Whatever your views on the Environment Agency, the government arm of the Department of Farming and Rural Affairs tasked with looking after fishing, you can’t ever fault them when it comes to sending out letters guaranteed to scare the living daylights out of you. One such letter arrived last week entitled “Advice note to river and stillwater fisheries – Protect fish and wildlife in dry weather”.
FANTASTIC FINAL OF THE JAEGER-LECOULTRE GOLD CUP
FOR THE BRITISH OPEN POLO CHAMPIONSHIP
Around 14,000 spectators were at Cowdray Park on Sunday 19th July to watch the Final of the 2015 Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup when King Power Foxes and UAE played for the Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup and the title of British Open Polo Champions.
About a year ago The Vintage Magazine launched a new service for its readers called ‘The Book of the Shoot’, to offer shoot owners and hosts beautifully illustrated, and professionally produced books of shoots, as a present for their guests to serve as a memento of a special day’s shooting.
I sent a brochure about this new venture to all my contacts in the shooting fraternity, including shoot owners, shoot managers and sporting agents, and to the people who host shoots to entertain their friends and business clients.
One of these went to Ralph Percy, the Duke of Northumberland, with a short covering note, asking if he would be kind enough to pass this on to his shooting clients and anyone he knew who might be interested, and saying that I looked forward to seeing him again sometime soon. He immediately responded, saying that he would make all his shooting tenants aware of it. A few weeks later he suggested that we meet on the Test where he was fishing at the time, to discuss this project. And so it was that I renewed an old friendship whilst sharing a delicious picnic on the Test on a perfect summer’s day last year.
As you might imagine I am not a great one for meetings and especially not ones that bear any close resemblance to a committee. So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I took myself off on Monday to the AGM of the River Allen Association for the first time ever.
I am often asked whether poaching is a big problem for us and the truth is no. Occasionally we will get a bunch of kids dangling over a bridge but trout are mostly a wary bunch who soon outwit them. So, on the rivers do we have any problems of the human kind? Well, of course. I must admit what used to enrage me most was wanton vandalism; breaking down fences, the smashing of cabin windows and low level stuff. But today it is litter that really is the bane of my life.
The Big Shots was commissioned over a dinner party in Knightsbridge in the autumn of 1976, when I met a young barrister called Jonathan Ruffer through mutual friends who had been at Cambridge with him. We got talking over dinner, and he seemed very knowledgeable about shooting in general and the great shots of the Edwardians era in particular, so I commissioned the book over the Port, which seems appropriate given its subject matter, and the rest, as they say, is history!
Long considered one of the most beautiful women of the time and also the mother of future British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, Lady Randolph Churchill (1854-1921) was the American born English wife of Lord Randolph Churchill. A scarce 28-bore side lever hammer gun by H. Holland that was made for her will be offered in Gavin Gardiner Ltd’s sale at Sotheby’s New Bond Street, London W1A 2AA on Wednesday, April 15, 2015. Estimated to fetch £25,000-30,000, the gun dates from 1874 – the year that she married and gave birth to her first son, Winston and is part of a major private collection of Royal and Noble owned Victorian Sporting Guns and rifles.
Jon Hall, the river keeper at Broadlands on the River Test, caused quite a stir Facebooking this monster pike he caught on the fly last week on his home water. It weighed in at a colossal 31lb 4oz. I asked Jon what he caught it on, “A big home made one :)” came the reply. Maybe he is being a bit coy …….
Last year, James Purdey & Sons celebrated their 200th Anniversary, and various events were held to mark the occasion, so I thought we should publish our own tribute to this extraordinary company which I have known for 50 of its 200 years!
It is difficult to imagine a more ‘British’ company than James Purdey & Sons, although it is now owned, like so many famous British brands, by one of the world’s top two luxury goods businesses, namely the Compagnie Financiere Richemont Group, run by one of the world’s richest people, South African native Johann Rupert.
Johann Rupert was reported to be worth US$7.3 billion as of November, 2014, $2 billion richer than a year before, largely due to a 50% increase in the share price of Swiss-based luxury goods outfit Richemont, which owns brands including Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Jaeger LeCoutre and Montblanc. His fortune was also buoyed by stakes in investment holding companies Remgro and Reinet.
So, he is certainly wealthy enough to afford his company’s own products, and I am informed that he has an impressive selection of Purdey guns which he uses to good effect.
Those people, like me, who are keen game shots, have learned to value clay shooting as a way to keep your eye in during the closed season, in the Spring and Summer, and even up to 1st October.
Consequently, quite a large following has grown for the many Simulated Game Shoots, which take place on sporting estates out of season, and enable the participants to shoot as many as a thousand cartridges in a day, especially if you have an efficient ‘stuffer’ or loader. This is a great way to practice for the game shooting season. Most simulated game shoots are comprised of eight pairs of guns, with one shooting and the other one ‘stuffing’, and then swapping over, halfway through each drive.
