I went for a last minute stalk on Monday evening and in truth I was looking for one of two bucks, either the murder buck or a nice little six pointer that I had seen previously and was infact missed by a mate a few weeks ago.
I arrived where I was going to lay in wait and I positioned myself on the rise in the field and waited. I have a newly placed feeder against the wood edge so I was also interested to see what if anything was using it.
I settled down and through the binoculars I saw three pheasants at the feeder and was pleased that they had found it, then they left in a bit of a hurry as the next in the queue arrived, it was a Badger. The greedy bug**r stood there for a good twenty minutes and fed his appetite in my bird feed, cheeky sod.
Anyway time was ticking by and I hadn't seen any Deer but as it started to turn from daylight to dusk the Pheasants started to call as they retired for the evening and the odd rabbit started to appear on the field. Just then I heard a Roe Buck bark just inside the tree line, I waited motionless as he barked again a few times before negotiating the dry stone wall and into the field. It was that six pointer, he started to graze on the weeds etc and he was a bad tempered lad, grunting and barking as he ate but he did settle down as I watched him in my scope. Eventually he presented a good side profile and as he lowered his head to pluck more plant life I took a deep breath and took my shot. I didn't see the reaction due to the muzzle flip but caught up with him almost in an instant. He ran to my left hand side and looked confused, span around and headed over the dry stone wall and back into the safety of the woods. Did I miss him, was he running dead?
I walked to the impact area to look for blood or pins and found nothing, the light was fading but still plenty of light to see any evidence, I could see nothing that indicated a hit but I was off the bipod and felt confident at that distance of 110 yards that I wouldn't miss. I went to the lower part of the wall where he had jumped over and still no blood, I climbed over the wall and wondered which way he had gone, I guessed that he would have made his way over to some larch trees that are very thick cover but under the canopy of the conifers it was almost dark in the woods and so I was working almost blind. There was no way I was going to find him in here, not in that light.
I returned to my car in a state of disbelief and just hoping that he wasn't suffering, if indeed I had hit him. I rang my mate Fallowmoor and discussed it with him, he was convinced by my description that I had lung shot him, and so I decided to return at first light with Breeze and have another look.
4:30am and we are on our way, we started to search in an arc from 120 yards working towards the wall, and an hour later we had just about got to the wall when Breeze stood ridged looking downwards into a ditch! I knew that she had found something and when I looked there he was, as dead as a dodo, I dragged him out of the ditch and checked him over, it was indeed a lung shot and so I opened him up to find that he was not 'blown' this would be due to the fact that it was 0 degrees over night, I gralloched him and took him home, Breeze got his kidneys as a reward and that makes two dogs called Breeze that I know who like kidneys! lol. So well done to Breeze on your first deer outing and as a matter of interest this buck had only made it six yards over the wall before he died and had been there about 8 hours.
Here he is back home with me. Weighed in at 37lbs dressed weight.
I arrived where I was going to lay in wait and I positioned myself on the rise in the field and waited. I have a newly placed feeder against the wood edge so I was also interested to see what if anything was using it.
I settled down and through the binoculars I saw three pheasants at the feeder and was pleased that they had found it, then they left in a bit of a hurry as the next in the queue arrived, it was a Badger. The greedy bug**r stood there for a good twenty minutes and fed his appetite in my bird feed, cheeky sod.
Anyway time was ticking by and I hadn't seen any Deer but as it started to turn from daylight to dusk the Pheasants started to call as they retired for the evening and the odd rabbit started to appear on the field. Just then I heard a Roe Buck bark just inside the tree line, I waited motionless as he barked again a few times before negotiating the dry stone wall and into the field. It was that six pointer, he started to graze on the weeds etc and he was a bad tempered lad, grunting and barking as he ate but he did settle down as I watched him in my scope. Eventually he presented a good side profile and as he lowered his head to pluck more plant life I took a deep breath and took my shot. I didn't see the reaction due to the muzzle flip but caught up with him almost in an instant. He ran to my left hand side and looked confused, span around and headed over the dry stone wall and back into the safety of the woods. Did I miss him, was he running dead?
I walked to the impact area to look for blood or pins and found nothing, the light was fading but still plenty of light to see any evidence, I could see nothing that indicated a hit but I was off the bipod and felt confident at that distance of 110 yards that I wouldn't miss. I went to the lower part of the wall where he had jumped over and still no blood, I climbed over the wall and wondered which way he had gone, I guessed that he would have made his way over to some larch trees that are very thick cover but under the canopy of the conifers it was almost dark in the woods and so I was working almost blind. There was no way I was going to find him in here, not in that light.
I returned to my car in a state of disbelief and just hoping that he wasn't suffering, if indeed I had hit him. I rang my mate Fallowmoor and discussed it with him, he was convinced by my description that I had lung shot him, and so I decided to return at first light with Breeze and have another look.
4:30am and we are on our way, we started to search in an arc from 120 yards working towards the wall, and an hour later we had just about got to the wall when Breeze stood ridged looking downwards into a ditch! I knew that she had found something and when I looked there he was, as dead as a dodo, I dragged him out of the ditch and checked him over, it was indeed a lung shot and so I opened him up to find that he was not 'blown' this would be due to the fact that it was 0 degrees over night, I gralloched him and took him home, Breeze got his kidneys as a reward and that makes two dogs called Breeze that I know who like kidneys! lol. So well done to Breeze on your first deer outing and as a matter of interest this buck had only made it six yards over the wall before he died and had been there about 8 hours.
Here he is back home with me. Weighed in at 37lbs dressed weight.