A fabulous 48 hours

I was invited down to Dorset by a good friend of mine for a couple days and 4 outings on the deer. Stunning part of the world which I visited a lot in the past but only been out after the deer once. Our plan was to shoot Thursday evening, Friday morning and evening and again Saturday morning.

Got down there Thursday afternoon and headed off to a lovely little 200 acre valley with a big bowl at the end and a 10 acre wood in the bottom. Plenty of does and followers about but the bucks were a bit thin on the ground. Eventually spied the top of a head some 300 meters up the hill. Lots of dead ground required a 250 meter up hill crawl. Eventually got into 50 yds but there was still a little mound and lots of long grass in front of me. The wiley old bugger kept glancing my way and finally decided something wasn't quite right. Slipped off down the other side of the hedge and disappeared from view. I closed the gap to the hedge reasonably quickly and poked my head around to see if he was still about, just in time to see his arse disappear through the hedge 50 meters down. Switched back to the original side of the hedge and there he was staring at me, nose in the air. Winded. He was off.

Up early Friday morning to a different spot. Open arable land. Drove into the first field, about 200 acres of rolling ground that was all rape stubble. Out in the middle were two bucks. Slipped around to the other side of the field and found a number of does and followers on the way. Nothing pinged us and set off the alarms so when we got to the destination they were still there. I good crawl got me into 160 meters but that's as close as I dared get, with absolutely no cover. Nice little cull buck shot.

We moved on to another field and found 14 Roe on a barley stubble field which was right on top of the hill. No safe shot opportunity on any of them, all skylined. The plan we hatched was to put Michael in the high seat on the edge of the field and I would stalk round the other side to get opposite him. When I thought I was in about the right place I was to show myself and if luck was with us they would head his way, hopefully stopping for him to take a shot. Well I got myself into the right spot and was just about to walk out into the field when an older buck decided he was going to teach a youngster a lesson and chased him right at me. I was back to the hedge and put the rifle up on the sticks to see what happened. They stopped about 20 yds away from me. Safe shot at that point into the hill so I shot the older buck. The other 13 all stood around for a little while and then headed off for a hole in the hedge some 250 meters from the high seat, so poor Michael never got a shot off.

Friday night we found someone a bit further south who had one of the Sika hot spots. Instructions were to meet him in "The lay by with the public toilets in it", which all sounded a bit odd, but with knives, guns and the Viszla in the car we decided we were probably pretty safe. Peter met us at the allotted time and was thankfully dressed in stalking kit rather than a dirty old Mac. We had a great evening with him which included seeing six Sika Stags feeding on the grass verge next to the dual carriageway. Two of them huge 8 pointers, much bigger than anything I have ever shot in Scotland. Unfortunately we blanked that evening, the Sika coming out just a bit too late for us to get into the right spot with enough light to shoot. Next time I hope.

Up early again this morning and off to the first bit of ground again to see how a morning stalk went. As the sun came up on a chilly morning we could see from our spy point a buck in the stubble field about 500 meters away and a doe with two followers about 100 meters the other side of him. Plan was for Michael to shoot so we slipped down the hill covered by the shadow of the big hedge. Got half way down to find another doe with two followers blocking our path. We decided to sit it out and after a few minutes they started to make their way slowly upwind and cleared our path 15 minutes later. During this time the buck had joined the doe and followers and all 4 were slipping through the far hedge which was our boundary. Plan foiled. We decided to make our way over the far side anyway as the wind was better. Got over there and walked further into the valley toward the wood. Almost at the field corner and a good cull buck appeared at pace, rapidly followed by a much larger mature buck. The little one was chased in the right direction and they both disappeared the other side of some trees, still on our ground. We made haste to the corner and after spying round for a while saw the smaller buck in the bottom of the valley, about 150 meters away. We crawled in to about 90 meters but the grass was long and Michael couldn't get the rifle clear on the bipod. Tried the bipod on my pack and it still wasn't high enough so I went down on all 4's and the cull buck was shot off my back. Apparently I was an exceptionally stable platform.

A drag up the hill back to the car and we set off again into the bit of ground behind the wood that we hadn't burnt yet. There we found the mature buck grazing. A nice little stalk in to 100 meters in the shadow of the hedge and he was shot off sticks.

4 outings and 4 Roe Buck. A great couple of days. Thanks to Michael for sorting it out and inviting me down.
 
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