DRIVEN
SHOOTING

Pure wild bird shoots are a rarity. A handful of private shoots can accomplish this as they are only looking to shoot a few days in the season, and do not have the pressure to fill a specific bag that has been paid for in advance to an agreed upon expected bag by paying clients. The best of the commercial shoots are a combination of wild and reared birds. In some cases, in a good year, when the weather conditions are perfect and magpie numbers low, the majority of the birds will be wild. Typically, this is probably a 50/50 equation. And I must admit that some of this “arithmetic” is guess work on my part based on off the record conversations with at least half a dozen of the best Spanish shoots. But unless one is there working and seeing birds released, there is a combination of conjecture and research and trust tempered with my experience from years of raising tens of thousands of duck and pheasant on my own shoots. On a number of Spanish shoots one will see a lot of twigs placed on the ground as miniature huts to protect the birds from aerial predators and the heat of the noonday sun. This, to me, displays a shoot where birds are put out very early. (It also protects wild birds on barren terrain.) The different shoots release different numbers of birds as well. Some like Las Golondrinas tend to release the number of birds that are killed the previous season to help them keep a constant number of birds to show the Guns.

While grouse in Scotland, with a good strong tailwind, or a curling archangel pheasant 55 yards overhead are more difficult to hit, the sheer variety of birds presented make partridge shooting at the great Spanish shoots perhaps the most enjoyable of all. Birds may be taken in front, or to the sides as low, medium or tall crossers. A bird may not be seen because of the terrain or natural obstacle such as the tree or rock in time to be taken in front and will have to be taken behind.  High birds are straightforward, low are very tough targets. An incomer at eye level or lower suddenly seeing the line as he clears the final tree line sits on his tail like an F-16 and goes straight to the heavens. Indeed, I saw a number of archangel partridge inevitably at the other side of the line 40, 50, or even 60yards up. This is classic Spanish shooting with perdiz as tall birds because that is what they chose not solely because a terrain of ravines dictates their flight.

The pleasures of partridge shooting are great. Though a true Spanish line, with guns vying for bragging rights on the drive or the day, can be quite competitive, for foreign teams this is not normally part of the equation. The ambiance of the day afield is much like a day in the British Isles, but somehow more relaxed, more inviting.  And the weather is so much better. The British Isles often have rain coming in horizontally. In Britain, on a few days, I have been known to skip lunch, opting instead to dry and clean my guns.

Upon my arrival at Pinos Altos, Clara a young, petite and attractive girl comes to my room to take the guns to the safe. I offer to help, she balks; I insist and prevail. I cannot picture her lugging both pairs in their cases.

“Do you wish to shoot four guns? I can get you a second loader.” (I brought two pairs because I did not trust the triggers on one pair of Famars; unfortunately, I was correct in my pessimism.)

“Thanks” I reply. “I will just shoot one pair at a time.”

“It’s not a problem” she insists.

You have to love a country where shooting a trio or a quartet is commonplace. But I did not want to be or appear greedy, as I knew the rest of the line would only be shooting pairs. (The trio can be shot with one or two loaders-a quartet requires two.) My loader, Paco, was the best I’ve ever had and so quick that he was usually behind  in sequence only two or three times a day and then just for a couple of seconds, so a trio would have been of marginal added utility. (Was Paco so fast or was I so much slower than the legendary Spanish shots?)

Each year Fernando Saiz keeps one week for a mixed team of guns. While our team was heavily weighted to Texans, an Argentine now living in Florida & two Spaniards, husband and wife, completed our team. (I later learned that Clara was their daughter.  The love for hunting in Spain is often genetic.)

The King is a frequent visitor to the shoot. He was here the week before shooting with General Norman Schwarzkopf.  “41” was supposed to be with them, but parenthood and politics took precedence as he stayed stateside to help his son in the Florida gubernatorial election. President Bush recently wrote an article in one of the English newspapers, The Mail on Sunday, in which he extolled the virtues of shooting and fishing. He did however warn against being placed in a butt between the General and Juan Carlos. He felt that they were such good shots that it made it too difficult for the man in the middle. “Every time I’d aim, guns would sound on either side of me, feathers would fly and birds would drop.  I got a few but my shooting mates wiped my eye every time.” Fortunately, or unfortunately, most of us will never have to worry about that.  He was of course, talking about the shooting at Pinos Altos.