To day,12 August saw the opening of the grouse shooting season in the U.K. Perhaps Lapogus can comment on the outlook for this season.
Its a very expensive sport with prices quoted in the U.K press at 150 pounds[$255 U.S] per brace shot or $76,500U.S. for a 300 brace day! Far beyond the means of most people!

Annual posting of George Earl's "Going North, King's Cross Station, London", 1893 for the Glorious 12th of August



"Perth Station, Coming South", 1895



Archibald Thorburn "Red Grouse in Flight over Marshland 1922"



"Down Wind; Partridge in Flight"

always like seeing those station prints Drew - thanks

for an American grouse hunter, it is hard to take seeing a hundred grouse in a morning and being told the shooting was canceled on the estate because the population we so terribly low.

Parasite control and other measures have helped many estates rebound since I was there.

Ditto on those first two prints - both are worth well over a thousand words! And good luck to those fortunate enough to find themselves on a grouse moor this season.

$125/bird might incent me to miss the few birds I might be able to hit

$76,500 for a day of shooting Red Grouse......a bit out of my league! A 300 brace? What's a brace? How many birds per brace? WOW!

http://www.fieldsportsmagazine.com/Shooting-Grouse/lord-walsingham-s-grouse.html

Thanks Drew. After reading about it and seeing a brace is a single bird, I think I asked a dumb question. Sorry. This Red Grouse shooting makes live pigeon shooting in the USA seem cheap, a real bargain. Holy Cow!

From the Oxford Dictionary;

Brace:
"(plural same) A pair of something, typically of birds or mammals killed in hunting: thirty brace of grouse"

Correct. A brace is two birds. And a 300 brace day on grouse would be HUGE. On the less expensive driven birds (but still pricey!), pheasants and partridge, 300 birds (150 brace) is a pretty good day. The price is typically split between a line of 8 guns, so it's not like an individual is going to be out of pocket 5 figures a day. But 4 figures for sure, and that's just for the birds.

Great article Drew. Some very interesting observations from Lord Walsingham. He used different loads for different drives, depending on the wind, and did not like the way Whitworth barrels sounded and switched back to Damascus. (A reminder that all these guys shoot thousands of rounds a year without ear protection. Eh, what?).

yeah......right.

Another neat article from Fieldsports about the Great Shoots at the bottom here
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x7uk0ii6-lPdWEZj5ctyqr1td19ZcsA5xGGoKBhP9o0/edit

Yes, two to the brace but partridge were traditionally counted in a leash which was three birds. Not often found now and usually counted in braces. Hounds of course are always counted in Couples.

If you can find a copy of a book called The Language of Sport by E.C.Hare first published in 1939 it explains these and many more. Loads of interesting terms covered. For instance the description of a male Fallow deer. 1st. year; a fawn, 2nd. year a Pricket, 3rd. year a Sorel, 4th. year a Sore, 5th. year Buck of the first head, 6th. year plus a Great Buck. Another way to bore your friends at dinner! Lagopus.....

Lord Ripon was unquestionably a man obsessed with shooting flying:


Hopefuly, he was sporting enough to use a .410. To have the time and circumstances to engage an obsession to that degree . . . .

well, i guess...it is what bird huntin has become there and what it is becomin here...sadly, the good old days of rough shooting in the moors and flushin ole ruff in the thick stuff with a good dog are pretty much just a memory now of the once "good old days".

hello all,
yes, driven grouse shooting is very expensive.However,small bag walked up days are a more affordable option and opens up the possibility of shooting a grouse to many more people.Still not cheap but within the reach of "mr average" if he wishes to push the boat out for a treat!
my local moor were out on the 12th and despite forecasts of a bumper year all over, they had a disappointing start to the season.
best wishes mrwmartin

There is a revised edition published in 1949. The title of the revised edition was changed to The Language of Field Sports. The author's name in my copy is listed as C. E Hare. Excellent book.

Best thing I've read on modern day shooting in Britian is "A Shooting Man's Creed" by Sir Joseph Nickerson. Very interesting read for me.

SRH

A question for my friends across the pond, " Are the grouse quite immature on the 12th?"

I have been recording ruffed grouse broods for the last few weeks, and at my latitude, many of them are still quite small.
I found a brood of 12 red phased ruffies, I am hoping to put Momma on the mantle next month.

stan,
i too found the book by sir j nickerson very interesting. i feel that his interests and actions re his shooting involvements were an unhealthy obsession that i found somewhat uncomfortable.
i do realise he did a lot of good work re fieldsports and was a popular man his circle.
im just glad i can enjoy a simple walk with dog and gun.
cheers
mrwmartin

Not that it matters a whit, but my positive experiences with 1oz vs 1 1/8 oz shot at long ranges mirror the post above.

Drew;
Thsnk you for posting George Earls pictures! They are
really wonderful with all of the dogs, ladies and gentlemen and bright colors. It brings the
true essence of days gone by and our English sxs's
and our anticipation of this fall's hunting.
Herb

Drew, I too thank you for posting these great tales of old England and Walsingham, Ripon and Duleep Singh. Great reading! Many thanks. Rich

"Olly" by Rupert Godfrey is a fascinating read on the life of Ripon. It is available from the author here: http://www.rupertgodfrey.co.uk/Marquis_of_Ripon_biography.html

I've only ever had two days at grouse on the moor. Very different shooting to my usual pheasants and partridge. I still find the humble woodpigeon to be the hardest bird to hit in a high wind and perhaps the most sporting of all, though!

Tim

Beagle, interesting about the revised edition. I was unaware of it. One more book to look out for.

Grouse can be a bit immature on the 12th. some moors just shoot a few just to be able to say they went out on the 12th. Most moors, my local one included, never start until the end of the month or early September.

As to young birds I came across a brood of five young mallard two days ago that couldn't have been more than 2 or 3 days old. Lagopus.....

I do feel that it is a little late to add to this posting my excuse is I have been on vacation and the Drew Hause posting of the George Earls pictures was more a shock than surprise, then while I was on vacation there was another shock with the same picture connection.
I was born and spent the years to my early twenties in the City of Liverpool and like a lot of young Brits visits to the local Public House’s (Bars) was a rite of passage and one of the more frequented was one named ‘The Vines’ in Lime Street situated in Liverpool centre. Now in one of the rooms hung a couple of oil paintings featuring people dogs and luggage at stations, now as the night’s liquor consumption progressed there where all sorts of contests like how many dogs besides English setters or pointers are there, added to how many gun cases there are and so on? Also why where there no black or golden Labrador retrievers in the pictures with the hardest thing of all how many lights are there at Perth Station questions to be answered after far too many rounds of drinks had been consumed. The next instalment to the picture story was while on vacation I decided to visit the Railway Museum in York and what should be hanging in one of the Museum exhibition rooms? George Earls pictures of King’s Cross Station and Perth Station those original pictures from the Vines Public house Liverpool each being rescued from the public house in 1990 before it was totally refurbished in each case it was like meeting two old friends.

I didn't know that they were once in a pub in Liverpool. I have seen them at the York Railway Museum. They are beautifully displayed.

As to Labradors it is because there were probably none around when the picture was painted. They are a very recent breed. The main dogs of the period would have been the Flat Coat Retriever for the Gentleman, the Curley Coat for the Wildfowler or Gamekeeper and the various Setters and Pointers for walked up grouse shooting over muzzle loaders and early breech loaders. Lagopus.....

Re: dogs of the era

George William Horlor (1849-1890) "The Day's Bag"



"End of The Day's Sport"

Possibly a Lab

Thorburn's "Coming Over the Guns - Partridges 1899"

There are good quality prints of the George Earl pictures available. I have them hanging on a landing half way up the stairs!

I doubt that is a Lab, Rev. Lagopus is absolutely correct, the Lab was originally called the "Lesser Newfoundland", after the breed it was developed from.

It wasn't all that long ago.

Best,
Ted

Drew, I would say that is a Flatcoat in the Thorburn picture. They were very popular around that time and the sort of dog a Gentleman would have.

I understand you have that exported programme over there called Downton Abbey; the one where as time goes on nobody gets to look any older. It shows His Nibs with a yellow Lab. A bit of bad casting. I don't think the Lab gets any older either! Lagopus.....

The yellow Lab in that fairy-land Limey show is named Isis-- maybe a subliminal message therein?

About 30 years ago I flew over the Firth of the Fourth to enjoy the Glorious 12 and first tuned up on Wood Pigeon for 3 days. I spent a week in Scotland combining driven shoots with rough shoots and enjoyed both. I had the pleasure of gunning with folks from Spain, France and the UK. The keepers were wonderful and the dogs were outstanding. I was under dressed, no tie and did not shoot a Purdy or H&H, but instead I shot a brace of 20 GA BSS's with beautiful wood and the little guns gave me a 99 bird day.

Lagopus, Downton Abbey takes place between 1910ish and 1930ish. Weren't labs developed by then?

As an aside I watched very closely during the one episode where guns were visible during a shoot. While not close enough to identify the guns by maker, all appeared to be reasonably highly engraved sidelocks, the type of gun I would expect those people to have been using. Made me feel better about potential historical accuracy.

Yes, but the yellow ones were not popular. Most yellow pups were put down at birth as only the blacks were wanted then. I suppose one might have been saved but unlikely. Labs were only just taking off. I think it was the Duke of Buccleuch who popularised the breed. Just had a good dig in a book I have called The Labrador Dog Its Home and History. It seems that the first dogs in (all black) came to Britain around 1928/9 and further imports around 1932-4. Britain's strict import laws due to our eradication of Rabies and needs to quarantine made imports from Newfoundland very difficult. So, there were Labs in around the end of the programmes period but only black.

Didn't know the dog in the programme was called Isis. I will store that information as it might turn up in a quiz. It's the sort of programme that 'The Leader of the Opposition' aka 'She Who Must Be Obeyed' watches while I have my nose in an improving book, from which I may make the odd observational remark. Lagopus.....

Gents,

The Duke of Buccleugh and The Earl of Malmsbury founded what became the Labrador in the 1830's. by 1932 the stud book was well established and had been for many years. See the current Buccleugh website
Buccleugh Labs history

I've worked my own dogs for the previous Duke and he was a smashing chap and a great supporter of gun dogs and game shooting.

The Thames in it's upper reaches near Oxford has been called the Isis since Adam was a boy. The reserve boat in the University boat race is named "Isis" to this day. Isis was a god in the Egyptian pantheon associated with healing. So the Duke in Downton might have called his dog "Isis" for several reasons.

Eug

Eugene,
1830 is not that long ago, when you are speaking of bird dogs. The Second Duke of York, finding himself imprisoned from 1406-1413 spent that time translating the book "Livre de la Chasse" to English. This book had been written during the middle 1300s by Gaston de Foix, Vicomte de Bearn.
Mentioned in this tome are orange and lemon belton "Spaniels", that were called that because the examples the writer saw were from Spain-but, they were clearly Setters. By the mid 1300s they were well established as a breed, and had been for quite some time, perhaps from about 1000 AD.
No one can be sure when the breed developed this trait, but, the dogs were bred to "Sett" or crouch when a net was tossed over them and the birds they were pointing.
It would take a while for guns to be developed that were specific to the sport of "tir au vol", or, wingshooting, but King Charles II brought a pair back from France in May, of 1660, after the monarchy was restored, and he was invited back from exile. Charles had picked up a bad habit from his years of exile, namely, wingshooting. Although the guns needed development and improvement, the bird dogs he would have used were very well established by that time.
They just weren't Labs.

Best,
Ted

@ClapperZapper

Interestingly here on the Isle of Man, between England, Scotland and Ireland, our opening day is the 25th because the Grouse sit later and consequently mature later.

A bit of August splendor:

Thomas Blinks "Setters in Heather"