Write Ups

If you are still reading this drivel, well done for sticking with it - more than I would have done. Anyhoo. It was time to pack up the car and point it (metaphorically) South, after our week on Harris & Lewis You may recall my 'faux pas' in booking the 'inbound' overnight on Skye - well I had double checked it this time, and we were in for the journey home. If you are ever on Skye and you have a wife to try and keep - then the Skeabost House Hotel is worth a look. It is not cheap, and it seemed to be full of very loud Americans and 'high maintenance' guests from Asia. One young American (booking in just in front of us) did not want 'old furniture' in his room and so took the 'modern' option of the 'dog friendly' 'garden...

Well now. As a man who has never shot over Pointers before, that is not terrible advice; but I was rather hoping for something a wee bit more constructive. "Fair point", said my friend - before adding, "When the dog goes on Point, dress forward, and try and get 'down hill' of it". OK. That's a bit better. That makes sense. Let's see how we fare today then... It is Tuesday of our week up on Harris, and today we are supposed to be out after Grouse (and/or Snipe) over Pointers. The weather is so bad in the morning that any outing is scrubbed. The hills are covered in low cloud and visibility is atrocious. With the morning now freed up, I load the dogs and Mrs. S62 into the car, and head off the five or so miles to Hushinish beach. I...

While I'm not a huge fan of the modernized lever actions, Ruger/Marlin did a fine job of delivering on this new Dark model (the first of more models & calibers to come). Some new things like the nitride finish on the bolt and lever to reduce wear actually make for a smoother action. I especially like that they included their own muzzle brake on this model. Read more here.

I lost my deer friend this morning . Frayer (haris hawk) was quite a carecter , she was 19years old and one hell of a hunter , she was also an attraction to our farm , if anyone new turned up the first thing they would do is go and have a look at here . She will be missed by myself and my wife

"No darling. I am taking your Mum to Harris"... Booked a (feels like) lifetime ago, the kids misheard me, and assumed that I was finally taking their Mother on a 'proper' holiday. My bad. Not 'Paris' but 'Harris' - as in the Outer Hebrides - as in the end of the fcuking world. In the annual ritual, that requires me to replenish my soul, I needed to once again, head to the Highlands & Islands of Scotland. My long-suffering wife, had agreed to accompany me. We had also decided (mistake) to take two of the pack with us. We left the eldest ESS with family, as she is now quite frail and could not tolerate the journey. Had I known what lay ahead, I would have stayed behind with her... Amhuinnsidhe (pronounced "avin-suey") is a small...

Going stir crazy sitting at home recovering from Covid so decided on a ‘sit up’ in one of my favourite ladders yesterday afternoon - weather app said low risk of rain so off to the farm… parked in the yard & it chucked it down - not a good start but was there now so might as well give it a go, could always pack it in if it chucked it down again. Parked the Disco, set the sticks & loaded rifle over the shoulder to stalk in to the ladder, all good & sat up by 1500. Then the sky darkened & it was clear there was a ‘shower’ on the way… fortunately it wasn’t too heavy & didn’t last too long. As it blew over it left a beautiful sight. The gap between the two blocks of woodland at the end of the rainbow is exactly 200 yards from the...

Yesterday I had to go and pick something up in the afternoon for my sons nursery, it's was only 15 mins or so away from one of the farms and where I've been so busy recently the Mrs said, why don't you take the gun and pop into the farm on the way back to try for a deer. Well she didn't have to tell me twice. So with the car loaded I went to pick up the other thing, though it would only leave with me about 1hr - 2hrs till the end of legal shooting light i thought still worth a chance and its nice to be out. I didn't have high hopes as the rain on the way down was very heavy and the deer don't live on this farm but walk across/eat on it, though I suspected they would be either back in their cover or if I'm lucky working back across...

Well I had a great invite out on the reds off a good friend a couple weeks back now and he managed to get me on this lad. I would have like to see his size at the beginning of the rut. He was a modest 101kg dressed and on the hook. Lovely beast.

Some of you may remember me from a few years back. Specifically the catastrophic floods that i suffered just before Covid struck. After repairing the house the decision was taken to sell it and move to my wife’s motherland—-Ireland. 🙄 Well I am now fully embedded here and what can I say—-what a strange place it has turned out to be. I now live on the side of a mountain, have a couple of Air bnb’s and shoot deer when I’m not making beds. Bought myself some deer (Sika) (god they were hard to find) and pretty much became retired. So here are some pics of what Ireland has given me so far. There are more

First let me set the scene… If I fell in a pit of roses I’d come out smelling of s**t im that unlucky. Anyhow, after some conversation with Conor of here about stalking we initially agreed a date and time, and I head south to Ludlow. The weather to say the least was less than an ideal, blowing a gale and it had started to throw it down. Conor had made a plan to sit in a high seat and hopefully catch one nipping across the ride. One did not cross the ride but crossed to our left, there two mooching about in the undergrowth, however one decided to pop out and muxh to my frustration and conor unbelievable eye sight I for the life of me could not see it, it lived safely for at least another 45 minutes. We then stalked along where it had...

I have just returned from a fantastic trip after Red Stags at the end of the rut. Whilst this year has been quite quiet on the rut front, this trip was a real adventure!! Hopefully the link above works well for a short video - and yes, that was the weather had from when we arrived - never thought to pack sun tan cream……. Many thanks to Nial and Steve of West Highland Hunting for a truly professional and enjoyable trip. Depth of knowledge of the local topography and ecology were truly impressive, which added tremendously to the occasion.

I had to feed up at the the shoot and chose today (dodging the rain) and thought I would also check out my new loads as well. I took the old 30-06 with me, and went to my zero site and set up a target. My 110gr V-MAX did very well, then I tried my 125gr Nosler. I got an even tighter group with these, and just needed two clicks up to be smack on at 100 yards. Lovely. I set off to the woods a bit later on and when I was going down the farm track a crow sauntered over the hedge and landed in the field next to me. He was about a hundred yards out and, well, it would be rude not to ! I lent over the back and got the rifle out of the case. The crow did not like this and took off, but flew slowly and alighted about 200 yards from me...

So I’m at work on Monday, in a meeting with my manager and get a missed call from my cousin Leigh. He runs and keepers on a small local syndicate. I call him back after my meeting and have a chat with him. He tells me he has his first day coming up this Thursday and 5 of his guns can’t make it for whatever reason. There is usually 14 of them and they beat one stand one and have 6 drives in the day. He asks if I could get the day off work and come along and take one of the spare places. I’m up for it, I tell him, but I need to just run it past my manager. Luckily for me my boss is a shooting man himself, so he says no problem. We are in business. I call back my cousin and to say I will see you Thursday, but instead of me shooting can my...

On Saturday I thought I'd take my chance at one more buck to finish the season. On this occasion it was not any old buck, I was after something specific. An elderly, ex-shooter type chap who is a family friend had requested some antler to make a walking stick (I'll probably end up making said stick). So in my mind, a substantial 4 pointer to make a thumb stick. Nothing too thin and spindly - something to grab 'old of! I set off in the dark towards a couple of fields I thought might give me some options. Before light would allow identification, my trusty lurcher had me waiting for 40 minutes in a hedgerow after alerting me to 4 deer which were bedded down up wind of us, at about 150 yards. After waiting for a bit of day light and the...

My alarm rings out at 05.50, much earlier than I would like, but hey you need to make some sacrifices to get where you want to be in life. I grab a quick coffee whilst I get my gear together and hope the car isn't frozen up, thankfully it's not, perhaps I could have had an extra 15 mins in bed. Never mind I'm up now and plan to be on my parked near the permission at 07.00 a good hour befor sunrise. The permission looks to be a great spot, lots of prey with lots of good opportunities to get it, however it's adjacent to heavily a used footpath and a popular beach. I got the permission on the provision I would of course be absolutely safe and that I need to be as discreet as possible. Hence I can only shoot in winter as...

To set the scene. Early August my partner and I had been invited to a friends ground near Elgin, Northern Scotland, to try and get my first Red. We Travelled up from our home near Ponteland on the Friday afternoon and evening in my new to me 13 plate L200. This was a much needed upgrade from my nakkered old Terrano. All Was going well until we got to Perth and my car started throwing white smoke out of the exhaust. Cue recovery and a 3 hour delay until we were on our way again. Arriving at the Bothy close to 2300, my good lady not best impressed and myself shattered after 8 ours on the road including breakdown. We met with our friend and had a quick chat about where we were heading in the morning. I got my kit ready and had a few hours...

Back out helping my friend out in his wood the afternoon, we watched the lads hand making gates in the top end of the wood who told us a tree was over on one of the tracks, they had not been in the wood as their stock had been carted out yesterday. Not the best wind for the stalk but we give it a go, no muntjac but lots of tracks then fallow tracks start to show which is a good sign...! A gap in the trees gives a good view of one long edge of the wood and the thermal said something big a long way off. Bigger slots and a few smaller ones as well, edging down to the bottom 2 bigger deer deep in cover making their way to our left. Wind swirled like Ginger Rogers on the dance floor but you can't change that! At the next set of rides my...

After missing a fox straight out the car whilst setting up a walk up the plantation paid off. A group of muntys were chasing each other near the entrance stile . The .243 up on the sticks and down she went. Of course the others vanished into the brambles as only muntys can. A slow approach and tap with the sticks ,the ppu 100 gr did the job . Gralloch and inspection done a fruitless fox walk and off home ,Doe resting in the larder till morning.

With a break in the weather there was only one place to go..."Out" lots of sunshine this afternoon I pitched up on the corner of an emerging rape field so I could be on the move should something dare to step out. Out the corner of my eye a muntjac burst from cover closely followed by a smaller one, rifle is now pointing in the corner where many have fallen as I am sure a buck will be coming out. True to form he came out with not quite the speed the other 2 did which gave me the couple of seconds needed. I waited a good while but those 2 were long gone, big thick neck against a size 9 boot with stumps to match his neck. 30lb dressed so second heaviest I have shot.

So after crow shooting and foxing until gone midnight and then out before light for more crows I was a touch tired this afternoon. Mrs has COVID and was even less patient with my grumpy moaning so told me to go out! So I grabbed my Winchester and went to my fallow deer ground. When there I sat down comfy against an oak, drank coffee and fell asleep! Rudely awakened periodically by my dog wanting to chase the squirrels feeding on the maize stubble behind us. Eventually after a couple of hours it started to rain. About the same time as the rain starting the squirrels and pheasants were going nuts about something and I thought a fox was about so I stalked the treeline. Cresting a rise I spotted a fallow on the stubble feeding on maize...