Explore every episode of the podcast FieldsportsChannel's Podcast

Deerstalker and wildlife manager Niall Rowantree talks to deer biologist Professor Rory Putman about the remarkable sika deer, as part of our filming of the Year in the Life of Sika. Rory explains why sika are so successful when reds struggle, how their range is increasing and why they are so difficult, in fact now impossible, to get on top of. They discuss hybridisation, rewilding, and the idea of introducing wolves and lynx to control deer, which Rory regards as fantasy.

For other ways to listen to this podcast, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast102

For A Year in the Life of Sika, go to FieldsportsChannel.tv/yearinthelifeofsika

This series is supported by Blaser, Hornady and HIKMicro 

Andrew Hoodless of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust is a woodcock specialist. He explains the difference between migratory birds, resident breeding birds, and why they are not actually that endangered at all – despite what the anti-shooters like to claim. Andrew talks to Charlie at the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre 2024.

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast100

Mike Labuschagne has been working as a wildlife ranger in Malawi for more than 30 years. He used to have funding from the US-based animal rights organisation IFAW, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, to help the elephants of Kasungu. Now he believes that IFAW should be charged with the murder of local people for wilfully releasing 263 elephants into the area, which can’t support them.

• For more ways to listen to this and an accompanying article, visit https://FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast99
• IFAW’s press release about the Kasungu elephant relocation  
• There is some controversy about how IFAW made its statement, as detailed on South Africa’s Daily Maverick news website

The Flyfishers’ Club has been men-only since its foundation in 1884. A chance remark by Marina Gibson at the Hay Festival sparked a media storm that has forced club members to vote on whether to allow women members. Marina explains to Charlie Jacoby and an audience at the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre 2024 the reasons she is right.

Click here for more about Marina

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast98

What has the Westminster government got in store for gamebirds and shooting? The news from the GWCT is good – but their top staff warn us not to be complacent. Sir Jim Paice and Roger Draycott from the GWCT talk to Charlie Jacoby at the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre 2024 

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Speaking to Charlie Jacoby at the Carter Jonas Game fair Theatre, Digby Taylor from GunsOnPegs.com announces his new research. It’s the most accurate predictor of prices for gameshooting around.

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast96

When the police took the guns from Chris Sharp after Chris was the victim of an assault, he turned to lawyers for help. One of them, Peter Glenser KC, joins Chris on stage at the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre to tell Charlie what happened, and where he has got to now with his case.

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For more on this story, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/chrissharpgungrab

Shadow DEFRA minister Steve Barclay says Daniel Zeichner should ‘get off the fence’ and announce Labour’s plans for the countryside. Plus he warns that even though the DEFRA minister is broadly pro-shooting, he can’t do much to stop Labour bringing in anti-hunting and shooting legislation. Barclay was talking to Fieldsports Channel’s Charlie Jacoby at the 2024 Game Fair.

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Ed Swales and Ronan Brown from Hunting Kind join Charlie Jacoby in the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre in July 2024 to explain how hunting could qualify for protection under human rights legislation, with hunters classified as a ‘protected minority’.

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast93

With a new government in power in Westminster, three people with a stake in the future of fieldsports and the countryside come together to talk to Charlie about what Labour could or even will do – to trail hunting, trophy imports, shooting sports and farming. Speaking at the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre at the end of July 2024 are Countryside Alliance chief executive Tim Bonner,  farmer and former MP Neil Parish, who used to chair the EFRA committee at Westminster, and first up is Christopher Graffius, who runs communications and public affairs at BASC.  

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Former MP Neil Parish looks at the likely outcomes from the 2024 UK general election, including which MPs will make it, which won't, what to expect from a Labour government (if it wins), and what you can do to limit the damage.

For Neil's own podcast, go to https://shows.acast.com/we-can-do-both-pod

For more ways to listen to this, visit https://FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast91 

Podcast this week is from the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre, back in July 2024. It’s an interview with David Lyons, an angler who suffered from depression and successfully persuaded the NHS to prescribe him fishing. He runs the charity Tackling Minds, which takes fellow-sufferers fishing.

It’s the job that many of us put off, sometimes for weeks, a few for months, a handful for several seasons. John Spary and Joe Hocking are gunsmiths: the ones who get to clean, check, repair and occasionally pick up the pieces of our guns. They explain what goes into a gun service, plus how to treat your gun throughout the year in order to reduce your service bill.   

John and Joe run Duchy Gunsmith in Cornwall. Visit DuchyGunsmith.co.uk

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast90

This podcast is brought to you by the British Shooting Show, the UK largest gun show, held at the NEC, Birmingham 

UK prime minister Tony Blair said that his 2004 Hunting Act would benefit foxes. Twenty years later, it turns out he was wrong. In a chat with Charlie Jacoby at the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre 2023,  Jim Barrington, former head of the League Against Cruel Sports, spells out the mistakes that Blair made, and how he damaged both animal welfare and rural communities. 

Click here to buy the book

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast89

This podcast is brought to you by the British Shooting Show, the UK largest gun show, held at the NEC, Birmingham 

Gareth Wyn Jones says join the revolution - the food and farming revolution. He is talking to Charlie Jacoby in the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre 2023.  

Find Gareth on YouTube 

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast88

This podcast is brought to you by the British Shooting Show, the UK largest gun show, held at the NEC, Birmingham 

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▶ Take part in nature. Join the Fieldsports Nation 

Nick Doherty and Laura Saunsbury are the authors of the definitive book on British gun laws. The Firearms Law Handbook provides useful info for shooters, police firearms licensing officers, shops and gun ranges. The couple works in the UK during the week and live near Toulouse. Charlie Jacoby goes to meet them at their home in France to record a short, sharp podcast (before the rain starts).

The Firearms Law Handbook on Amazon

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast87

This podcast is brought to you by the British Shooting Show, the UK largest gun show, held at the NEC, Birmingham 

▶ Sign up for our weekly email newsletter 

▶ Take part in nature. Join the Fieldsports Nation 

Charlie Jacoby is back in the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre talking to Ian Coghill, who demolishes the RSPB’s People’s Plan for Nature, he explains the point of Aim to Sustain, which he chairs, and he spells out what the world of shooting should do to see off threats from the conservation industry.

Click here for Moorland Matters, £25

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This podcast is brought to you by the British Shooting Show, the UK largest gun show, held at the NEC, Birmingham 

Sign up for our weekly email newsletter 

Take part in nature. Join the Fieldsports Nation 

Jeremy Wade from TV’s River Monsters makes two visits to the 2023 Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre. He talks to Charlie about his early life fishing, his favourite kinds of fishing and his definition of ‘sporting’ fishing. 

For more clips from the series, visit the River Monsters YouTube channel

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast85

This podcast is brought to you by the British Shooting Show, the UK largest gun show, held at the NEC, Birmingham 

Tristan Breijer from the European hunting lobbying group FACE sets out the problems facing antis from Europe who want to ban hunting in African nation states.

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast84

This podcast is brought to you by the British Shooting Show, the UK largest gun show, held at the NEC, Birmingham 

Ross Brawn, managing director of one of today’s biggest spectator sports, Formula One, and a keen shooter, chatted with Charlie Jacoby in the Game Fair Theatre in July. They talked about how to re-establish clayshooting to international greatness.

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This podcast is brought to you by the British Shooting Show, the UK's largest gun show, held at the NEC, Birmingham

Simon Whitehead is a ferreter not a rockstar – but he is a ferreter with a public. He has suffered from the pressure. His new book, Pugs & Drummers, discusses not just ferreting but how ferreting saved his life. He explains it to Charlie Jacoby in the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre in July 2023.

For Simon’s new book, visit Simon-Whitehead.com/pugs-and-drummers-book

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast82

This podcast is brought to you by the British Shooting Show, the UK largest gun show, held at the NEC, Birmingham 

In 2022, rangers at Rockwood Conservation in South Africa brought in a frightened, sick newborn rhino. Crows had pecked at its eyes. Miraculously, vets saved some of its sight. They named the animal ‘Hope’. Wicus Diederichs from Rockwood reports on Hope’s progress and how the other rhinos in the nursery are treating her. He also talks about the realities of rhino conservation and the challenges he faces.    

Rockwood Conservation’s website is RockwoodConservation.com

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast81

This podcast is brought to you by the British Shooting Show, the UK largest gun show, held at the NEC, Birmingham 

The enthusiasm of British politicians for massacring British deer is starting to worry deer managers. Five guests on the stage of the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre in 2023 discuss the animal's future in the  UK. They are deer experts Niall Rowantree and Martin Edwards, Mark Russell from Carter Jonas, whose clients deal with deer management, top venison chef José Souto and Bedfordshire-based deer manager and sporting agent Paul Childerley.

For other ways to listen to this podcast, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast80

Pigeon shooter, game shot and deerstalker Nicole Moore comes to the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre 2023 to talk to Charlie Jacoby about her love of the countryside and shooting sports. She talks about what she gets judged for. Do you think it’s being black, being a woman or how she shoots? Find out in this podcast chat.

Find Nicole on Instagram 

For other ways to listen to this podcast, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast80

Three firearms licensing officers came to the stage of the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre in July 2023 to make the case to Charlie Jacoby for how well they are doing. You may agree or you may disagree with them. They are Chris Downs from the Metropolitan Police, Adrian Davis from Warwickshire Constabulary and Paul Quinton from Essex police. 

For other ways to listen to this podcast, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast78

DEFRA’s crisis over general licences is helping to kill the rural vote for the Tories. Charlie Jacoby had two chats with BASC staff Gareth Dockerty, Ian Bell and Dr Marnie Lovejoy on the stage at the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre in July 2023.

Between them, they explain what GL43 is, how the system of general licences has lost trust with its client base, the people who live in the countryside, and how DEFRA is doubling down on getting it so badly wrong.

James Wallace of River Action talks to Charlie in the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre about his pressure group’s work cleaning up British rivers.

For River Action, go to https://riveractionuk.com/

It’s Shooting Times editor Patrick Galbraith versus sporting agent Mark Osborne in this one-hour debate at the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre 2023. The GWCT’s Roger Draycott provides the voice of reason and host Charlie Jacoby tries to stop them from fighting about the topic on stage.

Daniel Zeichner MP is shadow environment minister. He came to the Game Fair in 2021, 2022 and in 2023 he took to the stage at the Game Fair Theatre to explain Labour’s policies on shooting (no current need for regulation), trailhunting (he will do his best for it) and trophy imports and exports (nothing he can do).  

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast74

Greg Smith MP is horrified at the way DEFRA has handled crises such as rescinding GL43. He is at the 2023 Game Fair and lams into Natural England and sneaky civil servants with an anti-shooting agenda. 

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast73

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP is our unofficial minister for shooting. At the 2023 Game Fair, he tells Charlie Jacoby how DEFRA is getting it wrong.

For more ways to listen to this, visit https://FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast72

With children dying every week from an epidemic of human-wildlife conflict, the government of India knows it has to tackle the problem. It has to transition form preservation to conservation. But how? Four experts put forward their views: Dr MK Ranjitsinh, Dr HS Pabla, Rajeev Mathew and Latika Nath.

For more on this story, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/tiger

Charlie chats to artist and not-very-vegan Katie Hargreaves, who is squaring her green beliefs with her keenness to go hunting and source her own meat.

For more ways to listen to this, visit FieldsportsChannel.tv/fieldsportschannelpodcast65

For more from Katie, visit KatieHargreavesArt.com

It's Ian Coghill, ex chairman of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, vs Duncan Orr-Ewing of RSPB, slugging it out on the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre stage about whether the RSPB is failing birds, and whether grousemoors are good for them. Charlie Jacoby is moderator.

Gareth Wyn Jones is the outspoken Welsh hill farmer who starred in the BBC’s The Family Farm. He believes that the disconnection between town and country is driving a wedge between the two communities – and, in this talk, he spells out why.

Find Gareth on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook 

For more ways to listen to this, visit Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast68

UK shooting and countryside groups are joining forces to commission new research into the economic, environmental and social value of shooting. BASC, Countryside Alliance, the National Gamekeepers Organisation, the Moorland Association and the Gun Trade Association are among those involved in the survey. They are calling on shooters to take part. The independent research specialists, Cognisense, will obtain facts and figures which will reflect the importance of shooting in the UK. The previous report in 2014 revealed at least 600,000 people in the UK shoot live quarry, clay pigeons or targets. The value of shooting was worth £2 billion to the UK economy. The new report will be published in 2023. BASC's Caroline Bedell explains the survey to Charlie Jacoby at the Carter Jonas Game Fair theatre 2022.

For the survey, go to ValueOfShooting.co.uk

For more podcast links, visit Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast67 

In September 2004, eight campaigners broke in to the chamber of the House of Commons to protest against Tony Blair's ban on hunting with hounds. Blair was ignoring the largest ever peacetime march, more than 400,000 people, who marched on Westminster in 2002 protesting against the same law. Blair's ban, which came into force in 2005, has achieved the opposite of what blair hoped. It has damaged animal welfare and hunting is more popular than ever.

At the 2022 Game Fair, six members of the Westminster Eight come to the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre to relive that day. They tell Charlie Jacoby the story of what happened and the repercussions.

For more, visit Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast66

The antis brought in bills to restrict hunting in England, Wales and Scotland – but none of them work. So they want to bring in new bills. Ed Swales from Hunting Kind explains the challenges facing hunting with hounds in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

For more, go to Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast65

A panel of experts discuss grouse prospects for the 2022 season, plus the political threats facing grouseshooting. They are Mark Osborne from William Powell Sporting, Andrew Fallows from Carter Jonas and Adrian Blackmore from the Countryside Alliance.

For more ways to listen to this, visit Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast64

Chris Horne from GunsOnPegs presents the findings of the GunsOnPegs Game Shooting Census 2022/23. It’s going to be a tough year for gameshooting in the UK, with bird flu hitting bird imports, and hard on the heels of two years of lost bookings because of covid. Chris explains the numbers to Charlie.

For more ways to listen to this, visit Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast63 

There are 30,000 legal gun-owners in London.  Chris Downs, head of SCO 19 at the Met, and Daryn Hufton-Rees from Medcert, which provides medical certificates to shooters who need them for shotgun and firearm certificates, explain to Charlie what’s going on with firearms licensing in the capital.

For more ways to listen to this, visit Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast62

Shadow food, farming and fisheries minister and Labour MP for Cambridge Daniel Zeichner makes the case for a Labour government running the countryside and being a force for good for countrysports. It’s an uphill task.

He won’t repeal Tony Blair’s foxhunting ban but he says he and his Labour colleagues are happy to work with countryside organisations.

He addresses the charge that Labour can’t see beyond gun-ownership.

For more ways to listen to this, visit https://Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast61

Nigel Farage may be passionate about Europe but he is fundamentalist about bluefin tuna fishing. He says that, thanks to Brexit, the UK is able to develop its own bluefin sport fishing business. 

He explains the thrill of catching Britain’s most significant big game fish, which you can now do in a limited number of boats out of Cornish ports, fishing tag-and-release.

It’s not just fishing. Nigel speaks up for taking the opportunity to set fire to European regulations. He wants to see a rethink on the ban on lead shot. 

Above all, he tells country people to put pressure on the government. “I am struck that while there are still millions of us engaged in angling and shooting, we don’t have many political champions.”

It’s not just government. “We have got to deal with the RSPB who appear to have completely lost their marbles,” he says. 

Nigel praises Donald Trump as a peacekeeper - and speaks to  

Nigel predicts a Liz Truss win, though he doubts she will taker the UK out of the European Court of Human Rights.

For more ways to listen to this, visit https://Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast60

Jodie Case is an owl nut. Representing the Owl Box Initiative, she brings an owl box to the stage of the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre. She explains how to make the ideal owl box, to attract owls to your garden, plus talks about her work researching owls. 

For more, go to @OwlBoxInit and @JCaseNature

Find out about the OBI on the GWCT website

A discussion on what makes the perfect holiday letting business with Charlie Jacoby in the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre: Andrew Fallows of Carter Jonas advises landowners and farmers on how to diversify – and the rediscovery of UK holidays by locked-down Brits means he has never been business, Meanwhile, Ashley Vellacott turned his Somerset farm into a holiday accommodation enterprise, with his wife, Jess, running the lettings business Sleeps12.com for both his and now other holiday lets. 

For more from Andrew and Carter Jonas, go to CarterJonas.co.uk

For more about Ashley’s business, go to Sleeps12.com

Let’s talk lead shot. On stage, at the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre 2021, is Alex Levett-Scrivenor from non-toxic shot company Bioammo, foxshooter and old lead purist Robert Bucknall, and Andrew Gilruth from the GWCT. Host is Charlie Jacoby. The four of them run through the lead shot issues, ask why it has to go, and how much could the shooting organisations have handled the phase-out better?

Read this story in full via our news pages: Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast57

Tom Davies of Dartmoor Deer Services used the covid lockdowns to get his deerstalking and venison supply businesses underway. He is now supplying local shops, restaurants and has a popular venison box scheme underway, plus he provides butchery courses and guided stalking.  

For more from Tom, visit DartmoorDeerServices.com

Read this story in full: Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast56

John Macnab, the 1925 novel by John Buchan, has inspired an entire subculture of imitators, including the taking of a salmon, grouse (or brace) and stag on one day on an estate. John Buchan’s granddaughter Ursula Buchan comes to the Game Fair Theatre to tell Charlie Jacoby the novel’s back story, and a little of the life of her famous forebear.

Buy the paperback on Amazon 

Buy Ursula Buchan’s biography of her grandfather on Amazon 

Read this story in full via our news pages: Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast55

Two Scottish gamekeepers and a gamekeeper’s wife talk to Charlie about the evive conference in Perth in November 2021. They bravely went along and listed to Packham and the RSPB trot out lies about grousemoors. However, they came away convinced that those of us on the side of nature can win this battle, as long as we keep pushing the science behind shooting and conservation.  

Click here for more about their experience.

Read this story in full via our news pages: Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast54

Tristan Breijer takes the stage of the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre back in July 2021. He is one of the team behind the MyFieldsports app, known in the rest of the world as the MyHunt app, who wants to use the power of shooters’ mobile phones to put us front and centre in the conservation debate.

Read this story in full via our news pages: Fcha.nl/fieldsportschannelpodcast53