Well, I had a driven day last friday, and it was *exactly* the style of shooting I want to do. 10 guns, perhaps party of 25 total. In a welsh valley with just local people, over 3 big farms.
And the best day I can remember, and that is without even if we hadn't shot anything. been trampling around at full speed sitting on hay bales at the back of an oversized quad bike, been in sun, gale, and snow, with fantastic scenery.
I was driving so I didn't indulge, but there was a LOT of drinking and laughing about with most of the crew have known each others for years; the birds are mostly wild or 'adopted' from nearby shoots; they are fed barley to keep them around for the season, but otherwise they are left alone.
I wouldn't say the birds were super mega top challenging (altho we had some stonkers!), but they /were/ in the sense you had to climb half a hill to get into position, so /any/ bird at that point puts a nice grin on the face! Also, if they picked the right wind, they were literally rocket-birds -- not terribly high but blimey they were FAST!
Result for the 6 drives was 68 birds, plus one woodcock. 10 for me, 5 for my wife. I feel they did treat us into 'nice spots' tho. Shot 43 carts on the day. I did miss a few pretty 'obvious' ones too.
But then again, after the drives, 2 or 3 more bottles of whisky disappeared in 'tea' and that's before we even hit the pub for a mega-dinner. Went back home at 1am and felt I had been away for a week
Anyway, we're back with these guys in two weeks time too, can't wait!
