DRIVEN
SHOOTING

DRYNACHAN  A Highly Overrated Shoot (Continued).

The next two drives were a great improvement with birds coming off a taller bank.   These were the drives with which they should have started.  The typical bird was in the 30-35 yard range, which in contrary to most shooters perception of distance, a sporting bird for most Guns.  A number of birds came off the higher numbers (pegged right to left) with myself at two, which while not providing the best shooting did allow me the pleasure of seeing the entire team in operation.  Some excellent shooting was in evidence with most of the best birds over the Guns, coming down.  The following drive was almost identical.  We then had a break for lunch, a picnic really, buffet style in a fishing bothy on the River Findhorn.  BYOB.

The setting for Drynachan is quite spectacular in a typically Scottish sort of way with high cliffs surrounding much of the shooting ground and there is always great joy in a drive with a river as part of the backdrop both from an aesthetic point of view and from the pleasure garnered by watching dogs work in water.  (There have been a few drives on a few shoots over the years where the water raged so intensely that the occasional dog is swept away.  Just as no bird that flies is worth a man’s eye, no bird that flies is worth a dog’s drowning).  The Findhorn was low and mild and did not pose any threat. 

The final two drives were a huge improvement and quite frankly what I had expected the day to be.  Here we were placed in a gully with the red legs stretching the competence of the Guns.  While this was late October, and I certainly did not expect the number of birds that one would see in September, the birds were still sparse. That said, both the fifth drive and the sixth which was the return drive, Cara y Cruz as they say in Spain, were the highlights of the day. 

I had shot with a mixed team that I brought to Spain last year where we were getting absolutely fantastic drive after fantastic drive. Discussing UK partridge, two of the Guns, one a friend who shoots Challacombe quite a bit and another Drynachan, put those two shoots quite high on the list but not up to my Spanish outing.  Both are knowledgeable and I believe them both.  Is Drynachan capable of producing first class shooting?  Absolutely.  Did they on this day?  Absolutely not. The keeper refused to even provide the names of the drives we had shot. Appalling.