BY JOHN MUSGRAVE
Wednesday 12th August 2026 marks the start of the shooting season – the Glorious Twelfth. A fulsome fusillade heralds a country sports bonanza of traditional hunting. Plumped-up plumage, early harvests, golden fields and runaway support look set to make this a stonker of a season. The message is clear: get up and get after it.
The struggle to save hunting – whether with rod, hound or gun – speaks truth to power as never before. The battle to save farming – dairy, beef, mixed and magnificent – is a fightback against the stun gun of political oppression. Consumption of fish, game and shellfish is barrel-loaded with authoritative evidence of the health benefits of wild food. Eat wild and live long.
The battles country squires join are part of a wider war being waged against an absurd authority seeking to tell us, the freeborn and fierce, how to act and what to think. We, with our hounds and heroes, nets and knapsacks, are at the forefront of a global struggle to preserve and promote freedom: the freedom to speak freely, to discuss and debate, to ridicule and rejoice. Ours is the war joined to safeguard property and possession, to end an emasculating system which pays people to do nothing whilst impoverishing those who work.
This is a war to foster equality before the law regardless of colour or background, the right to trial by jury and a fair hearing in front of judges untrammelled by the risible conventions of the dark side.
This Season We Shall Be Ready
The Countryside Alliance has issued excellent guidelines for dealing with saboteurs at shoots. Drawing on the experience of trail hunts up and down the land, the guidance centres on practical advice for those in charge of shoots. Talk to your local hunt, the CA urges.
Culled from the wit and wisdom of country hunters, riflemen and beaglers, here are five additional points.
1. BOOST MORALE
Boost morale among all supporters with rip-roaring speeches at every shoot and meet. Hold uproarious parties, sessions in the pub, evening shindigs, teenage discos and grandiose balls. Organise sing-songs with kennel-band, Gerry Hatrix and the Pensionnaires, or Noddy Hodder and the Hodder Valley Foxhounds. Make a point of verbally inviting supporters – particularly the shy and the lonely. Hunting does immense work boosting mental health and indeed keeping the country sane – indeed the National Hunting Service must save the NHS millions.
2. BEFRIEND THE ENEMY
This is a toughie, granted. At a meet several seasons ago, two young antis turned up looking threatened. They stood bravely with a homemade placard in front of a jovial crowd outside the pub. ‘Hunters are revolting,’ it read.
‘Got that in one,’ an elderly footie chortled. The landlord played up tremendously, offering them both a glass of port. Several of the kinder supporters asked if they were all right.
It is well worth saying hello and showing them the trail. The US president, Abraham Lincoln, once said if you would win a man to your cause, first make him your friend. Over the years a small but steady stream of antis has converted, with all the joy of a heathen discovering the true faith.
But be careful doing this. We know that some sabs are psychopathically dangerous and all too ready to resort to violence. Never engage with such green-goblins. It is better to run for it – they are usually much easier to outpace than a pack of hounds.
3. PHOTOGRAPH AND FILM
Photograph and film sabs from the minute they turn up until they leave. Note their vehicle license plates and photograph them. It is worth detailing two or three fitter supporters to stick with them throughout the day. Sab monitors should be equipped with Ordnance Survey apps on their phones. Plot exactly where the sabs go. This will help in prosecutions of aggravated trespass. The Countryside Alliance has further details of how to identify aggravated trespass.
4. PLOD
Be sure to report toxic sab and anti activity to the police. It is an offence to threaten, shout and verbally abuse. It is also an offence to throw rocks and spars at horses and spray citronella on hounds. Should a sab so much as touch a hunter, record it on video. Get witnesses. Ask the police to bring a criminal prosecution for assault, aggravated bodily harm and the rest. Write up the incident as soon as possible and email it to the person in charge of that day’s hunt or shoot. Emails are dated and timed – very useful in court. Lawyers love ’em. Always treat the police with respect and politeness – even when the officers concerned make it clear they root for the other side.
5. CLEAN ACT
It goes without saying our behaviour must be squeaky clean. Resist the temptation to jeer, shout, or touch in any way these latter-day leprosy-louts.
The Bigger Picture
The truth is it is easier to be nice than to get into a fight. Happily, hunting and shooting folk have a tremendous inherent advantage in this respect. All of us enjoy high levels of cheerfulness, good humour and wit. It is a policy to be cultivated: looking on the bright side, positive thinking, glasses half full – a difficult concept at most meets, perhaps. Ours is the property of good humour and the idea of good manners.
Much of hunting etiquette descends from the knight errants of old. Opening gates, doffing hats and bidding good night whatever time one quits the field of honour dates back millennia. Good manners came about as the result of the Judaeo-Christian morality so sadly repudiated by our modern age. This was refined by warrior knights and their hunting compatriots. There is one very simple reason for this. When dealing with packs of lethal hounds, swords and spears and, latterly, guns, it is vital to behave in a calm and measured manner the better to obtain our objective.
In Conclusion
We shall prevail this season as we have for the last 21 years since the ban on foxhunting. We are still here, our light has not dimmed and our hearts have not faltered. We mourn departed friends. Some of us grow old. Yet at every turn we encounter the youth and the enthusiasm of optimism – the sheer mud-spattered joy of a day’s hunting. Some say the act of love is the greatest discovery. Quite so, but chasing after hounds in the wind and rain with your friends and family comes a very close second.
This is how we win: the joke not the woke, the smile not the guile, the lunch not the punch and the flask not the mask.
Should any of our number feel weak – a Cinderella among the citronella – be of good cheer: we shall arise once more, we shall go to the ball. The pumpkin carriage awaits. Do not fear the future. Peer into the dusk this evening and say out loud: ‘Mr Smith, hounds please.’
John Musgrave, aka Andy the Trailayer, lives in the West Country and has written two pro-hunting books:
- ‘Secrets of the Chase’ by John Musgrave – a collection of articles and short stories
- ‘Corsica Girl’ by John Musgrave – a novel about running, hunting and the dogged pursuit of redemption by following hounds
Both are available on Amazon.