Ensure you can handle an Englishman or red-legged partridge with aplomb. Mike Yardley imparts his partridge shooting knowledge with some top tips for everyone.
Partridge shooting tips can help all guns, not just the novice shot. A day partridge shooting is a day shooting the most English of gamebirds. They may have them in Spain or love partridge shooting in Portugal, they might immigrate from France, but the hedge hopping partridge shows best in our green and pleasant land. So when you do take to the field, heed Mike Yardley’s partridge shooting tips for the best day possible.
PARTRIDGE SHOOTING TIPS
1. LOCATION
The attitude and the location of the shoot is all important. My preference is usually for the old East Anglian estates. That is, if the estate has the right owner or shooting tenant and a right-thinking gamekeeper.
2. QUALITY OF THE BIRD
Partridges are regularly sold around the same price but birds are definitely not all equal. Try and find those that are worth the trip and the price. You want proper sport, not feathered clay pigeons lobbed over the nearest hedge.
3. KEEP GOOD COMPANY
Finding the right group of people to shoot with is as important as finding the right shoot – you need fellow guns who share your sense of sport: safe, jolly guns who recognise what a good bird is and won’t raise a gun to a poor one unless it’s to administer the coup de grâce.
4. DO YOUR RESEARCH
As they say in the Army, time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted. By taking the time to look into the day you will get the sport you want at he price you need.
5. NUMBERS, WITH QUALITY
I don’t need numbers: 100-250-bird days provide an enjoyable experience as, sometimes, bigger days do not. I shot a 350-bird day a while back at a famous estate and remember thinking the last 100 birds were forced and a waste of my host’s money. But that’s not to say the bigger days are in any way wrong provided the quality is there.
6. HOW ARE THE PARTRIDGE PRESENTED?
In British partridge shooting there are two styles of presentation. Partridges are either high, perhaps too high, mini-pheasants in effect, or they’re redlegs shown like greys in the traditional English manner over spinneys and copses. Both are challenging.
Then there are the many shoots where the partridges are somewhere in between, with the birds coming over at 20yd to 35yd. These, too, can give good sport if approached in the right way.
7. SHOOTING REDLEG PARTRIDGE
- One of the most challenging partridge-shoots that I have ever been to presented fast, strong, birds at mid height but, critically, at longer (but not silly) range. Shooting with a 28-bore, the birds coming fairly evenly (something so hard to achieve), I had one of the best partridge days of my life. The keeper stood behind me and we took tremendous satisfaction in the longer birds when the wind got behind them. (The smaller-bore gun improved my day and, tightly choked, promoted head-down, hit-or-clean-miss shooting.)
- If you do go on a bad shoot, the birds will be too weak and easy and you will get no pleasure from it. You will also perform poorly, because your heart will not be in it. You may have to endure lunch listening to your new-gun neighbour’s interminable and smug account of his extraordinary consistency and kill-to-cartridge ratio. In fact, one of the great truths of shooting is that no one is much interested in anyone else’s shooting unless he is a royal or named Digweed (which amounts to the same thing in our eccentric community). Shooting poor-quality birds is bad for your technique and for the reputation of the sport as well as your pocket. Poor-quality partridges, like poultry pheasants, are not only boring but no test of a sportsman.
- Don’t expect high birds where the topography makes it unlikely. Partridges naturally hug the ground rather like grouse but flying slower, somewhere near the 30mph mark usually, whereas grouse and pheasants are up to 10mph faster under normal con-ditions (and sometimes much more). I am not particularly fond of high partridges, anyway. The concept of beating guns with distance irritates. I like to shoot good, strong partridges at sensible ranges presented in the classic English manner or walked-up over pointers – which still has a special charm. Indeed, the partridge was once our most popular gamebird.
8. SHOOTING TRADITIONAL ENGLISH PARTRIDGE
- The traditional English way of showing driven partridge, developed in the mid 19th century, suits their natural flight pattern very well.
- To do it justice, one should try to take birds well out in front, at 30yd or thereabouts. This is truly challenging wing sport and allows for a second shot. A bird behind, however, at £30 or more a pop, is barely worth the effort and certainly not the money.
- To be a decent partridge-shot, keep quiet both when walking to and on the peg. In my experience, partridges are more sensitive to sound than just about any other feathered quarry species. “Live on peg” is often the rule when partridge-shooting (and if in doubt ask).
- Keep your wits about you and stay alert and don’t go for early pigeon. Partridges tend to come on rapidly and unexpectedly. You must be able to spring into action quickly.
- You must constantly be thinking about safety, too.
- With lower birds and more open chokes (not my preference, but commonly used) there is a real need for caution. Think about your arcs of engagement and safety angles carefully before you start shooting.
- With English partridges, the cardinal sin was “browning” a covey, in other words not picking your mark but firing into the concentration of birds. With modern redlegs, especially in early season, the problem can be a mass of birds that’s not quite a covey but more than enough to confuse. You must pick your bird every time. Decide on it as a safe and proper shot and “stare it to death” as you bring the muzzles to it.
- Partridge-shooting can be a fast business but you must not rush. Good preparation and address will help. When the action starts you may want to have a fairly high ready position, so the gun does not have to travel far to the shoulder. I don’t normally worry greatly about seeing lead deliberately at close and mid ranges provided visual discipline and focus lock are maintained. But there are some caveats.
- Close birds (the one’s you shouldn’t bother with and/or come on you suddenly) and tall ones are often missed in front. This is because they are not flying as fast as you might think. Keep the gun high and don’t let yourself get wrong-footed.
- I tend to shoot game in Stanbury fashion with front shoulder over front foot (the left as a right-hander) and straight but relaxed back. But occasionally a lower – but shootable – bird will catch me out to the right, most notably when I am flank gun with no one to that side. Not having time to move my feet, I may adopt the Robert Churchill technique of deliberately transferring the weight on to the right foot to facilitate this shot (this is may be practised on a skeet layout on a clay-shooting range on stations six and seven shooting at the “high house” bird).
9. NO NEED FOR LONG BARRELS
Don’t be overgunned. You will not need a long-barrelled, heavy 12-bore. My suggestion is for a handy 12-bore with barrels of conventional length or a 30in 20-bore. Side-by-side or over-and-under does not much matter but the speed of loading of the side-by-sides because of their increased gape may be worth considering. You will not normally want your high-pheasant gun on a partridge shoot.
10. USE THE RIGHT LOAD
Don’t overdo the loads, either. Partridges are small birds and don’t need large shot sizes or extreme payloads (though I must confess to a degree of hypocrisy on this and the previous count as I tend to shoot 5s at just about everything these days through my 32in Guerini 20-bores). Sub-1oz (24g or 25g) of 6 shot will do the job perfectly well and be easy on the shoulder, too. If you use more than an ounce, it is only for confidence.
11. KEEP AN EYE ON LINE
Very few birds are truly straight on. Remember to keep the barrels perpendicular (over-and-unders) or parallel to line (side-by-sides)when they are anything other than true, straight incomers. Or, if you prefer, shoulders parallel to line. On higher birds make an effort to start on the tail feathers or just behind and push through. Note the line, “insert” the muzzles on it and push on holding line as you swing. If you fail to connect on high partridges consider whether you are missing in front (because they are not quite as high as you think). Or, if you are really convinced you are behind, start by deliberate effort with the muzzles a yard or two behind the bird – in other words, about as far behind as you wish to go in front.
12. BE ON RED ALERT
Always stay on red alert when there are birds in the air. Make sure your neighbours realise, as you do, that one must commit to the shot instantaneously as birds break hedges. “After you”, isn’t going to work here because the birds are not “committed” to line. It’s probable that you will “poach” birds that might be your neighbours’. Don’t let this spoil your day but sort it out with the team before the day (the host should do this). Assess the ground. Take a good look at the height of the hedge and if the shot’s safe be prepared to shoot birds that cross your front, too. You will often see them following the line of the hedge (and being missed repeatedly by the rest of the line). If possible, avoid shooting behind; if you have to, because a bird is pricked, be extremely careful and consider where others may be.
Partridge shooting tips in a nutshell
- Scan your zone in front, ready for that sudden but well-considered shot or two.
- See the first bird, point your gun at its head, push on and fire.
- Next customer… Don’t over-swing, always remember the line, always see sky.
- If you move your feet, keep returning to centre as soon as you can.
- Watch out for the smaller body and different colour of Englishmen and let them fly on.
- Don’t overlead but do keep your head down and your eyes focused until you see the bird’s head fall.