THE message from the fur-smelling country pursuits tent at the North Devon Show this year was clear: sheer bloody-mindedness was helping rural sports thrive.

The

North Devon Journal

spoke to a number of people involved in traditional country activities, including hunting and shooting, and they were all cheerful about the health and future of each of their passions.

The Kellaway family — mother Paula, father Gordon (huntmaster), and son Andrew — run the North Devon Beagles hunt. The nine dogs they brought to the show last week attracted crowds of admirers, including many children, who were allowed to pet the animals in the arena.

In a reflection of the national situation, hunts such as the North Devon Beagles appear to have become more popular as a result of the 2005 hunting ban, which has caused such severe animosity among some people in the countryside. Paula said this popularity boost was partly because of a sense of rebellion against the government.

Of course, everything the hunt, which has 38 Beagles, does now is totally legal; they follow trails or catch rabbits. "It's going well. A lot of people are coming out and supporting us," Paula said. "The support has grown in the past year.

"It's something that people want to do and it doesn't cost much to go out on the moor. It's also about being told you can't do something (because of the hunting ban)."

The hunt meets every Saturday between September and mid-March as well as some Wednesdays and more regularly over the Christmas period. It typically attracts between 30 and 40 followers, Andrew said, with up to 100 on the Boxing Day meet.

He said: "It's people of all ages and from all walks of life, including teachers and doctors. It's special for the country people and it's their bit of England and they want to do what they have done for years and years."

Gordon said anti-hunt campaigners still monitored the hunt from time-to-time but he was unable to say precisely how often.

Meanwhile, the North Devon Working Gundog Club, which boasts more than 650 members, said the show was a valuable marketing tool.

The club promotes the training and working of gundogs, mainly spaniels and retrievers. Chairman Maurice Stanbury, from Molland, said: "We get quite a few people asking questions and we always make new contacts."

On the other side of the country pursuits tent, Appledore man Malcolm Joy was chatting to pals and fellow members of the Taw and Torridge Wildfowling Club, next to a collection of well-polished antique shotguns and rifles.

Just before a young man handed over his membership form, Malcolm, who was a founder member of the club in 1972, said jovially: "I always say you have to be brain dead to do wildfowling. I do all sorts of shooting and it's the hardest."

The club goes out on foot on the shores of the two rivers between September and January looking for ducks and geese to shoot. Malcolm said each of the 100 club members would be lucky to bag one or two birds on every hunt, even if using a well-built hideout and plastic-duck decoys.

The members use 8, 10, or 12-bore shotguns to kill the birds, which are often then eaten.

On a neighbouring stall, Paul Messenger was helping to explain the work of the South West branch of the British Deer Society. He said the deer population in North Devon and Torridge had grown rapidly in recent years and needed careful management, including hunting, to keep it healthy and in balance with other wildlife.

Paul said the society, which has 1,400 members in the south west, helped to train deer managers to humanely manage the animals. The danger was that landowners, or lone huntsman, would kill the animals inhumanely and then waste a perfectly edible carcass.

He said: "The numbers of deer are growing throughout North Devon and that's roe deer, red deer, and muntjac."

Deerstalking was becoming increasingly popular sport, he said, particularly among urban dwellers hungry for rural adventure.

Paul said while roe deer and red deer needed lots of butchery before they could be put in an average-sized oven, the delicious little leg of a muntjac was small enough to pop in a domestic stove.