Sika Speed Gralloch

Sometime you will need to do a super speedy Gralloch !
Last stag season i had three Reds down and had an accident ( requiring hospital treatment ) On the hill!
Was in what you might call a fix with one hand out the action my mate was fetching the argo nearer the location while i was administering first aid to myself . Tell you what the Lad aint slow normally but those three beasts when gralloched and winched onto the argo incredibly fast! Dropped the trailer / argo complete with deer phoned someone else to come sort them and made a high speed trip to the hospital, not a short journey !
Of course midges all over you once they smell the blood or a large number to do with light that's fading is going to mean the main reason for a fast bit of gralloching , just stay safe LOL !
 
😂😂 I can totally relate….was getting eaten last night by the horrible bastards as I was both shooting and gralloching…the worst are the ones in your ears as you are trying to concentrate on looking through the scope! 😂😂

I know he got some stick the last time but to me it was nonsense as he doesn’t do anything wrong in my opinion - it’s how most people do it!

You’ll get the “should have gloves, tie oesophagus, bury gralloch” comments but c’mon…🙄

Regards,
Gixer
Exactly, anyone who slags him off for not doing the above, has never faced a swarm of hungry Scottish midges!
Its like trying to gralloch, with your head shoved up a wasp nest, and trying to swatt midges with a knife in your hand, aint clever!!
 
Good film, useful if under midge attack….

May to September - upland areas of wales ( lake vrynwy has its own particularly vicious midge) and Scotland …… horrendous….. up near Oykel bridge late September last year, as soon as the wind dropped the midges came put, laughing at the lifesystems 50% deet spray….

While I gralloched a sika stag, I got bitten at least twenty times….to top it off a bloody massive mosquito also flew out of a nearby ditch and zapped me in the ankle….
 
It's been that bad in the Galloway hills that the Mrs couldn't shoot a nice buck due to so many midges in her eyes and up her snout. At the same time (sorted later with great dexterity) ticks nibbling her nether regions.😜
 
Self promotion...
but is it self promotion? I don't see how, he's not pumping a brand or trying to sell stalking. It just seems to me like an insight into what he does. His video just before this he posted elsewhere looks like the stalking that lead up the the cull of this deer and it's very good and talks honestly about looking after woodland and some of the difficulties of planting trees and fixing up towers etc
 
but is it self promotion? I don't see how, he's not pumping a brand or trying to sell stalking. It just seems to me like an insight into what he does. His video just before this he posted elsewhere looks like the stalking that lead up the the cull of this deer and it's very good and talks honestly about looking after woodland and some of the difficulties of planting trees and fixing up towers etc

^^this^^ 👍🏻
 
Actually I smoke a pipe when under the worst attack, wearing a deerstalker cap with the flaps tied down. And a thick layer of tweed protecting other regions. Old school I know, but still works, but not perfectly.

The most horrible place ever, well that would be Glentrool . Just had to abandon it after one day/night there, took a month to recover from egg sized lumps, GP even suggested I carry an epipen being so sensitised that another exposure might trigger something worse.

Keds, clegs, horseflies, well I can, sort of cope with them, horrible barstewards though they are, though at least they don't bring me out in lumps as just one midge can, nowadays.

On one estate I visited they had four "midge eaters" I think they were called, arranged around the immaculate lawns where we gathered of an evening. Apparently they had to be emptied every day, several kilos of the beasties every time.. I did suggest frying them up and eating them but that didn't seem to be a popular idea.
 
Actually I smoke a pipe when under the worst attack, wearing a deerstalker cap with the flaps tied down.

I eat this stuff most mornings - I 'love it'.


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When I am in the Highlands, I double-down on it.

Not sure if it is psychosomatic or not, but I always seem to suffer less than those around me who 'hate it'.
 
I eat this stuff most mornings - I 'love it'.


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When I am in the Highlands, I double-down on it.

Not sure if it is psychosomatic or not, but I always seem to suffer less than those around me who 'hate it'.
That's curious I too breakfast with two slices of toast, buttered. One with honey, or homemade jam first, followed by the marmite one.

Of course, the traditional midgie and even worse repellent, as is traditional amongst scandiwegians, is to munch on raw garlic. Much as I like garlic in cooking, perhaps excessively so, I'm not quite up for that. I live a lonely enough life as it is.
 
That's curious I too breakfast with two slices of toast, buttered. One with honey, or homemade jam first, followed by the marmite one.

Of course, the traditional midgie and even worse repellent, as is traditional amongst scandiwegians, is to munch on raw garlic. Much as I like garlic in cooking, perhaps excessively so, I'm not quite up for that. I live a lonely enough life as it is.
I haven't tried the ingested repellents as yet, I did however mange to lay hands on a couple of hanging veils/netting things. All that is required is to wear a hat with a brim, pull the netting thing over it and then tie it off over the collar of ones jacket. Brilliantly effective, I was out seeking foxes (unfortunately no volunteers) on Monday evening last, as soon as I felt the first midges congregating I deployed the veil. Could see the little charmers flitting about my head but despite their best efforts I was unbitten. The mesh is very fine and it didn't hinder my use either of the fox call or the bino's. I think they cost about a buck fifty at a local army/navy surplus store, amongst the best money I have ever spent. You must be able to get them in the UK, you've a vastly bigger market than we have. :)
 
I haven't tried the ingested repellents as yet, I did however mange to lay hands on a couple of hanging veils/netting things. All that is required is to wear a hat with a brim, pull the netting thing over it and then tie it off over the collar of ones jacket. Brilliantly effective, I was out seeking foxes (unfortunately no volunteers) on Monday evening last, as soon as I felt the first midges congregating I deployed the veil. Could see the little charmers flitting about my head but despite their best efforts I was unbitten. The mesh is very fine and it didn't hinder my use either of the fox call or the bino's. I think they cost about a buck fifty at a local army/navy surplus store, amongst the best money I have ever spent. You must be able to get them in the UK, you've a vastly bigger market than we have. :)
Indeed we do have all those things, including complete midge suits. I do have a useful hat with the netting sewn in to be drawn down and fastened around my shirt collar during the evening "midgeing hour" if I have to be out then, though usually I will try to be indoors. TBH the Irish midges are not anything like the Scottish ones, which are on a different scale completely and a few will always find their way inside whatever you are wearing., trapped inside and biting biting biting making the whole thing worse, if that's possible.

Might just have to give raw garlic a go, plus pipe smoke. I'm old enough now that being disgustingly smelly to others is more their problem than mine.

A GF did try slathering me with "Avon skin so soft" which supposedly in some miraculous way would work. Oh no it did not. I seem to be a midge magnet. Others much less so something to do with body chemistry. Did have another GF of Scottish descent, red headed, freckled, pale skin, burned as soon as the sun came out, could never develop a tan. She seemed to be totally immune to them, never bothered her in the slightest. But my she was feisty.
 
@Sharpie have a look at Hedgewitch Icaridin spray - used as a horse insect repellent, but I’ve found it very effective at preventing them from landing and biting on myself when stalking.

I spray both my clothes and my skin with it before I go out stalking in the summer.

Ben
 
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