Getting a start.

mudman

Well-Known Member
After becoming interested in deer stalking a couple of year ago I embarked on the mission of finding somewhere to shoot. Luckily I already rented the game shooting on a small farm and the farmer agreed to also allow us to take the very occasional roe for the freezer (all we have is roe in the area). But as we are talking about just one or two animals per year I was still in the hunt for more ground.

I had a reasonable network of contacts in the farming and gamekeeping world but drew blank after blank with casual enquiries as to the deer stalking situation. If it was a farmer then they liked to see them around, afetr all roe do little damage to arable crops, if it was a gamekeeper then again the deer were either left alone or they were the 'keepers own perk.

Fortunately a friend was in a syndicate in SW Scotland and invited me to join, shooting over approximately 1000 aces. All was well at this time, there were enough deer and a good set up in the forest. Unfortunately for a variety of reasons the stalking was very very poor last year. So last autumn I bought a day in the midlands and had a great day, seeing alot of deer and putting a couple of opportunities in the larder. I am hoping for a bit more success from the syndicate ground this year as I get to know the ground and the habits of the deer better.

I suppose my question is how did you initailly break into the wonderful world of deerstalking, did you already have contacts, did you join a syndicate or buy individual days stalking etc??
 
Was by invitation when I started at the ripe old age of 13, lucky contact through my Dad through a Shooting Club, my Dad also stalked. Also have a Keeper contact back home that lets me get out when I'm on leave (usually only once a year I go home).

I am now in a Syndicate that borders the New Forrest, very good for Fallow and Sika, crap for Roe, but such is life. I have also had the chance of sporting invitations through contacts I have made through Forums, such as this one which has been fantastic to say the least.
 
I grew up with shooting but not stalking rabbiting etc.
During my school days helped keepers etc and attended deer counts on local estates, mainly for the Sika population in this area.
Did some part time keepering locally and got more interested in stalking then. But gave that up and the stalking with it new tenant who did is own.
Started to travel, work and family permitting to the borders three to four times a year, all the time trying to get some ground locally.
Its taken fifteen years to finally get something but I have to say my efforts have been more intensive for the last three or so years.
I still like to travel and stalk with other people you can learn so much from others and different ground broadens your outlook and skill in my opinion. Because you just never stop learning. :)

Good luck

Smithy
 
i was lucky,
where i did my gamekeeping apprenticeship, the neighbouring farmer gave me a job on his xmas tree farm and from there he told me i had to control the muntjac aswell as do a fulltime job on the farm, as he had planted 170acres of hardwoods on a forest enterprise grant scheme with xmas trees planted between them and muntjac just love young hardwood saplings, so the damage caused gave me the perfect start from there i got a rifle and then my level one since then i was always on the look out for more ground from then to now i hav fallow,roe and muntjac in some areas quite good numbers and all for free ;)
indeed i was lucky
stone
 
l was the only one within my family that shot, l started out on the local estate helping the keepers out whenever l could and l shot from the age of 10, as most of us did with the air rifle, moved onto shotguns but did not stalk deer untill l was 23 when l paid for 2 days on a borders estate, l took on a fallow lease in 90 and kept that a while and l am now a sydicate member on the estate were l started but it took me 17yrs to get a good bit of local stalking other than a few smallish bits of stalking l have got through my part time keeping.
 
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