I sometimes deal with deer on an unusual fenced estate. There is nothing terribly unusual about a Georgian mansion with formal gardens, orchards and park land but to find one set in 35 acres well within the boundaries of a world heritage city is most unusual. It is by far the largest piece of privately owned land in the city and it is well fenced off and private. There is either a high wall or an 8 foot high deer fence round the whole perimeter but deer seem to get inside and I have long suspected that the Muntjac just crawl under the gate. Last winter, all Roe having been eliminated for the time being I told the land owner I would have a go at the Muntjac.
There were sheep in on the parkland. They were often appearing out of blackthorn thickets at odd moments and when they arrived, the muntjac stopped appearing in the open on my camera. So I thought to draw the Muntjac to a pheasant feeder at the edge of the gardens. I set the feeder up in December and aside from some very good squirrel shooting, it yielded nothing. A camera saw about a muntjac a week passing by and none stopped to even look at the feeder.
Come the end of February, I saw that the feeder was simply a huge vermin magnet. It was time to change tactics, the feeder had to go or I suspected I would become unpopular with the land owner, the gardener and the tenants of two near by houses that are part of the estate. So last week I sent a text suggesting to the landowner that I come and shoot the squirrels one more time, collect the feeder and take a look in the parkland if the sheep were gone. "Yes the sheep are gone" I was told.
I arrived at about 3.00 in the afternoon of a work day and had my usual good chat with the gardener. He said there were less squirrels since my last visit but that he had seen no muntjac for months. He is a very knowledgeable and observant man who is there 8 hours a day, five days a week, so it looked unlikely I would be seeing any muntjac. I sat down overlooking the feeder and gave myself an hour on the squirrels. One popped up about every ten minutes and I popped it off. When my hour was up, I put my 0.22lr away, collected the feeder, picked up the squirrels and stuffed them in a thicket full of badger holes. I was about to set out with my 0.308 when the tenant of the coach house came to ask what I was shooting and show me the particulars of a new house she was buying and so on. Having made the mistake of telling her I knew the house, its history and even its ghost stories, I then had to spend some time re-assuring her that the ghost in the stories was harmless and while the house was a complete re-working of 3 run down old tied cottages into a single period styled gentleman's house it was still a great bargain. This all took a little time and when I went back to collect my sticks, I saw two more squirrels on spilt grain where the feeder had been. I ran to the car, grabbed my 0.22, didn't wait to fit the moderator and ran back. One squirrel had the sense to scarper as I approached, the other did not. 7 squirrels was not a bad day in itself I reflected as I finally picked up the deer rifle.
This estate has a most curious little valley running through it. It shouldn't be there (or so one feels when one first practically trips into it) and for this reason it is called the Hidden Valley. This is muntjac heartland. In the middle of a curving hillside is a really quite steep sided little dry valley, just over 100 metres rim to rim filled a mixture of pasture and blackthorn scrub that should have been cleared long ago but which has taken a hold. The way the scrub is set in the valley relative to the vantage point from which one shoots, most shots here seem to end up being about 100 metres. The Hidden Valley's steep sides make a totally safe backstop in what is actually a surprisingly urban setting.
As I approached the Hidden Valley, I ran the thermal across what I could see. Immediately I saw 4 patches of light in the deepest blackthorn thicket. The thicket was dense even after the sheep had thoroughly cleared it out and the patches were nondescript and partially hidden. Some could have even just been squirrels but one was certainly larger. My first thought was "I hope those flipping sheep really have gone". While I know the thicket and its landmarks well and could spot exactly where the heat sources were, I could not actually get any part of an animal into my scope, so I pushed on to the rim of the valley. Here there is a nice teak bench next to some beehives. There is a cracking view of the valley, the green hills and the city below. I sat on the bench, arranged my sticks and took up the thermal. I could still only see blobs of light. Then one blob moved and began to look very deer like. It felt like ten minutes but it was probably less than half that time that I went from thermal to scope to thermal again trying to locate an animal. The cover was just too thick. Finally I saw the body but not the head and shoulders of a muntjac.
I am new to thermals. While I have learned what the lesson I need to learn about using thermals is, I have yet to master that lesson. This lesson is; just because, with the help of a thermal, you can eventually get what you could never have otherwise seen into your scope ,doesn't mean you should necessarily pull the trigger. Partially obscured targets and targets in very low light have a habit of exposing the limits of my brain's ability to put together a good shot. I think this is because the brain thinks in approximations, not hard facts. It receives hard data from the senses but its interpretations often involve a lot of sensible guess work. If the incoming data is very incomplete, the brain will happily fill out the gaps with its best guess. This best guess may not be the actual reality and one needs to learn when not to shoot when the data is too sketchy. You may actually be "seeing" something that is not quite reality.
I saw enough muntjac to take a heart shot and I shot at the heart. It didn't feel like a bad shot. Two muntjac exploded from the thicket and then melted back into its edges. I ran the thermal over the thicket edges and saw the 2 muntjac. It was easy to pick these characters out with the scope. They were not really in cover. They had had a scare and feared to be inside the thicket where the sonic crack had come from, yet also feared to be in the meadow when something bad was clearly afoot, so they were lurking on the thicket edges.
I swiftly shot the two muntjac, bang flop, bang flop. A fox then ran out of the thicket and I realised I had only loaded three rounds. I ripped my ammunition wallet from my pocket and chambered a cartridge but by then foxy was gone into deep cover. I went back to the thermal -two still Muntjac just where I had shot them and a moving blob of light near the site of the muntjac I had first shot at. No sign of a third dead one. I kept watching and sure enough the moving blob of light became a third Muntjac that I got into my scope as it was browsing. If I had shot at him, I had clean missed him and he was just surprisingly not bothered for a big mature buck who should have known better after hearing 3 shots. This time I had his head and shoulders clearly in view. I could just see a heart shot. Bang flop.
So as dusk came I found myself dragging three muntjac bucks out of a blackthorn thicket. The two that has tried to hide on the edge of the ticket were juveniles, the third was a fine old gent. He had a good spread of 10.5 cm and his antlers were surprisingly thick -4 cm circumference at mid tine length but they were a stubby 8.5 cm. I think he made about 50 points but his last year's antlers might have been another story, if only I had caught up with him then.
The land owner saw me getting a knife from my truck and asked how things had gone. He was so surprised that he walked back out with me to see the deer -perhaps to check that I was not making it up -after he and his staff had seen none for months. He took photos and called people to tell them.
I had a new head torch in my pocket, fresh out of the Amazon box that day … so fresh out of the box I had not had time to charge it. The light lasted for dealing with the first buck (when probably there was actually adequate ambient light anyway) but the remaining two were done in the twilight glow that is thrown by a city on a moonless night. For once I felt gratitude towards bright city lights -my fingers remained intact by the end.
As I drove home I could only reflect on what great luck I had enjoyed that day. 7 squirrels and 3 deer all given to me with very little effort on my part. Some lessons too. Another cautionary lesson about the thermal, a lesson about "when you see 4 possible targets, check that you have loaded at least 4 rounds" and a lesson to a habitual dawn stalker to make sure he has a charged head lamp on a night when the moon will not rise till late. Yet this time I had not paid anything for the lessons. It was simply one of those days that are a gift, one of those days you have to remember when you do everything right to the best of your ability and still come home tired and despondent with nothing.
There were sheep in on the parkland. They were often appearing out of blackthorn thickets at odd moments and when they arrived, the muntjac stopped appearing in the open on my camera. So I thought to draw the Muntjac to a pheasant feeder at the edge of the gardens. I set the feeder up in December and aside from some very good squirrel shooting, it yielded nothing. A camera saw about a muntjac a week passing by and none stopped to even look at the feeder.
Come the end of February, I saw that the feeder was simply a huge vermin magnet. It was time to change tactics, the feeder had to go or I suspected I would become unpopular with the land owner, the gardener and the tenants of two near by houses that are part of the estate. So last week I sent a text suggesting to the landowner that I come and shoot the squirrels one more time, collect the feeder and take a look in the parkland if the sheep were gone. "Yes the sheep are gone" I was told.
I arrived at about 3.00 in the afternoon of a work day and had my usual good chat with the gardener. He said there were less squirrels since my last visit but that he had seen no muntjac for months. He is a very knowledgeable and observant man who is there 8 hours a day, five days a week, so it looked unlikely I would be seeing any muntjac. I sat down overlooking the feeder and gave myself an hour on the squirrels. One popped up about every ten minutes and I popped it off. When my hour was up, I put my 0.22lr away, collected the feeder, picked up the squirrels and stuffed them in a thicket full of badger holes. I was about to set out with my 0.308 when the tenant of the coach house came to ask what I was shooting and show me the particulars of a new house she was buying and so on. Having made the mistake of telling her I knew the house, its history and even its ghost stories, I then had to spend some time re-assuring her that the ghost in the stories was harmless and while the house was a complete re-working of 3 run down old tied cottages into a single period styled gentleman's house it was still a great bargain. This all took a little time and when I went back to collect my sticks, I saw two more squirrels on spilt grain where the feeder had been. I ran to the car, grabbed my 0.22, didn't wait to fit the moderator and ran back. One squirrel had the sense to scarper as I approached, the other did not. 7 squirrels was not a bad day in itself I reflected as I finally picked up the deer rifle.
This estate has a most curious little valley running through it. It shouldn't be there (or so one feels when one first practically trips into it) and for this reason it is called the Hidden Valley. This is muntjac heartland. In the middle of a curving hillside is a really quite steep sided little dry valley, just over 100 metres rim to rim filled a mixture of pasture and blackthorn scrub that should have been cleared long ago but which has taken a hold. The way the scrub is set in the valley relative to the vantage point from which one shoots, most shots here seem to end up being about 100 metres. The Hidden Valley's steep sides make a totally safe backstop in what is actually a surprisingly urban setting.
As I approached the Hidden Valley, I ran the thermal across what I could see. Immediately I saw 4 patches of light in the deepest blackthorn thicket. The thicket was dense even after the sheep had thoroughly cleared it out and the patches were nondescript and partially hidden. Some could have even just been squirrels but one was certainly larger. My first thought was "I hope those flipping sheep really have gone". While I know the thicket and its landmarks well and could spot exactly where the heat sources were, I could not actually get any part of an animal into my scope, so I pushed on to the rim of the valley. Here there is a nice teak bench next to some beehives. There is a cracking view of the valley, the green hills and the city below. I sat on the bench, arranged my sticks and took up the thermal. I could still only see blobs of light. Then one blob moved and began to look very deer like. It felt like ten minutes but it was probably less than half that time that I went from thermal to scope to thermal again trying to locate an animal. The cover was just too thick. Finally I saw the body but not the head and shoulders of a muntjac.
I am new to thermals. While I have learned what the lesson I need to learn about using thermals is, I have yet to master that lesson. This lesson is; just because, with the help of a thermal, you can eventually get what you could never have otherwise seen into your scope ,doesn't mean you should necessarily pull the trigger. Partially obscured targets and targets in very low light have a habit of exposing the limits of my brain's ability to put together a good shot. I think this is because the brain thinks in approximations, not hard facts. It receives hard data from the senses but its interpretations often involve a lot of sensible guess work. If the incoming data is very incomplete, the brain will happily fill out the gaps with its best guess. This best guess may not be the actual reality and one needs to learn when not to shoot when the data is too sketchy. You may actually be "seeing" something that is not quite reality.
I saw enough muntjac to take a heart shot and I shot at the heart. It didn't feel like a bad shot. Two muntjac exploded from the thicket and then melted back into its edges. I ran the thermal over the thicket edges and saw the 2 muntjac. It was easy to pick these characters out with the scope. They were not really in cover. They had had a scare and feared to be inside the thicket where the sonic crack had come from, yet also feared to be in the meadow when something bad was clearly afoot, so they were lurking on the thicket edges.
I swiftly shot the two muntjac, bang flop, bang flop. A fox then ran out of the thicket and I realised I had only loaded three rounds. I ripped my ammunition wallet from my pocket and chambered a cartridge but by then foxy was gone into deep cover. I went back to the thermal -two still Muntjac just where I had shot them and a moving blob of light near the site of the muntjac I had first shot at. No sign of a third dead one. I kept watching and sure enough the moving blob of light became a third Muntjac that I got into my scope as it was browsing. If I had shot at him, I had clean missed him and he was just surprisingly not bothered for a big mature buck who should have known better after hearing 3 shots. This time I had his head and shoulders clearly in view. I could just see a heart shot. Bang flop.
So as dusk came I found myself dragging three muntjac bucks out of a blackthorn thicket. The two that has tried to hide on the edge of the ticket were juveniles, the third was a fine old gent. He had a good spread of 10.5 cm and his antlers were surprisingly thick -4 cm circumference at mid tine length but they were a stubby 8.5 cm. I think he made about 50 points but his last year's antlers might have been another story, if only I had caught up with him then.
The land owner saw me getting a knife from my truck and asked how things had gone. He was so surprised that he walked back out with me to see the deer -perhaps to check that I was not making it up -after he and his staff had seen none for months. He took photos and called people to tell them.
I had a new head torch in my pocket, fresh out of the Amazon box that day … so fresh out of the box I had not had time to charge it. The light lasted for dealing with the first buck (when probably there was actually adequate ambient light anyway) but the remaining two were done in the twilight glow that is thrown by a city on a moonless night. For once I felt gratitude towards bright city lights -my fingers remained intact by the end.
As I drove home I could only reflect on what great luck I had enjoyed that day. 7 squirrels and 3 deer all given to me with very little effort on my part. Some lessons too. Another cautionary lesson about the thermal, a lesson about "when you see 4 possible targets, check that you have loaded at least 4 rounds" and a lesson to a habitual dawn stalker to make sure he has a charged head lamp on a night when the moon will not rise till late. Yet this time I had not paid anything for the lessons. It was simply one of those days that are a gift, one of those days you have to remember when you do everything right to the best of your ability and still come home tired and despondent with nothing.
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