William Alexander Adams

“ When hunting near the moor edges we often got a few grouse that were down to the stubble; and in these delightful mixed bags over dogs, how a couple of brace of fine grouse were appreciated.
These mixed bags in the crisp October air, the walking, the variety of sport, though not the quantity, beat the August shooting for enjoyment of sport. You would not know what the dog's point might mean; it might in some ground be hare, snipe, partridge, or grouse. I have made doubles at hare and snipe. The hares were splendid. You may not believe it, but Fred made a double at hares that weighed 22lb. ”

“ For those cockneys who have the blessed faculty of defying mal de mer, and enjoying bottled porter and a pipe with the ocean in commotion—and my experience, so far as it goes, is that in those northern latitudes it always is in commotion—what can be a pleasanter or a cheaper sea trip than to go by the Aberdeen boat from London Bridge to Aberdeen, and thence to Lerwick viâ Wick, and round the islands in the trading steamer, and home by the West Coast. ”

“ The fine air of Caithness, direct from the Arctic Pole, the good water, and the healthy exercise, have contributed to their good health and mine, and to their well being, far more than trips to the English coast, or the Continent, whilst the lads have been made good sportsmen with rod and gun, and their holiday pursuits have given them genuine, honest tastes, as well as healthy recreation. ”

“ My reply was, that firstly there was not 150 brace upon the moor, and that if I let it I should be cheating him, and that if I did, shooting the little there was would do me far more damage by the loss of the breeding stock than the value of the £100, or three or four times the £100.
It is difficult to educate people to the knowledge of the fact that the breeding of grouse is like the breeding of other animals or birds, and that grouse are not in some mysterious way showered down by Providence like manna in the desert. ”

“ I have no prejudice as to which, but pointers are more easy to break; but, then, in those northern latitudes they do not stand the cold so well as setters do.
In breeding, you may reckon that out of four puppies, you will not get more than two out of the four that turn out fairly well, and for dogs of exceptional intelligence not one in twenty; ay, in fifty.
Rap, who pointed my first Scotch grouse was, take him all in all, as good a pointer as I ever had.
Grace, a setter bitch that I worked at the same time as Rap, was charming in every way. ”

“ In Caithness and Sutherland necessarily wide ranging a little over two hours early in the season, is enough for an old dog, and less for a young one coming on, and four days a week is about as much as they will do, and if the gun shoots four days a week, it is as much as he can do to shoot properly. A man who is careful of himself will get more birds in four easy days, than the enthusiast who works long hours and six days.
If you want to get birds, keep yourself and dogs and gillies fresh and in good form, and so that when birds rise they shall also fall. ”

“ The districts west of Dunkeld are probably the healthiest in all Scotland, and so there birds resist disease, but disease has even there made a clearance, and will again.
Yorkshire grouse are now all driven; the old birds come first and are killed off, and we all know that since driving came into vogue, Yorkshire birds are far more healthy.
Were it permissible to hunt the ground in the northern Scotch counties at end of July, and kill off the old birds of the brood, which could be readily done, it would probably stamp out, or at any rate, postpone, the attacks of disease. ”

“ It is a lazy day for birds, and they will not much care to run.
Daisy is ranging pretty wide, and, getting an indication of birds, pulls up and looks over her shoulder towards her master.
"Has she birds, David?" "She is no sure." You walk slowly up to Daisy, she draws on, and her point gradually stiffens; another twenty yards and she stops full point; you both walk on, the old cock bird rises first at twenty-five yards, and he goes down, you load, and the hen and three young birds rise within ten yards. ”

“ It is appreciated as regards pheasants, but appears that it has yet to be learned as regard grouse.
I have remarked that as a rule moors are more readily let, and higher rents are obtained in the disease year, the year following the cycle of three or four big years, than at any other period.
Men are jubilant and excited over the successes of the three or four previous years, the prestige and the glamour are fostered by those in the interest of letting, and folks are unwilling to believe, as I was in the season of 1866, that such magnificent sport can collapse almost at once to nothing. ”

“ The guns are in three butts, the first butt on the summit of the hill, and the other two on the slope below.
Odd grouse skim over the butts and fall to a clever shot.
At times the hares come up in considerable numbers, and the single gun (no loader) gets hot; but if a hare escapes the one butt it gets across the fire of another butt, and so very little escapes.
Then comes the collection of the slain and crippled, and loading men and gillies with the slain.
The reader may say, Why not send a cart or pannier pony? simply because the peat moss of Caithness is too soft to carry a pony. ”

“ Those moors that suffer the most in their disease year, like the moor in Strathspey, referred to in Season 1871, will probably afford the heaviest shooting in their good years.
Grouse, of course, have other drawbacks besides disease.
If the moors are on high ground, they are liable to have eggs frosted in late frosts, or young grouse killed by late snowstorms, as occurred in Season 1864 on Glenshee. Again, you may have a lazy, whiskey drinking keeper, who neglects vermin-killing; but, as a rule, once out of the egg, the young bird is safe. ”

“ The blue, or alpine hare, is, as all Scotch sportsmen know, a great nuisance in grouse shooting over dogs.
Do what you will there is in every dog an innate longing to chase or point ground game in preference to birds, and if blue hares are shot upon the grouse moor in the sight of the dogs, nothing that you can do will prevent the dog from pointing or drawing on the track of other hares. ”

“ But the inside is dismal, the crofters and fishermen pare the turf and heather for winter bedding for their cattle, and, what with that and peat cutting for fuel, they leave the surface of the hills very black looking and hideous.
There is some good heather, perhaps about seven thousand acres, in the main island, and it would, no doubt, carry some grouse, if any means could be devised for destroying the swarms of greyback gulls, hoodie crows, and hawks.
Not a living thing can show, without being pounced upon and devoured. The only game of any description that I saw was two snipe ”

“ On the smaller moors on the north-east of Caithness mixed up with the arable land there is certainly very much less disease, and when the birds get a touch, it is called a bad breeding season; as the tenant of a very fair moor in that district put it, "We never have disease, but we had a season of poor shooting as the birds did not breed that year." ”

“ Unless the weather is quite dry for a week or more, the rough ground and deer grass, both of which it is most desirable to burn in the interest of grouse and sheep, will not burn, and when your staff of men are collected and got together, a sudden storm of rain or snow comes on, and you are delayed for a week, and perhaps put off altogether for that season. ”

“ Naturally, if you are prevented by weather from burning, the sheep farmer is annoyed, because he does not get his burning done. He argues, "Let me burn; I will burn as much in a day as you will in a week." And so he would, but it would be the fine old heather that will burn, and the shooting value of the moor destroyed for many long years. ”

“ During the month of April I fished on the Thurso and on Loch More, as one of the party of eight rods, all fishing from Strathmore Lodge, and I killed fifty-three salmon.
Sixteen of them, weighing 164-1/2lb., I made in the one day, the 15th, to my own rod on No. 8 beat of the river. On that day good fortune seemed to attend me at all points; they were taking surely in heavy dead water pools, and I bagged every fish into which I bent the rod—a most unusual circumstance. Many never showed a rise, they sucked the fly under water. ”

“ Do not let it be inferred that I am detracting from driving, or the skill and experience that is necessary to do it well, both in beaters and guns.
Each sport is delightful in its way and in its season.
The Yorkshire grouse cannot be brought to bag without driving, and so with partridges and pheasants in certain counties. ”

“ The upper moors of Caithness, and also of parts of Sutherland, carry very little really good heather; in fact, only on the burn banks or dry knolls does it grow.
The remainder of the ground is broken, knotty peat bog, with short stunty heather, and stretches of deer grass, with wet flows on the upper flats. All good shooting ground in fine weather, and birds like it then.
Birds rely on the deep heather for shelter and food in the winter. Burn that out, and they go where they can find it, and don't return. ”

“ Good driving shots have said to me that the man who can walk and kill October grouse under the kite, and kill them well, can kill anything.
October sport with the kite is very uncertain. There may be too much wind or too little, and in that month you sometimes get very bad weather and more snow than is pleasant, and then of course birds are very wild and unsettled.
Big bags cannot be made under the kite; an average of 15 brace per day to a gun is very good. ”

“ After that my keeper and I scrambled about on the high hills, after ptarmigan, an odd grouse, a hare or two. One day I managed to get six brace of ptarmigan and some dotterel—and very pretty birds they were.
Ptarmigan are curious birds on the Glenshee hills, the ground being so desperately rough it needed all your wits to walk and take care of your gun, marking down the birds as they fluttered up like pigeons.
It was useless to shoot at a bird unless you could make sure to kill him outright, as the wounded birds crept into holes amongst the rocks like rabbits. ”

“ The present modern practice of letting moors from year to year, quite irrespective of whether from the ravages of disease there are grouse to afford shooting, and so leading to the destruction of the little breeding stock that may exist, has ruined and destroyed the reputation of many fine moors that will carry heavy stocks of birds if properly treated.
They year after year yield little or no sport, and naturally get a bad repute until they are again caught by disease and shelved for further years. ”

“ The first time that we went over on the three days shooting, I made forty-two, forty, and forty-five brace to my own shoulder, and on our return we enjoyed the comfort of a day's lazy rest amongst the comforts of Dalnawillan Lodge. We were all very happy, my two chums in raptures, and insisting on engaging their guns for the next season.
Man proposes, God disposes.
The birds were healthy in a way when we left, but did not look well in plumage. It had been a wet draggly summer, and that partly accounted for it; but before leaving we saw a few very seedy birds on our Dunbeath march. ”

“ Some of the best moors in Caithness have been ruined, and cannot be recovered for very many years, to the very serious loss of the proprietors, from incessant burning and shooting down breeding stock after disease, both attributable to the almost culpable negligence, certainly ignorance, of those in charge of the regulation of the burning and the letting of the moors.
The burning is a far more serious business than the shooting down of stock. ”

“ Daisy stops where she is; up gets another bird and that goes down.
Smoker is sent forward, and he gathers and brings in the old hen and two young birds from out of the deep heather.
No doubt the old cock is a runner.
David and Daisy sit down whilst I go forward and put Smoker on to where the old bird dropped.
We sit and watch him; see the old dog threading the scent at a quick pace in and out amongst the peat hags.
Oh dear, the bird has taken down the burn and we may lose him. ”

“ What few good-looking birds there were went to London, and the scarcity through the country may be imagined when I say that they made 19s. a brace.
My chums were pretty miserable, and so was I. It was a bitter disappointment. No word from D. as to taking a gun for the next season, and in about a week or ten days they both went south. However, I had to make the best of it, and, leaving my family at Dalnawillan, I went into Sutherlandshire trout fishing for a fortnight with my son Douglas, and after that we all went home.
Caithness, in those days, was the worst mapped county in Great Britain. ”