Badger is now a sniper. Offishul...

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meles meles
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Badger is now a sniper. Offishul...

#1 Post by meles meles »

Saturday dawned bright and fair but long before the sun had clawed its way above the autumnal horizon Badger was up, breakfasted and trundling down the A38. By the time he pulled into the car park of ye Traditional Village Inne it was almost light and the air was heavy with the delicious smell of bacon sandwiches. Badger parked the Orient Express between a ratty Ford Fiasco and a sleek Bentley Intercontinental coupe (it's a very egalitarian syndicate, and yes, the coupe is the 18th birthday present of a prior range report) and elbowed his way to the front of the sarnie queue. It doesn't pay to hang about at the back of the pack when the pan is sizzling...

An hour later Badger was again standing at the back of the gun line in the role of cripple stopper & backstop. Next time he's going to check the bag of billiard balls used to allocate pegs: he's not entirely certain that they are all differently numbered... Still, an hour later he had two pheasants from two shots.

After a spot of lunch it was time to try a new part of the shoot, an area of bog surrounded by willow and reeds. Far too gloopy for the beaters to enter, this was the province of the dogs. Five spaniels, two terriers and a couple of indeterminate four legged hounds of some sort or other were unleashed and whistled, shouted and yelled at to direct their enthusiastic efforts to find and scare up any birds. Badger had a prime spot for this part of the shoot, standing atop a small tussock of grass that was the only dry ground for about twenty yards in either direction. There was a sudden cry of "Bird up" and a duck came rocketing out of the reeds straight towards the gap between Badger and the adjacent gun. Judging it to be his, Badger raised and cocked his Blissett damascus barreled hammer gun, then fired the first barrel at the rapidly ascending duck. A flurry of feathers indicated that the shot had struck home but the duck didn't seem to realise that it was dead and carried on flying. Badger let the second barrel have a go as the duck was almost overhead. Another flurry of feathers and this time the message sank home, as did the duck as it folded its wings and plummeted earthwards to land not far from Badger's feet.

Barely had Badger time to reload than a new cry went along the line: "Bird up" The gun next to Badger - Bentley Jamie - shouted "Snipe" and started to raise his gun. The snipe, a small and very manoeuverable bird, began to jink left and right, up and down, all the time accelerating, first gaining height then sinking to hug the reed bed before wheeling around and heading between two willows. It put Badger in mind of an Imperial Tie fighter, or a Mosquito hugging the firs as it screamed down a Norwegian fjord...

Bentley Jamie fired twice and missed twice. Now it was Badger's turn. As the snipe bunted over the top of the willows and began a split S turn towards a patch of reeds, Badger fired. Just the once. The snipe almost stopped in mid air as the shot pattern enveloped it and then fluttered earthwards.

"Wow, you hit it," said Jamie.

"Good shot," said the gun to Badger's other side.

So there we have it.

Badger is now officially a sniper.

No-one seemed to have noticed he'd needed two shots to stop the duck.
Badger
CEO (Chief Excavatin' Officer)
Badger Korporashun



Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
"Quelle style, so British"
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DaveB
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Re: Badger is now a sniper. Offishul...

#2 Post by DaveB »

Way to work the historical origin of the term into a story! Well done.
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Re: Badger is now a sniper. Offishul...

#3 Post by BamBam »

BamBam liked the story, but wondered how much shot will be left in that duck when they cook it back at the sett.
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meles meles
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Re: Badger is now a sniper. Offishul...

#4 Post by meles meles »

Cook it ? That canard was weighed in for scrap, Bambam...
Badger
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Badger Korporashun



Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
"Quelle style, so British"
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Hrun
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Re: Badger is now a sniper. Offishul...

#5 Post by Hrun »

Hmm, could save 'er maj a fortune.. hand in all those 50 cal sniper rifles in the soon to happen gun ban mk3 and issue shotguns instead.

Seriously, sounds like a great day, and good shootin'
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meles meles
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Re: Badger is now a sniper. Offishul...

#6 Post by meles meles »

We was out with some of the syndicate again yesterday, oomans, were us, and had a goodly time. This time we were 'walking up' the game, toddling round the boundaries of our shoot and seeing what might present itself. Naturally we took our 1885 Blissett 'mascus 'ammergun (65 guineas back then) and a pawful of 28 gm no.5 shot cartridges. The ground was frosted but not hard and so our ikkle welligogs were soon caked in gloop and sticking to the fields as if magnetised. Does anybody make Teflon coated wellies?

As we passed a ikkle copse a couple of pheasants rattled and then took flight directly towards us. We raised the Blisset, cocked both 'ammers and let loose: a perfect left and right shot downed 'em both ! Boy, did us feel smug ! About 30 minutes later we approached another thicket and a pheasant zoomed skywards. The Hon. Bentley Jamie raised his grandpa's owd Purdey and winged it so we tugged our forelock and then downed it for 'im. As we reloaded, Brer Fox, who had clearly been intent on stealin' our pheasants, slipped out of a bramble patch and made off across the field. This time Bentley Jamie was on the ball and dropped Mr Fox with a single shot to the noggin at a range of about 20 mards. Bravo, m'Lud !

Just as we was thinkin' about elevenses, we approached our (okay, 'is Lordship's) pond and put up a flight of quackers. Three or four guns blazed away and we were soon stuffin' 5 quackers into the picker upper's rucksack. We paused for a ikkle snack of pheasant roll (think sausage roll but with pheasant, spiced with cinnamon and currants) and a tiny snifter of a good tawny port, purely medicinal you understands, a good anti-freeze on a kowd December morning, then made our way along the home straight back towards The House. Passin' by the Big Wood, half the guns went into the wood and half lurked outside it. We was outside it. There came the roar of thundersound from within the wood and two things happened: another fox was dropped in the wood and about half a dozen pheasants came 'urtling out of the wood. Us shot down another pheasant did we, as did Bentley Jamie and young Samwise Gangee.

A thoroughly pleasant day was 'ad by all (barring Brers Fox we supposes) and we now have a tasty game casserole bubblin' away in the slow cooker...
Badger
CEO (Chief Excavatin' Officer)
Badger Korporashun



Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
"Quelle style, so British"
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Kungfugerbil
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Re: Badger is now a sniper. Offishul...

#7 Post by Kungfugerbil »

meles meles wrote:Cook it ? That canard was weighed in for scrap, Bambam...
Very good :)

I enjoyed the tale. Last time out I raised my gun at a snipe but realising the futility of the exercise (and rather admiring it’s flight) I lowered the gun. Great to see them.
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Re: Badger is now a sniper. Offishul...

#8 Post by Ovenpaa »

I lowered my gun on three Snipe last weekend, choosing instead to marvel at their flight and call.
/d

Du lytter aldrig til de ord jeg siger. Du ser mig kun for det tøj jeg har paa ...

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