James Smart

Raised on a dairy farm situated in the Cranborne Chase AONB I have always had great love and passion for nature and the outdoors, especially that of our native British habitats and species. I have followed this passion my whole life through fishing and shooting and ultimately to University where I studied Ecology and Conservation. I am a large proponent of the conservation benefits of driven shooting and at University much of my work focussed around the benefits of driven shooting on non game species, through habitat creation, management and responsible predator control.

 My family has run a successful driven shoot on the farm in Dorset for the past 21 years and as a result my whole life has been heavily involved with shooting from day one.  We keeper the shoot ourselves and so I have a good working knowledge of all aspects of driven shooting, from the planting of cover crops right through to hosting a shoot day.

 After University I was fortunate enough to gain a position with Reay Forest Estate in Sutherland, where I gained a good knowledge of stalking, salmon fishing and how an estate works. I have been fortunate to have shot and fished in a diverse array of locations from Devon to New Zealand. I was captain of fishing at Canford school and represented Reading University at the British University clay competition.

 I thoroughly enjoy chatting to customers and kitting them out in order to make their shooting as enjoyable as possible.