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Episode 116, 15th February 2012
We've got pigeons, roe deer and a shivering muntjac in this week's show: Top US hunting writer Wayne van Zwoll is out after muntjac in the Cotswolds with stalker Oliver Power of the English Safari Company. Ian Harford of Team Wild TV is taking his Ruger M77 to cull roe does with stalker Andy Richardson in Fife. Andy Crow is out shooting pigeons in Kent with Sporting Shooter editor Dom Holtam. Snow and ice brings its own challenges to shooting sports. This week's programme has all the tips you need to go shooting and stalking in cold weather.
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Episode 115, 8th February 2012
Rabbits, pigeons, pheasants and clays are all in trouble in Fieldsports Britain. It's Ee Oop and By George this week as we go ferreting to whippets on the Yorkshire Dales and flushing pheasants to landowners with the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester. That's not all! Top shots Peter Wilson, George Digweed and Abbey Burton explain how they got into shooting. And Team Wild is out protecting farmer's crops from pigeons in Staffordshire. If this isn't a packed programme, what is?
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Episode 114, 1st February 2012
Fallow deer, urban foxes, airgunning pigeons on this week's show. It's a red letter day for Roy Lupton and Sporting Shooter editor Dom Holtam as they call in foxes in daylight and cull fallow, all with the help of Roy's Argocat. Meanwhile, the urban fox experiment we are running is getting plenty of comments: a Fieldsports Channel viewer put a dead piglet in baby clothes in a buggy in a South London garden to see how long it would take for a fox to steal it. And Team Wild is out with airguns knocking down feral pigeons that are ravaging a farmer's feed store. They have all the tips about how to do this.
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Episode 113, 25th January 2012
Las Vegas! home of the Shot Show 2012, the biggest gun trade show on the planet. We are there to see the latest kit from the top manufacturers, coming to a gunshop near you. We have the latest in foxcalling technology, a way of converting your semi-auto rifle to full automatic (dodgy), why American wildfowlers do not miss lead shot and lots more. And we are in the swamps of Louisiana trying to track down hogs and duck. It's all a bit American - but they sure know how to have a good time.
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Episode 112, 18th January 2012
Latest kit from the biggest gun show on earth, fast-action ratting from an airboat, Cajun whitetail, muntjac stalking: Fieldsports Britain is reporting from America where everything is bigger and faster. But is it better? We are in the swamps of Louisiana after one of the world's trickiest deer. We are shooting rats the size of cats - the pesky nutria. Our Shot Show report brings you up to date with the newest equipment in shooting sports. And we even have time to slip home to Bedfordshire, where we are trying out a Shot Show innovation while stalking muntjac. Pour yourself a whiskey, sit back for half an hour and, during the best bits, you may wish to murmur "yippee-cai-ay".
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Episode 111, 11th January 2012
Rabbits in darkness, duck in high winds, pheasants in the teeth of London politics and a new shotgun is launched on this week's programme. We are using Nite Site night vision to look for rabbits with Andy Crow and Sporting Shooter editor Dom Holtam. We are enjoying fastflying duck and geese below sea level with Bridgwater Bay Wildfowlers. John Prescott's habit of littering the countryside with new developments did not stop one shoot thriving despite the property. And it's the launch of a major new shotgun: the Browning B725. We are there to see it unveiled in the UK (a week ahead of the US launch!).
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Episode 110, 4th January 2012
It's deerstalking, deerstalking and Olympic clayshooting in Fieldsports Britain this week. Continuing our series of ballistic field trials for Norma ammunition, we're trying out the estate calibre of choice: the .270. We put it through its paces on red and roe deer, and show the difference between softpoint and plastic-tipped bullets with Oliver Power of the English Safari Company. We've got a new series for you: Team Wild TV. Ian Harford of Team Wild is stalking an estate in Oxfordshire with Keith Watson of Cervus UK for fallow and muntjac. And finally, it's 2012: Olympics year. Now do you know the difference between your Skeet and your Sporting? And is Sporting even in the Olympics? Well, our Olympic Trap and Double Trap double-act Peter Wilson and Abbey Burton are here to tell them all apart.
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Episode 109, 28th December 2011
Give children guns and look what they do: a brilliant day out and lots of pheasants for them to remember forever. It's the final day of the series of events that make up the Schools Challenge 2011 - the game day for 30 children held at Kirtlington Park in Oxfordshire. And to start the programme off, there's our review of all the best bits from Fieldsports Britain in the last year: foxes, pheasants, deer, eagles, doves, antis, horses, lions and everything that makes fieldsports so exciting and extraordinary.
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Episode 108, 21st December 2011
It's a bad day to be a Christmas bauble. We're shooting a load of guns and calibres from .223 to .470 at them, then we are fellhunting with the fabulous Blencathra Foxhounds and we are pheasant-shooting in Dorset on the beautiful Crichel Shoot. Every day is like Christmas for Sporting Rifle tester Tim Pilbeam as boxes of great guns and ammo arrive from all the top manufacturers. Meanwhile, hunting (within the law) is still going strong as Master Michael Thompson and huntsman Barry Todhunter of the Blencathra make clear. And if you want a bit of old English magic, where better to go for a pheasant and partridge shoot than Crichel? All in all you could not have a better mix of festive fun.
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Episode 107, 14th December 2011
We've got deer, duck and how to shoot straighter on this week's show. Paul Hill of Corinium Rifle Range in Gloucestershire tests Swarovski optics and shows you how to use the turret on your scope to get incredible results. Meanwhile, Countryside Alliance shooting director David Taylor is out with the Walney Island Wildfowlers in Cumbria. Need to shoot straighter at that all-important Boxing Day pheasant shoot? CPSA coach and Commonwealth Games silver medallist Abbey Burton offers her top tips. And Oliver Power of the English Safari Company continues his tests of Norma ammunition on muntjac and roe with a Steyr Mannlicher in .243.
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Episode 106, 7th December 2011
It's an x-ray of a fox, as we find out just what different kinds of bullets do, so you can choose the right one. That's not all. Top French gunmaker Chapuis is supplying Roy Lupton with a new double rifle, and he tours the factory to see how his gun is made. And we are on the much-loved Valley Shoot in Kent, where one of the guns has worked out a new relaxation technique to get him in the swing for pheasants and partridges.
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Episode 105, 30th November 2011
We are catching rabbits with lurchers, we are decoying crows and pigeons, and we even have a bloke eating a fox. On this week's Fieldsports Britain, ace hunter Kristoffer Clausen talks about living in the wilds of Norway for a whole year. He is over in the UK to enjoy some crow shooting with Mark Gilchrist. Nearby, Andy 'Crowman' Crow is decoying in the pigeons that are feeding on acorns at this time of year. Next - after David Wright gets emotional on the news stump (he is insanely jealous of Adam Henson who is on the programme too) - we are lamping rabbits with lurchers on Dartmoor with professional rabbit-catcher Ed Cook. Ed takes 20,000 rabbits a year. Then we're off to Somerset for a day out with the South Somerset Ferreters who are also using lurchers to catch the rabbits that coming out of a couple of long buries. We have a grandstand view of the action. And finally, staying in Somerset, we join the popular Pass It On lads and lasses as they pass on the joys of hunting, shooting and fishing at an open day for local schoolchildren.
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Episode 104, 23rd November 2011
If you want to know about bullets, this is the film for you. It's the Norma Ammunition special. We go to the Norma factory in Sweden to see how bullets are made and we carry out tests to see what they do. We blow up different explosives and propellants, we try out extraordinary calibres and we even take time to go deerstalking on the Dunan Estate in Scotland with Norma chief executive Torbjorn Lindskog. We look at the difference between plastic-tipped bullets and Norma's 'Oryx' soft points. With unprecedented access to the workings of the Norma factory, R&D officer Don Heath shows us what goes into the best factory ammo in the world.
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Episode 103, 16th November 2011
Would you shoot a rhino? We find a man who does and we find out why. For Danish big game hunter Torben Espensen, it was a lifetime's ambition. And that's not the only knotty problem we deal with this week. How do you follow up a deer in thick cover? Answer: pro deerstalker Oliver Power with an Aimpoint scope. And what do you do when you are farm manager Andy 'Crowman' Crow and your winter wheat is being ravaged by geese? Answer: call in the local ack-ack battery.
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Episode 102, 9th November 2011
To Scotland to watch the red stag rut in the Monadhliath Hills with David Taylor of the Countryside Alliance and stalker Jimmy Irvine, star of the Highland Keeper DVDs. Then to the south of England to learn how to play a range of fox calls with Roy Lupton and to watch the definitive airgun safety film with King of Airgunners, Terry Doe. And this is the episode where the mouse is run over by the plane...
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Episode 101, 2nd November 2011
Blow those hunting horns! This week we are mouflon shooting and calling geese. We are on a 25,000-acre hunting estate outside Berlin as the guests of sports optics manufacturer Zeiss enjoying driven mouflon, wild boar and deer, with all the pomp and ceremony that a top German hunting trip affords. We are also in Easter Ross, Scotland, where Countryside Alliance director of shooting David Taylor is out after pinkfoot and greylag geese.
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Episode 100, 26th October 2011
It's our 100th Fieldsports Britain programme! And in it we have George Digweed explaining how to shoot straight, sika stags rutting in Dorset, foxshooting with a £330 new Clulite lamp and the blooper reel from our first 100 programmes. George recently shot the world's longest clay pigeon at 130 yards, so he is in great shape to say how you can shoot better. Roy Lupton is calling in sika stags. And Haggis Hartman from West Country Guns is trying out the lamp to protect a shooting estate on the Somerset/Devon border.
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Episode 99, 19th October 2011
What happens when a deer gets tangled in rope and fencewire? How do you call in a muntjac? Are Hampshire's foxes really biggest? And how much fun can a Scottish estate be? You will find the answers to these vital questions and more in this week's Fieldsport Britain, brought to you faithfully every Wednesday evening. This episode features Dom Holtam, Roy Lupton and Daryl Barnard enjoying shooting/hunting all over the UK.
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Episode 98, 12th October 2011
A pair of keen Australian foxshooters sent us one of their fox calls - and we are trying it out in Pomshire. It's the Thunder from Down Under but it brings in the foxes. We are also deerstalking in South Ayrshire with Chris Dalton of Ayrstalk.co.uk, we are training a peregrine to stoop on a kite (that's a children's kite - not the bird) and we are meeting our fellow hunting and shooting YouTubers to see why they like to commit their hunting successes to film.
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Episode 97, 5th October 2011
A world record long-distance shot at a clay pigeon, a dramatic stalk for a red stag across a Scottish estate made famous in the Harry Potter films and a happy afternoon firing shotguns at shooting glasses to see how safe they really are. It's another quiet week on your favourite hunting TV show Fieldsports Britain. We are at the Bisley Live shooting show to watch 19-times world champion shooter George Digweed break a clay at an incredible 130 yards. We are at Glenetive in Argyllshire to stalk deer. And we are keen to find the safest safety glasses there are. We also bring you all the latest shooting innovation from Bisley. Do we over-use this phrase? ... It's another packed programme.
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Episode 96, 28th September 2011
Zander fishing, rat shooting (you liked it so much last week we're back with more) and why Cornwall is the must-shoot must-fish county in the UK. Dom Holtam takes us out after zander and barbel, two of coarsefishing's best-kept secrets. Roy Lupton has put away the airguns and is moving on the rat-holes with diggers and shotguns. Those pesky rodents don't stand a chance this time!. Plus we announce the winner of 'Rat Attack: Britain's Biggest Rat'. And we are in Cornwall to pick up tips from some of the best chefs in the country about how to cook game at the Cornish Food & Drink Festival, as well as taking the family trout fishing at Colliford Lake.
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Episode 95, 21st September 2011
The Warrener, driven partridges, driven rats, and our competition to find Britain's biggest rat. Roy Lupton uses everything from chainsaw smoke to Chinese takeaways to bring rats to his shotguns, airguns, terriers and blokes with spades. Meanwhile, a viewer from Hartlepool has sent in a picture of a rat that measures 18in from head to tail, which has inspired us to launch our Rat Attack Weekend, with the prize of a BSA Meteor Mk7 worth £185 for whoever sends the picture of the biggest rat by Monday 26th September 2011. Then we are with the legend that is the Warrener, reviewing his new foxshooting DVD. And, rather grander, we follow an English gameshot from brushing up on his partridge-shooting skills at Shalden Shooting School in Devon to facing the real thing at Catton Hall in Derbyshire.
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Episode 94, 14th September 2011
Pigeons, gundogs, and how to be a better person this week. Andy 'Crowman' Crow is shooting pigeons with a Winchester SX3. The Fieldsports Channel cocker spaniel is having puppies (here's a blow-by-blow account of how to do it AND how not to do it). You can be better through getting qualifications for hunting and shooting. Hunt staff are taking an NVQ1 in animal care, backed by the Countryside Alliance. And deerstalkers are on the National Gamekeepers Organisation's DSC1 course, sponsored by JCB. Oh - and we announce the winner of our CENS digital hearing protection competition. It's all in Fieldsports Britain this week.
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Episode 93, 7th September 2011
To Co Offaly in Ireland for the Birr Castle Game Fair, to Kent in the UK to take a variety of birds hawking after rabbits, and to Oxford where they are giving away prizes galore for shooting. Come with us to Ireland to see hawking, horses, shooting, and all the fieldsports at which Irish excel. Then join Roy Lupton as he trains birds including a Bonelli's eagle and a peregrine. And finally, it's the Oxford Gun Company's summer of prizes. They are giving away £2,000-worth of prizes to novice shots and the more experienced.
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Episode 92, 31st August 2011
Rabbits, fallow deer, a fairytale Scottish castle, pigeons, clays, and social responsibility for rioters: what a mixture. Sporting Shooter editor Dom Holtam is out after fallow bucks in Kent. He's not had much luck with Fieldsports Channel in the highseat recently. Will it go right this time? Meanwhile, Andy 'Crowman' Crow is on the same farm after rabbits. Next, how comfortable should you make yourself in Scotland? We're north of the Border to look at Taymouth Castle, which consists of Rolls-Royce lodges and estate for keen shooters and fishers. Then we go south again to watch Sporting Shooter chef Mark Gilchrist shoot pigeons and Commonwealth Games silver medallist Abbey Burton get ready for a shooting lesson with the help of Puretone's CENS Digital hearing protection. And finally, we're with the Oxford Gun Company showing how shooting can teach responsibility and citizenship. Might be good to take some of those urban looters shooting, innit?
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Episode 91, 24th August 2011
Actor and fieldsports enthusiast Bernard Cribbins is pushing a boat out for a good cause at a trout fishery in Oxfordshire. Roy Lupton is stressing about whether or not to shoot a fallow buck in the head. Oliver Power reveals the high prices people will pay to shoot white or weird deer. And Helena Neraal explains how to cook an elk fillet in cinnamon. Plus we have news on cormorants, grouse, partridges and which are more popular: barracuda or trout? You are probably wondering how you managed to get through the week so far without knowing all this stuff. You can thank your weekly episode of Fieldsports Britain.
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Episode 90, 17th August 2011
First grouse of the season, a 30lb salmon, 21 foxes in a night, antis behaving badly and Countryside Alliance Foundation bringing game cookery to urban England - it is again the best of British sport in this week's Fieldsports Britain. With the help of a speedy Subaru Outback, we're putting grouse, venison and salmon on a plate by 11.30am on the Glorious Twelfth with chef Neil McGown of the East Haugh House Hotel at Pitlochry - and he's catching and shooting them too. We're out in southern England with legendary foxshooter and falconry on a red-letter night. And Lee Maycock of the Game to Eat initiative is teaching the chefs of tomorrow at Hertford Regional College about cooking game meat. He even has a quick recipe for 'cooking' venison in a freezer that you'll like.
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Episode 89, 10th August 2011
Just two days away from the grouse season, we have the prospects for shooting in Scotland and England. We talk to Lindsay Waddell and Ed Bromet. It's also the height of the roebuck rut. We're out calling them in Somerset with Dirk Waltmann of German hunting magazine Pirsch and stalker Leo Naylor. Meanwhile, the legend that is Roy Lupton is calling them in Hampshire. And we're going posh on you. His Grace The Duke of Devonshire explains what makes Chatsworth such a great estate, 'pon my word!
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Episode 88, 27th July 2011
Kent county cricket captain Rob Key goes pigeon shooting with world champion shooter George Digweed. Game chef Mark Gilchrist is riding shotgun (literally) with Andy 'Crow Man' Crow on a combine harvester looking out for rabbits. And Sporting Shooter editor Dom Holtam is having a hard time finding a fallow buck amid a sea of fallow does. With a week to go until the grouse shooting season starts, this is the cream of British shooting sports for you: pigeons in the wheat cut, fallow bucks and pigeon glut.
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Episode 87, 27th July 2011
In this week's Fieldsports Britain, we have a mantrap, a cannon, an England rugby star, a German with a riflescope, a look behind the scenes of the guntrade, the illegal trade in birds of prey and Bernard Cribbins (not the illegal trade in Bernard Cribbins - that's quite different). It can only be our review of the CLA Game Fair
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Episode 86, 20th July 2011
So much stuff for you this week on Fieldsports Britain: foxes, airguns, big cats and blowing up Coke cans with an extraordinary new clay pigeon trap. * Planning to replace your old airgun? Sporting Shooter editor Dom Holtam shows off a great new airrifle, the Air Arms S410F, to try out on rats and rabbits. * Roy Lupton is having a hard time shooting foxes in daylight. They're not keen to come close to him. Will he have to resort to rabbiting instead? * Hampshire farmer Ferris Whidborne has invented the Flurry Launcher, an incredible new clay trap that sends them faster and more frequently than ever before. * And why it's healthy to let your cheetah attack your zookeeper from time to time: "You can't beat a bit of drama, a bit of blood and a bit of TV exposure," says the cheetah's owner Alan Ames of Eagle Heights in Kent. So much sport for you this week - and the bird shooting season is still weeks away!
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Episode 85, 13th July 2011
To shoot or not to shoot - that is the question. If you are Andy 'Crowman' Crow, made famous by Sporting Shooter magazine, and birds are devastating your mate's wheatfields, it's an easy one to answer. And he has a number of tips and tricks up his camouflaged sleeves to deceive those pesky pigeons. If you are Roy Lupton and you are with a relatively inexperienced shot who sees a roedeer head sticking up from a wheatfield, it's more difficult. And if you live in Scotland and are, for any reason, having elephant trouble - well, local gun collector John Ormiston may be able to help you out with a classic 19th century double rifle. There: pigeons, roebuck and elephant. Planning on shooting anything else at this time of year?
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Episode 84, 6th July 2011
They are dumping foxes in the countryside near you. In this week's programme, we uncover how one British animal welfare charity feeds foxes on dogfood and lets them go near a free-range chicken run. Duh! Meanwhile, back in the more enlightened world of shooting sports, we're at the Beretta World shooting competition in Hampshire. We're out with Gloucestershire gamekeeper Kevin Andrews at what he says is his busiest time of year for pheasants and partridges. And, in Scotland, top gun collector John Ormiston is showing off his howdah pistols - just the thing for when your elephant is attacked by a tiger. Life is more exciting on Fieldsports Channel.
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Episode 83, 29th June 2011
Sport in Northern Ireland and Scotland this week - looking for the fastest longdogs and gundogs on land and water (lurchers competing for the Master McGrath), picking up tips about shooting straight from Mike Yardley and knocking down Finn McCool-sized bags of crows with Sporting Shooter chef Mark Gilchrist. That's all at the Shane's Castle Game Fair in Co Antrim, Northern Ireland. Then we're off to North-West Sutherland to a land of loch after loch and trout or two in each. Then there's cooking duck with cherries, when not to drop your phone into the water, a real live American cowgirl, and dressing up like a swamp monster... we could go on.
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Episode 82, 22nd June 2011
We have fishing, foxing, pheasants, the Clay Classic and an IPC award-winning clay ground in this week's programme. We are with fishing expert Charles Jardine looking at his special love, the Fishing With Schools initiative, which is backed by the Countryside Alliance. We are at the Marlston Shoot on the Berkshire Downs admiring their superb pheasants, which are on offer through GunsOnPegs.com. The quick brown fox jumps through a remarkable gap in a stock fence - and our foxing expert Roy Lupton is there to investigate. And we are at the Oxford Gun Company which won the IPC Magazine Shooting Industry award this year for best clay ground - so we are there to ask what makes it so good. Now really - how much of this would you see on ordinary telly?
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Episode 81, 15th June 2011
It's international jetset week on Fieldsports Britain. Swiss supermodel Xenia Tchoumitcheva takes us trout fishing on Alpine streams, we are taking a tricky shot on a roebuck in Hampshire with Roy Lupton, and we are shooting at the Newick Park Hotel & Country Estate which offers a friendly driven shoot over 250 acres of glorious undulating Sussex countryside. Even with the supermodels, we're so much more real than ordinary telly!
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Episode 80, 8th June 2011
What's this 'ear? Here is how to protect your hearing with our Big Friendly Test of ear defenders for shooters. And for those of you who didn't wear hearing protection when you were younger I said WE'RE TESTING EAR DEFENDERS!! That's not all. In this week's Fieldsports Britain programme, we're out on a traditional pheasant and partridge day at the lovely Stowlangtoft shoot in Suffolk; we're protecting peas from pigeons with the legendary Andy 'Crowman' Crow; and we are crossing the pond to the USA to see how well the British shooting contingent did at the Triple Classic clay shoot in Texas. Answer? Yee-blooming-haa!
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Episode 79, 1st June, 2011
How to hypnotise a bird, how to tell when a charging lion is going to kill you (or just scare you), how to set up your quad bike for rabbiting - all these vital 'life skills' and more are revealed in this week's Fieldsports Britain. The much-admired Roy Lupton dizzies doves in order to train his pointers, then he helps out a farmer by calling in foxes in daylight and shooting them. Meanwhile, super Sporting Shooter magazine chef Mark Gilchrist is using night vision to shoot rabbits for restaurants and dangerous game expert Don Heath explains how to deal with angry lions.
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Episode 78, 25th May 2011
Watch Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans catch trout, talk about what they went through and explain how flyfishing helps them get over post traumatic stress disorder. Watch Browning owners get together and celebrate owning Brownings. Watch Benelli owners do the same with Benellis. And see all shooters enjoy coming together for a day at the Ian Coley Shooting School. This week, Fieldsports Britain is out with Fishing for Heroes and its American counterpart charity Project Healing Waters on lakes and rivers in the south of England; it is at the Benelli Sp'Auto clay competition at the West London Shooting School; it is reviewing the Ian Coley Shooting School with top clayshooter Abbey Burton; and it is enjoying a day with the Browning Owners' Club at the Oxford Gun Company. Fieldsports - it's the best therapy!
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Episode 77, 18th May 2011
It's clays, clays, stalking, elephants, muzzleloaders and more clays this week in Fieldsports Britain. We are in Kent working out what makes the best shooting sticks. We are in Zimbabwe, courtesy of Norma Ammunition, to find out when a charging elephant really means it and when they are just mucking about. We are at the final of the Handicap Classic clay competition at the Royal Berkshire Shooting School. And we are the Bredon Festival of Shooting in Gloucestershire, trying out all sorts of target sports with triplet girls and their sister.
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Episode 76, 11th May 2011
We've got roe deer stalking, young shots in the Schools Challenge, fox hunts growing flowers and the last word in thermal imaging to help you spot your wildlife in the programme this week. Roy Lupton is out at Kingsclere in Hampshire culling roebuck and maintaining the health of the deer herd there. Meanwhile, the staff of the Oxford Gun Company are at Bredon School in Gloucestershire for the latest round of the Schools Challenge - possibly the biggest young shots event in the UK. Staying in Gloucestershire and local hunts are raising money for ABF The Soldier's Charity and the Countryside Alliance with an extraordinary plant sale at Eyford House near Stow-on-the-Wold. And probably the most exciting piece of wildlife-spotting kit available is in the hands of Sporting Shooter editor Dominic Holtam: he tests the new FLIR thermal imager on deer in Sussex.
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Episode 75, 4 May 2011
Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson and Chief Constable Matt Baggott both show their support for hunting, shooting and fishing at the Ballywalter Game & Country Living Fair in Northern Ireland. We are there to film it for Fieldsports Britain this week. We also use the fair to take a walk through the history of shooting and fishing in Northern Ireland. We shoot a punt gun with Andy Scullion, we look at a walking stick gun, we try out Victorian poaching methods, and the programme is presented by Paul Pringle, editor of Irish Countrysports & Country Life magazine.
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Episode 74, 27th April 2011
Maneaters, rabbit burgers and a TV celebrity: Phil Spencer of Channel 4's 'Location Location Location' is on the programme this week in Kent to shoot pigeons, stalk fallow deer and talk about the work of the Countryside Alliance. Norma Precision ammunition expert Don Heath tells the tragic story of his hunting student who was killed by a lion in Zimbabwe. And Sporting Shooter magazine is on the programme in force, with chef Mark Gilchrist and editor Dom Holtam cooking up a fabulous game barbecue.
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Episode 73, 20th April 2011
How to avoid a charging buffalo, how Realtree camo gets you girlfriends (or boyfriends) and how to cook an Easter bunny - you get the most essential knowledge from Fieldsports Channel every week. We are with Zimbabwean professional hunter Don Heath as he explains when buffalo hunts go wrong, we are at the Kelmarsh Game & Country Fair in Northamptonshire to learn about camouflage and how it works on the opposite sex, and in the run-up to Easter we are cooking rabbits with Sporting Shooter celebrity chef Mark Gilchrist. Frankly, without knowing all this, we're amazed you've survived as long as you have.
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Episode 72, 13th April 2011
It's love and war this week. Sporting Shooter magazine chef Mark Gilchrist is at war with rabbits in Kent. Meanwhile, Roy Lupton's ferrets and falcons are in the mood for love, and he has to oblige! And Sporting Shooter editor Dom Holtam continues his love affair with fallow and roebuck stalking. Then there's romance. What could be more lovely than a stroll with a fishing rod in the parkland surrounding one of England's great country houses? - in this case Blenheim Palace. Your summer sport starts here...
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Episode 71, 6th April 2011
In the programme this week, we're picking up tips from a team of long-distant rifle shooters who are at the WMS Steel Challenge range in Wales to compete for Swarovski glass, we have an entertaining way of exercising hunters with the East Sussex & Romney Marsh Hunt in Sussex, and we are asking the question: will this be the year of the £50 pheasant?
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Episode 70, 30th March 2011
In our Fieldsport Britain programme this week we've gone topsy-turvy. We've got antis chasing deerstalkers, rabbits chasing rabbitshooters, and crow shooters sitting very, very still or the crows won't come near them. There's a new film out called Blooded about antis chasing naked deerstalkers across Mull. Its trailer was so shocking YouTube banned it. It stars Prince William's buddy, the actress Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe. We talk to director Ed Boase and writer James Walker about how they handle antis with rifles. In the next item, George Digweed is back from a round-the-globe trip that's seen him pick up another world championship (that makes 18) and a continental prize, the Pan African. Now he is after Britain's wiliest bird: the crow. He is trying out the Idleback pigeonshooting chair in order to keep a low profile, he talks through decoying, flappers and how to shoot straight. Finally, we're with Somerset farmer Richard Payne using N550 night vision on his .22 in order to clear a 21-acre field of rabbits that have munched their way thtrough 16 acres of rape. The advantage of the digisight is that the rabbits come running towards you.
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Episode 69, 23rd March 2011
This week we've got pigeon shooting with the 'crow man' Andy Crow, deerstalking with Sporting Shooter editor Dominic Holtam, the Schools Challenge competition for the best young shooters in Britain, and our own super competition for one lucky viewer to win a TransK9 dog box for your car worth £450. Out with Andy in Kent, the conditions are against him -- it's light, bright and the sun is low - but still he's there, defending his farm with a team of other pigeon shooters and they manage a 150-bird day. What a spring it's been so far for pigeon shooters, with the sheer numbers of birds taking the farmers by surprise. Also surprising is the number of entries to this year's Schools Challenge. Organised by the Oxford Gun Company, the latest in a year of clay competitions and gameshooting days for schools and schoolchildren has introduced thousands of young people to the sport of shooting. Contenders for the title include Kineton High School, Bredon, Bradfield and Millfield. Who is going to win this year? Find out here...
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Episode 68, 16th March 2011
Donner und blitzen! We're in Germany (again) - this time at the European hunting innovation show IWA, in Nuremberg, where all the best shooting products for the next year or two get their first outings. We're looking at thermal imaging, anti-smell devices and we're even finding time to nip off back to Bedfordshire to take some of this kit out after Chinese water deer. If you want to see the latest vorsprung durch technik, keep it Fieldsports Channel. Oh yes - and we're also going back in time to see a pair of pistols that belonged to the Grand Duke of Russia.
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Episode 67, 9th March 2011
We're in Sussex, Somerset and Africa looking for game big and small. Top shot Mike Yardley is after buffalo in the Limpopo region of South Africa with Oribi Outfitters. Meanwhile Commonwealth Games Olympic Trap silver medallist Abbey Burton is swapping her shotgun for rifle and is after rabbits, using Pulsar N550 Digisight night vision and an Idleback Chair. And Roy Lupton is in Sussex after rabbits with goshawk and Harris hawk. Who says the shooting season is over?
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Episode 66, 2nd March 2011
It's the cooks and books episode! We've got Clarissa Dickson-Wright (that's not a real picture in case you wondered) talking about her book Potty, which has 100 of Clarissa's favourite recipes that can all be cooked in one dish in the oven or on the hob. Clarissa also talks about her forthcoming book, a history of British cookery since the Second Crusade. And, being Clarissa, she reveals the best ways to cook both badger and seal. Meanwhile, Sporting Shooter chef Mark Gilchrist is out pigeon shooting and trying out the Idleback Chairs new pigeon-shooting chair. We start the programme with another book: Cleve Edmonston's Tales of a London Poacher. Cleve takes us for a walk around London's East End and shows where he used to go pigeon, rabbit and duck shooting, and - crucially - how he avoided the attentions of the Old Bill.
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Episode 65, 23rd February 2011
Fancy a new gamekeeping vehicle? We're testing the Kawasaki Mule, the Kubota RTV, the John Deere Gator and the JCB Workmax against each other. Let's see which one is the winner! That's not all. We're at a young shots event near Bristol trying out ferreting and falconry. And we're talking to the new chief executive of the Countryside Alliance Alice Barnard about politics and the future of foxhunting, as she goes to a Lincolnshire point-to-point.
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Episode 64, 16th February 2011
It's dogs and guns this week. We're off to the fabulous kennels of the Duke of Buccleuch in South-West Scotland in search of canine comfort, and we visit the makers of the TransK9 dog transport system. Then it's back to the south of England where Sporting Shooter magazine chef Mark Gilchrist has got a new farm to shoot over, and he has to go there ready for pigeons, rabbits and deer.
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Episode 63, 9th February 2011
For the programme this week, our arsenal includes a Spartan armoured car, a double rifle converted to goose gun and two Harris hawks. And what a bag: two foxes, four rabbits, a selection of Norfolk partridges and the reachiest pinkfoot goose you may ever have seen. We're shooting driven birds with the Light Dragoons next to Sandringham in Norfolk (they're the ones who bring the tank), we are out on the Solway Firth with the Wigtown Bay Wildfowlers, and our falconer/foxshooter Roy Lupton is lamping with hawk and gun. This is the real countryside!
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Episode 62, 2nd February 2011
Achtung boar! We're in Germany on a driven boar hunt with top sports optics company Zeiss and we ask the question: who are the top boarshooters? Germans, Italians, Scandinavians or Brits? Find out here. That's not all. We are also following up injured animals with a Hanoverian hound. And we are in London with Rob Gray of the Countryside Alliance to find out what the UK parliament has in store for shooters this year.
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Episode 61, 26th January 2011
For fast-action sport, we're after hares with golden eagles in the Berkshire countryside thanks to Roy Lupton. We're also joining top Oxfordshire stalker Owen Beardsmore of Cervus UK to look at a lovely estate he manages in the Chilterns, and joining in with the muntjac and fallow deer cull. And we're training a Bavarian mountain hound with Dom Holtam of Sporting Shooter magazine. The shooting season may be coming to an end but we're packed with ideas on how to spend your weekends in the next few months.
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Episode 60, 19th January 2011
It's vintage Fieldsports Channel. We have the hunt for big cats in Wales (are those cat's eyes by the sheep carcase?). We have the preview of the Handicap Classic, one of the best prizes in shooting. We have George Digweed on the best clay cartridges. And we have Selena Masson, ex Shooting Times, reunited with her stolen gundog, Archie.
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Episode 59, 12th January 2011
We're chasing rabbits with a trencher pack of terriers and other curs in Somerset's lovely Quantock Hills this week. We're also at the Steventon Shoot in Hampshire (Jane Austen used to live there) where the keeper has returned after 20 years to bring about change. And we're with top shot George Digweed to discuss the best cartridges for high pheasants, reachy partridges and fast grouse. Fog and snow has characterised the British Isles in the last couple of weeks but we've been out there, delivering it to your front room.
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Episode 58, 5th January 2011
Our massive 26lb Maidstone fox has been one of the biggest stories in the British press so far this year - but now we have found a bigger fox. Dennis Rowsell of Somerset shot a 34lb fox in 2009. We interview him in this programme about it. That's not all. We're also learning about long-range shooting paint pots (very satisfying) with Keith Poyser of training outfit Bangs Bucks & Bullseyes, and we are hearing about non-toxic cartridges for duck and geese from top shot George Digweed.
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