A lovely night of tracking... never said by anyone!
We had a 10hour stalking and highseat session in some Sussex woodland yesterday. Baking hot day and a nice cool breeze and chill as it cooled down towards sunset.
I hear a shot not far from my seat as my pal isn't far away in another seat. I send a whatsap message to see what has occured...as I have done this, i hear a massive rustling from bushes behind me, out pops a spritely Muntjac buck, full of beans..staring at me, as I star at him. Clearly full of adrenaline as he was spooked by the shot. Two mins pass, he runs behind my tree, I take this moment to take my safety off and peer around with the rifle to my left side. There he is. He runs and stops, runs and stops, about 60 yards away. He stops. I am on his heart and touch my trigger, in that split second, he moves forward to run again but its too late as I have taken my shot and my reaction time could not have been quicker than my 1.5lbs trigger! Its a diaphragm hit and hear that dreaded slop noice meaning he is stomach hit. He runs faster than any deer i've ever seen and doesnt stop.
The tracking begins...
Its twighlight by now and we are in a woodland full of unmanaged trees and bramble as well as hills, holes and a couple of streams.
There is no sign at the shot sight of anything, i didnt expect to find anything there from this kind of shot anyway. Using a combo of torch and thermal to look for heat and blood or gut or the animal itself. I find nothing. I call up my pal, turns out he got the muntjac doe, I said i needed help. He brought his thermal as well as the young pup he is training.
We search for 20mins but nothing. We walk a 100 yards down the woodland to a massive ditch and see heat, it is blobs of blood and its whole stomach! It managed to get up the big hill the other side of the ditch, up this big steep dirt hill. We then see tiny blobs of blood on grass and follow very closely with a torch, its now dark. Tiny blobs then nothing and then another large blob on a log. It takes a route down a well used run going down hill and forks off towards a fairly wide stream, there is blood just on the edge..so it must have gone in. We cross, another steep hill the other side, more blood, heavier. Takes us around a corner. Goes completely cold...nothing anywhere. We get worried as there is bramble too thick to negate 40 yards up this hill. 10 mins pass and we are on the verge of giving up but really dont want to. Nothing in the thermal either. Then we here rustling very close and the pup barks. I get the rifle (my .222) ready, we see a blob appear on the outskirts of the bramble about 10 yard from us, but it seems to be struggling. At this point I take a chance, hand my pal the rifle and get my knife out. There it is, the muntjac, still breathing and fully reactive but disabled. No stomach or intestine content left. I grab it with one had to hold it still and put the knife in where the neck and chest meet and pull out. It is dead within about 20 seconds. Hindsight i should have brought the revolver but the knife worked. He got 400 yards before stopping...
I tie him up and pull him the long way back but lifting him across the stream and any mud patches. Upon inspection the carcuss was not fit for consumption, which was a shame but as tired and disappointed as we were it could not be eaten, we were glad we humanely dispatched it and were proud we manged to track it ourselves off very little... if it wasnt for the thermal, we would have never have found the first piece of the puzzle but lights and our eyes took us all the way from there. Probably our longest and best track we have done off what was at points, very little and needing a trained eye. I don't seem to have much luck with Muntjac recently! As needed to track the last one.
I would have liked a shoulder mount and would have asked if someone i knew (from an FB group) was up for the job but this guy was old and heavily scarred and in moult, so skull will have to do. Heavy tick burden atm, never seen it this bad in my area.... took one off my arm before I was bitten.
Anyway, thank you for reading my story from yesterday evening. Moral of the story is, modern tech does have a place, so does a trained eye and a dog but most of all, teamwork.
We had a 10hour stalking and highseat session in some Sussex woodland yesterday. Baking hot day and a nice cool breeze and chill as it cooled down towards sunset.
I hear a shot not far from my seat as my pal isn't far away in another seat. I send a whatsap message to see what has occured...as I have done this, i hear a massive rustling from bushes behind me, out pops a spritely Muntjac buck, full of beans..staring at me, as I star at him. Clearly full of adrenaline as he was spooked by the shot. Two mins pass, he runs behind my tree, I take this moment to take my safety off and peer around with the rifle to my left side. There he is. He runs and stops, runs and stops, about 60 yards away. He stops. I am on his heart and touch my trigger, in that split second, he moves forward to run again but its too late as I have taken my shot and my reaction time could not have been quicker than my 1.5lbs trigger! Its a diaphragm hit and hear that dreaded slop noice meaning he is stomach hit. He runs faster than any deer i've ever seen and doesnt stop.
The tracking begins...
Its twighlight by now and we are in a woodland full of unmanaged trees and bramble as well as hills, holes and a couple of streams.
There is no sign at the shot sight of anything, i didnt expect to find anything there from this kind of shot anyway. Using a combo of torch and thermal to look for heat and blood or gut or the animal itself. I find nothing. I call up my pal, turns out he got the muntjac doe, I said i needed help. He brought his thermal as well as the young pup he is training.
We search for 20mins but nothing. We walk a 100 yards down the woodland to a massive ditch and see heat, it is blobs of blood and its whole stomach! It managed to get up the big hill the other side of the ditch, up this big steep dirt hill. We then see tiny blobs of blood on grass and follow very closely with a torch, its now dark. Tiny blobs then nothing and then another large blob on a log. It takes a route down a well used run going down hill and forks off towards a fairly wide stream, there is blood just on the edge..so it must have gone in. We cross, another steep hill the other side, more blood, heavier. Takes us around a corner. Goes completely cold...nothing anywhere. We get worried as there is bramble too thick to negate 40 yards up this hill. 10 mins pass and we are on the verge of giving up but really dont want to. Nothing in the thermal either. Then we here rustling very close and the pup barks. I get the rifle (my .222) ready, we see a blob appear on the outskirts of the bramble about 10 yard from us, but it seems to be struggling. At this point I take a chance, hand my pal the rifle and get my knife out. There it is, the muntjac, still breathing and fully reactive but disabled. No stomach or intestine content left. I grab it with one had to hold it still and put the knife in where the neck and chest meet and pull out. It is dead within about 20 seconds. Hindsight i should have brought the revolver but the knife worked. He got 400 yards before stopping...
I tie him up and pull him the long way back but lifting him across the stream and any mud patches. Upon inspection the carcuss was not fit for consumption, which was a shame but as tired and disappointed as we were it could not be eaten, we were glad we humanely dispatched it and were proud we manged to track it ourselves off very little... if it wasnt for the thermal, we would have never have found the first piece of the puzzle but lights and our eyes took us all the way from there. Probably our longest and best track we have done off what was at points, very little and needing a trained eye. I don't seem to have much luck with Muntjac recently! As needed to track the last one.
I would have liked a shoulder mount and would have asked if someone i knew (from an FB group) was up for the job but this guy was old and heavily scarred and in moult, so skull will have to do. Heavy tick burden atm, never seen it this bad in my area.... took one off my arm before I was bitten.
Anyway, thank you for reading my story from yesterday evening. Moral of the story is, modern tech does have a place, so does a trained eye and a dog but most of all, teamwork.
. You did very well to find it in the dark.
