The Peak of the Season As we arrive into January and leave Christmas behind, the season is really in its peak before it reaches an end – The long spring and summer of bird rearing, dog training and the many, many other aspects of country sports that go on all year round…
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Where has the year gone? I say it each and every year but when I receive the final publication for the year, I take them all put and elastic band around them and place them in the loft. Every year seems to go by quicker and quicker and once again we find ourselves…
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Two weeks ago, now, the electrician called me and asked if I wanted to go for a stalk. A local landowner had been in touch and had a lot of deer roaming among his dairy cattle, and one Stag in particular was causing a lot of damage stressing the cattle a little. Never one to…
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Loads of them…. First published in Earth Dog Running Dog Magazine (2014) A few years back I had a call from a man who had got my number from the huntsman of the Beagle pack I hunted with at the time and he said he was having a serious rabbit problem and could…
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Old Beagling Days… From the book “The Seasons End” I find it unusual that more people don’t take up beagling. It is a great sport for the hunting enthusiast, and I think any dog person would enjoy it. There is little that can give a person more pleasure of a morning than to hear…
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And just like that the season is upon us. Even if you don’t make an appearance on the 1st it is pleasant knowing that its back to the winter routine which I found myself almost unknowingly slipping back into the last couple of weeks. I didn’t bother going out on the 1st day or even…
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By the time you read this the season will be well and truly opened. I am writing from sunny Spain at present and can think of nothing better than a cold frosty morning. Before leaving I had a couple of early mornings out with David at the request of a local landowner where he…
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First published in Irish Country Sports & Country Life Magazine Shooting has been there on my shoulder (no pun intended) since I was a child. My earliest memory which I may have written of before was of my father, every young boy (and grown mans if they were honest) hero, coming in the back…
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I set off last week for the real capital of Ireland, and after a few hours arrived to a very warm county Cork where I had been invited to judge the Lurchers in a much-anticipated show organised and ran by the Irish Terrier Federation. The federation which has been in existence a long…
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I met Mrs Faith White only a handful of times but was most saddened to hear of her recent passing, we met while Beagling and the first time was in Tuam, County Galway where the pack I followed back then had an annual meet over several days. Faith was a former Master of the…
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