearted pursuit than in the British Isles. To have that and now only a fraction now, scares me! Best shotguns, best bird dog breeds, ( sorry everybody else), and traditions we hold dear. Glad to have you.
 
Hi Jan. Welcome to the site. I would love to hear about English driven hunts. how is that different than american style pheasant drive? What is the cover/terrain like on the property you manage? We push cornfields with walkers and dogs towards "blockers" on the sides and end of the field. Maybe you could start a thread in the Main Forum and we could hear how others drive birds.
 
Welcome to the site--look forward to your stories. :thumbsup:
 
Great to have you aboard UPF. I for one would love to see some photos of your bird hunting. Never been on a driven shoot. Does your estate have a name that we could find on the internet and maybe some photos?
 
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Yes it is classed as a large shoot for the UK. Average shoot is between 1500 and 3000 acres in size. In the UK, once you're out of the cities, apart from the odd nature reserve it's almost back to back shoots. It varies from large privately owned estates like the one I work on to smaller family shoots, which are family owned farms who also employ a full time gamekeeper to provide sport for the boss. This Is mainly driven pheasant and partridge shooting and sometimes reared duck as well.
 
Thor said:
Hi Jan. Welcome to the site. I would love to hear about English driven hunts. how is that different than american style pheasant drive? What is the cover/terrain like on the property you manage? We push cornfields with walkers and dogs towards "blockers" on the sides and end of the field. Maybe you could start a thread in the Main Forum and we could hear how others drive birds.
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Hi, the estate I'm on is fairly flat terrain. We are very dry sandy soil and have a mixture of hard and soft wood forests. We plant ' game cover' strips along side woodland and in 1-2 acre blocks in the places we wish to drive game from. This is mainly maize, but can be kale, sunflowers, chicory or a mixture of all of them. The guys we use are called 'beaters or brushers'. We tend to walk in a horseshoe shape and I'm in charge of the 'line of beaters'. We push the game out of the cover to standing guns. Sometimes we have walking guns down the edge of the walking line to shoot any birds breaking out of the side. If we need the birds to climb and fly higher we use guys called stops or a line of plastic strips on a rope called a 'sewlin' line to flush the game earlier. The skill is managing the beaters to push the game in the direction you want it to fly. Good fun!!
 
oldandnew said:
Welcome! always good to have a custodian of our sport from where it all began! Don't hesitate to go to the habitat forum and share the experience over there. Looks like our upland game is sliding to the numbers just like what you experienced, since the 1980's. Your vast estate I am sure is the result of some time and money from someone to make it work! We are trying preserve what upland bird hunting we can. Maybe you can give us insight into what programs are being used to reverse the trend? I tell people many years ago, I have never seen such whole-hearted pursuit than in the British Isles. To have that and now only a fraction now, scares me! Best shotguns, best bird dog breeds, ( sorry everybody else), and traditions we hold dear. Glad to have you.
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Thanks for the ' hello' . I guess we do have the great history of game shooting behind us. Game shooting is a multi million pound industry in the UK, and it employs a lot of people in many different roles. I'm glad to be a part of it. I'm no expert and I'm always looking to gain extra knowledge to give me an 'edge' over other gamekeepers. You're never to old to learn.
 
BritChaser said:
Great to have you aboard UPF. I for one would love to see some photos of your bird hunting. Never been on a driven shoot. Does your estate have a name that we could find on the internet and maybe some photos?
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I work on an estate called Elveden Estate. Put a .com on the end of that an you will find it. The estate doesn't advertise the fact that we are a shooting estate. Bad for publicity etc..... But does put a big emphasis on conservation! Most people who don't hunt realise that hunting and conservation go hand in hand. I will add photos over time.
 
Took a look at Elveden Estate's website. Very impressive. Good food offerings and entertainment, precision farming, and great looking beef cattle. Would like to dine on your beef and rough hunt your grouse over dogs some day. I'm a big dreamer.
 
BritChaser said:
Took a look at Elveden Estate's website. Very impressive. Good food offerings and entertainment, precision farming, and great looking beef cattle. Would like to dine on your beef and rough hunt your grouse over dogs some day. I'm a big dreamer.
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Yes, lots of different things happening on the estate. Even though the boss has lots of money, the estate has to pay for itself. We have departments that are financially responsible for themselves. Farm,forestry,game,housing and retail. We butt heads sometimes because we each have our own priorities.It's silly because we all work for the same guy. By the way, it's good to dream!
 
British gamekeeper said:
One of my aims in life would be to start a English ' driven' style pheasant shoot in the US as the only ones I'm aware of are the Blixtco run shoots. It would be great to give them some healthy competition!

Thanks for reading, Jan.
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First off, Welcome. :)

Believe it or not, we have hunt clubs over here that do European style driven shoots. Maybe not quite in the same tradition as across the pond, but as close as we can try and mimic. Many times these are during the fall and winter months and sometimes they use Pigeons instead or mixed with Pheasants. IMO the Pigeons are much more enjoyable.
 
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