Ruabon Moor

Spectacular driven partridge on Ruabon Moor as featured in the Sporting Gun and described as "Just like grouse coming at you from every conceivable angle, direction, speed and height" and "going like bullets curling deceptively against the sky". A relaxed and friendly atmosphere where dogs are welcome along with none shooting guests.

Sensible prices and top quality sport for six to ten guns. Good food compliments the day and can be arranged to suit your requirements.

At the turn of the century, Ruabon Moor was the most prolific grouse moor in Wales; frequented by the most serious and gifted shots of that golden sporting era. Even the great Sir Ralph Payne Gallwey, and more recently, Sir Winston Churchill, were no strangers to the line of butts at Ruabon. The largest bag of grouse ever shot on a Welsh moor were shot here.                                                                             
We are delighted to offer clients “one of the greatest innovations to ever befall a tragically defunct grouse moor,” as described by Robert Cuthbert, a feature writer from The Shooting Times.

Here at Ruabon, we offer clients well driven  red-legged partridges over approximately 7000 acres of Welsh moorland. Owing to the ideal topography of the moor, with sudden slopes, its steep gills and valleys, the birds offer some absolutely scintillating shooting; very much akin to driven grouse, but at a fraction of the cost.
You certainly need your wits about you when shooting here. We’ve lost count of the guns who have been caught napping in that quiet, contemplative lull before the action really starts, when an odd singleton or pair has whipped high and silently over the line without so much as a glance of acknowledgement. These healthy, strong birds are fully ‘match-fit’ come the start of the season, and once on the wing with only a breath of wind behind them can certainly challenge the best of them.
A typical days sport on the moor starts with coffee and an informal pre-shoot briefing at the shoot lodge by shoot organizer, John Patten, prior to the short drive to the moor.
After three or four drives, a light snack can be taken in the field or a cooked lunch can be taken in the shoot lodge. That afternoon, a further two drives can then be enjoyed; each drive lasting anything from thirty to forty minutes. Once the birds are picked after the final drive, the guns and any non-shooting guests can repair to the shooting lodge for tea and cake, or for a four course meal with wine should the party prefer to take a meal after their days shooting.

Although the wonderfully historic walled city of Chester, with its countless hotels, is around twenty minutes away, there is a good selection of local accommodation options for guns and non-shooting guests. These range from cozy inns, to contemporary and traditional country club hotels. There is something for all tastes and budgets.
For further details of shooting on Ruabon Moor, please do contact us.

Please note that all participating guns at Ruabon must only use fibre wadded cartridges, be in possession of a valid Game Licence and B.A.S.C insurance, or the equivalent.



Partridge £30.00 Inc VAT

Itinery
Arrive at Dandy Lodge 9.00am
Coffee
Pre-Shoot talk
Leave for Moor 9.20am (15min Drive)
3 Drives
Lunch in gunroom 1.00pm or picnic lunch
2 Drives
Hot meal or tea and cake

Charges
Hot Lunch £20.00
All refreshments complimentary
All guns must have B.A.S.C or equivalent insurance and a Game Licence

ONLY FIBRE WADS MAY BE USED

From the BBC Website:

Ruabon Moors
Drawing on his own research built up over 40 years, contributor John Lawton Roberts explains what is both beautiful and fascinating about Ruabon Moors' wildlife...

Many people, however, might be surprised to hear that this landscape is not natural. Its trees were cleared by man, probably by the Middle Ages. Heather would have been encouraged as grazing for sheep, whose wool was the gold of those times. Down the centuries this versatile plant's flowers made a kind of mead (celebrated in R L Stevenson's poem Heather Ale) and its stems were used for fuel, in wattle and daub for house walls, for repair of potholes in tracks and, around Buckley, to pack bricks for transport.

In the 19th Century sporting interests took precedence. Gamekeepers employed by the site's owner, Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, managed the moor for grouse shooting. Heather was burnt in rotation to form a mosaic of vegetation of different lengths ideal for the red grouse, whilst predators like foxes were systematically shot and trapped. An agreement was reached with the graziers - the tenants of surrounding farms - to limit the numbers of sheep allowed onto the moor. This would simultaneously protect and keep in check the fast-growing heather.

What isn't often recognised is that this form of management turned Ruabon Mountain, and moors throughout upland Britain, into virtual nature reserves. The same regime of heather burning and predator control that sent thousands of grouse over the guns on the glorious 12th of August, produced ideal conditions for other wildlife. There were thriving populations of merlins, golden plovers, whinchats, skylarks and many others: a rich mixture of specialist moorland species, and others whose numbers in the lowlands have fallen sharply in recent years.

Ruabon Mountain holds the Welsh record for the number of grouse shot in a season, while several other birds bred at higher densities there than anywhere else in the Principality.

By the 1980s, as all over Wales, numbers of grouse and other characteristic moorland birds were in sharp decline. No-one is sure of the cause, but disease and increases in predators have been blamed, as has reduced burning of heather resulting from wet weather, reduced man-power and stringent government restrictions. By the early 1990s grouse numbers had fallen to a point where shooting was not viable and the future of these moors was in question.
A rescue package was launched a few years later, involving the release of hand-reared red-legged partridges onto a section of the moor for shooting. The success of this led to the employment of three gamekeepers. In consequence, predator control has resumed apace and heather is now mown by tractors with special cutters - also financed by shooting revenues - and, when weather permits, is burnt in traditional style. Extra management has been done by the Black Grouse Recovery Project, anxious to bring back spectacular blackgame from the brink.

This is a crucial time for the moors' future. The new right to roam, due to come into force in 2005, could pose a threat to ground-nesting birds. Fortunately, the moors' wildlife riches can be seen from the road and from paths crossing the moors. It is vital that in the birds' breeding season, from April to July, walkers do not wander off the paths and, especially, that they keep dogs on short leads - or, ideally, leave them at home.
That's a small price to pay to give future generations a chance to enjoy this wonderful place."