Fieldsports Magazine

1 December 2020

Guest edited by the rambunctious co-founder of House of Bruar, Mark Birkbeck, this issue of Fieldsports Journal lands just a few weeks before Christmas. Where better to do your festive shopping than Harrods of the Highlands? It just made so much sense to ask Mark to contribute to this issue, especially as he is a fanatical fisherman and shot. With so much doom and gloom in the world right now, Mark’s sunny, playful demeanour brought light to the pages, telling us of his boyhood spent foraging and his eye for business. This month marks the fourth anniversary of legendary writer AA Gill’s death, so we have reprinted his stirring account of deerstalking on Letterewe estate. It is a whopping 11 pages, but you’ll devour his ‘heathery prose’ in minutes. Ben Goldsmith also reflects on rewilding, Lord James Percy ponders Defra’s review of releasing gamebirds and Owen Williams reflects on the RSPB mismanagement of moorland in Wales. American anglophile Terry Allen has also shared his moody photographs of legendary gunmakers, which is just a snippet of his 300-strong collection. We have also compiled a weighty nine-page Christmas gift guide for you to lust over and chef Jon Coates has devised some festive ways to cook game for the Big Day. And lastly, we have launched our reader which will see one lucky respondent win a haul of prizes including a House of Bruar hamper.