The effects of COVID-19 on the up coming shooting season

📅 9th April 2020 | General Gun Posts

Unless you have been living under a rock, you will no doubt be feeling the effects of the Coronavirus known as COVID-19 on your daily life. No longer should we just pop to the pub, visit friends or family, no chance of getting out to shoot or even think about the upcoming shooting season. With the Chinese city, Wuhan now coming out of a very strict lock down after 68 days, based on the hope that the dreaded virus which under a microscope resembles a deep sea mine won’t make a very unwelcome return we should expect to be returning to some sort of normal by the end of May.

However now is the time of year where large commercial shoots should be purchasing eggs to rear next seasons fodder, the fact is they simply cannot do this given the current situation. So what will this mean for those of you who want to look at booking for next season? Given that we are experiencing relatively clement and ‘normal’ spring weather conditions, this should bode well for the Grouse which aren’t reared but are wild. Speaking to our sporting agent (Charles), he says that ‘several estates are taking bookings for what we can only hope will be an amazing Grouse season’.

When it comes to Partridge and Pheasant, which are reared, we anticipate early season days in September and October will be hard to find. If booked, one would have to ask how good might these days be? As such, we believe the season will be condensed into fewer weeks from November onwards, but again some shoots will suffer from over shooting their ground if they try to squeeze in too many days. Whilst Pheasants aren’t renown for their high intelligence, they won’t respond well to being shot at too often, with the keepers nightmare being that the birds get smart to outwit the guns.

We’d love to hear how gamekeepers and shoot owners are fairing, what plans they have for the coming season and perhaps next.