Latest features British game guide: when to shoot and eat it

Date Published:

15/08/2008

Game seasons are in place to protect wildlife breeding stock. Richard Townsend from Yorkshire Game, and sponsor of Game to Eat, tells 4Food where to go to bag good game and when to get your gun out

Find it: Most numerous in the Scottish highlands.
Shoot it: Stag season in Scotland runs from July 1 to October 20. The season for hinds is October 21 to February 15.
Eat it: Venison and chestnut stew

Dinner table trivia

Ask for venison these days and you'd expect a bit of deer meat but in the Middle Ages the term referred to the flesh of any animal killed in the hunt - so anything from rabbits to bears could be served to you as 'venison'. As recently as the 19th century, even kangaroo was included.

Find it: Roe deer is second most numerous deer and found in the Scottish highlands and borders as well as farmland and woods throughout the UK.
Shoot it: Roe buck season runs from April 1 to October 31. Roe doe season is November 1 to March 31 in England and Wales and October 21 to March 31 in Scotland.
Eat it: Roe deer en croute

Dinner table trivia

In the original story, by Felix Salten, Bambi was a roe deer. Disney changed Bambi's species to the white-tailed deer because too few Americans would know what a roe deer was.

Find it: On heather moorland especially the Pennines, the North Yorkshire moors and Northumberland. Also found in the Scottish borders and highlands.
Shoot it: From August 12 to December 10.
Eat it: Richard Corrigan's grouse pie

Dinner table trivia

According to Stanford University's bird experts, male grouse are a randy bunch. They have multiple partners and are one of the few species of bird to play no part in raising their young.

Find it: Grey partridge and red leg partridge are found throughout England and increasingly in Scotland.
Shoot it: September 1 to February 1. There is a voluntary ban on shooting grey partridge to help increase their numbers.
Eat it: Chorizo stuffed partridge

Dinner table trivia

Pittsburg based wealth management company, PNC, tot up the value of the gifts sent in the Twelve Days of Christmas song as a fun-filled way of gauging the changing economy. The partridge (of 'in a pear tree' fame) came out as the best inflation busting gift, staying at a pocket friendly $15 for the second year. The pear tree jumped up a whopping 15.4 per cent to $149.

Find it: In all arable areas of country, especially along the East Coast.
Shoot it: Classified as an agricultural pest, DEFRA has granted a European Open Licence on pigeon, meaning you can shoot them all year round.
Eat it: Wood pigeon salad with bacon and black pudding

Dinner table trivia

Wood pigeon chicks are fed on pigeon milk, produced by both the male and female birds. Other Daddy birds that feed their young are the greater flamingo and emperor penguin.

Find it: Arable areas, in the eastern counties of England, in particular, East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk. Blue hares are found in the Scottish mountains and the Peak District.
Shoot it: August 1 to February 29. It is illegal to buy or sell hares between March 1 and July 31.
Eat it: Hare ragout

Dinner table trivia

According to Encarta stats, jack rabbits, which are really hares, achieve speeds about 45 mph and can bound 15 to 20 ft in a single jump. Tortoises may remain motionless for hours and when they do move, it's at the paltry speed of 0.1 mph. Stick your money on the hare.

Find it: All over the country. Pheasant are the most numerous of game birds.
Shoot it: October 1 to February 1.
Eat it: Roast pheasant with bacon

Dinner table trivia

To meet the demand for trigger-happy pheasant fanciers, around 25 million of the birds are reared each year but only about half of them are shot, leaving a further 12 million pheasants to roam AWOL. If one lands on your property, and you have a firearm licence, it is legal to shoot it. But, if you run over a pheasant on the road, it is illegal to pick it up.

Find it: In boggy areas, reedy marshes and on un-drained farmland. They are never present in big numbers.
Shoot it: August 12 to January 31.
Eat it: Snipe on toast

Dinner table trivia

Being small and tricky to shoot, the snipe gave its name to both the verb 'to snipe', meaning shooting from a hidden place (back in 1773) and the noun 'sniper', meaning sharpshooter (in 1824).

Find it: Mallard, teal and widgeon are the main duck species to shoot and are found all over the country. Teal prefer small bodies of water whereas widgeon are mostly found on the coast.
Shoot it: September 1 to January 31.
Eat it: Duck and ginger noodle soup

Dinner table trivia

Been up all night wondering whether a duck's quack has an echo? Fear not. A bunch of brains at Salford University have investigated this pressing issue and discovered that duck quacks do echo. They suggested the myth of the echo-less quack arose because ducks don't hang around chatting near reflecting surfaces like mountains or buildings. Once again, science saves the day.

Find it: In all parts of the UK. If you shoot wild goose, you have to use it yourself; it is illegal to buy or sell them at any time of the year.
Shoot it: September 1 to January 31.
Eat it: Classic roast goose

Dinner table trivia

In December 1995, an American B-747 plane was hit by a flock of snow geese. The impact destroyed one engine, damaged several fan blades on another and ran up repair costs of approximately $6 million.

Find it: Rabbits are found all over the UK, from the wet areas of Scotland to the dry areas in Lincolnshire.
Shoot it: Classified as an agricultural pest, you can shoot rabbit all year round, though they're at their tastiest in autumn and early winter.
Eat it: Rabbit and fettucine

Dinner table trivia

The official difference between a rabbit and a hare is determined by social skills and how helpless they are as babies. Rabbits are born naked and with closed eyes, and live in colonies. Hares are born furred with open eyes and rarely live socially.

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