Spring Grouse Report 2022

1st April 2022

The first thing we should touch on is the steep price increase of driven Grouse shooting from previous years. This we can all agree is justified as the price has remained fairly stagnant over the past 10 years… For those of you who haven’t been offered any Grouse shooting yet, this year the cost per brace ranges from c. £222 to £256 inc VAT/brace depending on which Estates you are booked in to shoot at.

We have received positive reports of Spring Counts from the Moors we manage and others we shot on last season within Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors. News from further North in the North Pennines does not seem as good, but we have only heard from a couple of Moors, so we will await to hear further as to what their Spring Pair counts are actually like across the entire area – the same with Scotland too? One thing we have seen so far is we are getting far better counts on lower areas which shot last year, these have fared better than the higher ground areas that did not shoot at all last season.

I have looked back at the past 5 years’ worth of Spring Grouse Reports and all of them seem relatively upbeat and promising – I am sorry they didn’t all continue down that path!

This Spring Report differs slightly than the last few years, in that we can honestly say the heather quality is in much better condition than it has been over the past 5 years! One more cold snap to stop the Heather Beetle, followed by some warmer damper conditions for better insect hatches should see us in good stead for the coming season. Most Moors didn’t shoot late into the Winter, so they managed to get their grit out early and the Grouse seem to have wintered well in the areas that have a stock. There is decent cotton grass growth for the Hens to bulk up on before nesting.

BUT as always, we are completely dependent on weather as to whether the Grouse will produce decent broods for the coming year. We will keep you posted with how everything looks further down the line and as always, we keep our fingers crossed for suitable weather conditions over the next critical 3 months.

We do have some grouse shooting availability left for Single Guns on the North York Moors, so please check out our website for Grouse days and remaining Pheasant/Partridge availability too.