Being a fred in a shed.

Crack on 👍

I’ve got better things to do with my time than spending my evenings and weekends standing in a cold butchery skinning and then cutting up venison that’s for certain.
Best advice I had was don’t turn a hobby into your job, you’ll find it hard to enjoy it once you’ve lost the ability to choose Shen you do it. It seems that’s what happened here, you’ve lost the love as you’ve done it as a job. So simply if you don’t need to do it because you have a job, stop doing it....
 
Best advice I had was don’t turn a hobby into your job, you’ll find it hard to enjoy it once you’ve lost the ability to choose Shen you do it. It seems that’s what happened here, you’ve lost the love as you’ve done it as a job. So simply if you don’t need to do it because you have a job, stop doing it....
The opposite is also proffered.
Do what you love for a living, you’ll never work a day in your life.
I suppose you have to choose which one better suits you.
 
£30 in Sussex for fallow including skinning. I think it’s nice to do the odd one yourself sometimes though. Takes ages, but great sense of achievement and certainly makes you appreciate the skills of a good butcher
 
The opposite is also proffered.
Do what you love for a living, you’ll never work a day in your life.
I suppose you have to choose which one better suits you.
Yep, also true!

For me, I enjoy my job, a lot. I enjoy my hobbies without the need to make it pay a wage. I recently took on some local red deer stalking, it does not need to pay for itself. I enjoy the stalking, I enjoy the opportunity to have red in the freezer to complement the standard fallow. If I or the landowner do not want the meat personally, the carcass price, in skin, covers my fuel.

There seem to be four camps: those that need to supplement their income by turning their hobbies in to incomes; those that don't need to supplement their income but like to make a fast buck; those that want to make this their main income; and finally those that stalk for the love of stalking and if it wipes it face, happy days!

The unpredictability of stalking (deer buggering off, losing ground, health etc) mean the first three camps often burn out, those just out there because of the love of it, with nothing to lose, are the lucky ones.
 
Yep, also true!

For me, I enjoy my job, a lot. I enjoy my hobbies without the need to make it pay a wage. I recently took on some local red deer stalking, it does not need to pay for itself. I enjoy the stalking, I enjoy the opportunity to have red in the freezer to complement the standard fallow. If I or the landowner do not want the meat personally, the carcass price, in skin, covers my fuel.

There seem to be four camps: those that need to supplement their income by turning their hobbies in to incomes; those that don't need to supplement their income but like to make a fast buck; those that want to make this their main income; and finally those that stalk for the love of stalking and if it wipes it face, happy days!

The unpredictability of stalking (deer buggering off, losing ground, health etc) mean the first three camps often burn out, those just out there because of the love of it, with nothing to lose, are the lucky ones.
Personally my shooting costs me money (just don’t tell the wife how much).
I shoot for my own pleasure, I enjoy reloading as a hobby in itself. It’s nice when you get a little something back financially. It gives me a little more unaccounted (from swmbo) cash to buy bullets, primers etc.

However that aside. I work for myself (or rather I have loads of bosses). I know that potentially at any waking hour I could be earning. I know what my charging out rate is and roughly my take home from that. So I can get a very good idea if loading my own ammunition for instance, how it compares with premium shop bought for price (it does reasonably).

But to be realistic about the value of doing something, you should compare it like for like.
Do you pay for the privilege of stalking your ground? Or have other expenses? Would you pay? How much per hour? It all has value.
At the very least the government has decided that your time is worth a minimum wage. So maybe factor that if nothing else in for your time.
 
Sounds like you need a break or a change of scene. Doesn't sound like you enjoy much about stalking from your posts.
Its not that i don’t enjoy the stalking at all, its shooting the reds i hate.

Probably going to shoot 30 or more this year, the most ever in the 15 years ive stalked that farm.

The red deer have become a job, not a hobby
 
Its not that i don’t enjoy the stalking at all, its shooting the reds i hate.

Probably going to shoot 30 or more this year, the most ever in the 15 years ive stalked that farm.

The red deer have become a job, not a hobby
Each to their own. I love the work involved in retrieving and butchering reds. The musky aroma in the car is the best.
 
I do find butchering reds is slow especially if I’m making sausage and so forth… I have the time though and it is satisfying and I’m quicker than I used to be. It’s a hobby for me anyway so no complaints.
 
I do find butchering reds is slow especially if I’m making sausage and so forth… I have the time though and it is satisfying and I’m quicker than I used to be. It’s a hobby for me anyway so no complaints.
It’s fine when you’re shooting one or two reds a month something like that, I’m shooting 6 to 10 a month give or take a few so forgive me if it becomes a tad of a chore
 
The musky aroma in the car is the best.
Went for an unarmed walk to the woods last week with my wife, walking around the edge I said to her 'I can smell reds', her reply was 'I just thought it was you after you have shot a stag', with that 7 stags appeared!
They do have a certain aroma.

To those who process reds, I take my hat off to you, I shot a red stag once on the eve of movement restrictions because of foot and mouth, the farmer and I had no option but to butcher it, she said never again.
Since then I have done a hind, took me 7 hours, never again:lol:
 
£30 in Sussex for fallow including skinning. I think it’s nice to do the odd one yourself sometimes though. Takes ages, but great sense of achievement and certainly makes you appreciate the skills of a good butcher
What do you get for your £30? If someone asked me to do a roe for that, let alone a fallow, they'd be told to find some other mug avenue
 
4 legs and back straps ,vacced of course .
Just very basic breakdown then? that's fair enough. I bone out the shoulders, dice one, net the other for roasting, take off the hocks, seam the haunches and either net them as roasts, or turn them into steaks and/or mince and dice. The loins are taken off in one piece, then trimmed and cut into three sections each. Trimmings are kept back as a perk of the job and go for my own sausages. Everything is vac-packed too. Mates rates are £45 a roe, or £65 otherwise, with sausage and burger being extra depending on quantities
 
I’ve just finished the last red haunch, and given it to a mate of mine.

Thank christ for that!

Probably fill the larder with reds again this weekend 🙈😂👍

Thank god the season is nearly over, clean down forget about them for a few months and then do it all over again!
 
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