Simply, Hunting

Those who know me well will testify that in recent months I've taken some significant steps to 'simplify' what was becoming a ridiculously complex lifestyle. I needed to eradicate much of the pressure which contributed to my decline in health over the past year or so. I've downsized my job, reduced some extra-curricular activities and given up smoking. I've also made a point of avoiding commitments or 'obligations' to undertake anything I really don't want to do. On the shooting front, I withdrew from my FAC hunting project because I wasn't enjoying the outcomes. I've taken a further step, though. I've stripped back my hunting to a very basic level and, boy .. am I enjoying it again!
 

Purists would probably expect that if I was looking to make hunting simple again, I must have reverted to hunting with one of my old spring guns? Yet I confess I haven't gone that basic. My delight with my new PCP carbine (the BSA Ultra SE) is documented elsewhere but let me explain why I choose a PCP as my shooting tool rather than a springer. I do still own and shoot spring rifles to get my eye back in and to discipline myself when I get the shooters 'yips'. If my breathing is faltering, my trigger finger faltering or I find myself neglecting to 'follow-through', I use sessions with a springer as 'therapy'. But I can't remember the last time I hunted with one? Two, maybe three years back? Sure, springers have traits that imply 'simplicity'. No external air source needed, low maintenance and a relatively cheap purchase price. Compared to a PCP though, they are primitive hunting tools. I'm currently using one of the cheapest (and by that I mean least costly, no reflection on quality) PCPs on the market. There are several makes now available at around £400 (therefore close to the price of a top-end springer). The advantages this little carbine gives over a springer are numerous for the hunter. No recoil (less exposure to inaccuracy), less noise (no spring 'crack'), no scope creep (caused by the recoil of a spring gun). It has a multi-shot magazine so I can re-load quickly and innocuously (little movement needed, often a giveaway when hunting). A featherweight rifle that I can tote around in one hand yet with an onboard air cylinder that can give me 50 shots from a full charge .. ample for a walkabout hunting session.

'Simplicity' in my hunting means even more to me, though, than choice of rifle. Simple means leaving at home the usual accumulation of gadgets and contraptions such as hides, nets and decoys that I've gathered over the years. Simple means halving the size of the game-bag  I carry and taking out all the comfort-toys and gizmos like range-finders, spinners or binoculars. Just a sparsely filled bag with some rubber eggs, a bird call, secateurs, spare pellets and a knife. Simple. Forget the wet-gear or insect repellent. Get wet or get bitten. Simple. Add a water bottle if it's hot, a flask of soup if it's cold. Simple also means going back to my early days as an airgun 'scribe', leaving behind the DSLR camera and lenses. I'm hunting, not making a BBC wildlife documentary. Now I'm just packing a top-end 14MP compact camera.. which is a massive improvement on the little 3MP camera which got me started in writing.

'Simple' means going out into the field and wood when it suits me, when I want to, with no particular commission in mind, no fixed agenda. No deadline. No target quarry species. Just mooching along the hedgerow or stalking up the margin. Just as I did as a young boy with a catapult. Simple means speculation and adventure, not knowing what will show around the next corner. It means sitting for a while in the shade, watching the wild world pass by. Listening to the thump of the rabbits paw, the chuckle of the approaching magpie, the sonorous song of the wood-pigeon, the harsh 'chack' of the jackdaw. Simple is squatting on a tree-stump with half an eye along the nettle strangled margin, waiting for the flutter of a stinger-top that betrays the emerging coney. Simple is looking down the heat-shimmering mirage of the field margin as the days warmth evaporates from the earth, as the rabbits slope out to browse around the yellow-tipped ragwort and purple loosestrife. Simple is pulling that little carbine to my shoulder, dis-engaging the safety catch, sighting up my target through my basic Hawke Map 6 reticule, breathing out gently and slipping the trigger. Simple is not worrying how many you shot, nor how many more you need to shoot. Simple is knowing you'll miss some .. yet you'll shoot more in future because you did. Failure is natures most accomplished teacher. Simple is not worrying if what you're doing is enough to satisfy thousands of readers. It's knowing that you're there, doing what you're doing because you, yourself, want to. If you're enjoying it, it will work through in your writing and your readers will enjoy it too.
 

 I went hunting this morning. With a simple little rifle. Shot a couple of rabbits and three grey squirrels. So, so simply.

 Copyright Ian Barnett 2013

The full version of this article, with photos, can be read in Airgun Shooter, published by Blaze Publishing Ltd.

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