A QUITE extraordinary thing happened to me on Wednesday. I was out shooting with a few friends and we were walking from one field to the next down a country lane when a battered old Citroen screeched to a halt, the window was wound down and a young hippyish woman stuck her head out and shouted "murderer" at me.

I was that surprised that I looked round in case the ghost of Fred West had snuck up behind me un-noticed, but no, it was me at which her dreadlocked bile was aimed. Murderer? Well, I suppose that technically she might have been correct, especially if she was representing the late Phil the Pheasant in court, although I prefer to think of myself as a patron of the countryside.

I hasten to add that this took place in six-fingered, brother-cuddling-sister, rural territory. I'd expect some stick wandering through Islington carrying a 12 bore and a dead hare that had wandered into range, but not in deepest Borsetshire.

And neither is our little group dressed well enough to inspire class envy. Tweed shooting suits and fat bankers in silly trousers are in short supply. A smelly old Barbour, some thorn-torn cords and a pair of supermarket wellies is the height of sartorial elegance in these parts.

That's the whole point. Our little shoot is a modest affair at which Courvoisier and conversation is as important as killing.

It's a million miles from the big corporate shoots with their 300-bird days and their Disneyland, three-course lunch "countryside experiences". We're happy to go home with a brace apiece, and the height of epicurean luxury is sharing a Kit Kat with a damp spaniel in an abandoned pig-sty.

But the fees we pay help the dairy farmer on whose land we shoot keep his head above water; the fact that he needs to provide a habitat for his mainly wild birds means that hedgerows and uncultivated strips along the borders his fields provide refuge for all sorts of wildlife. And then, once a fortnight, we come along and try to kill it, not very successfully.

When I'm driving to work the next morning, the massed ranks of surviving pheasants regularly line up on the wall and mock me as I go past.

So being called a "murderer" by a bunny-hugging, Guardian-reading, lentil-eating, benefits-claiming, pot-smoking soap-dodger with pink hair driving a polluting old car rankled somewhat.

I suppose what surprised me so much was the patent lack of understanding about the role shooting plays in both the economy and social life of the country. But who are we to expect townies to appreciate the nuances?

It's the same every year when a paparazzi with a long lens catches Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II strangling a wounded pheasant at Sandringham.

Suddenly the nation is expected to be horrified at such brazen brutality.

So the Queen acts as a "picker-up" at the shoot, collecting fallen birds, when she comes across one that is wounded but not quite Norwegian Blue.

What's she supposed to do with it? Rush it round to the bloody vets? This is a bird with a brain the size of a microbe that can't even fly very well. Its only reason for existing is so that someone can shoot it. On the food chain, it would rank just beneath a Fourth Division footballer.

I know that if I was a mortally wounded pheasant, shot down on my own personal version of the Dresden raids, I'd rather be finished off by a Royal tweaking my neck than be left in a ditch for Mr Fox to find once night falls.

And then they wheel out some animal rights loony to accuse Her Maj of institutional cruelty. (Don't forget - these are the same people who would dictate what you can eat in your local restaurant.) Do they really think that? Do they really think that Lizzie sits in front of the television at Windsor Castle watching I'm A Celebrity while a be-wigged flunky stands by with a sack of partridges in case she fancies a quick strangle?

"Pass me another bird, Carruthers. That American woman is getting right up one's nose. Oh, and put me a tenner on Biggins to win."

The other annoying thing about some of the anti-shooting lobby is their blatant hypocrisy. At least the lentil-eaters are honest about their prejudices.

The problem is the massed ranks of middle-class animal lovers who are quite content to keep cats, yet while I'm bringing down a couple of pheasants for the pot, little Tiddles is busy wiping out the local songbird population with a Hitler-esque gusto.

And they don't mind eating poultry that has been farmed in atrocious conditions, but pull a lemon-sucking face about the death of a game bird that has been bred in the wild, has enjoyed freedom of movement and flight, and didn't have a clue its end was nigh until it was daft enough to hop out of a tree just as I happened to pull the trigger.

Give me that over the horrors of the slaughterhouse any day.