The clarion has sounded for fieldsports’ bravest sportsmen and women. The Field, in association with new partner Blaser, are delighted to announce that the ultimate sporting test is underway once more. The 2018 Field Macnab Challenge requires a salmon, a stag and a brace of grouse within one daylight day. Are you ready to bag a Macnab?

To prepare you properly in your quest for a Macnab, The Field’s website is brimming with advice. Study up on the rules, take note from previous successes, pick your estate and prepare the kit. And for some real inspiration, watch the video of The Field’s greatest sporting adventure, when we journeyed to the Outer Hebrides with a Macnab in mind.

THE 2018 FIELD MACNAB CHALLENGE

As August rolls around, many people start beetling off towards rocky Cornish beaches, the flat broads of Norfolk or Pembrokeshire’s delightful coast. Not at Field Towers. Here, August heralds the most revered time of year, the start of the sporting season and our favourite sporting adventure, The Field’s Macnab Challenge, is underway again.

John Macnab, written by John Buchan in 1925, is a tale of derring-do and robust spirit that still inspires sporting sorts today and is required reading for any aspiring Macnabber. The Challenge, based on the notion of Buchan’s book, has long been on sporting bucket lists.

The Classic Macnab entails catching a salmon on the fly, grassing a stag and bagging a brace of grouse between dawn and dusk. The rich colours of the purple heather, home to the grouse, the blood of the grassed stag and the silver flash of the salmon are found in The Macnab Club’s Livery and our club tie. They will also mark the pages of our Macnab content in every issue it appears, so those keen to keep up to date can see at a glance where their favourite content lies.

This year we are delighted to announce a new partnership with Blaser, makers of fine sporting shotguns, rifles and the appropriate sort of clothing kit to see you from a dawn start dashing to the river to crawling through the heather and taking your final shot.

For those unfamiliar with the Macnab Challenge, there are 11 types of Macnab you can attempt, so if, like many of our Macnab Club members, you have already mastered the Classic version, why not try a different format, from the Macmarsh to the MacAfrican? But if you are set on the Classic Macnab then read on, to find out where you stand the best chance of success this season. To blood!

MACRULES

The Macnab must be completed within one daylight day.

• The Classic Macnab: A salmon on the fly, a stag and a brace of grouse.
• The Real Macnab: A salmon on the fly and a stag, as the trio did in John Buchan’s John Macnab. They must be “poached” in a legal, sporting manner from a pre-warned owner who accepts the challenge.
• The Southern Macnab: A couple of snipe, a sea-trout and a roe buck.
• The Macmarsh: A foreshore goose, a pike and a fallow buck.
• The Macvermin: An impressive rat, a pike on the fly and a brace of magpies (to be shot).
• The Macscandi: A moose, a capercaillie and a trout on the fly.
• The Macargentinian: A golden dorado, 100 brace of doves and a wild pig. This is the northern Argentinian Macnab.
• The Macafrican: A brace of sandgrouse, an impala and a tigerfish.
• The Maccharlie: Riding to foxhounds, the harriers and staghounds.
• The Corinthian Macnab: Riding to hounds in the morning, shooting a brace of partridges in the afternoon and then catching a trout on the fly.
• The Macnorfolk: A brace of wild greys, a fallow buck and a bass on the fly.

For rules, how to enter and more information on The Field’s Macnab Challenge in association with Blaser, go to: www.thefield.co.uk/macnab-challenge