I was lucky to be offered sponsorship from the forum for my place on this DSC1 course, so first of all thanks for that.
I live in West Yorkshire, so travelled down to Port Talbot on the Friday and stayed at the L&A’s outdoor training centre accommodation in Goytre through to Sunday night. I had a chalet to myself, it was warm and comfortable with reasonable cooking facilities: fridge, hotplate, microwave and toaster. I’d taken some food but also went to a local supermarket in town for other stuff.
We met at 9.00 on the Saturday morning and the course started by 9.30. Adrian and Brian were there to ease things along and the course was delivered by Roger Jones, a very experienced stalker and trainer. The training room was a stone’s throw from my chalet but hadn’t been heated, so the electric heaters and wood burning stove were put into action.
The course commenced and continued with a very close look at the detail in the BDS Training Manual For Deer Stalkers which had been sent to me well before the course dates. We initially looked at the chapters detailing the different species of deer and their natural histories. This was followed up by a look at carcass handling and other issues to do with legislation and safe stalking. Throughout the training those points in the booklet that related to the questions in the data bank were highlighted and discussed. There was also lots of additional information, tales and anecdotes from Roger, and also Brian and Adrian who made a valued contribution to the overall experience. By the end of the Saturday we were already looking at the deer identification and the question banks in the back of the booklet.
Sunday morning brought a dusting of snow and a slightly warmer training room. We got underway promptly and spent the morning going over deer identification and the question banks. It was fairly hard going but Roger was keen to cover all possible assessment content and assessment was thorough. After lunch we took the opportunity to visit the range and see how that part of the assessment would be carried out. It gave those of us who would be shooting with ‘estate’ rifles the chance to make sure that they suited us. This turned out to be quite important in my case since I’m due to have cataract surgery next month and the first couple of rifles had scopes that I couldn’t get a decent sight picture with, more later.
We persevered into the early evening on Sunday with further quizzing on the question banks and deer ID. As I said earlier it was intensive and thorough, to the extent that I must have been hallucinating slightly by the time we finished, seeing spots on a muntjac.
Monday morning was straight to the range with the prospect of further practice and then the shooting and walk-around assessments. As mentioned previously I’d had problems with getting a good sight picture on two rifles already and it was fortunate that Roger had brought a third one with a scope that suited me. It meant that I was able to put three shots straight into the zeroing target with a group size just bigger than the nine-ring and a thumbs up from Mike Dickinson, the assessor, to move on to the deer silhouette. Two shots prone at 100 metres also got the thumbs up so we moved to 70 metres and I got the same result from a kneeling position. At 40 metres I could now see the shot placements, which looked central on the insert so I put two shots from a standing position on top of each other in the middle of the other four holes and got a final thumbs up. First of the five assessments done.
Next came the safety walk-around that I did with Brian and another candidate. That was straight forward apart from a twist at the end that caught me unawares. A little practical joke from Brian ended the second assessment.
Back in the training room we did the two multiple choice tests and the deer recognition test. Having gone through the question data banks there were no surprises, just a case of remembering the dates where relevant. I always hated history at school because I’m lousy with dates. The images used for the deer recognition were much better overall than the ones we’d used for practice and we had been told to expect this. The positive ID features for the species and gender were as clear as they could have been. For example, if tusks should have been there they were, no ambiguity.
That brought us to the end of the assessments and the end of the course. We said our goodbyes and went home.
I’d like to thank Brian and Adrian for setting up and running the course, Roger for his valued training and anecdotes, and also Mike for his very positive and encouraging approach to assessment.
As you know from previous posts we all passed, a tribute to the way in which the course was professionally delivered and assessed.
