Bob,
I like the bit about last2" turning red!
Daryl,
Where does this Park Shooting happen?
In England and Scotland, there were many large country houses, Country seats really , maybe also known as Manor houses. These had extensive park-like grounds, of varying acreages, but could be 1,000 acres or more. some a lot less. It was fashionable to keep within these grounds herds of deer, quite often fallow deer. These with no natural preditors so had to be kept at a healthy limit. This meant that so many bucks and does had to be removed each year.
Sometimes the gamekeeper was roped in for this, and at other times the landowner had his sport .
As these parks had woods/shelters and single trees scattered about, stalking fairly close to the herd and picking out the required animal was not too difficult. Difficult enough to be called sport, but not impossible anyway!
In W Keith -Neal's book, GBG 1740n-1790, he has a charming chapter on the guns of Packington Hall, near Birmingham;
This was the seat of the Earls of Aylesford, and their herd of black fallow deer had been kept there for hundreds of years.
The lands of this estate were a part of the ancient forest of Arden, and had been a deer chase since the times of William the Conqueror.
In this book, he shows photos of the rifles used for this purpose and kept at one time at Packington, in the old Hall.
Richard.
