Thread: Italians and Firearms

Hunted in France over the last four seasons. I'll try to explain here how a day runs.
If you imagine a forestry block with guns spread around on three sides, as @Friwi said shaped like a U. You face inwards looking for the boar our deer. But you are only allowed to shot outwards! So you wait till they run past, through the line of guns.
When you get dropped at your stand, peg you go to it and set it up. (I place mine with a tree at my front so animals running from out of the block can't see me untill the last minute). Before setting up you take five steps away from your peg towards the next gun in line and the three out you build a small pile of leaves our sand you then do the same on the other side. This gives you your archs of fire. It stops you from swing through the line which is a big No No just as big as shooting into the block. You must wear high viz in fact you can't be on the shoot unless you are wearing Orange blaze this includes the beaters.
You also have a horn with a series of blasts that you warn other guns what is around. 1 long for walkers 4 short for stags 3 short for sow(not to be shot) 2 short for boar.
Before the day starts we meet for lunch at a restaurant and have a big meal. Some wine is drunk BUT NO ONE is drunk everyone one eats. I usually have a big stake with a pile of french fries. Something to keep me warm, it gets bloody cold standing in the woods.
After the lunch we met the game warden who makes sure we all have our license and shoot insurance. Also black orange and hunting horn. We then have the health and safety briefing which is very thorough! Then you are driven into the woods and do around four drives for the afternoon. The beaters walk very fast they also carry shotguns and are allowed to take Woodcock and boar if safe to do so.
Once it's finished we all gather back at the club rooms and have a look at what was shot. All game is then gutted weighted and tagged to be sold on. You can take a leg if you so want. We then meet inside for a drink and get a comedy run down on who did what over the drives. There's a lot of leg pulling (just like hunters the world over I expect.)
As I said at the start I've been doing this for four years, about to go again this month. I'd not be doing this if for one second I thought the guys I am shooting with were dangerous or drunk! It's a different culture, in the French culture it is very frowned upon to be drunk in public. Not like the English, NZ culture where you are encouraged to get legless.
It would be interesting to see the incident rate per head of population in France compared to NZ.
Having hunted in NZ England France Germany and Zambia my only incident happen in NZ. Saying this I'd still not go to Italy.