Hi Alled. No it was not a particularly long shot, but for inside a forest it was.
The friend that I had with me is the head Stalker for the Duke of Northumberland, and although a Scotchman, he had never shot a Sika Stag or a Red on the open hill. He spent a week as my guest, and stalked a massive area on the West Coast (see landscape photo section) and then halfway through the week we drove over to the east coast to my personal lease which is mostly Caledonian Forest and is about 8000 acres.
This particular stag I had seen 3 times in the previous season, but after the Stags were finished. One one occassion I crept up on him laying down, and on another occassion he wlaked right by us at about 50yds, but not in season. In 2006 I had a feeling he was still in the area, and I had already seen at least two others of similar size on my lease. You can see from the picture that he is well in rut, and I assumed he would be trying to hold the same area as the previous year.
On the evening in question it was warm and very little wind, and it is very difficult to stalk this ancient woodland without making a great deal of noise, plus the wind was very fickle. However my intention was to stalk to a certian spot where I though he might show, without bumping anyhting on the way.
Within 20 minutes of leaving my truck, we had stalked into an area that often produced deer, and as I stood quietly listening I could see a 6 point Sika walking through the forest straight towards us, I told my friend to take it as soon as it stopped, which it did at about 60yds, and his 308 steyr scout knocked it off its feet, and he had his first Sika Stag.
He thought that was it for the night, but my friend did not realise that I intended on letting him take this trophy animal. We dragged the 6 pointer to a spot and marked the tree, and then moved off to the area I was originally heading for.
The area looks across a large open area with an ancient Scotsh Pine growing laying down (Mr B has stood there
I had just set the sticks up and explained to my friend that if the deer show they normally come down off the bank to our left. We had only been there about 10 minutes when down the bank came this huge stag, trouble was he was about 130yds away and was not stopping. He did briefly stop and a hurried shot was taken. The stag did not react to the shot and I watched it through the bino's as it ran into the undergrowth/bracken in the distance, it never faltered.
I was convinced my friedn had hit the stag, and he agreed. We both made our way over to the area where the stag had stood, and for sometime could find no evidence of a strike. Then I found blood high up on some tall heather, bright red blood. Not a good sign, it usually indicates a high shot possibly back a bit and Liver.
We blood spoored for about 80yds and then finally lost all the sign. (oh for a dog, which I did not have at the time) After about 20 minutes of searching it started to look bad. The bracken in that area is chest high and the gound rises to about 150ft and is covered in dense trees and bracken. we met back at the final blood spoor that we could find, and my friend asked me what we should do.
Sika will nearly always run for the nearest cover every time they are wounded or hit. And they will as will most deer run with the wind on their nose or the edge of their nose. I decided to go with the wind on the dge of the nose route, and my friend followed directly into the wind. After about 10 minutes more he found the stag about 60yds further on behind a large rock dead. It was in fact shot exactly where I though it had been hit, high, back and liver.
That Stag had covered about 150 to 170 yds and had shown not the slightest sign of being hit when he shot, No lurch, no jump, no flinch .........nothing, typical bloody Sika, hard as nails.
We got back to the larder to find George a guide who works for me with an American client, and another 8 pointer which he had shot off the back of Heartbreak ridge, a very nice stag, but not as big as the one in the photo.