HAPPY TO BE ALIVE

WAYNE DAVIES

Distinguished Member
I've been out this stalking this morning and what a beautiful morning it is, it makes me appreciate how lucky I am to be fit and well enough to get out into the fields and enjoy the sport I love so much. :D :D
Out of bed at 3.00 am, down the M5 and up onto the top of the Cotswold's by 4.10am, spotted a Roebuck and after a good stalk shot him at about 4.30am a real old boy going back and blind in one eye. I gralloched him and continued around the farm seeing a Muntjac doe, two Roe does, one I was within 10 yards of, Hares, Rabbits and loads of Skylarks singing.
MAKES ME HAPPY TO BE ALIVE

WD
 
How very excellent!
At 3.00am this morning I was watching the Police trying to arrest a gang of battling drunks outside my house! I toyed with the idea of slipping down to the woods to watch the Muntjac, but mopped around thinking about the state of modern Britain! I will go tonight I think, park up in the farm, talk to its owner about the muntjac eating his Gladioli and slip silently into the cover of the hazel coppice and enter my primative state, my happiest state!
 
Wayne you realy are lucky to have summer stalking as most of ours is at the fallow(or the pigs) in the depths of winter but being someone whos into crisp winter mornings i still look forward to every oppertunity to be out.
We have been very lucky this year and have had the chance to shoot through the summer although we have let our lamping and rabbit control slip and must get into them soon........ happy stalking to all ;) ;)
 
Wayne said
MAKES ME HAPPY TO BE ALIVE
Could not agree with you more,l to was out sun morning on my patch at 4 am got into a buck almost strait away only problem was he was on a cover crop on the top of a hill got to within 50 yds of him but no safe shot was offered so unlike you l did not get a shot,but anyway it was so good to be out because as we know there is always something going on,in my travels that morning around the estate l found a buzzards nest saw a fox(to far for a shot) saw some fallow(this is roe ground but they do show up now and then)and saw a grass snake warming himself up in the morning sun,man it was good to be out and be a part of it all,its not all about shooting deer but when you do its a great bonus
 
I'm in the unfortunate position that I can still remember every deer that I have grassed. In other words I haven't shot enough to loose track!
I used to stalk on the Exbury Estate in the New Forest. A brilliant bit of ground. I remember one morning, stalking into a set a side field with a thick layer of mist all around us. I thought this is maddness how can we shoot safely in this. Out of nowhere a barn owl glided across the front of us and settled on a nearby fence post. We stopped and sat down not far from the owl. The stalker just moved his hand to signal that we would wait. Within 15 minutes the a cool breeze came in from the sea and the mist was slowly replaced by a beautiful warm sunny morning. What is more the mist disappearing revealed a handsome little 'Woodland Prince' some eighty yards away. Bang! the owl glided away and the Roe buck went down. We gralloched the deer and drunk luke warm tea out of an old tartan flask and walked back dragging the deer with a chorus of skylarks around us. satisfied with the stalk, eager for a hunters breakfast and overwhelmed by the beauty of the day unfolding before us. It doesn't get any better than that!
 
For me this is the hardest thing to explain to a non-stalker.

To experience the immeasurable pleasure of being out in a bluebell wood in May as the light breaks, looking for a buck but listening to the bird song and seeing the wildlife, often at very close range. Or maybe in a big wood in late September to mid October as the roaring of unseen red stags or groaning of the fallow bucks reverberates through the trees in a primaeval sort of atmosphere.

It really doesn't matter too much if you don't get a shot you see things that only a tiny percentage of the population ever see.

I've never got back in the car after a stalk, even on the most miserable of days, with anything other than the sheer joy of being alive and a deerstalker - we really are amongst the luckiest of people.
 
Some non-stalkers, or hunters as we say in my part of the world, do get it.

I don't hunt yet. That's a way down the road for me. Even though I don't hunt, I do understand the joy of being in the woods when it's quiet and just watching nature. I especially love the bird calls. I do some hikes around where I live, and I can hear so many different birds. It's really lovely.

GSG
 
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This photo is one of many that I take when out stalking, and it says so much about the morning
 
Fantastic picture. Reading this thread and looking at the picture has made me wish that I had Roe around me as well as Fallow. Why have the Roe rejected Kent?
I know it is only a matter of less than 2 months before the season starts again but it seems like an age! :(
 
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