The Capreolus Club takes a flight from Farnborough to the Orkneys in search of winged game.
(Above: Guns ready themselves for an evening 'flight' - The Orkneys are one of the finest places in the UK to shoot goose).
As my good friend and fellow club member once said: “We are deer stalkers who shoot rather than bird shooters that stalk”. Indeed, it is true and from time to time members of the Capreolus Club have been known to depart from the usual large game in favour of winged game.
And so it was, that when Timur - one of our prominent club members, said that he would like us to put a group of guys together for some goose and duck shooting in the Orkneys I was keen to take up the challenge and arrange a trip to explore a shooting discipline that I had not entertained for many years.
(Above: Charlie Jacoby with camera in hand - To watch the film from ‘Field Sports Channel’ simply follow this link: youtube.com/watch
Why the Orkneys? Well the Orkneys are well reputed to have some of the very best goose and duck shooting that the UK has to offer and one of the most prominent providers of Goose & Duck shooting in the Orkneys is ‘Orkney Shooting Holidays’, who I would soon discover would be able to get us on goose in numbers that I had not seen anywhere else in my life time.
(Above: Some testing shooting - especially for a group of deer stalkers!)
The Orkneys consist of some barren and wild country and so when the pilot of our small private jet revealed that he had never landed at Kirkwall and that it was likely to be one of the windiest airports in which he would ever do so, I was already on the edge of my seat with excitement. Added to which for the first few days of our trip, we were to be accompanied by Charlie Jacoby of ‘Field Sports Britain’ who I had invited to share in our excitement and capture some of the events for a subsequent episode.
(The 'flight' into Kirkwall was not the only exhilirating 'flight' of the trip).
The following three days consisted of early dawn and dusk ‘flights’ of Greylag and Pink Foot Geese over decoys in the morning, and Wigeon and Teal over ponds and splashes in the evening. As for the accommodation? This was to be at the genuinely charming ‘Lynnfield hotel’ which managed to amalgamate clean, comfortable accommodation, with great food and old world charm. Not to mention a plethora of more than 300 varieties of scotch whisky, which did nothing to help with the early morning starts!
Enough of the pleasantries – what about the shooting? Well the weaponry, supplied by our host came in the form of Winchester Semi-Automatic shotguns, which I can not rate highly enough. Simple, effective reliable and easy to handle, so much so that I am giving some serious thought to buying one myself, for some summer pigeon decoying. As for the cartridge – 40 grams of No 3 for goose and No 5 for duck was our host Steve’s advise and who are we to argue. It certainly seemed to do the job with around 40 duck and goose being shot over some superbly arranged decoys and as a result of some extremely well executed calls.
Overall the trip was an extremely memorable one and almost enough to get me thinking – ‘Perhaps I have enough time to be both a deer stalker and a bird shooter?’
To watch the film from ‘field sports channel’ simply follow this link: youtube.com/watch
To find out more about some of the benefits of joining the Capreolus Club follow this link: capreolusclub
