defenders. On a building site the issue
is clear-cut — wearing them costs me
a few minutes of Ken Bruce’s wit and
wisdom but it solves the problem of
being deafened while also reducing
my exposure to Jeremy Vine. But for
shooters the issue is not so clear.
There is a world of diff erent ear
defenders out there, from £9 muff s
the size of a spaniel’s head on eBay
to tiny custom-made plugs that
fi lter sounds, letting in the good and
keeping out the bad.
Mandatory
On every clay ground I have ever
known, ear defenders are both
mandatory and universal. But on
a clay ground there’s not much to
hear beyond gunshots, advice and
chat, all of which are best excluded
from your ears.
Game shooters seem to be
becoming more diligent about
wearing ear protectors. Year after
year the number of Guns standing
on pegs without something to protect
their ears seems to diminish. They
are losing a little more, however — the
cry of the beaters, the drumming of
wings, some of the atmosphere, if not
the ability to help identify quarry.
Given the ability of snazzy modern
ear protection to fi lter out harmful
sounds and leave in pleasant ones;
given the number of shots fi red and
the high sound output of shotguns,
the argument seems overwhelming.
Modern ear
protection
fi lters out the
bad but keeps
in the good
