BAD NEWS ,GOOD NEWS, WHAT'S NEXT ?

griffshrek

Well-Known Member
hello again all

time to post some more about what's going on, since my last post "big deer and fox" there has been a dramatic change in my stalking.

two days after i posted the thread , the farmer who ownes the 160 acres of land i stalk on asked me to call around to see him.

off i went woundering what this was all about, we sat down in the kitchen had a cup of tea and he then drops the bomb shell that someone else has bought the stalking rights.

when i first got the stalking on this land i enquired with the farmer if payment was required or would he would like me help out with a bit of graft. at the time the farmer being in late 60's and with no help wanted the latter. so i would help with fencing, hay , farm duties etc.

so over our tea the farmer explaind how he was approached by a person who wanted to get into stalking and needed a bit of land to stalk on. this person then offered the farmer £500 cash on the spot for the stalking rights on the 160 acres till the end of the season and the same amount for the next season.

of course the farmer said yes ,he would of been a fool to turn that money down. no hard feelings on my part. (no way would i pay £500 for the land)

i had put a lot of hard work into the ground with making some high seats , planting some feed crops for the deer. i also have a bitter taste that someone else s gong to reape the benefits i have sown. i could have taken a lot more deer from this land but decided not to , i wanted to manage the deer not eradicate them. i hope the next person will do the same.

as i live in S Wales near the Cardiff end the stalking is limied and well sourght after, i had plenty of rejections from door knocking etc and was feeling down.

anyway in work one day and carrying out a job with a another firm i just got talking to this guy , the subject of shoting came up and of course i told him my story.

he starts to laugh and then asks me to come with him to control the deer on the land he shoots, 4000 acres. due to his line of work and no free time he is having trouble controling the deer. i of course say yes but in my mind it looks to good to be true.

he tells me how there area hundreds of deer on the land these being fallow ,roe,muntjack and one or two red also some wild boar.

we arrange to go out (wed) and he keeps saying how many deer do i want to shoot. i cant believe this "how many" one would be great. off we go he has some fantastic ground but no deer.

we have had some very bad weather, he keeps telling me thats why the deer are not out, im gutted .

we drove to a new area and then he just stops the 4x4 and says there are the deer , i look but see nothing ,he points, i see nothing except a herd of 60-70 what i think are cows 600m away.

i am wrong they are deer (fallow) i have never seen so many, i was use to a maximum of 3-4 does and one buck in one place. i had a fantastic stalk and shot two bucks, which i was told would not do and next time i must take at least three as the deer numbers are a bit high and need thinning out.

we have arranged to go out again and get some more , i am overjoyed at this , but i still would like my own peice of land to manage again.

i will post more when i get more .....neil
 
Hello griffshrek.

Sorry to hear of your loss and hope the new bit gathers momentum and takes off.

Sadly, I am affraid that your experience is a sign of the times, especially with deerstalking. I had a very similar thing happen to me at the start of last year when some land i had shot for over 20 years was sold to a group of guys who had happened to knock on the farmers door. This i wouldn`t have minded so much if the farmer had said to them that he would give me first refusal.

I have gone on record in the past as saying that deerstalking is probably the biggest back stabbing thing to be in and have also mentioned about how there seems to be certain people, and there are these people that write on this site, AND they know who they are, seem to have swaithes of land up and down the country. These people can tell me that they do chores on the land until they are blue in the face, but I know it`s more likely that they have given a fat cheque to persuade the farmer, and so i am affraid you have got these people to thank!.

I know my comments won`t go down very well, but tough.

wadashot.
 
Unfortunately Wadashot, I think that it is a vicious circle. The more people that offer money to farmers, the more farmers there are that expect to be paid where previously they weren't.
I have a little bit of free land on which I do a fair amount of vermin control and the numbers of deer are limited. I would pay for the right piece of land if it was local. I think that the majority of people that have vast quantities of land do so for professional stalking and I am afraid that we can't get away from that, nor should we criticise them for it. It is supply and demand and they all have a living to make.
I am in a difficult position at the moment in that I know an excellent plot of land 20 minutes from where I live that someone I know and have stalked with has permission to shoot. I also know that he is not doing a particularly good job at managing the population as he has too much land in the area and can't keep up with it. I am pretty sure that if I went in and offered a couple of hundred quid I could get the shooting rights and probably take 25 plus head a year of fallow of it.
If I did this then, yes, I would be stabbing him in the back but on the other hand, I would have my sport sorted, not be out of pocket as the money from the game dealer would cover the lease and then some!
Believe me, it is tempting!
Cheers
Andy
 
Hi Andy,

You are right, it is a visious circle and to be fair you can`t blame any farmer for taking a wad of cash, but it just shows with the examples that have been discussed, there dosen`t seem to be much loyalty from the farmer.

The situation that i am in maybe the deciding factor as to whether i pack in shooting altogether and this is related to not being able to find ground to go on and the backstabbing that goes on since our high seats were stolen from ground in Norfolk. Me and my mate won`t be going on that ground anymore so if there is anyone interested and want to know where it is and want to approach the farmer then you can PM me and go and chance your arm. It has got Red, Roe, and Munty on. My mate has taken everyone of his guns to the dealers and is finally stopping shooting as he is also sick of the backstabbing in stalking.

wadashot.
 
Wadashot, a very sad state of affairs indeed, of little cosolation i know but we have been having the same problems down here in cornwall, there are a couple of groups of muppets for lack of a better word, they have been grabbing every bit of ground going, they could not manage it so then they tried to sub let it to a very greedy barsteward, he was then going to sub let parcels to newbies who could not get a ticket without some ground.
Feck me it was looking kind of scary down here for a bit, bit like the final frontier.
Anyway customers started asking me if i was affiliated to these idiots, alarm bells started ringing, my business took a long time to be where it is now, so i made a decision to do no stalking anywhere within 30 miles of me. This was two years ago, thank god i did, some of the stuff i am hearing about now you couldnt make up.
Dont go giving up just move on, life is to short.

Best regards MT.
 
"Money talks" unfortunately that's the way life is especially in field sports and stalking rights seem to be at the top of the ladder these days and the back stabbing comes with the territory.

l pay little or nothing for my stalking, the only stalking l pay for is for my syndicate place up north and that is very reasonably priced all my other stalking is in east anglia and l pay nowt for it but l do pay a percentage of venison sales back to my landlords (call it a damage contribution) at the moment they seem to be happy with that arrangement.

Its only a matter of time before the stalkers with the wods turn up and then there may be an issue with deer welfare because most will wont to see a return for their investment, now l am not saying everybody is like that but l have seen first hand ground being leased off then the trophy hunters who are willing to pay big money turn up take out all the males and leave the does and move on to the next bit and do the same.

Or you get the stalker who has so much ground that he cant cope with it all they only concentrate on the most productive bits and this type usually do not pay for their ground but the management does seem to be ok on the ground they concentrate on.

It is such a pity when you hear about stalkers being so dissolutioned with it all they are prepared to give it all up, there is enough for everybody to enjoy this magnificent sport after all we are all on the same side so we should all be on a level playing field but that's life.

wadashot, hope your inbox is big enough and ready for all the incoming pm,s :D
 
Unfortunatly stalking along with just about any other business in life creates situations that Wadashot has described.

I have had many people go behind my back in the past, and I do not tolerate it at anytime. Farmers are having a hard time, who can blame them for taking payments for the rights to shoot over their land. A few years back there were no end of continental people driving around the South of England offering any amount of money for Roe Stalking. My Roe Stalking is free, I make no payment except in vension and the farmer approached me as a professional to manage his deer. This past year I have taken 6 bucks in 9 outings, only one shot by myself, all the others I gave away, even one to a member of this site.

I have lost rights and land to the wrong people in the past and will again, thats life I am afraid.

I also pay a very large sum of money to at least two estates in Scotland, one in particular I own the entire rights of. But I have 6 other men who pay £300 a year for the rights to take hinds throughout the winter whenever they choose, all of whom are very good friends. I also give away a great deal of stalking to novices, and always have done so and will continue to do so.

Perhaps if Wadashot had put his permission on a firmer basis on paper the farmer would not have been so quick to sell ofthe rights, without first asking Wadashot. I find all shooting can create back door merchants, and loosing stalking pemission has happened to me recently. I had a small area about 30 minutes drive away that I held free for 3 years, then the estate manager got a rifle and started, I knew then the writing was on the wall, but thats life. Learn to live with it and move on.
 
wadashot it is a shame that you hav got to the stage where you want to hang up your knife and binos because off all the malicious backstabbing that goes on in the need to gain your own land but there is light at the end of the tunnel i am sure.
in my case, the farmer where i stalk ,his neighbours are asking him to ask me to control the deer on their farms inreturn for a bit of venison in the last 6months my ground has grown from 300 acres to over 2000 acres, i am not saying it has masses of deer on it but i constantly see upto 40 fallow in a herd now and hav shot a few roe bucks .
no one should hav to give up because of those inconsiderate amongst us i landed lucky you could again to, as for anyone looking for ground there is still plenty out there for free
 
thanks for the replies

i feel we/i are in an era now where monies is almost expected for the rights to stalk right or wrong.

in my life i have never paid for shooting (not deer) i have given bottle at xmas and helped out but no money.

i am still new to stalking but there does to be more stalkers and less land to go around ( there is my way) and unless you are lucky free is a dirty word .

you can not blame the farmer , if some one is offering £xxxx for stalking and other person offering nothing what do we expext.


i still have some luke warm iron's in fire to look for my own bit of land to manage .

i dont know why i'm worrying , i have bought a lottery ticket for sat . so if 1,5,11,19,33,35 come up in the numbers what stalking can i buy for £ 6 ,000,000 .....neil
 
I'm saddened to read all these stories. I went to visit the 50 acres I have for free, only to find a car on the drive with a 'St Hurberts' car sticker in the rear window. :eek: The farmer hasn't said anything about it, but I wonder.
Ho well I hope he is prepared to fork out for replacing the warning signs, fencing, stiles, gates and highseats . I've put up! I won't be leaving them. Of coarse then there's the poaching gypo's and the moutain bikers! All for a few muntjac!
I hope I'm wrong I really do!
 
Griffshrek, it has nearly always been like this, but you are right, there does appear to be more stalkers than land to go round.

Deer stalking has taken an upsurge of interest in the past 5 to 7 years and although we all want to see our sport survive, and the more people who apply for an FAC for deer the more secure the future is for the sport. On the other hand it appears to be putting an increasing pressure on the areas available for stalking, which results in the usual back door merchants, some of whom have lots of cash and time, although not neccasarily the expertise or knowledge in deer management.

This is where level 1 and 2 can be of help. Most lease's insist on the stalker having the relevant qualification and insurance, this can knock out some of the back door boys. It also pays to put something between you and the farmer in writing. For much of your own piece of mind if nothing else.

As I have said before this is nothing new, it has always been much the same in the shooting world, but it does appear to be coming more common place of late.

Mr B, watch out if Mr Huey's about, I would find out what they are up to if I were you and get something on paper from the landowner. :evil:
 
Hi Sikamalc,
Yes you are right. I have a written agreement but the agreemnet is that if the land owner is not happy with my services he/I can give 48 hrs notice to quit! :eek: Seemed a good get out clause that would work both ways, He has had hassle with the gypies in the past and I thought it gave me an escape route should it continue. I've had problems before with travellers and didn't fancy going over old ground. I'll ask him out right for an explaination. I might be jumping the gun, he has told me about other people trying for the land permission and has turned them away. Only one way to find out. :confused:
 
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