To skin your squirrel,....... Use a 22.250
Sudbury Butchers window display
- Thread starter Monkey Spanker
- Start date
jimbo1984
Well-Known Member
I believe the dsc level 52 recommends 270 and up for squirrel
you answer your own question, time is money, why should you do it for free, because you care about deer, I don,t need a bit of paper to show commitment, I also don,t need to post pictures of deer I have shot or post right ups. But what I have done is take people off this site who have dsc1 or little stalking experience, stalking for FREE , taught them to skin and gralloch, remove deer the easy way, how to track deer in dense woodland, etc for FREE, yes time is money, but not everything, so where is your commitment to stalking.
So the man with a rifle for fox, boar etc don,t need testing ?
Good for them, shame they charge members for it then, stalking is not a industry but a hobby, If you have been stalking for yrs, and your mate still will not let you stalk without a bit of paper, I cannot comment on your suitability to hold a FAC
Pine Marten
Well-Known Member
Erm, assuming you mean something like "the Brotherhood of hunters of the Noble Squirrel", then I'd say "Confrérie des chasseurs du noble ecureuil".
I could shoot lots of them when I'm mucking around the woods, but I fear that letting of shots at them will ruin my chances of creeping up on proper game. For all the difference it makes though, i should probably just shoot some noble squirrels.
Thanks PM. I wasn’t fully awake on the train hence my less that erudite stab at it.
"Confrérie des Chasseurs du Noble Ecureuil" certainly has a ring about it!
Cheers
K
Taff, you are right, time is money but not everything! My commitment is I dont charge for any of my services and I support the BDS by doing the relevant qualifications call outs etc. Passing on the skills is important as is a benchmark for standards.
Perhaps if the "man with a rifle for fox, boar etc " were tested we might have less accidents?
jimbo1984
Well-Known Member
Ok fair enough but where does it end?? Ferreting safety certificate mouse trapping level 1 lamping level 2?? Yes there are accidents and theyre regrettable but I doubt a course would change that , you have to sit a driving test but it doesn't stop car accidents
atb Jim
Tackleberry270
Well-Known Member
Forget about stopping accidents, or putting people through the inconvenience of sitting a test. This is about public perception, the enforcement of the law, the health of the end consumer. It is also about our future and our role in the venison industry. The public don't care much about rabbits or mice and the boar/wild pig issue isn't big enough..... yet! The issue of deer and their management and its process into the food chain is a much bigger issue (not to mention it is what this forum and thread is about). Public opinion might be 'as fickle as the wind' but it is 'the public' who are voted as MPs and other government bodies/regulatory agencies that play a big part in legislation and enforcement of it. We need to do our part in helping better the system and modernise. Even if it costs something and you don't really agree 100% with the way its done.
Monkey Spanker
Well-Known Member
That's exactly what this thread is about mate!
Whether you get paid for culling or pay to cull matters not here. It's about what we can achieve as a collective, to gain and maintain that what we do is a necessary requirement which can result in a very desirable bi-product in the form of healthy venison. If it costs you a little to achieve it, then so what? At least you have done your bit.
MS
bewsher500
Well-Known Member
I have no wish to be part of the venison "industry"
The sooner we stop treating the native deer population the same way we have treated the national marine fisheries the better.
No amount of DSC2 qualified sporting stalkers will improve the hundreds of thousands of poorly shot carcases going through the national Approved GHE's. (seen them first hand)
Sporting stalkers don't even come close in numbers or production to the "big boys" in terms of what hits the Supermarket shelves
The current efforts are not a solution to a problem but a response to political pressure as revenues increase to a level where they become of interest.
How many cases of food poisoning do you hear about from game/venison etc compared to intensively reared meat and wholesale processing plants?
You would never eat chicken again if you saw the inside of any of the processing plants!!
Yet we freak is a bit of chewed grass gets on a freshly shot carcase or someone forgets his marigolds for the gralloch
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As a novice stalker I thought the DSC1 course was excellent but obviously I cannot say how I would have felt if I had already been stalking for years and years like some of you guys. I know I was lucky to be chosen as a burser but I was already saving up the money to do the course anyway and overall I think it is good value for what you get out of it. I learnt a massive amount and really enjoyed it. I met another fella on site last week who has actually been stalking for a few years and he is going to do it as he thought it was not bad value either. No pressure from anywhere and he doesn't need to, he just thinks he'll learn from it.
What I don't agree with is people being forced to do it by certain forces! I'll give you an example based on the course we did.
There were 11 of us on it with varying experience and reasons for being there. Mine you all know about.
2 young lads just out of university who do a bit of rabbit shooting and want to branch out into stalking. Neither had shot a CF rifle before, both decided to do it as an entry point into stalking, both passed without a hitch and one of them who I did my shooting test with shot a great group considering he'd never shot full bore before! Speaking to them they enjoyed it as I did and took loads away with them.
Onto another 2 fella's late 40's early 50's I'd guess, turned up in an L200 with gear strewn over the back and empty boxes of ammo and cases laying around from foxing the night before. One owned a good chunk of land that backed onto a golf course with Fallow by the dozens that he wanted to shoot. Being in the Met force they both were told they had to do the DSC1 before they would get deer conditioned on their certs, even though they had been shooting foxes with .243 etc for years! They struggled through the written stuff a bit and both failed the shooting test. They did the test just before me with the estate rifle moaning it was off, etc, which I used to punch a 2" group with into the deer silhouette. One of them didn't even pass the zero test!
Last chap had been stalking for decades in his late 50's I guess but I never found out why he was doing the course. Very interactive within the group in the classroom, knew a fair bit about deer but openly admitted learning a great deal through the course too. Turned up on the day of the shooting test with his own rifle, roe sack, sticks, the works!! But again he failed the shooting test, once with his own rifle, then with the estate rifle thinking his had been knocked off zero!!
On top of this there were another 2 chaps who failed the written assessment, but breezed the shooting test, so 5 out of the 11 failed and all these were experienced 'hunters/shooters'!!
Ask each of us in turn and I'd say that most of us on that course learnt a great deal, even the guys that were forced to do it. It does make me wonder though what they would have been like shooting those Fallow had the Met NOT made them do the course, assuming they have now passed the shooting test!!
I personally feel the DSC1 is a good thing but alas there will always be the minority that any kind of training will make no difference to one jot!!
Stratts
What I don't agree with is people being forced to do it by certain forces! I'll give you an example based on the course we did.
There were 11 of us on it with varying experience and reasons for being there. Mine you all know about.
2 young lads just out of university who do a bit of rabbit shooting and want to branch out into stalking. Neither had shot a CF rifle before, both decided to do it as an entry point into stalking, both passed without a hitch and one of them who I did my shooting test with shot a great group considering he'd never shot full bore before! Speaking to them they enjoyed it as I did and took loads away with them.
Onto another 2 fella's late 40's early 50's I'd guess, turned up in an L200 with gear strewn over the back and empty boxes of ammo and cases laying around from foxing the night before. One owned a good chunk of land that backed onto a golf course with Fallow by the dozens that he wanted to shoot. Being in the Met force they both were told they had to do the DSC1 before they would get deer conditioned on their certs, even though they had been shooting foxes with .243 etc for years! They struggled through the written stuff a bit and both failed the shooting test. They did the test just before me with the estate rifle moaning it was off, etc, which I used to punch a 2" group with into the deer silhouette. One of them didn't even pass the zero test!
Last chap had been stalking for decades in his late 50's I guess but I never found out why he was doing the course. Very interactive within the group in the classroom, knew a fair bit about deer but openly admitted learning a great deal through the course too. Turned up on the day of the shooting test with his own rifle, roe sack, sticks, the works!! But again he failed the shooting test, once with his own rifle, then with the estate rifle thinking his had been knocked off zero!!
On top of this there were another 2 chaps who failed the written assessment, but breezed the shooting test, so 5 out of the 11 failed and all these were experienced 'hunters/shooters'!!
Ask each of us in turn and I'd say that most of us on that course learnt a great deal, even the guys that were forced to do it. It does make me wonder though what they would have been like shooting those Fallow had the Met NOT made them do the course, assuming they have now passed the shooting test!!
I personally feel the DSC1 is a good thing but alas there will always be the minority that any kind of training will make no difference to one jot!!
Stratts
jimbo1984
Well-Known Member
I'm no part of the venison industry my deer get butchered and eaten by me avd given away to family and friends , I see your point about a desirable by product however how the way some talk it's as if everybody who ate venison before the level 1 was brought out must've surely died of food poisioning , I know a game dealer personally and asked if he thought these courses had improved carcasses and hygiene in them etc and his answer was no not at all and from what Ive seen I don't really think it has eitherThat's exactly what this thread is about mate!
Whether you get paid for culling or pay to cull matters not here. It's about what we can achieve as a collective, to gain and maintain that what we do is a necessary requirement which can result in a very desirable bi-product in the form of healthy venison. If it costs you a little to achieve it, then so what? At least you have done your bit.
MS
Monkey Spanker
Well-Known Member
That's fine, but what about the 4 non-native species which are the ones that are slowly but surely trashing our countryside? This isn't just about the Roe and the Reds in Scotland.
I would also disagree about the amount of bad carcasses. This mainly happens because of a lack of training or awareness of the stalker. DSC 2 can only be of benefit to this process. It is also the fault of the AGHE's who are willing to accept them! If the demand for bad carcasses isn't there, then the supply will also dry-up!
It is also a fact that some of the venison on our supermarket shelves comes from farmed deer abroad. If our own indiginous supply was better, maybe we could turn this around?
As a stalking community, it is far better than we make best effort to police ourselves than have others on the outside attempt to do it for us!???
MS
bewsher500
Well-Known Member
all of the 300 carcases I saw on one day were FC
all FC shooters are DSC2 qualified are they not?
DSC2 does not stop bad shooting, just means you can do it with a badge now
Monkey Spanker
Well-Known Member
I think you may be slightly out of touch with costs and timings?
I've just checked the BDS website:
The whole course is run over Fri/Sat/Sun and costs £275 so possibly only one day off work?
There is a cheaper option of assessment only which will be done on the weekend only. This costs £175 and includes the Ultimate Deer Data package which should be all the information required.
There is also a cheaper option of just assessment.
Hardly the cost of a family holiday?
Probably less than the cost of a paid stalk on small roe buck and keeping the carcass?
MS
Monkey Spanker
Well-Known Member
So are you claiming that the FC shot 300 deer in one day/(night?) and all of them badly?
Everyone will do the odd 'bad shot' if they shoot enough deer. However, a 'bad shot' with regards to the food chain can also still be a humane one! A full-on 'Texas Heart Shot' or full frontal can be two of the most humane shots possible, but not exactly good for carcasses intended for the food chain. The difference is in knowing what is acceptable and what isn't! Plenty of oblique humane chest shots result in clipping the rhumen. Is it a bad shot? Not if it is humane surely? Many agencies are under pressure to control deer numbers and whether the carcass is fit for human consumption is secondary to the task of numbers reduction. Where we are failing is with either ignorance or indifference as to what is acceptable.
MS
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