My first Roe Buck of the Season

I've a high seat on about three acres 10 minutes from my house. The land owner is plagued by Roe as the surrounding farmers are deer huggers. It's a difficult shoot though as there's only 2 safe lines of fire and you have to stalk across the whole shoot (about 100 yds) to get to the only high seat. It has a caravan site on two sides, a house on the other, and a field I'm not allowed to retrieve from on the other!

The cold weather has left me a little despondent with the shoot, as to avoid putting the deer off walking into this very small plot for a graze I find I've had to arrive 1hr+ before dawn and sit there dead still freezing my knackers off! I'd seen a couple crossing through (in front of the farm house!) but in 5 trips I'd had no safe shot, and only seen 2 deer.

Monday morning saw me me up the high seat an hour before first light and feeling pretty confident - I'd stalked up to the seat without disturbing any roosting birds or snapping twigs (the roe sometimes bed down in the borders), and the temperature was at the dizzy high of 7 degrees! The wind was in my face, I had a fox wonder under the high seat, pigeons roosting overhead - everything seemed happy with me there and I was very confident a deer would show at any moment. I peeped a few times with the buttolo, one set every twenty five minutes or so (figured it couldn't hurt)...

3 hours later I was busting for a pee and contemplating calling it a day! I had a final look round and suddenly noticed a white disc floating around inside one of the poly tunnels near the house. It turned out to be a roe bucks backside - he'd come in along the hedgerow next to the house and entered the polytunnel via a route I couldn't see until he was in there. Again I had no shot so I bit my finger and held my bladder for another 15 minutes, as I knew that there were 2 exits they were using and one of them would take him about 30 yds from my high seat. Fingers crossed (and legs!).

He appeared where I hoped he would but was obscured by trees so again had to bite my finger and stop my leg jiggling. I slowly moved so I was sitting on the footrest of the high seat as I wouldn't get a shot otherwise - he looked straight at me and I froze, after a bladder-straining few minutes he relaxed and began browsing again whilst working his way to the exit. He came clear of the tree branches so I let out a soft "pssst" to stop him... no response... "PSSSSST!" he stopped, slightly quartering, so I put one in his shoulder to exit the ribs on the other side. He dropped on the spot.

photo (41).JPG

The gralloch showed I'd destroyed the heard and lungs, and would even be able to use one of the shoulders.

That night I was called out to an RTA - another buck but this time in lousy condition and no enjoyment had other than ending suffering. 38 special to the head (this time with no problems!).
 
Back
Top