Picking Your Moment

Picking up has become more and more popular in recent years; however, there is still an ongoing dispute between Guns who bring their dogs and pickers.

There are two sides to the story, as I have witnessed from being both a Gun with a dog and also a picker up.

Why Guns get upset

Like a number of you, I have taken my gun dog shooting with me and sat her quietly and patiently on my peg. A bird flies over at a good height and I am lucky enough to connect and bring it down stone dead in the field. However, before I know it, the picker behind me has let their dog go and has already picked my bird, even though my dog has marked it and it is not going anywhere! There are two points here; firstly the gun has a dog and the bird is dead (did i bring my dog for show?) and secondly, gun or picker, you should not pick birds during the drive, unless it is a runner!

Why Pickers get upset

As a picker, you are stood back from a line of guns, marking carefully fallen and pricked birds. Again, there are two annoying situations that can happen here; firstly after the drive or even during the drive, the gun lets their dog pick dead birds, only for the dog to pick up and then drop the bird elsewhere or not even pick up. Secondly, the gun lets his dog off at the end of the drive, picking up the odd bird, then walking off without letting the picker know which birds have been picked or not.

So how should this relationship progress?

The key is communication!

Guns should inform pickers at the start of the drive that they have a dog that will pick and depending on how well the Gun shoots, may ask the picker for some help too! Alternatively, pickers should ask the Gun if they would like to pick, since the Gun is the person paying for the day and picking a particularly well shot bird is all part of the experience. However, pickers should first and foremost pick pricked birds and never pick dead birds during the drive as a matter of principal.

Despite all this, the overall relationship between the picker up and the Guns should be one of mutual respect. The pickers up do a fantastic job with their beautifully trained dogs, as well as humouring the Guns when we are most adamant we hit that high bird and it must have come down in that cover over that hill!

I was shown the best example of this at a fantastic partridge shoot near Salisbury, which I had the privilege of shooting at three weeks ago. Pickers stood well back and patiently waited after the end whistle for guns to pick what they wanted and then swept through as a team cleaning up everything. Guns had their fun and pickers did their job perfectly. A brilliantly run shoot!

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