Welcome to Fieldsports Britain, coming to you this week from the People's Republic of

China.

Coming up: This is where the pheasant and the muntjac come from, and I'll be looking

for both of them.

I'll be visiting one of the factories in Cina that make all the kit we use to attract pigeons

crows and ducks

First, I'm going to this paradise island to look for deer, goats and rabbits

So here's the story. In 2011, we carry a news report saying that the first man in China

to own land is a petrochemicals millionaire who has bought a lease on an island near the

city of Ningbo where, instead of opening a casino or a shopping centre, he opens a hunting

reserve, and this in a country where it is widely believed that hunting is banned. Well,

Erik van der Horst gets in touch with us to say he is based in Ningbo and would we like

to go? I push in front of David, Roy, Mark, Crow, Dom and everyone else, and say yes please.

18 months later, I am at a ferry terminal that may not be up to much but the boat itself

is Chinese industrialist class.

So we've left the Chinese mainland behind us and we are heading for we don't know what.

But this is the birthplace of Chinese hunting - something that's been banned along with

guns since 1949. Here, it's not only tolerated it's quite possibly legal. Let's find out.

It's a half-hour air-conditioned whiz over the water past dazzling James Bond scenery.

We come into port and, if you listen carefully, you can hear them say it: "The plane, boss,

the plane". We land, we round a corner and there is the hotel.

The following morning, we are up early to go stalking. Rosy-fingered dawn is spectacular.

The potential for hunting less so. Erik spots a herd of goats or, as he disparagingly calls

them, sheep.

I reckon we will have about three to four hour stalk up to the sheep you just filmed.

By the sounds of it we have got quite an experience and quite a good stalk. As far as I understand

we will call in the sheep when we get near. It will be something like "sheep, sheep, sheep,

sheep" at which point they will all come running in and we have got about ten minutes to shoot

them.

Just ten minutes.

Probably ten minutes, yes.

The gamekeeper hands out the firearms to Erik me and to Mr Yang, a Chinese industrialist.

The 12-bore shotguns are marked with the word Ying - there: Yang with Ying - though it's

hard to know if Ying is the make of the gun or its dynasty.

We will use three-shot cartridges, whatever we are shooting at: deer, goats, rabbits or

pheasants. It is indeed a long walk in to the goats. There is plenty of sign of muntjac

but the undergrowth is so thick, you would have to be a muntjac to get close to them.

We reach the farm animals. Erik and the gamekeeper stalk forward. The goats turn out to be too

quick for Erik. Maybe this is not going to be easy after all. And Erik is cross about

another gap between European and Chinese hunting cultures.

It is a great and interesting stalk, but I am not going to shoot a goat at 50 metres

or more with a shotgun. We will give it to our Chinese friend

Another complaint Erik has is the speed at which the Chinese stalk

Fastest stalk I've ever done in my life

When I take over the gun, I slow the pace down significantly.

However, apart from the bark of deer and the occasionally crashing noise, I see nothing.

By 9am, the temperature has reached 30 degrees centigrade and the game is lying doggo, but

at least the gamekeeper is keeping something - his sense of humour. We head for the hotel,

where I ask Mr Yang what he thinks of the morning.

He says there are not too much game in this island.

Here the hunting is forbidden at night. But if we go out at night we may hunt some deers.

I also want to know what the Chinese think of shooting and hunting - and do they enjoy

it?

He says in China people are only hunting on islands, Gobi Desert and forests.

Ok and what kind of animals do they hunt in China?

In northern part of China and eastern China, people hunt bears, and in Mongolia people

hunt wolves.

And for him is it about the hunting or eating the food afterwards or the whole thing. That

is important for us to understand.

People go hunting just for fun and you know that guns are illegal in China, so people

who are interested in them just due to their interest.

Throughout our trip to China, we were unable to find out whether hunting is really banned.

Certainly, gun ownership carries a stiff prison sentence in some provinces, but plenty of

people own guns, and some we met own them with the permission of the police. Look at

the London 2012 Olympics. The Chinese won more medals in the shooting events than any

other country.

As you can imagine, Erik has strong views about the hunting - and about what he would

do if he were running the gaff.

At the end of our walk I actually had the feeling that what we did may actually have

been wrong for the Chinese way. So what they do is they walk so fast and basically they

bump into animals.

They march the animals down.

Where we now had to compromise with too many people and of course the stalker behind us

chopping away on branches.

Yes, and I noticed that if we stopped where we might have seen a muntjac that was a good

opportunity to have a cigarette, especially if the wind was behind us.

Yes, exactly.

Interesting yes. And of course the misfires with the shotgun were absolutely ... you have

to cope with a lot. But we are sitting at one end of this beautiful beach, it is not

a bad place.

Actually I think it is a really, really good place. The sea with the beach. The hotel is

sunny and comfortable. I love the food it is really excellent food.

I love the fact that you eat what you shoot immediately.

Yes that is really good.

Brilliant.

And to be honest if they would buy two dogs and a buttalo call

That would make all the difference.

Absolutely. Actually I think it could be a really good mix. On the one hand for the Chinese

people with the bunnies and the goats and on the other for Western people who have more

stalking experience, but they need to learn a lot.

They need to learn about muntjac stalking.

Shall we go back in for a cheeky rice wine?

Um that might be a very good idea.

And perhaps take a surf later.

Late afternoon before dinner we head off again, this time after bunnies which we have seen

near the hotel and look suspiciously un-nervous. Our new Chinese friend limbers up by practicing

on a nearby flag pole. It is only a few yards and we come upon a rabbit. Another 20 yards

and blow me another rabbit lurking behind some rushes, but otherwise oblivious to our

presence. Erik shoots, misses then goes to see if he can flush it out.

It is wild enough to have gone into hiding.

Further up the path, it's my turn to shoot and bring down another mighty rabbit.

Well I can't show you too much, but two man team from Europe is one all versus China at

the moment.

As well as the rabbits, the island offers Chinese bayberries.

These are really, really nice.

With the scores running even, Mr Yang edges ahead with first one rabbit, and then another

- but after we have one each, Erik and I are not quite so keen on the sporting side of

Chinese rabbit shooting.

The Chinese may have a lot to learn from us about shooting - but we have plenty to learn

from them about eating. Everything we shot or caught on our trip we ate immediately,

meat, feet, guts, backbone and all - and I might have come home smelling like a Chinese

restaurant but it was delicious.

Food for the Chinese is a social event that takes place three times a day. Whenever possible,

it involves beer, rice wine and French brandy. Here's Mr Yang showing his skills as a calligrapher,

writing Fieldsports Channel in Chinese - literally "hunting the weird". If the hordes sweep in

from the East, this is our new logo.

Then Mr Yang, partly fuelled by rice wine, shows how he will disable Erik when that day

comes.

The Golden Sand Bay Hunting Resort is expensive, but much of the cost is tied up in the price

for hiring the boat. One night there comes to �200 a person, including ferry, bed,

board and two outings shooting. Also, the price goes up significantly once the manager

decides you are rich. If you want to find out more and you either speak Mandarin or

you don't mind Google Translate's version, have a look at nbhaiyang.com

Another hunting resort advertising in China is the Oriental International Hunting Park

in Shanxi province, west of Beijing. Visit East-Hunt.com

What do you reckon?

I am not sure.

Do you think shoot it anyway?

Give it a try.

Ok and now it's over to David on the Fieldsports Channel news stump.

[Music]

This is Fieldsports Britain News.

The Netherlands has 300,000 greylag geese. The environment department of a Dutch university

says that 380,000 geese need to be gassed over the next five years to bring that number

down to 100,000. It costs around 18 euros to gas each goose. Holland banned goose shooting

in 1981, except under licence.

Our government says well when you hunt them the next problem you are going to have is

what are you going to do with those animals and that is more or less one of the reasons

that I wrote a book about it. How do you get it back in the food circuit.

And you can watch more of that interview by clicking on the link.

Now, Swiss MPs have voted against a ban on stray cat shooting. They rejected a motion

to outlaw the cat hunt. The Swiss Government says there are around 1.5 million stray cats

in Switzerland and it points to a British study which shows that cats kill 15 birds

each per year.

Staying with cats. A woman from Indiana in the USA who shot what she thought was a bobcat

that had been attacking her own cats was surprised when it turned out to be a leopard. The owner

of a local wildlife rescue centre that specialises in big cats denies that it is his.

If you would prefer to see a live leopard instead of a dead one, then click on the link,

to see our how to release a leopard film. Made all the better because Charlie nearly

soils himself.

Our own Roy Lupton has been appearing on ITV news this week. Roy was talking about the

urban fox problem after ITV Meridian used our night vision footage of urban fox calling

in Maidstone town centre. The report also featured a fox expert who suggested that walking

a dog around the edge of your garden will keep foxes at bay. Yeah right.

Schools Challenge TV is offering a competition prize this week. You can win a family ticket

to the CLA Game Fair. Click on the link on the screen to watch this week's show, which

says how Schools Challenge Academy members plan to take their shooting careers to the

next level and bid for Olympic success.

And finally, these South African tourists got a surprise when an angry giraffe started

chasing them. Giraffes can run up to 35 miles per hour and have a lethal kick.

You are now up to date with Fieldsports Britain News. Stalking the stories. Fishing for facts.

[Music]

Thank you David, very Oriental. Now the good news is I got him. Later in the programme

we are going to do some real poaching in China. First, duck, Peking duck? Crispy fried duck?

No, decoy duck, because China is where they are all made.

It is hard to put into words how urban China is becoming and in such a short time. Cities

I have never heard of before such as Ningbo and Guangzhou are already like a cross between

Wolverhampton and Gotham City.

So that racket in the background - this is where your duck decoys come from. I'm here

to meet Frank, who is going to tell me all about it.

I fly to Europe each year one time, two times so I see the chain stores, I see the shops

and I get some ideas from them and I come back to China and make my lines for the hunting.

How many of these are you shipping every year?

Half a million pieces, normally, totally, together, like goose, crow, pigeon, magpie

and ducks.

That's goose, crow, pigeon, magpie and ducks

It's not just deeks. Frank's company makes float tubes for fishermen and even standalone

highseats.

It's all too much for keen deerstalker Erik. He has to go and try it out. It's meant to

cope with one tonne of weight. However, Erik may need to go easy on the wontons as he breaks

the ladder on the way up - and has to use the other highseat ladder to come down. Back

to the drawing board with that product.

If you are planning to order around half a million decoys and you want to find out more,

visit meitaisports.com

Now from a beautiful beach resort to the high hills of Canton where I will be going pheasant

poaching.

Picture a group of country blokes sitting down to a good breakfast before going out

for a bit of walked-up shooting. That's what we have here. There is lots of chat about

what we might see, what pheasants look like, what eagle tastes like and that needless to

say we should have been here last week.

How do Erik and I establish that we know how to shoot a muntjac if we see one? We show

them films of Roy Lupton of course.

They tell us they mainly shoot pheasants here. But there is a variety of game. That is a

leopard cat, which is common across China, India and the rest of Asia, and is fond of

farm chickens.

In the 1950s, there were tigers here. Locals say the government came and shot them all

- but it is hard to see how. There is plenty of game in the tangle of bamboo. The rural

China you see is hacked out of thick undergrowth. There's an awful lot of China you don't see.

The guns our hunter friends use would not pass muster at a British shoot. Outside, they

proudly show off a heavily repaired Manufrance No5 �Robust' shotgun and a single-barrel

home made hammer gun, both of them 12-bore.Cartridges range from 3-shot to 7.5.

We load up into vehicles and head out into the countryside.

We're hunting here in Canton Province - and these guys are out after meat, so we're turning

down the really little birds and going for the bigger ones

At first, we drive round local farmland looking for birds. When we see one, we stop the cars

and one of the two shooters hop out and have a go. Any biggish bird will do - like this,

a common bird in the rice padis, a brown crake.

Now, as you have probably noticed, they ask us to blob-out their faces, and they are not

keen to be interviewed. I think they are unclear about whether or not shooting is legal in