Occasional vacancies arise in our Shooting Syndicate situated 5 miles West of Barnard Castle. Close to the A66 and the borders of Cumbria, Durham and North Yorkshire it is convenient for travel from a wide area. The shoot is laid out over undulating and challenging ground in Upper Teesdale, the shoot is south facing with steep banks down towards to River Tees and amazing views over the North Pennine Grouse Moors.

The shoot extends to about 450 acres of woodland which was planted on Heather Moorland from the 1950’s onwards. Over the years large areas have been cleared and replanted meaning there is a good mix of ages and species of Timber. Unlike many areas of woodland we have excellent ground cover with areas of heather, bilberry or bracken cover – all hold Pheasant’s and Woodcock. An extensive felling & regeneration programme has left us with about 50% of our ground “open” and this combined with deep gills, valleys and hills mean we can present very testing birds. Shots vary from high curling birds from hilltops over open ground to snap shots in mature Larch.

Syndicate members have access to excellent closed season Pigeon flighting and Rabbit shooting.  Rabbit shooting with the shotgun, rifle and air rifle is good from early spring onwards. The best of the Pigeon flighting is late in the afternoon from late June until September. Members are welcome to utilise these facilities after “booking in” via our own internet forum to check no one else is on site.

Commencing late October or early November we start formal Driven Days and shoot these days every fortnight until the New Year, these days take place on a Saturday plus one day over the Christmas/New Year Holiday. On a formal day the bag is made up largely of Pheasants and Mallard but we do also have excellent falls of Woodcock, an odd Grouse appears in the bag and we are now releasing a few Redleg Partridge to give even more variety. Bags vary immensely but at their best may top the 100 bird mark before falling in late season to somewhere nearer the 30 mark. That said potential guns do need to view our shoot to appreciate just how testing the ground and our birds really are – we have witnessed some terrible cartridge/kill ratios on both our Pheasants and Duck! To illustrate this we have just had a couple of guests at a Driven day and 49 cartridges fired on the duck drives saw a return of 4 birds and there was a similar figure on the 3 Pheasant Drives!

On driven days we employ a small team of beaters and syndicate members with working dogs have the option to pay a reduced membership fee in return for taking the role as a beating/walking gun on one drive per day.

A good bag from a cold December Rough Shoot Day.

We have 5 ponds on the shoot and 3 of these are used to release our own Mallard. From September until Christmas the 2 “spare” ponds are used to flight wild ducks at evening flight bit after Christmas all ponds are used for wild duck flighting. This duck flighting is on a rota basis

Shoot subscriptions for 2010/11 will be agreed shortly but will be about £800 per year for members with dogs that will work in the beating line and £899 for those without working dogs. The shoot has 13 guns (we may consider half guns). There is a one off joining fee of £50 and BASC membership is extra.

On formal Driven Days members without a working dog are required to provide a beater. If they cannot bring a competent beater with a working dog then the shoot can arrange one but the member will need to pay his/her wages.

Our syndicate was full for the 2010/11 season but due to expansion we are taking enquiries for 2010/11.

contact info@paddlesdown.co.uk for an appointment to view.