GETTING OFF THE FENCE
Campaign call: Foxhounds from the Oakley Hunt pictured at last
year’s East of England Show.
Love ’em or loathe ’em, everyone seems to have an opinion on field sports but
whether that is based on fact or fallacy is another matter. Chas Baird decides it’s time
he found out more.
IT was recently brought home to
me with some force how little
field sports people actually know
about each other’s way of life.
It also set me thinking that I had
better do something about my
own ignorance!
It began when I was recently
accused of cruelty to animals for
shooting rabbits. (Nothing new
there, you might think.) What
made this particular case special
was that the chap making the
accusation was (a) eating a beef
sandwich and (b) was a fanatical
coarse angler!
My usual, spirited, defences of
pest control and the fact that what
I shoot, I eat were advanced but
he would have none of it.
I then pointed out that as a
coarse angler he was, in fact, in a
weaker position than me.
The anti-fishing activists would
say that to catch fish, drop them
into a keep net, weigh them
(perhaps several hours later) and
only then release them is
abhorrent! What makes matters
worse, in his case is that he is a
match angler and fishes in
competitions in the hope of
financial profit!
Now, as a shooting man and a
sea fisherman I cannot see the
point of pulling fish out of the
water to look at them and put
them back; I have always had the
belief that if you don’t intend to
eat it and it is neither pest nor
predator, where control is
necessary, leave it alone!
That said, field sports is, or
should be, a ‘broad church’;
there should be room for all
views and attitudes.
I think that a large part of the
problem is the lack of ‘kindred
spirit’; the driven game shot does
not understand the air gunner;
the coarse fisherman cannot
understand the ethos of the trout
or salmon fisherman; shooting
and hunting do not, perhaps,
always see the other fellow’s
point of view.
These differences and
disagreements can make life easy
for those who would like to see
all our sports banned; they
learned to ‘divide and conquer’
long ago!
• For more news on country sports and hobbies, see Wrights Farming Register every month
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