David Brown
Well-Known Member
I have followed, with very mixed feelings, some of the postsrelating to the use of various new deer locating gadgets that can be boughtnowadays. In my naive ignorance I even thought that some of the “imageenhancement computer screens in landrovers” posts must be tongue in cheek.However the other day I had a visitor who sat on my decking at the back doorwhile I fetched a dram who asked me on my return “How many deer do you see inyour re-stock out there.” I looked for a few moments with naked eye and had toadmit I could see none. “Well there are three. Look through this.” He handed me a small square monocular and lo, there in the bracken strewn thicket was three white ghostly shapes of deerquite easily seen against the grey background. It would have taken somepatience and skill to locate these deer with an ordinary set of binos. “ I never walk onto deer now since I boughtthese” , he said and admitted he hadn’t had the time to develop the spottingskills that make a good stalker. I knowthat folk have tried to stand against the relentless march of technology sincethe industrial revolution and the stalking world is no exception. My great grandfather, a head keeper on a hugeHighland estate, wrote an essay entitled “ Is this the end? “ of his experienceon witnessing a guest equipped with a magnum .303 fitted with a German WW1telescopic sight in 1922. It was the first time he had seen a scope as he had used a Martini action .455 with open sightsall his life. The power of the magnum rounds were such that they punched holes inthe metal stag target the estate had. Eventually, with lots of encouragementfrom the staff the guest “ walked backtill the bothy wall prevented further retreat and lay down to fire from adistance of 800 yards. After two shotsto work out the elevation corrections he hit the stag target with threeconsecutive shots. “ The old keeper wassaid to have been devastated and declared to his wife that this was sure tosignal the end of his profession as “folk fresh from the cities can now marchinto the glen with these new equipments and shoot stags from half a mile awayas any fool can get that distance from a stag during the rut.” His son ,mygrandfather, also resisted modernization. All papa’s deer were shot with asportized lee-enfield with army sights. During the hind cull he took 20 a weeknever shooting after 1 pm or on a Sunday. That must have taken skill. My fear is that in the rush to get deer,stalkers may be tempted to brush over the basics and resort to technology tohelp. Maybe I am no better as I would not be without scope, bipod and moderatornow. I will leave the last word to my great aunt who now has these old rifles,de-activated of course , as wall pieces. “ Yes Davie”, she said to me,”Yourpapa was a very skilled and hard-working man but remember, despite what theseclever dicks say , there were a lot more deer on the hills in those days. Atthis time of the year the hills sounded like a football crowd with roaring. Nowif you hear a few beasts at once it’s a miracle. That’s what you get for using all your fancygear.”
David
David