It was just as good as I hoped it would be; the syndicate shoot at Sludegaard, located south of the town Nyborg in Fyn in Denmark. The first time I shot with this syndicate, was back in 2015, so this year was the fourth year I was fortunate to shoot with these wonderful people. Until this year, the syndicate has been led by Kjeld E Larsen, who has built a smoothly run shooting syndicate through several years. Due to personal health issues, Kjeld retired this year from being shoot captain, and handed over the responsibility for the syndicate to Benny and Paw. These two men led the shoot on the 27th of October in an excellent manner, continuing the tradition of excellence and high standards established by their predecessor.
Three pheasants in the first drive
For me, this was the only pheasant shoot I had planned to participate in this autumn, so this was my only opportunity to bag a few pheasants this year. In the first drive I was originally assigned to be a beater, but luckily, I was given a side-peg on the left flank of the drive, a peg with the wind hitting my face. The pheasants in this drive were plentiful, and soon I heard the cracking of shots. Suddenly I large beautiful pheasant cock came heading towards my peg. I swung through the bird and placed the shot in front of its beak. It was dead in the air and fell to the ground. A minute later another magnificent cock pheasant came on the right, and I shot this bird also. Then two hen pheasants came, and one of them had to bite the dust. I shot three beautiful birds in the first drive, and I was overwhelmed with joyous feelings. Later in the day I bagged a couple of more pheasants and four fast mallards.
Heavy rain, but good shooting
Even though it rained heavily in Fyn on the 27th of October 2018, it in no way hampered the anticipation and the good spirits of the participants of the shoot. But when the third drive, the duck drive, ended, we all were ready for lunch at the cosy shooting hut. Thick slices of bacon were served with potatoes and sauce at this hearty lunch, and the people were happy. After lunch it was time for three more drives before the shoot captains decided that it was enough for the day. This day, close to 100 birds were taken, mostly pheasants who accounted for approximately 75 percent of the birds. The rest were mallards and a woodcock shot by the gentleman Wiggo in the last drive. About 320 rounds were fired, which made an average of 3,2 shots per bird taken. An acceptable result. The shooting day was a success, in spite of heavy rain, a temperature of 5 degrees Celsius and quite a strong wind. I certainly hope that this was not the last time I am able to participate on a shoot day at beautiful Sludegård, for it is always a pleasure to shoot here, and this shoot is certainly not hard on the wallet.
Steel-shot or bismuth-shot?
Since there is a ban on lead-shot in Denmark, the choice of ammunition is between using steel-shot or bismuth-shot. This day was nothing less than great, except the fact that I ran out of bismuth cartridges in the afternoon and had to use steel-shot for the remaining last drives. My experiences with the cheaper steel-shots is that they often work well on mallard, but not always that well on pheasants. This is probably due to the fact that in October and early November, pheasants are often shot at a much closer range than mallards are. We know that the pellets of steel-shot are kept together in a heavy plastic wad for a long time after leaving the barrels. As a matter of fact, they often remain in this plastic cup for up to 20 meters! When we at the same time know that many early pheasants are shot at ranges between 15 and 20 meters, it obviously makes it hard to hit them using steel-shot! Therefore, my recommendation when shooting pheasants in Denmark is to use bismuth-shot, although they are a lot more expensive than steel-shot. Most people will find that it is a good investment! Nevertheless, later in the season when birds are taken at longer ranges, steel-shot may work better, even with pheasants. The ban on lead-shot in Denmark is understandable, since we know that in this country, unlike Norway, thousands of rounds on ammunition are fired in relatively small areas every autumn.
