If you haven't watched this video, you are really missing out. The last shot Carrie he hits at the very end is hard to believe. Stunning camera work as well.

Carrie Shooting

Thanks!!!!!!! That would be my dream shoot!!

Wow- what range, shot size and chokes were these gunners using.? Tall birds indeed.. I've seen some videos of British gunner George Digweed, noticed the principal gunner in this video was also using a 12 bore Under/Over, as does Digweed.

I wonder how many of those "tall" fezzants hit the ground dead, and what % might have been lost without those fine Spaniels doing the retrieving.

Since steel shot became mandatory for waterfowling, I prefer to take geese and mallards at or below tree-top level, and either incoming or crossing shots. I'd guesstimate my average shots at waterfowl are under 30 yards, especially in the later part of the season(s) here.

I'm am also guessing that I would miss way more than I'd even hit (not dead in the air, but hit) even if they would let me use my favorite M12 30" Full solid rib.

Fox you're on the wrong thread...no ducks here just one quack

Driven birds would be a treat but I don't think I could enjoy all the hoopla that seems to go with it. I'll take a GA dove shoot any day...Geo

George, I agree with you. Having never been on one of your State's dove shoots/hunts, nor quail in Thomasville for that matter, and living in a State that will never see a legal dove season, at least in my lifetime-I can only dream of it, from reading Nash Buckingham and other great Southern Gentleman-writers (Robert Ruark, Archie Rutledge, et al.)

Granted, a video may Not always reflect the true distance of the shots that dropped birds- but I am no judge of what wing-shooting is in Wales, Scotland or England, and never will be.

But I share your view that all the "extras" are also NOT my style- especially if they were consuming alcohol between the movement to shooting stations. Apres the shoot, perhaps, but NEVER while afield with a lethal weapon in your hands--But, the beef Wellington sure looked tasty- RWTF

If a man likes good service, there’s no reason not to enjoy a driven day.
Driven pheasants and partridges have the “blue sky” rule
And excess drinking is a great way to be removed.
There is no obligation to drink anything
And I don’t.

At a tall shoot, you choose/shoot the birds that you can hit. The birds fly at different elevations. Take your pick.

Teams of dogs sit well back from the pegs, and every bird hit is recovered as soon as it hits the ground. Remember they are going to market after processing.

It was a surprise to see no carcases anywhere on an estate, unlike most game farms I’ve shot on stateside.

For those interested, apparently Dave shoots a MK60 or MK38 Miroku choked full and full.

I think it an mk38 with a mk60 stock
I shoot a pair of MK60 “High pheasant” 20’s.
Dave has a pair in newer videos. In earlier vids he shoots the trap stocked hybrid.

Thanks- Not being an "Under and Over" man, I thought perhaps it was a Browning. Not surprised at the F&F choking- those birds look way up to my old eyes.

I learned my water-fowl shooting from an old market hunter, who knew the live decoys and no 3-shot plug days quite well. He shot a 30" full choke M97 (which I now own)- I asked him once "How close do you want the birds to be when you shoot?" His answer: "When I can see the color of their eyeballs".

He also taught me" When a duck is droppin', shoot his toenails off, when he is climbin', shoot his bill off!" This works for puddle ducks working the decoys, and also geese- howsome-ever, divers are a "whole 'nother ball game" indeed.

If you have any doubt that some of the birds he shot were "out there", just look at the lead he puts on them. It appears he uses a "pull away" style lead quite often. I'll likely never get to partake of a shoot like that, but it would be a dream come true.
Beautiful country and I'm sure nice folks. Only thing that would hamper me at that shoot is trying to understand what they were saying!! Likely it would be the same for them!!! LOL

For those who haven't done driven shooting, the shoots featuring mostly tall birds (around 50 yards or higher) are the exception rather than the rule. Mainly because those shoots require a combination of the right terrain (and trees) to cause the birds to fly that far above the guns.

Just your standard, every day driven shooting--where a 40 yard bird is unusually "tall"--is sufficiently challenging for those who haven't done it. And it's the kind of shooting the big shots (like Ripon etc) did back in the day. Basically relatively light and not very tightly choked sxs. For high birds, you're talking something like a sporting clays gun, long-barreled and quite tightly choked OU. Heavy. 1 3/8-1 1/2 oz loads of Brit 5's or 4's, compared to the 1 1/16 oz loads of Brit 6's (close to US 7's) that were the classic driven bird load, and still work quite well on shoots where a really tall bird is the rare exception rather than the rule.

You must be about 120 yeas old Fox...

And what's wrong with a little alcohol warm up between haunts ?

He has a series of videos on Youtube. All well photographed.

Usually he has Jonathan McGee filmfor him. He’s about the best shooting videographer around. He has a channel.

Me too RWTF; I usually keep my shooting at 30 yards or under. I hunt with a Parker 32" VH, with a custom stock, but have learned my limitations.
Sam Ogle

Thank you Sam. I use a L.C. Smith Ideal Long Range 32" F&F, DT, AE for my "longish shots" at tower shoots, where we can still use lead loads. I have a stand partner who has a DHE 12- also 32" F&F, as is your fine Parker gun. Sometimes we "trade guns" between stands, I can shoot my Smith a tad better as it has a straighter stock- less DAH--

Our club rule is- actions open, guns unloaded between stands- There we might get 35-40 yard shots-- On those birds, if I can see the wing feathers in flight, they are "in range" for me--

A lot- Joseph. For me, at age 77- make mine hot coffee black please. But I'm not a member of the British upper class- perhaps over there that is an accepted thing to do. You and I have the same 2 chances of being invited to such a shoot- slim, and none. Right now, my $ is riding high on None- Win, Place and Show.

You guys seem to be thinking "The Shooting Party" and the way driven shoots used to work a century or so ago. There is still some trading back and forth among the wealthy . . . you invite me to your shoot, I invite you to mine. But the fact is, most driven shooting today is commercial. You're invited because you pay. But the traditions are still the same: Game keepers, beaters, pickers-up . . . it's something like a military operation (with very traditional aspects) to run a proper driven shoot. And how much you spend depends mostly on the number of birds bagged (divided by the number of guns doing the shooting) as well as on the accommodations. It's not going to be cheap . . . but then neither is visiting one of the high dollar pheasant lodges in South Dakota. Nor a visit to a quail plantation in Georgia. But what you get if you shoot something like a 200-250 bird driven day: The opportunity to shoot a lot more than you ever would at pheasants in South Dakota or quail in Georgia. (Those numbers are the total BAG for the day, not the number of birds you get to shoot at.) Not unusual to go through half a flat of shells on a driven day.


Where I've shot, there's always wine at lunch. But I've never seen anyone overindulge. And depending on how well you shot on the morning's drives, a glass of "barrel straightener" may improve your results in the afternoon.

There are a handful, if that many, of SW GA quail plantations that offer wild quail hunting to the paying public. Usually reserved for the owner's family and friends, a few days a year are opened on a limited basis. A friend took his son and another father-son to such a plantation and a day and half hunting was $25,000 for the 4. This included lodging and meals. A driven shoot in the UK seems like a bargain, but then an early released quail hunt would swing the bargain comparison back to the states. My buddy took a similar hunt this season in SW Ga. This year they found 49 wild coveys in a day and a half. While other regions of the US have healthy populations of wild quail, SW Ga has over 300,000 contiguous acres of privately owned quail plantations with extensive (replace the "t" with the "p" in extensive) management for birds, including predator control. Figure over a million a year per large plantation which includes costs for staff, property taxes, etc. Gil

I wouldn't no more believe they were wild quail than I believe a horse could fly.

'Tis so. Mostly around the Albany to Thomasville area. It's probably the only place left, east of the Mississippi, that has such a vast area managed for wild quail. As Gil said, that's the "secret". These 1000 acre tracts won't cut it for really allowing wild bird numbers to build back from the few coveys already there. They need tens of thousands of contiguous acres. You can help, on small tracts, but nothing like what's in SW GA.

Chokee Plantation, near Leesburg, is such a place. A couple years ago the going rate was $11,500 per gun.

SRH

I love to quail hunt, but not enough to pay $11,500 per gun per hunt. There must be tons of money in Georgia if folks can afford that!

Not that many Georgia folks own the plantations much less have the money to pay the fees to hunt such places. The folks who own plantations often commute to Thomasville and Albany by private jets. Just so happens my friend at this point of his life realizes he can't take it with him and he couldn't possibly spend it all if he tried. I'm not sure if Chokee still offers the wild bird hunts to the public but that's one of the places h he has hunted, but not this year. He also owns 6500 acres of quail property near here, but on one tract it's early season released birds on 1500 acres; on 5000 acres 60 miles from the 1500, he's attempting to resurrect wild bird populations with a plan formulated by Tall Timbers. Neither place are within 200 miles of SW Ga. Gil

Go to Google Earth. "Thomasville, Ga." There's a patch of land 30 x 20 miles to the SW. Note the absence of production fields, but a wad of smaller patches, food plots. Then travel down to Iamonia, FL, just below the Ga/FL line. Zoom in to an area; doesn't much matter where. You'll note checkerboarding. This is "blocking" which is usually 30 x 30 or 40 x 40 yards. Lanes are cut through the underbrush and grasses to allow food trails to be established for the wild birds. It also facilitates bird hunting. With two guns walking in different lanes with the dog handler flushing, it's a safe approach to the covey. This is just a sampling of the scale of bird plantations near Thomasville and Albany.

Ames Plantation with the University of Tennessee studying it can't have wild quail.

And you think they can.

They'll figure out the wild quail problem one day. It won't be in time for you and me though jOe...Geo

At least we enjoyed the best of the end of it!

I see small coveys of wild birds at least once a week, this time of year. I saw a covey fly across the highway Friday afternoon. But, the coveys are very small, seldom over 10 birds each. My hat's off to the little boogers. They are true survivors, of whatever it is that decimated their numbers.

I bought a 526 acre farm in 1989 that had been repossessed by Farmer's Home in 1979. It had sat idle for 10 years, and had grown up in broomsage, scattered briar patches and volunteer pines. Beautiful habitat. There was at least 10 coveys of wild birds on the place. I had to cultivate the fields to plant crops, in order to pay for the place. We got a couple of good years of bird hunting on it, but the coveys dwindled down to about 2-3, which remain to this day. I see them often, but seldom try to hunt them.

SRH

Just out of curiosity- re-reading a SC article 2013 about the National held on the old Hobart Ames property.(1) Are the birds pen-raised, or native stock? (2) Do they shoot the birds over the dawgs points, or flush them and fire blank shells instead, as they do with dog trials here in MI-??

It’s complicated fox.

The grounds at Ames are managed to differentiate between the most elite birddogs.

So, in field trials, no shooting of birds is done. That’s not the purpose. But, there have to be enough on the courses for the dogs to find enough over the course of three hours to differentiate between the best and all the rest.
So, they supplement the native stocks.

It pains me to say, but on some estate videos, Dave’s skill surpass their ability to deliver distant enough birds.

I hate seeing shots that are at birds 3 pegs down.

Yikes! Sounds to me like there's less distance between pegs than at the driven shoots in which I've participated (none of which emphasized really tall birds). Every now and then--especially if the gun to your R or L is a friend--a bit of friendly "poaching" is more or less expected. But I can't imagine shooting at a bird 2 pegs away, let alone 3.

Larry,
Dave powders partridges at 70 honest yards.
It always bugs me when the camera shows him taking a bird well down the line.

That’s my American anxiety writing.
He a fantastic ambassador for the shooting sports in the UK.

It’s nice to see some friends in his videos.

With out released quail there would be no field trials at Ames Plantation.