An evening to remember

Bear with me as this is a long one! :D

Well I finally managed to get out on Friday evening & what a glorious evening it was, warm & bright & no breeze at all such a change from the 3 days of rain we’ve experienced.

I had decided to start with a small field just opposite where my high seat is situated, on a number of occasions I’ve spotted a buck & doe feeding on the edge of a small copse in the middle of the field & guess they have been lying up there during the day. So after parking the Range Rover ¼ mile down the track I slowly made my way to the edge of the field & peering over the tall grass bordering the track I couldn’t see anything around so made my way to the gate.

All the gates on this farm are locked with padlock & chain as we used to get the estate gardeners kids joyriding around the fields on their quads & leaving all the gates open so they now have to be secured. I have a key so putting my rifle & sticks over the fence & quietly unlocked the gate & moved through, slung the rifle over my shoulder & picking up the sticks I turned to the end of the field where there is a small muckheap which I had decided to use as a screen. No sooner had I taken a couple of steps I saw a young roe standing right by the muck heap no more than 30 yards away. It was staring straight at me & must have been there as I was opening the gate. Has anyone tried to open sticks & un-sling a rifle without moving...........it’s a real bugger I can tell you. :confused:

Anyway I managed to get the rifle up & looking through the scope I could see he was a pricket & decide to take him, just as I eased the safety off he moved away behind some tall grass & then unconcerned slowly dropped into the ditch, up the other side & through into the next door field. Fortunately this field is part of the land I picked up last week so I slowly moved to the ditch & limboed under the barbed wire noting the number of slots in the ditch & hair caught on the wire, they certainly use this route a lot. Once in the field I scanned around with the bino’s but couldn’t see any sign of him so I moved up the margin & under another wire fence into a large wheat field that had been half cut.

There in front of me was a lovely ginger doe standing about 60 yards away so I slowly moved up the right hand margin keeping as close to the bushes as possible, there was no sign of the pricket anywhere. I kept moving up the field margin looking behind every now & then & another doe came out of the hedge & started feeding not 20 yards away. I crouched & waited for 10 minutes to see if there was a buck with them but nothing appeared. I crossed from this field back onto my original piece of land & decided to move over to the track & scan all the fields bordering it. As I did so I spotted a buck & doe standing in the far end of the field with the high seat in so I moved closer only to see a very good buck feeding off the edge of the track.

Decisions decisions, I decided to stalk the track feeding buck which had just moved into the field so I made my way slowly up to where he disappeared. He was feeding with a doe 30 yards in amongst some tall grass so I set up the sticks & made ready & was waiting for them to move out of the grass when bugger me a bloke on a rattley bike came over the brow & down the track. I stood there rifle ready on the sticks looking at him as he passed & through gritted teeth said, “hello lovely evening isn’t it” he looked at me like I was a piece of crap & cycled on without a word. Of course the buck had vanished so dejectedly I started back down the track only to see the other two still feeding in the high seat field, he hadn’t scared them off. :)

The only way into this field is by a gate near the seat so I moved down & climbed over as I didn’t want to spook them with clanking chains & padlocks etc. I moved up the field margin shielded by pretty tall grass as this field has been left to its own devices. Half way up is a small stack of round bales wrapped in blue plastic I managed to get behind these without being spotted & climbed up only to see the buck follow the doe through the wire into the wood. Oh well it’s not going to be my night I thought so I lit up a cigar & settled down deciding to giving it half an hour or so as it was nearly 8.00 o’clock & I hate having to grollach in the dark.

I kept peering over the bales to scan the field behind & to the left as I had a good view in front & to the right, about 15 minutes later there was a buck moving out of the wood & feeding slowly towards me. I dropped the legs on the bipod & lining up on him flicked off the safety he was standing not quite broadside on but it was a pretty good shot so I took it & heard the good thump of a hit & he dropped but immediately got up & started to slowly walk forward I had reloaded automatically so again placing the cross hairs just above & behind his front leg took another shot whereupon he dropped & lay still, I waited 5 minutes & paced out the distance to him which was 90 yards.

I could now see why he got up & moved off so soon, the first shot had entered above & behind his foreleg but as he was standing slightly askew the bullet had quartered through, missed the heart, gone through one lung & angling down had clipped the stomach. There was evidence of green around the exit wound so I was very careful with the grollach but luckily there was only a small amount of stomach contents around which washed out easily. I loaded him up & stopped at the pub for a celebratory pint, hung him over night & got up early Saturday, skinned him & he was at my friendly butcher by 8.30, pick him up Tuesday.

So it was an evening that started out so well, went downhill & then came good at the end & 8 is the most deer I’ve seen on one night to date. :D


The blue bales seen from the high seat
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Quite a nice head
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Chris
 
Chris,

What an eventful evening's stalk...

Nice write-up; I particularly liked the cigar strategy, although if you keep this up we will all be get a bit envious!

Neal
 
mallettn said:
Chris,

What an eventful evening's stalk...

Nice write-up; I particularly liked the cigar strategy, although if you keep this up we will all be get a bit envious!

Neal

Neal the "cigar strategy" is in its infancy but will hopefully work like the "make yourself a cup of coffee" fishing strategy which meant when you where about to take a sip you had a bite. :D

ATB
Chris
 
willie_gunn said:
Chris

Nice buck and great write-up.

Was the "bloke on a rattley bike" not in the cull plan then? ;)

willie_gunn

He was very nearly part of the rapidly updated cull plan I can tell you Dom. :evil: :D

ATB
Chris
 
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