Hunting driven birds is not like a tower shoot.
Birds here are released into the wild in July and are free to go where they want. Most shoots bag only around 30% of released birds by the end of the season. Why? because they can and do walk or fly elsewhere if they feel like it and it is only through care for habitat and providing enough cover and food that birds can be encouraged to stay on your ground.
Organising a beating line is a skillful job and the job gets harder as the birds get wilder and more wiley through the season.
Get it wrong and there will be very few birds heading towards the Guns.
Birds will fly where they decide and when they decide and how they decide. A combination of skillful 'keepering, good beating, good shooting and good pickers-up bring the birds to bag. This is 'sport'in every sense of the word in my mind.
I do agree however, that the quality of driven shoots varies a lot - you need to select your shoot carefully and there are many I would not choose for various reasons, as there are many people I would not want to be in a Gun line with for various reasons.
Driven shooting done properly is a real sport. I struggle to see how tower shooting is.
I have never shot birds from a tower so I do run the risk of accusation that I am talking of something of which I know nothing! However; I have never shot fish in a barrel either yet I know it does not appeal to me.
I would not be comfortable with shooting pen-raised birds just released a few hours ago (birds in the UK are not released once the season has started)in order for me to shoot them either. If that were legal and considered ethical in the UK, I would choose not to do it because I do not consider it sporting.
Please note that I have been careful to make this point only from my own perspective and I offer my thoughts as mine alone. I understand that shooting cultures and opportunities vary and have develped in different ways in different countries. We all make our own judgements according to our sensibilities and our situations.
This is just the perspective of an Englishman who admits to being a bit of a traditionalist and is steeped in his own shooting culture.
Regarding elephant hunting - I am undecided and very curious as to what my reaction will be. I have plenty of opportunities to shoot deer in the Uk but I do not exercise them because it does not really appeal(I have no qualms about it, just no motivatiopn to do it). Bird shooting is 'my bag'.
I'll keep an open mind and I'm sure three weeks in the African bush will be very educational and exciting (and maybe scary?).
