I awoke groggily to my alarm at 4 am, trying to silence it quickly so as not to wake my sleeping wife beside me – I failed. I processed myself in a zombie state and was soon ready to depart with a cup of hot tea to hand. The trusty Landy was loaded the night before, except for the .243 Heym SR21 which went in with me, so I was all set.
Pulling up onto the side of a track bordering a woodland block about an hour before first light I tried to decamp from the car as quietly as possible. The forest is populated primarily by Sika but also Fallow. This was my third stalking trip with both previous excursions proving how elusive the Sika here are. There was always plenty of ground sign, but any deer sightings would be fleeting if at all.
My intention was to enter the wood perimeter and move inside before allowing my sight to adjust to the dark. Looking at what appeared to be an impregnable wall of trees in the dark made me worry about how ‘silent’ I would be able to traverse the obstacle. Surprisingly, I entered without a problem looking up to the sky to silhouette the trees to help identify a route through. Once inside I scanned the area around me using my Pulsar XQ50 hand held thermal scope. No heat sources were detected. I sat for a good twenty minutes allowing my vision to adjust to the gradually improving light. As is nearly all the case with this wood no wind was present making it a hard task to get close to any deer in here. You just know when it’s time to start the stalk, and so it was that instinctively I rose quietly to my feet and started a slow methodical process. I decided I wasn’t going to attempt a pre-determined route through the forest but rather stalk very slowly and as quietly as I could ever deeper into the relatively open wood around me. After every two or three steps I would scan the area with the TI using my right eye (being a left- hand shooter) whilst willing the scope to present the instantly recognisable bold white shape of a deer. An hour later, the initially twilight wood was beginning to become visibly light with the rising sun penetrating the canopy. I stopped for another scan and whilst leaning around a tree to my front the deer burst into view. I instantly sprang back into cover behind the tree. I was well [over] laden with a 30 litre day sac stuffed with an arsenal of gralloching and butchery tools on my back, a waist pack with a carefully selected set of deer calls, spare batteries for the TI scope, additional ammunition and a small piece of chamois leather to clear the rifle scope and binos of condensation and rain when needed, along with a set of Seeland stalking sticks in my right hand. My rifle was secured to my back using a 3HGR rifle sling. Leica Geovid HD-B 42s secured to my chest using an FHF Gear chest harness completed my load. As you can now imagine I was slightly disadvantaged to conduct a leopard crawl to a shooting position! As quickly and quietly as possible I removed all kit burdens until it was just me and the rifle. I crawled forward slowly until I was able to gain a line of sight onto the deer which I could now easily make out with the naked eye. The downside of course is that if I could see it, it could see me. I looked straight at the Sika hind as it returned my gaze from no more than 30 metres away. It was September, so a shot was off the cards anyway, but my heart still pumped. Then, as effortlessly as she had stood rigidly still she took flight and was gone in an instant. I lay still for a few minutes before scanning the area to confirm no other majestic beasts remained. I continued the stalk for a further hour, sighting two more deer but both were unapproachable and in unsafe shooting positions. I enjoyed watching them make their way however, oblivious to my presence nearby.
The wood was now bright making my movement difficult to conceal so I decided to return to the Landy and conduct a recce of the wider forestry block. The area is vast with some metalled roads traversing through it, all of which are gated to the local vehicle roads. The forest is worked for timber, so the multiple blocks are in different states of growth and harvest. My aim now was to look for other areas for first and last light stalks. One of the roads made its way uphill from where I joined it with a young plantation block of conifer trees standing about 3-foot-tall to my right and a mature dense block to my right. I followed the road to the top before turning around and taking up an over-watch position allowing me to scan much of the younger plantation. Although early it was now full daylight, but I continued to conduct the initial scan with the TI as it instantly identifies all warm-blooded animal life in view. I put the scope to my eye and instantly saw the bold shape of a deer head, then another. I dropped the TI and whilst searching the area with my naked eye I pulled the Geovids from the harness. I could see the head of the first deer above the young tree line and was then able to identify it as a Fallow spiker at a little over 100m. The second deer was a Fallow doe. I allowed the Landy to roll down the hill a little to a better shooting position. Pulling up quietly it was evident that the Spiker was watching me. I alighted from the vehicle as quietly as possible. My heart was again racing. As I made my way around to the passenger side as efficiently as possible I prayed the deer would stay put. Recovering the rifle from the passenger side I kept thinking I would clang the barrel on the chassis but somehow managed to grab the weapon, flick down the bipod legs and place on the bonnet of the Landy almost silently. I was constantly reminding myself that these deer need management so although a woodland walking stalk would have been much more rewarding I couldn’t shy away from the job in hand by using the vehicle as a shooting position.
With the rifle pointing naturally at the deer I raised the butt to my shoulder whilst simultaneously pushing the rifle forward on the bipod to lock the position. At the same time, I was taking up the sight picture with the cross hairs of the Victory V8 targeting the neck of the Spiker. Although it presented a smaller target I was confident of the shot at just short of 100m and with the elevated position the shot would be safe. I breathed out for the last time, held my breath and squeezed the trigger. The Spiker dropped from view. After a few seconds I stood erect and raised the binos to glass the area. I could see the doe leaping to the far side of the young plantation heading for taller denser woodland. Back at the area where the Spiker had been stood there was nothing. Either he was hunkering down or had been hit cleanly and dropped on the spot. I obviously hoped for the latter but until I could touch his eye I wouldn’t know. It was now that I realised that the plantation looked the same wherever you looked. I hadn’t tried to identify a marker on which to relocate the carcass prior to taking the shot. Thinking about my predicament as I locked the car and shouldered the rifle I determined to take a line towards the general area of where the deer had stood and then range back to the Landy using the in-built range finder in the binos. My logic was that once I was 85m away from the vehicle I must be near the deer. The plan worked much better than I expected as I was stood over the Spiker within a couple of minutes. However, recovering the weighty beast 85m back to the Defender wouldn’t be so easy. The recovery was made doubly difficult as I wanted to try out my new home made suspended gralloch rig mounted to my Landy meaning I had to drag the full weight of the deer across deep trenches, old tree stumps and through a pretty thick plantation of 3ft trees. This is one of those occasions where you realise that ‘thinking’ about the options isn’t going to put off the ‘inevitable’ brute force and effort required! I grasped the antlers and managed about 4-5 paces on each surge of effort before needing to rest and aggressively suck in the air similar to a mountaineer reaching the summit of a high peak gasping for oxygen. Over time, the distance to the road and Landy shortened until eventually I was within 20m. At this point I calculated I had enough rope in the Defender to tie it to a fully extended winch and reach the deer. As a result, I was able to winch the deer the remainder of the distance. With the deer now on the road I spied a quiet recess a little way away where I could reverse the Landy and conduct a suspended gralloch. With the new rig christened and the Spiker in the tub I headed home high on adrenaline and accomplishment.
The story doesn’t end here though. I butchered the deer the following day and loaded up the freezer. My parents were visiting the following week which is a pretty rare event. My mum isn’t a fan of blood sports even though she enjoys meat as much as the rest of us. She is however, happier with the distancing of the meat on her table and the animals from which it comes. As a result, my hunting obsession isn’t something we can discuss at any time! She’s no fool however and knew exactly where the two deer chops that were on her plate had come from. To my shock, and I’m sure to hers as well, she declared it was the most amazing meat she had ever tasted. From a lady in her late 70’s I can only take that as a compliment and some form of mild acceptance on her part that hunting isn’t about blood thirsty thugs wanting to kill wildlife for the sake of it. I didn’t however dare to push my luck and explain the damage the deer do to the forestry or how, without any natural predator, they would likely die of starvation once their teeth were worn out. I’ll save that for another day!
Pulling up onto the side of a track bordering a woodland block about an hour before first light I tried to decamp from the car as quietly as possible. The forest is populated primarily by Sika but also Fallow. This was my third stalking trip with both previous excursions proving how elusive the Sika here are. There was always plenty of ground sign, but any deer sightings would be fleeting if at all.
My intention was to enter the wood perimeter and move inside before allowing my sight to adjust to the dark. Looking at what appeared to be an impregnable wall of trees in the dark made me worry about how ‘silent’ I would be able to traverse the obstacle. Surprisingly, I entered without a problem looking up to the sky to silhouette the trees to help identify a route through. Once inside I scanned the area around me using my Pulsar XQ50 hand held thermal scope. No heat sources were detected. I sat for a good twenty minutes allowing my vision to adjust to the gradually improving light. As is nearly all the case with this wood no wind was present making it a hard task to get close to any deer in here. You just know when it’s time to start the stalk, and so it was that instinctively I rose quietly to my feet and started a slow methodical process. I decided I wasn’t going to attempt a pre-determined route through the forest but rather stalk very slowly and as quietly as I could ever deeper into the relatively open wood around me. After every two or three steps I would scan the area with the TI using my right eye (being a left- hand shooter) whilst willing the scope to present the instantly recognisable bold white shape of a deer. An hour later, the initially twilight wood was beginning to become visibly light with the rising sun penetrating the canopy. I stopped for another scan and whilst leaning around a tree to my front the deer burst into view. I instantly sprang back into cover behind the tree. I was well [over] laden with a 30 litre day sac stuffed with an arsenal of gralloching and butchery tools on my back, a waist pack with a carefully selected set of deer calls, spare batteries for the TI scope, additional ammunition and a small piece of chamois leather to clear the rifle scope and binos of condensation and rain when needed, along with a set of Seeland stalking sticks in my right hand. My rifle was secured to my back using a 3HGR rifle sling. Leica Geovid HD-B 42s secured to my chest using an FHF Gear chest harness completed my load. As you can now imagine I was slightly disadvantaged to conduct a leopard crawl to a shooting position! As quickly and quietly as possible I removed all kit burdens until it was just me and the rifle. I crawled forward slowly until I was able to gain a line of sight onto the deer which I could now easily make out with the naked eye. The downside of course is that if I could see it, it could see me. I looked straight at the Sika hind as it returned my gaze from no more than 30 metres away. It was September, so a shot was off the cards anyway, but my heart still pumped. Then, as effortlessly as she had stood rigidly still she took flight and was gone in an instant. I lay still for a few minutes before scanning the area to confirm no other majestic beasts remained. I continued the stalk for a further hour, sighting two more deer but both were unapproachable and in unsafe shooting positions. I enjoyed watching them make their way however, oblivious to my presence nearby.
The wood was now bright making my movement difficult to conceal so I decided to return to the Landy and conduct a recce of the wider forestry block. The area is vast with some metalled roads traversing through it, all of which are gated to the local vehicle roads. The forest is worked for timber, so the multiple blocks are in different states of growth and harvest. My aim now was to look for other areas for first and last light stalks. One of the roads made its way uphill from where I joined it with a young plantation block of conifer trees standing about 3-foot-tall to my right and a mature dense block to my right. I followed the road to the top before turning around and taking up an over-watch position allowing me to scan much of the younger plantation. Although early it was now full daylight, but I continued to conduct the initial scan with the TI as it instantly identifies all warm-blooded animal life in view. I put the scope to my eye and instantly saw the bold shape of a deer head, then another. I dropped the TI and whilst searching the area with my naked eye I pulled the Geovids from the harness. I could see the head of the first deer above the young tree line and was then able to identify it as a Fallow spiker at a little over 100m. The second deer was a Fallow doe. I allowed the Landy to roll down the hill a little to a better shooting position. Pulling up quietly it was evident that the Spiker was watching me. I alighted from the vehicle as quietly as possible. My heart was again racing. As I made my way around to the passenger side as efficiently as possible I prayed the deer would stay put. Recovering the rifle from the passenger side I kept thinking I would clang the barrel on the chassis but somehow managed to grab the weapon, flick down the bipod legs and place on the bonnet of the Landy almost silently. I was constantly reminding myself that these deer need management so although a woodland walking stalk would have been much more rewarding I couldn’t shy away from the job in hand by using the vehicle as a shooting position.
With the rifle pointing naturally at the deer I raised the butt to my shoulder whilst simultaneously pushing the rifle forward on the bipod to lock the position. At the same time, I was taking up the sight picture with the cross hairs of the Victory V8 targeting the neck of the Spiker. Although it presented a smaller target I was confident of the shot at just short of 100m and with the elevated position the shot would be safe. I breathed out for the last time, held my breath and squeezed the trigger. The Spiker dropped from view. After a few seconds I stood erect and raised the binos to glass the area. I could see the doe leaping to the far side of the young plantation heading for taller denser woodland. Back at the area where the Spiker had been stood there was nothing. Either he was hunkering down or had been hit cleanly and dropped on the spot. I obviously hoped for the latter but until I could touch his eye I wouldn’t know. It was now that I realised that the plantation looked the same wherever you looked. I hadn’t tried to identify a marker on which to relocate the carcass prior to taking the shot. Thinking about my predicament as I locked the car and shouldered the rifle I determined to take a line towards the general area of where the deer had stood and then range back to the Landy using the in-built range finder in the binos. My logic was that once I was 85m away from the vehicle I must be near the deer. The plan worked much better than I expected as I was stood over the Spiker within a couple of minutes. However, recovering the weighty beast 85m back to the Defender wouldn’t be so easy. The recovery was made doubly difficult as I wanted to try out my new home made suspended gralloch rig mounted to my Landy meaning I had to drag the full weight of the deer across deep trenches, old tree stumps and through a pretty thick plantation of 3ft trees. This is one of those occasions where you realise that ‘thinking’ about the options isn’t going to put off the ‘inevitable’ brute force and effort required! I grasped the antlers and managed about 4-5 paces on each surge of effort before needing to rest and aggressively suck in the air similar to a mountaineer reaching the summit of a high peak gasping for oxygen. Over time, the distance to the road and Landy shortened until eventually I was within 20m. At this point I calculated I had enough rope in the Defender to tie it to a fully extended winch and reach the deer. As a result, I was able to winch the deer the remainder of the distance. With the deer now on the road I spied a quiet recess a little way away where I could reverse the Landy and conduct a suspended gralloch. With the new rig christened and the Spiker in the tub I headed home high on adrenaline and accomplishment.
The story doesn’t end here though. I butchered the deer the following day and loaded up the freezer. My parents were visiting the following week which is a pretty rare event. My mum isn’t a fan of blood sports even though she enjoys meat as much as the rest of us. She is however, happier with the distancing of the meat on her table and the animals from which it comes. As a result, my hunting obsession isn’t something we can discuss at any time! She’s no fool however and knew exactly where the two deer chops that were on her plate had come from. To my shock, and I’m sure to hers as well, she declared it was the most amazing meat she had ever tasted. From a lady in her late 70’s I can only take that as a compliment and some form of mild acceptance on her part that hunting isn’t about blood thirsty thugs wanting to kill wildlife for the sake of it. I didn’t however dare to push my luck and explain the damage the deer do to the forestry or how, without any natural predator, they would likely die of starvation once their teeth were worn out. I’ll save that for another day!
