Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i The Field

“Currently, less than a fifth of our rivers are deemed as being under ‘good’ condition” SEARCH our childhood memories and we can all come up with one or two formative rivers that sculpted our view of these amazing places. It might have been creating dams in a babbling brook, fishing on the banks of a remote river or dipping your toes into the riffles of a shaded stream. For me, it was playing on the sunny banks of the River Usk as a child and monitoring invertebrates in the vibrant River Exe as a student. These formative memories leave a lasting impression, not only on our perceptions of these wonderful spots but also on why we value them, both now and for future generations. Relaxing by a river, whatever the…

“The combination of hedges, rails and some very decent gates made for testing going and was good preparation for the Harborough Ride the following week” The Pytchley’s end-of-season hunt ball, Foxy’s, had an added allure: an extra two-horse day over some of its best country at Winwick behind Rowan Cope MFh. It was not a day for the fainthearted. The Pytchley and its Old english hounds are experiencing a purple patch at present. The keen-as-mustard mastership, including jockey (and Melton Ride winner) Cope, are a friendly and feisty lot to follow. And the word is out. Visitors from the Quorn, Cottesmore, Belvoir, Fernie, Grafton, Warwickshire (a strong contingent), the Ledbury, Derwent and from Ireland, among others, sharpened their elbows for a real thrusters’ day, with a good dollop of thrills…

"You must train yourself to prolong focus; that skill will buy you birds" 1 Be positive, expect success: a positive mindset promotes fluent movement and good, sharp shooting vision. The physical effects of “having the right head on” counter self-doubt and hesitancy in the execution of skills. Positive attitude is promoted by good-quality practice and by contracting with the self to be positive. If you are negative or hesitant, you will tend to slow the gun, bring the weight back, lift the head and break focus. Part of developing positive mental attitude, therefore, is the decision to be positive itself, another is a clear head so you can focus on the right stuff without over-thinking. 2 Confirm your eye dominance: some people go on for years missing birds because they…

"You probably have the perfect fly in your box; it is just knowing which it is" Estimates vary but there are something in the region of 6,000 fly patterns tied just to catch trout. Your job as a flyfisher is simple: to assess the conditions in order to bring that boggling array down to just a single pattern for a given fish at a specific moment. Since few of us carry a suitable algorithm around in our heads, this process is at best imperfect. But there is hope. If you are looking for guidance, probably the worst ploy is to stop en route to the river at the local fly store. Not that this isn’t fantastic fun – it is part of the ritual of any fishing trip – but…

“‘The lease calls for restocking of 5,000 fry but I try to incubate 10,000’” I want to catch a fish. Surely everyone really wants to catch a fish, even those who haven’t put much thought into it beforehand must harbour secret fantasies about hauling out the big one. Otherwise the hours spent dangling line, discussing flies and grumbling about conditions are poorly spent. It’s like hunting but never jumping a hedge – satisfying in a way but certainly not the real deal. Salmon fishing, however, is more of a tantric game, the thrill in the prolonged anticipation; it is a learning curve for those more used to instant sporting gratification. Innumerable casting hours have been spent seeking the elusive take of Salmo salar, the streak of silver that haunts…

ONE of the most extraordinary, ornate and flamboyant firearms in the Royal Armouries’ collection is a diamond-encrusted, gold-and-platinum encased,.357 Smith & Wesson revolver. It was designed and created in 1996 by Sussex goldsmith Edward Evans, who had decorated a number of pistols and revolvers for clients, including London jewellers, Asprey and Garrard & Co (both of whom asked for their pistols to be decorated in their house colours; violet for Asprey and blue for Garrard), and private clients such as Jefri Bolkiah, Prince of Brunei and the King of Malaysia. The tradition of highly decorated revolvers has a long pedigree. Exponents include the famous New York jewellers Tiffany’s, an example of its work being also in the Royal Armouries’ collection. In Tiffany’s case, many of its revolvers were decorated in…

THIS test, which concerns the new 30in Cogswell & Harrison 20-bore “Windsor” over-and-under, came about because I had recently shot its 12-bore sibling. In spite of its pedestrian looks, the gun shot well and offered mechanical integrity and value with a price point around £1,000 (something few makers seem able to achieve now). For those new to shooting, or those in need of a workhorse, the basic Italian machine-made over-and-unders seem to offer a good deal. Our 20-bore test gun (RRP £1,125) is branded as a Cogswell & Harrison. This famous name, London’s oldest, is now owned by Irish shooting industry entrepreneur David Brennan of Ardee sports, who is based in County Lough. He bought it as a means to reach a wider market (his firm is already the biggest…

“Progressive farmers are moving towards the manipulation of ecology to manage pest burden” WILDFLOWERs speckle species-rich meadows, swathes of crimson and white reveal underlying clover leys, linseed flows seamlessly into blue skies, poppies bleed as golden barley shimmers in the breeze. Our technicolour landscape can be mesmerising but nothing is as imposing as the splurge of yellow when oilseed rape floods the fields. Its steady rise in popularity and acreage over the past few decades is driven by buoyant markets in cooking oils, biodiesel, livestock feed and industrial lubricants. Cereal farmers welcome it as a lucrative break crop and honeybees become engrossed in the flowing nectar – a forage lifeline to mitigate the unpredictable spring weather. There is something magnificent about flowering crops. The positive correlation between yield and pollination…

PARKER ON HOW WORK IN HOUSE BUILDING HAS AIDED HIS ART “‘I work with a palette knife in oil paint, wet on wet. All that plastering has come in handy’” ANYBODY planning a new building project should be sure to hire an artist immediately. All the great Renaissance patrons knew this: Ludovico Sforza, the Medici family, Pope Julius II. Undeniably, Michelangelo was a brilliant stone mason and you can hardly argue with Leonardo’s plasterwork. As for Raphael, many critics praise his project-management skills as a vital part of his success. Impressionist sporting artist Michael Parker would be the last to put himself in that league but there is no doubt about his plastering, bricklaying and building-project abilities. Parker explains: “Right from school I was interested in being an artist but…

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY VETERINARY SCIENCE FACULTY CALENDAR These students are keeping everything crossed in their bid to improve the lives of Australia’s racing greyhounds. The cheeky girls fourth calendar is raising funds for Friends of the Hound Inc, an adoption group dedicated to the welfare of greyhounds. Free Range Vets costs $20 AUD; to buy one, go to: www.freerangevets.com. For information on the charity, visit: www.friendsofthehound.org.au. The Field has contributed to the cause.…

WEB FEATS I was pleased and pleasantly surprised to read Bale Mountains’ wild rainbows (February issue). While working at the British Embassy in Addis Ababa in 1997, I was invited by the then Minister of Culture and Tourism to research the trout fishing on the Web and Danka rivers in the Bale National Park. Fishing had been banned by the Dergue regime from 1977 and, to my knowledge, no licences had been issued since that time. Apprehensive, due to unrest in the region, but with the ambassador’s blessing, I armed myself with a box of traditional dry flies and my trusty 8ft Hardy and travelled down to stay with friends who were in the National Park, inoculating the Abyssinian wolf against rabies. The photograph shows me on the Web River…

Broadfield Court is a small, Herefordshire estate centred on a Grade II*-listed country house set in 22 acres of land. The main seven-bedroom house dates back to the 14th century, with additions and alterations down the centuries. It is built of stone and brick with part-timber elevations under a tile-and-slate roof. The estate has been run as an events and wedding business and licences are in place for this to continue. The grounds include an events barn (with café, restaurant and wine store), a two-bedroom gardener’s cottage, a tythe barn and outbuildings. The gardens include a large walled garden, vinery, ha-ha with a paddock below and a parterre garden. The farmland is divided into part arable and part pasture and is interspersed with mature woodland copse. Broadfield Court is just…

Graceful, shy and secretive, roe deer have recovered from near extinction in southern England towards the end of the past century to such an extent that they are now a common sight across much of mainland Britain; it’s a rare day’s shooting or hunting that is not enlivened at some stage by their presence. However, their rapid expansion from north of the Scottish border and other isolated strongholds has been at the expense of woodland ecosystems and agriculture, and the necessary management of this has created a country sport perhaps richer in fieldcraft than any other. Stalking roe deer with a high-powered rifle is a solitary diversion that takes place when most families are either getting out of bed or sitting down to dinner. It falls into two broad categories:…

Herbs form the backbone of good country cooking but how often are we guilty of buying dried herbs or dismal fresh ones in cellophane? While it is all too easy to resort to a jar of something desiccated that has been lurking in the cupboard longer than one cares to remember, many herbs are easy to grow and with a little, undemanding maintenance will reward us with fresh flavours to enhance staple dishes. Spring is the perfect time to seize the trowel and add some culinary zing to your garden. Fragrant, tasty and with impressive healing properties, herbs have long been part of daily life. Too often now there is a sense of mystery surrounding their medicinal and household uses. Go back in time and such knowledge would have been…

I hAVe many favourite pieces of kit that I would feel naked without on a shoot day or in the hide. It’s quite amazing how you become so attached to a certain cap, walking stick, pigeon-shooting seat or battered old cartridge bag. I’m almost OCD about what must come with me and it does play on my mind if I have forgotten or left any of the usual accessories out of battle. I do think, with any sport, if you feel happy with the kit you have the better you will perform and the better your mental state to perform will be. That said, there is some kit that really should be left at home but it’s been so loyal over the years you just can’t. This is the sort…

EATING asparagus with your fingers and dipping it into a luscious hollandaise sauce is hard to beat but, believe me, there are lots of other ways to enjoy this glorious springtime vegetable. Incredibly versatile and really rather healthy (when not smothered in butter), asparagus is suitable for most cooking methods, including grilling, frying, roasting and even eating raw. When it first appears I try to serve it as simply as possible, with the aforementioned sauce or even just shavings of parmesan and a drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil. However, its bold flavour will work extremely well in a variety of dishes. As the season progresses, I am happy to become more adventurous. At this point, I use the spears in more complex recipes, such as the ones I…

“The future of the breed may well lie in an outcross to a labrador, bringing in fresh blood” IT may be a cliché to describe the flat-coated retriever as the Edwardian country gentleman’s dog, but it’s true. The breed’s popularity peaked in the early years of the 20th century and faded sepia photographs from that time show guns in tweeds, armed with side-by-side sidelocks, accompanied by flatcoats. But by the outbreak of the First World War the breed had been eclipsed by that upstart, the labrador. Flatcoat enthusiasts, of whom there were many, were less than enthusiastic about the arrival of the all-conquering labrador and the letters pages of this magazine were filled with correspondence arguing their respective merits. One reader, writing in 1909, listed one by one the points…

Cornish rivers boost local economy A £2.2 million project to restore freshwater fish habitats on two Cornish rivers will benefit local anglers and the tourism industry. Working in partnership with the Environment Agency, Natural England and South West Water, the Westcountry Rivers Trust (WRT) has secured the funding for the three-year Water for Growth project, which aims to open up more than 150 kilometres across both rivers to migrating fish. More than 20 fish passes on the Camel and Fowey are being removed, gravel is being cleaned to restore spawning grounds, light increased on shaded gravels to increase invertebrate life and habitats created in the rivers to ensure they can support all stages of fish development. “This project is about protecting and restoring rivers that are already functioning well. We…

Hunting capercaillie Austrian-style is a bit like an elaborate game of grandmother’s footsteps. One of the most timid gamebirds of all, it is notoriously tricky to approach, except in the rutting season, or balz, during the first 10 days of May. For a brief moment, right at the end of his four-part guttural aria, the cock bird becomes temporarily deaf and blind. It is only at this exact point that the hunter can take another step or two towards his prey. The capercaillie is a huge and majestic bird. Weighing in at around four to five kilos, it looks like a super-sized version of its distant cousin the blackcock. It has been on the endangered list here in the UK since 2001, the GWCT report stating: “There are just 1,300…

All rivers have them. The men who catch big fish. When you begin to fish a river you are blissfully unaware of them. Every fishing trip is an adventure and you are pleased with the fish you catch, modest as they may be. But then, maybe, you catch something a little bigger, a one-and-a-half pounder, say, and you may mention the fact to another passing angler, an old hand, casually dropping it into the conversation with that air of restrained pride, like you do. They’ll then suck air through their teeth and say: “Nice fish.” There is a pause and then they’ll look at you out of the side of their eye and say: “See over there? That pool? Spanish Dave? He had an eight pounder out of there the…

The hawk perches, poised, on outstretched gauntlet. A light breeze ruffles her breast. She tenses, drawing her plumage into the body to make herself as aerodynamic as possible. She is a statue of vacuum-packed power and beams towards the undergrowth by the copse at the bottom of the field. The wide eyes blink: scaled up to the dimensions of a human face, they would be as big as oranges. With a sudden swoop, she glides down the contours. Nearing the hedgerow she gathers pace, bursting through the bracken with a sharp crack. It is a magnificent sight but one that was all but absent from the British countryside throughout much of the past century. Fresh food was scarce during the Second World War and myxomatosis in the 1950s cleared out…

Philip Gosse’s Ancient Wrasse (now known as the Ballan wrasse) impressed him with its bright hues. He wrote: “Among the fishes which are now brought to market the Wrasses are conspicuous for the splendour of their colouring. I know not whether, like our humble country belles, they choose Whitsunday as the day of their first appearance in holiday hues, but it was just about that time that the magnificent Ancient Wrasse first fell under my notice.” Edited extract from The Paper Zoo: 500 Years of Animals in Art by Charlotte Sleigh, published by the British Library, £25…

“Yours new for £750 in 1935, on 9 February you’d have had to find €1.75 million to drive this magnificent survivor home” THE “do we ban ivory?” debate is building up to a denouement in Parliament. The “ban it all, regardless” brigade, whose poster boy is none other than Prince William, believe that only a total prohibition on any ivory sales will send the right message; the Prince has even said that he would be prepared to see all the ivory in the Royal Collection destroyed. On the other side of the argument are the antiques trade and the museums, who argue for a more nuanced approach. How would destroying a medieval ivory triptych or an exquisite Renaissance ivory puffer pistol possibly save the world’s beleaguered elephants and rhinoceroses, they…

“He grasped the situation in a flash: that I was flat broke but intent on flinging serious woo” IT was Mrs Ray’s and my wedding anniversary the other evening and I’m proud to say that we drank long and we drank deep. I prepared supper for the old girl – I know, I know, the least I could do – and after a bottle of very fine Ridgeview fizz we cracked open some of Berry Bros & Rudd’s stunning 2015 own-label Meursault. It was an absolute beauty and matched perfectly the skate wing with shrimps, black butter and capers I managed to rustle up. As we moved on to the digestifs and fell further into our cups, we reminisced about my clumsy proposal to the then Miss Gillespie all those…

“Out from a field behind a hedge, travelling at about 60mph, emerged a battered green Land Rover. She recalled a colossal impact” THIS appears to be a time of much division and I am not just talking about our political masters. My friend Mr Jones appeared a few days ago to announce that one of his closest farmer friends had dropped the proverbial matrimonial bombshell. “Can’t believe it ’oward. In fact, o’il need to sit down and ’ave one of them seriously strong coffees that you do, the ones that can resurface roads. You know about Johnny and his Mrs then?” he continued, before interrupting with, “By coffee, I means proper coffee, not guest coffee that you do for yon latchekos. “Well, it turns out ’ees left ’er. End of…