outstanding first fallow

A friend's first fallow buck.

The culmination of at least 6 attempts over 2 years, each ruined by some quirk of bad luck or bad judgement. But it all finally came together last Friday morning. Beautiful clear, warm late summer morning. Herd of big fallow spotted on hillside from the car. Half an hour of agonisingly slow crawling through an open field. Got to a fence line. Deer only 80 yards away. Painfully slow shifting of position to try to get a shot, but grass too thick to shoot through, fence too unstable to rest on. Sticks left 50 yards behind. Friend crawled back to get them. A single clink of sticks on stone, and the herd melted over the brow of the hill. Bitter disappointment. I stomped off to car to get my own sticks and make a plan. Stomping back with no attempt at stealth, look up to see herd back in field. Drop to floor. Inch forward on belly - so flat that cow pats and clumps of daisies seem like good cover. Get back to fence. No shot - deer skylined. Over next hour, inch desperately slowly to edge of field, and over fence into next field, then up the hill behind a low stone wall. Get to within 50 yards. Deer still skylined. Much further and wind will be full behind us. Edge inch by inch further up the slope behind the wall, constantly checking wind and shot angle. Finally get angle where lead deer has wall behind it. 30 yards from deer at most. The nearest are starting to twitch and look toward us. Friend shaking with excitment. Maneouvres rifle glacially slowly onto wall, narrowly avoiding strand of loose wire. Lead deer swings broadside for just a second. She took the shot, and he fell where he stood. One of the most exciting and rewarding stalks I've ever undertaken. About 2 hours of manoeuvering, never more than 100 metres from the herd, and for much of the time in full view. A stunning first beast. Shame about the asymmetric head!

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Absolutely brilliant - no way would I be able to keep that patient.
i get the jitters if I'm longer than 20minutes looking at a deer without firing a shot!!!
 
What a fantastic experience, thanks for sharing it! It doesn't matter that the head is asymmetric, it's all the more memorable for it.

They do mean he was very recognisable - he had the same asymmetry for at least 3 years, and I'd been trying to shoot him for the whole time. A canny old bugger.
 
Great write up and very impressive stalk, hearty congratulations and very well done!
 
That's a nice write-up, I enjoyed that.
I had a very similar stalk recently on a roe - I crawled so far up the ruts in a farm track I thought my knees would never recover. I got to a position with a good backstop and tried to get steady on the top wire of a fence but didn't feel stable enough for a shot. I then crawled further up the track in order to get a prone shot at a gate way but by that stage it was getting too dark. I left without taking a shot, but it was still a great stalk that I will remember vividly (and I got a different buck the next day anyway, so no-one had to go hungry! As for the buck that I didn't get that night - I know where he lives, he'll be there another day).
 
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