Season Grouse Report 2021

1st February 2022

Happy New Year to all of our clients and we just wanted to update you with our end of Season Grouse Report for the 2021 Season and merge this with our Spring Grouse Report 2022 too…

As you will be aware 2021 was another very bad Grouse year and this time it was everywhere in the UK that suffered. There were small pockets of Grouse within some Estates, but generally there was no specific areas with decent Grouse stocks on them in the North of England and Scotland.

Dalesport did manage to shoot 47 days driven Grouse shooting which in a year like last year was a very good effort. We had some managed Moors with Grouse on them, but even these were patchy with large densities of birds in certain areas and barren on other areas.

There was very little Grouse shooting that went ahead across the UK, but as one should Estates played on the cautious side of things, some shooting lightly and others not shooting at all. Those Moors that shot left decent stocks so there should be some eastern Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors with prospects of a “normal” season if Spring is kind.

The heather quality improved drastically from the Summer through to Autumn/Winter. It has been over 5 years since we have seen a bloom like 2021, for those of you lucky enough to have shot with us in Aug/Sept you would have seen how amazing the Moors looked covered in bright purple heather rather than the dank orange tinge we had got so used to since the dreaded Heather Beetle and drought attacks which lasted some 4 years!

One thing that was a concern for a lot of Moors was the worm counts which we believe reflected the old stock as a result from two years of poor breeding success.