How did everyone start or get into stalking?

goodaim

Member
Having probably come across as a arse in previous post I'm gunna slow it down a bit.....

how did everyone start to get involved in stalking? Mine was from I was 16 just started a chefs apprenticeship and the owners father of the buisness I worked for a deer stalker and noticed I enjoyed cooking game as venison so he offered to take me out taught me a little bit was the mentor of my liecence before he became ill so now at 23 having to start all over again. So people how did you guys get involved?
 
Moved to the new forest, where deer were a major problem on the dairy farm I worked, to see 100+ fallow in a field at night was no problem, they were the good old days, as we said "the quick and dead"
 
Been ferreting fishing etc since I could walk couple of keepers as family friends started shooting under supervision at about ten then started stalking at 18 I think had a great guy who was very knowledgeable to show me the ropes , still apparently experiance isn't what counts these days just bits of paper you can show off .....
 
Its been just over two years since I decided I'd like to have a serious go at getting into shooting and stalking, having been interested for a long while but having never had any relatives or contacts in the shooting "world".
I was very lucky to get a place on the SD bursary to do DSC1 and even luckier to get an invitation off a member to go out with him and try for my first deer (which was a fantastic day and ended in a successful shot at a munty).
I booked a couple of paid outings with a guide I could afford, and had another generous invitation from a different member who had helped me out with some stuff for my dog. (another great evening and a Roebuck shot, who's skull is now in my "man cave")
Applied for my FAC and bought a 270 off a member here. Bought a shotgun shortly afterwards.
More paid outings (and a fair few free returns to the same chap after blanking) and a couple of fallow shot. Brought home my first carcasses and taught myself from a book how to butcher them (badly!)
A couple of lessons at clay pigeons, I've booked my first small driven day for December with my first duck flight afterwards.
Recently bought a 22 and am in the early stages of maybe getting my own little bit of pest control.
Throughout all this I've met and dealt with a lot of members on the forum whilst buying, selling, booking stalks or just socially. Every one of the members I've met was helpful and friendly in the extreme, and as I've learnt a bit and garnered little bits of knowledge I've tried to be the same way. I've also had some free kit off generous people and kept up the spirit by passing it on or giving away other stuff when I've been able.

If you want to get started, I'd say your best bet is to pay for a few trips, it needn't cost the earth, and remember that you don't need much kit (even a rifle!) when you first start out. You'll soon be on the way and even if like me you can't get out as much as you might like or as locally as you'd like, you'll find that once you have a few bookings to look forward to it won't bother you so much!
 
Grew up in remoter parts of Africa. It was where meat came from.

Started shooting pigeons and guinea fowl from 8 (with air rifle, rather than shotgun), moved on to rabbits and small ungulates (dik dik, duiker, steenbok) at 10 or 11. 'Helped' my father and others on larger game hunts - including a few memorable occasions when my father had to do problem animal control hunts on elephants in farmland. Shot first plains game (springbok and gemsbok) at 15. Been involved in culling of various herd species on and off ever since.

When I moved to the UK, I was determined to find a way to carry on. Only took 15 years and a move to Scotland to finally get a small roe deer permission and start working up from there. Turns out roe and fallow are a hell of a lot tastier than most African game!
 
My family have been hunters for generations, both here in the UK and in Germany. So I was going out stalking with my father (and still do about once a week) from a very young age probably 5 or 6 years old. My father got me shooting with an air rifle at that age and quickly was able to hit most targets where I wanted to hit them. At the age of 7 I went out and shot my first ever animal, a small rabbit. I remember crawling across the ground after this thing until I was about 25 yards away, and using the open sites I shot it in the eye. After that I wanted to start using bigger rifles and ended up shooting my first yearling fallow doe when I was 10 years old with a 243 when I was abroad with the family. From then I regularly went out shooting and at the age of 15 I got my FAC with my father being my mentor. At 17 when I passed my driving test I got an open ticket and now at nearly 28 years old I'm still going out at least once a week and absolutely love it.
 
Progression from rabbit and fox control on local farms, Muntjac started to become more apparent and cause problems so was asked to keep numbers down. Wanting to do the right thing booked on DSC1 course etc and was soon hooked!!
 
Grouse beating on the Braes of Doune at 14 with peat haggs 12' deep and never in my life so glad to see a Land Rover waiting for us. That never put me off but my best mates dad had a farm in the days when nothing was out of season and everything went in the pot.
No ipads or playstations for Christmas then just a ferret in a box and half a dozen purse nets. Shotgun certificate from the PO and off i went.
 
Grew up with guns i the house, Grandad, Dad, uncles and cousins from my dad side, they all been into stalking/hunting.

Shot my first wild boar at the age of 12, with my dad's Bohler Rasant double rifle 9.3X74 R.
 
I started out shooting my dads air rifle in the back garden pretty much as soon as I was old enough to hold it!

Took up clay pigeon shooting when I was about 12-13 years old, and then target rifle shortly afterwards and ended up competing in national competitions while I was at school.

The target rifle got parked for a while when I went travelling and then lived in London but I started that back up about a year or so ago, though I always kept the clays going.

I'd been thinking about deer stalking for ages as I had a school master that did it but never really taken the leap. So I joined up here a few months ago and started learning as much as I could, asking questions and so on, and had a few PMs from other members here as well.

One of those PMs resulted in my recent weekend away with GAP180 (the write up is in the write ups forum here if you fancy a read!) which was brilliant - I had a cracking time and took my first two fallow bucks! Highly recommended! :)

I also managed to book some stalking with Malc (sikamalc, one of the site co-owners) for December and Feb next year, and now I'm looking to do my DSC1 early next year and will be getting my FAC application in the post shortly!

Once I have those two bits of paper sorted I'll start casting around for local permissions as well as keeping up with the paid excursions. It'd be great to have something local to be able to pop out for a morning but I had such a laugh doing a full weekend with other like minded lads that I wouldnt want to stop doing that side of it hehe!
 
All - or at least a key part thereof - will be reveled in my 5000th post!

You’ll have to go to the “link” though as simply too painful to upload on SD.

K
;)

 
Similarly to SimpleSimon, I come from a background where not one single person shot game, stalked deer, or even put any real effort into catching fish. What's more, I mostly grew up in central London where you're unlikely to stumble into these activities or anyone who has any knowledge of them. Indeed when I originally really started to research how to start shooting (pre-Internet days), I bought a copy of John Humphrey's book "Learning to Shoot". It had an entire chapter devoted to how to enter the sport with few or no means. The problem was that all the advice was about befriending local farmers, offering to do some beating and so on, which weren't really avenues that were open to me around Earl's Court. So I remained stumped for many years. No money, no contacts, no shooting...

I'd actually taken my first steps onto the slippery slope when one summer in Alsace, just before I turned four, and against all expectations or odds, I caught a wild trout in the stream at the back. The trout may have died but I'm the one who remained hooked on pursuing and catching my own food. What I suspect is an innate instinct that draws me to that sort of thing was also supplemented by one particular children's book: Pierre Bear by Patricia Scarry, wife of the more famous Richard. You see, Pierre doesn't only catch fish for his supper:

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He also hunts the Terrible Moose when his cupboard is bare:

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In the years following that, I fished whenever possible, but that wasn't often, so I supplemented it by reading about fishing. And increasingly, about hunting too, in all its' forms. At one point, my aunt bought me a subscription to "Le Chasseur Francais" which I still subcribe to now. My theoretical knowledge of hunting was tremendous for a young man with almost no experience whatsoever of the real thing.

At university, I joined the Rifle & Pistol Club, just in time to do a bit of pistol shooting before John Major put a stop to that. But that had never been my goal anyway: I had always meant to convince the university rifle club to branch out into clay pigeon shooting so that I could start practising for when the real thing finally came along. I play the long game, you see. So during my university years, I had time to learn to shoot a rifle, a shotgun (I bought my own as soon as I could) and more importantly for the first time I made a couple of friends who shot game, one on his family's small farm, one in a formal driven way. And so for the first time, I had a chance to do some game shooting thanks to them. This was perhaps once or twice a year, but I was finally in the game.

Opportunities vanished again with the end of university, but a few years later I joined the Kent Wildfowlers and I was back out learning some proper hunting, albeit unsuccessfully mostly, although I had some success stalking woodcock and rabbits in the woods during those years. In turn, that became impractical but towards the end of my 'fowling career, I started out on the path to deerstalking, just as a logical continuation of my journey. It started out with joining the SD and BSRC at the recommendation of Scrumbag, a trip out with Sikamalc, an invitation from a member of the SD, followed and little by little I built up contacts, experience, and even shot some deer once in a while. But I can honestly say that all of my stalking has originated from this site.

I could have really used something like this back when I started though!
 
My father was a small arms instructor in the forces so I was brought up around guns and was given my first air pistol at the grand old age of 4, I graduated to air rifles at 8 and shotguns by 12 and was granted my first f.a.c at 16 mainly for pistols but then also got my first .22.

I shot game and foxes for a few years and eventually 20 odd years ago had my first stalk-the bug bit hard and it has been a major feature of my life ever since .
 
Started the journey at 5 through air rifle hunting squirrels, corvids and rabbits until 14 when I was bought a s/s 20bore for game and pigeons. .22 rf and 7.62 Target rifle from 16. I was first taken stalking by my father at 17. Had a stalking hiatus for a few years after uni whilst working abroad. Restarted when moving back to Blighty and setting up home in Lincs about 4 years ago. I now spend as much time as possible shooting after giving up rugby and cricket due to reoccurring injuries which thankfully do not impact my shooting. I cover all bases for UK shooting with .22rf .22-250 and .308 plus a couple of shotguns and a 7.62 TR for competitive shooting. Thinking about doing some McQueens shooting a Diggle so saving for a suitable rifle. All this lead me to start reloading about 2 years ago which has developed into a real interest (or obsession as my wife would call it). It is highly addictive. ramble over :D
 
Air pistol then air rifles then was taken out by an open hill stalker. Still friends to this day and I owe him a dept I can never repay.
 
I started shooting as a very young child but got into stalking by a rather strage set of circumstances.
I started to get human rutting fever as you do and went looking, I found the right one in more ways than one.
She intraduced me to a family called Strutt, one of them being Patrica Strutt, who took me out stalking.
I ended up with what I consider one of the best Stalking and Driven game shooting apprenticeships one could have.
 
grew up in a small village by the sea, used to catch coalies with a hand line then got a fishing rod so it was onto cod, from about age 7, collected brown crab and lobsters at the low tides, from about age 9 used to snare rabbits, age 12 I got my 1st air rifle, age 14 1st shotgun and ferrets, progressed from there over the years. great believer in gathering food from the wild
 
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My mother shot, with the village miniature rifle club in the 1930s. My father shot game. After WWII as a syndicate member at Woburn and at Kedleston. Once a week during the season.

My first independent interest was fullbore rifle at school, and away from school at university and afterwards until the Tory Party's ban, centrefire pistol shooting holding an FAC since 1976 before, I think in fact, before I held a SGC.

Stalking for deer is a "come lately" interest only shooting my first deer in 1992, in Scotland, on the hill, "proper" stalking. It's probably the interest I would most easily cede. Except it is something I can share with my son.

Unlike centrefire pistol shooting. Thanks to the Tory Party. Just so we don't forget.

It's a lot of effort for some occasional venison. To say nothing of the wasted money on all the "toys". And as I hate driving the only stalking I do is "woodland" stalking. As Scotland is too much of a drive.
 
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