Planning Big Shoots
In early November many keepers are putting the perfecting-touches to plans that have been maturing all through the year. From the second day of February the keeper whose work is not merely work, but the most absorbing interest the world has to offer, has been weighing continuously a thousand details—studying each in its relation to others—scheming to arrange all so that in combination they shall bring the best possible results when the big days of the shooting season come to pass. Few shooting men realise the immense importance of apparently trivial details. Let a single one—such as the exact placing of a "stop"—be forgotten or disregarded, and the whole of a day's sport by modern methods may be ruined. Many good beats, many good days, have been brought to naught by a sportsman coolly and without permission despatching an important "stop" on an errand. And afterwards he will protest in all good faith that he commandeered the "stop" only because he seemed to be standing idly at a corner, as if waiting for something to do.
