With the game season having drawn to a close on 31 January and the wildfowling season closing on Friday 20 February, the curtain falls on another successful shooting season. Now that beaters’ flags have been furled and plus fours mothballed, it is meet to reflect upon the season past, and look to what is approaching during the close season.

The 2025-26 season got off to a mixed start in the uplands, attitudes were buoyed by the resounding defeat in parliamentary debate of Chris Packham’s petition to ban driven grouse shooting, however grouse numbers were still in recovery following two prior seasons of poor breeding. Far from the blanket cancellation of 2023 and 2024, a good number of days went ahead and only a couple of shoots were interrupted by sabs on the glorious twelfth.

The dry weather in the first half of 2025 led to positive English partridge counts, even if crop yields struggled. Those rare and celebrated shoots where English partridge flourish enjoyed their shooting this season. However, there was consternation for shoots which release birds in or near Special Protection Areas (SPA) as Natural England (NE) and Defra withheld General Licence 45, which allows release of pheasant and French partridge in and within 500m of an SPA under certain conditions. Instead NE announced that all such shoots would have to apply for individual licences, with those in many SPAs being told there was very little chance of a licence being granted and others told that any licence would specify that release must take place from October onwards.

As the season has progressed a legislative sword of Damocles has dangled over shooting – the government’s impending consultation on proposals to align Section 2 shotgun licensing with that for Section 1 firearms. This was announced almost a year ago, but was promised to be launched by the end of 2025. The government missed its target of launch in 2025, and is poised to launch it “shortly”. The Campaign for Shooting has been engaging heavily with parliamentarians, civil servants, the police and many others in preparation for the consultation. When it does finally launch, we will respond robustly and will provide an online platform enabling all those who care about shooting to respond easily and appropriately, without having to wrestle with leading and restrictive government forms.

In December 2025, an amendment to finally deregulate sound moderators, prepared by the Countryside Alliance and tabled by Lord Brady of Altrincham, was debated in the House of Lords as part of the Crime and Policing Bill. The amendment received support from across the house and since then the government has tabled its own amendment to the same end, which, when passed into law, will alleviate a significant administrative burden from police firearms licensing departments.

For many in the shooting community the off season is where the real work begins. The Countryside Alliance will be campaigning on many issues over the summer, which include the timeline for the banning of lead ammunition and the government’s consideration of ‘snare traps’ and Larsen traps as part of its animal welfare strategy. The government has said that it will enact its timeline for the banning of lead ammunition this summer. It is expected that the final transition period for the phasing out of lead shot for live quarry and clay shooting will end by the start of the 2029/30 shooting season.

The Countryside Alliance will be fundraising to support its campaign work with, amongst other events, the upcoming 2026 gun draw and the Warter Priory Charity Clay Shoot.