Balbirnie Home Farms Charity Clay Pigeon Shoot

Aug 8, 2012

Balbirnie Home Farms hosted a successful charity clay pigeon shoot on Sunday and raised £2,770 to be split equally between Diabetes Association for Fife Youngsters (DAFFY) and Paul O'Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre.  21 teams of 4 took part in a clay pigeon shooting competition and were joined by another 100 people for a pig-on-a-spit barbeque lunch, raffle and prize giving.

Just after 10am the first competitors began to arrive at our disused sand pit for a tricky trial of their shotgun skills.  The traps had been expertly set-up by the Balbirnie gamekeeper, Cameron Storie, and his team to give a variety of scenarios for each of the visitors.  Most people started shooting ‘teal’ over the duck pond and like the real ones found around the estate, these clays proved to be the most difficult to shoot as they only appeared above the tree line briefly before dropping into the water below.

From the teal, there were clays shot down the line going away from the guns.  While appearing easy, these clays were not all shot out of the sky.  From there, the competitors headed around to the other side of the mound to shoot a brace of high ‘pheasants’ through a gap in the trees.  The last stand was a bolting ‘rabbit’ and then a ‘crow’ flying towards the wood.

When all the shooting was over, everyone made their way over to the gamekeeper’s hut for the highlight of the day: the barbeque.  Some much deserved beer, roast pork and venison burgers (made from Balbirnie roe deer) sated the appetites of everyone including many friends and families.  With a little unexpected help from the weather gods, the rain stayed away until the raffle draw.

The charities to benefit received cheques for £1,385 each.  We would like to thank Fee Clark from DAFFY for coming along and bringing her son to sample some Balbirnie Home Farms hospitality.  We would also like to thank the Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Institute for providing plenty of t-shirts and a raffle prize.  Both charities are close to our hearts and we hope the money will be useful for their respective causes.

Balbirnie Home Farms would like to thank everyone for their hard work in putting together a great day and for all who came to enjoy it.  Special thanks to Pigeon All Day Long for providing a day shooting as second prize, to Cluny Clays for providing 3 traps, to Linda Mellor for taking some fabulous photographs, to J Hastie of Markinch for preparing the pig and to all of Cameron and Mhairi’s team for setting everything up so well.

For anyone that was not able to come along, there are rough shooting days still available for the 2012/13 season.  The varied terrain and well managed woodlands and ponds provide fabulous sporting birds such as pheasant, teal, woodcock and snipe.  Please contact the gamekeeper, Cameron Storie to find out more at gamekeeper@balbirnie.com.