Back in January, a friend’s father kindly said that if I built a high seat for their fields, I could shoot the roe at my leisure. It’s a 40-50 acre patch of river meadows. Dead flat and therefore essential that any shooting is from an elevated position.
I busily set to and built a free standing seat nestled in front of a big oak tree, with a fallen but still live bough in front for cover, giving me safe shooting out to the front and round to the side with my back to the boundary.
Unfortunately, some big exams, a house move and a rifle locked down in a different county conspired against me to delay my inaugural trip until last night.
With a sandwich in a pocket, I arrived at 1830 and got myself comfy. I completely neglected to think about the length of the grass (they cut their silage very late).
After an hour or so, the roe started to move. However, they were barely visible in the long grass, akin to sharks fins sticking out of the water. There were two bucks (and 5 does) within 150 yards of the seat, one older with a bad limp and the other younger and in good health. I wanted to shoot the older buck. I watched him closely, limping through the grass. He was making good progress, however, and broke into a run when spooked. The grass was too long to get a clear chest shot and at 150ish yards, I wasn’t going to risk the high neck shot that presented itself. He disappeared over the ditch and onto the next grass field. I lost sight of him but then was pretty convinced I could see his antlers and an ear twitching in the top of the grass. Or was it just seed heads on the meadow grass? Who knows, but I spent at least an hour trying to decide. Maybe a thermal would be useful?
As the sun started to dip, the field lit up with a golden glow, the deer started to move again. The young buck was not more than 30 yards behind me, over the boundary and a young Doe came within a similar distance out to the front, snuffing the air and bobbing her head wondering what on earth No shot to be had, but absolutely brilliant to just sit and watch their goings on. I had a token squeak for a fox - little chance of seeing one with the grass so long but worth it on the off chance that one appeared in the odd flat patch. Having set myself a 2145 curfew so that I wasn’t too late home, I climbed down from the seat, content that there wasn’t any hard work to do and that I’d had a lovely, exciting evening just watching and listening. I’ll be back in due course to try and catch up with that old buck.
I busily set to and built a free standing seat nestled in front of a big oak tree, with a fallen but still live bough in front for cover, giving me safe shooting out to the front and round to the side with my back to the boundary.
Unfortunately, some big exams, a house move and a rifle locked down in a different county conspired against me to delay my inaugural trip until last night.
With a sandwich in a pocket, I arrived at 1830 and got myself comfy. I completely neglected to think about the length of the grass (they cut their silage very late).
After an hour or so, the roe started to move. However, they were barely visible in the long grass, akin to sharks fins sticking out of the water. There were two bucks (and 5 does) within 150 yards of the seat, one older with a bad limp and the other younger and in good health. I wanted to shoot the older buck. I watched him closely, limping through the grass. He was making good progress, however, and broke into a run when spooked. The grass was too long to get a clear chest shot and at 150ish yards, I wasn’t going to risk the high neck shot that presented itself. He disappeared over the ditch and onto the next grass field. I lost sight of him but then was pretty convinced I could see his antlers and an ear twitching in the top of the grass. Or was it just seed heads on the meadow grass? Who knows, but I spent at least an hour trying to decide. Maybe a thermal would be useful?
As the sun started to dip, the field lit up with a golden glow, the deer started to move again. The young buck was not more than 30 yards behind me, over the boundary and a young Doe came within a similar distance out to the front, snuffing the air and bobbing her head wondering what on earth No shot to be had, but absolutely brilliant to just sit and watch their goings on. I had a token squeak for a fox - little chance of seeing one with the grass so long but worth it on the off chance that one appeared in the odd flat patch. Having set myself a 2145 curfew so that I wasn’t too late home, I climbed down from the seat, content that there wasn’t any hard work to do and that I’d had a lovely, exciting evening just watching and listening. I’ll be back in due course to try and catch up with that old buck.