The big drive north started last Friday, a 631 mile haul up to Sutherland. Car loaded with guns, dog, more kit than you could jump over. 5 couples made the journey and most made it that Friday. In the last 8 miles up the forestry track, when the phone loses signal and stops pinging at me, I can feel myself starting to relax and thoughts of work get replaced by thinking of the week ahead. The unwind never takes long.
Kit was prepared on saturday morning, a spot of lunch with the ladies at a very nice restaurant called Peets in Lochinver, and back at 1630. I thought I would pop up the hill and watch the wood with a couple of the guys for Sika and we got into a good spying position by 1730. The calling started at about 1800 but nothing was about our side of the glen. At around 1830 we saw a stag crossing a clearing on the other side of the river so two of us got our feet wet and got ourselves into a good position at the edge of the clearing with back to a tree at about 1900.
Three screams on the caller and within 30 seconds two stags came charging in together, a 6 pointer leading the way followed by an old 8 pointer 20 yards behind. Odd. I have often seen an older stag with a young "attendant" but never one that big, and never the main aggressor. Anyway, I stopped the younger one at about 20 meters by flicking the safety catch off and dropped him with a neck shot. The old boy exited stage left and at about 60 meters I made the Sika hind "Meee" noise and he stopped in his tracks and turned broadside. A quite extraordinary right and left Sika Stag within about 10 seconds.
Shaking like a leaf I had to take a moment, my mate sitting behind me babbling like an excited 5 year old as he had never seen a Sika come into the call before let alone two of them. What an experience. Then came the issue of extraction. I hadn't banked on two of them. By the time I had gralloched the pair it was almost dark so we decided to hang them from a tree for the night and come back in the morning. It was tough enough to get ourselves back through the river and back up the hill in one piece without trying to drag two stags behind us.
Sunday morning we extracted the pair by coming in from the other direction with the argo. Neither had been touched so the plan worked. Back at the larder and the 6 pointer weighed in at 120 Lb's, the old boy at 105 Lbs. The largest I had shot there before was an 8 pointer 2 years ago at 110 Lbs so the 6 pointer was a big boy. I have never seen so much fat on a beast, something that also played out with the reds we shot later in the week.
The rest of Sunday was spent zeroing guns and pinging hardox gongs out to 300 meters just to make sure we were all on form. A great fun afternoon with everyone learning something about their rifle, holdover and wind.
Did I mention wind? And rain? More about that in the next instalment.
Kit was prepared on saturday morning, a spot of lunch with the ladies at a very nice restaurant called Peets in Lochinver, and back at 1630. I thought I would pop up the hill and watch the wood with a couple of the guys for Sika and we got into a good spying position by 1730. The calling started at about 1800 but nothing was about our side of the glen. At around 1830 we saw a stag crossing a clearing on the other side of the river so two of us got our feet wet and got ourselves into a good position at the edge of the clearing with back to a tree at about 1900.
Three screams on the caller and within 30 seconds two stags came charging in together, a 6 pointer leading the way followed by an old 8 pointer 20 yards behind. Odd. I have often seen an older stag with a young "attendant" but never one that big, and never the main aggressor. Anyway, I stopped the younger one at about 20 meters by flicking the safety catch off and dropped him with a neck shot. The old boy exited stage left and at about 60 meters I made the Sika hind "Meee" noise and he stopped in his tracks and turned broadside. A quite extraordinary right and left Sika Stag within about 10 seconds.
Shaking like a leaf I had to take a moment, my mate sitting behind me babbling like an excited 5 year old as he had never seen a Sika come into the call before let alone two of them. What an experience. Then came the issue of extraction. I hadn't banked on two of them. By the time I had gralloched the pair it was almost dark so we decided to hang them from a tree for the night and come back in the morning. It was tough enough to get ourselves back through the river and back up the hill in one piece without trying to drag two stags behind us.
Sunday morning we extracted the pair by coming in from the other direction with the argo. Neither had been touched so the plan worked. Back at the larder and the 6 pointer weighed in at 120 Lb's, the old boy at 105 Lbs. The largest I had shot there before was an 8 pointer 2 years ago at 110 Lbs so the 6 pointer was a big boy. I have never seen so much fat on a beast, something that also played out with the reds we shot later in the week.
The rest of Sunday was spent zeroing guns and pinging hardox gongs out to 300 meters just to make sure we were all on form. A great fun afternoon with everyone learning something about their rifle, holdover and wind.
Did I mention wind? And rain? More about that in the next instalment.