Charlie Burchell

I come from a second generation farming family who in 1967 moved our farming business from West Sussex to East Sussex.

In 1990 our Friesian dairy herd was sold, this resulted in a change of use for the farm buildings. The main barn and loose boxes were converted into an equestrian centre and the workshops and tractor sheds into commercial lets.
 More recently on the farming front we have moved towards organic farming. Only time will tell if this is a viable and sustainable alternative to the conventional farming methods we once practiced.
Field sports have always played a very important part in my up bringing and I was introduced to shooting and hunting from a very young age.
In the late eighties I took on the joint - master - ship of our local pack for several seasons. However, with the introduction of the hunting ban and the larger estates being split up due to a down turn in agriculture, it became increasingly more difficult to put on a day’s hunting.  I have a great deal of respect and admiration for the modern day Masters and the Hunt staff who strive to continue their sport in difficult times.
In the seventies and eighties my late father had a small rough shoot and, in 1991 he allowed me to start my own driven shoot. This proved to be a steep learning curve into the art of keeping although, fortunately, I had some very patient Guns!
In 1993 after two successful seasons and with my two young boys, Oliver and Nicolas, growing up I wanted to create a shoot that would give them the opportunity to learn first hand the qualities of game shooting and so I approached two like - minded friends to ask if they would join me in this new venture as they too had young children. I am pleased to say they kindly agreed and thus our shoot was born.
 Along with this change came the planning of new drives. This I have to admit I enjoyed almost as much as the day’s shooting them selves. It was lovely to see for the first time a group of young poults warily enter a new cover crop on a misty August morning.  
Fortunately the shoot quickly grew in popularity and everyone was enjoying being part of what was becoming a successful and fun day’s sport.
To my mind shooting is a lot more than just pulling the trigger. Guns, beaters and picker - uppers are all an important part of creating a good days shooting with a friendly atmosphere, very high on our list of priorities.
In 2004, I reared my first birds for the shoot in three eight by eight brooder sheds. This was a successful experiment, so in 2005 I sold my first birds to an outside shoot. From 2005 through to 2010 numbers of birds reared increased and in turn peaked, with thirty - two thousand pheasant and seven thousand French partridge being reared for our shoot and for other clients.
A lot of time and effort went into the breeding lines to try and produce a strong sporting bird that would also hold. I liken it to the bloodstock industry, which depends on good breeding lines.
 Like all types of stockman ship, the work can be both rewarding and, at times upsetting - when you look around a pen of young poults on the rearing field, you just get that gut feeling of either, “they look good” or “not sure about these.”  You don’t have long to diagnose any problems and to dither can be a mistake.
It may be difficult for some people to understand why pleasure is gained by rearing a game bird from a day old chick to an adult bird only for it to be dispatched by a team of Guns, but, there is so much more to it than that. Hunting in its many forms has been part of the countryside for hundreds of years and has provided food, work and relaxation for many kindred people. As such, it saddens me greatly that in this so-called ‘politically correct’ world that we live the minority communities are being forced to change by the misinformed majorities.
With the Shoot and game farm now well-established tough decisions were looming-we needed to invest in new equipment for the game farm. However, the pressure was always on to keep our poult prices down and, unfortunately, due to the size of our operation, this was becoming increasingly more difficult to sustain. Larger game farmers could spread their overheads, which was difficult to compete with, so, after a lot of deliberation and soul-searching, we decided to close the Game Farm in 2010.
Meanwhile the Shoot itself was still flourishing but the pressure to produce bigger and bigger bags was increasing and this was no easy task on our ‘little patch’ and, if I am honest, it was taking away a lot of the pleasure that I had gained when we first started.
In 2011 I decided to dissolve the original shoot and I handed it over to my youngest son, Nicolas.
As I am sure you can imagine this was no easy decision to make and I spent many sleepless nights thinking about it and whether there was a way the Shoot could change so that I would get more enjoyment from it. However, I knew in my heart that it was time to move aside and let the next generation have their turn.
Both Nicolas and his older brother, Oliver, were clear what they wanted to create a fifty to sixty bird day spent with their family and friends tending to finish up with a few beers and a hot meal down the pub-just what I had started out with all those years ago!
So, as you can see, my life has changed direction on several occasions but throughout shooting has always been my first love, both for pleasure and at work, and continues to be to this day. Along the way I have met and made many a good friend in the shooting field from all walks of life.
As they say ‘You can never keep an old dog down’ so my boys and my long suffering wife, Claire, still have to put up with me interfering (or helping as I like to see it) on a regular basis.
Charlie Burchell.