It was the first warm sunny day of my German friends trip over towards the end of April. I had picked him up around 5pm and we had a quick drive around the shoot before deciding where to get out and stalk from. We passed down a narrow track and saw a group of Fallow led down out in the long grass which was only a few days away from being harvested for silage. The group consisted of around 30 deer, mostly does and young with a few of them being young bucks, there were also a couple of prickets there too. They had already made us and an approach would have been pointless but whilst looking we did spot a couple of Roe led down in the grass. I decided we should drive up out of sight and creep back down the field on the opposite side of the track. We duly did so and after 15 minutes we found ourselves hiding behind a stone wall observing five Roe now instead of two. A buck and two does had come over the brow of the hill and we're mooching down towards us. It was the buck I had hoped we would see. A strong heavy buck but who was short in the antler. A shot from where we were now was not possible with a road behind our target buck. I decided we should double back again and circle right around so as to be opposite our current spot, it would mean risking the wind a bit but it was our only chance of a safe shot. We crept around the boundary of a couple of fields, running into the original pair of Roe that the buck must have chased off and we also saw another small group of Fallow. We got to a small spinney overlooking our buck who by now was led down in the long grass about 240 yards out but still not in a safe spot. We waited for almost an hour before chancing our luck. I decided the only way we were going to get a shot was if he got up and went left handed, so in anticipation of this we snuck through the spinney and made ourselves ready. We had the sun behind us and the wind was coming in from about 4 o clock to our rear right. A pair of does got up and started feeding to our left, and after another 20 minutes he got up and began to follow the same path. He was around 160 yards now but still needed to come a further 50 or so to the left to be a safe shot. We waited and waited then he bloody laid down again! Fortunately it wasn't for long and he got up, moved left the required 50 yards and my guest took his shot at 152 yards. The bullet hit the top of the heart and the buck dropped in his tracks. A good thick head, if not a little short. A great 2 hours stalk and a lovely silver medal buck for my guest. I have what I belive to be his previous two years shed antlers from one side and it's nice to see a buck progress through those years to eventually make medal quality.
