A bit late in posting this but been a bit busy!
My lovely wife booked me a stalk with Jason for my christmas present, which was arranged for the morning of 3rd January.
Arrived at Jasons place as arranged at 0715, just about getting light at this stage and I was feeling very excited. My wife had said that I was to feel free to shoot the best deer that I saw and she would pick up the tab! At this point I was full of nervous excitement as I knew from my previous 2 trips to stalk with Jason that his ground hold loads of deer.
After a short drive to one of the areas Jason manages the munties on we parked up and made ready. It light by this point.
We were parked at the top of a hill with a wood to our right and ground sloping off to our front and left. As we moved off with the wood to our right almost immediately jason spied 2 munties quite far off to our left hand side, we spied them for a while with the bins and decided that it was a doe and buck and well worth trying to get close enough to make a shot. Unfortunately we were in full view so had to move slowly down the hill until we could come at them from round the back of a small copse, by the time we did this they had disappeared (oh well only about 20 mins in to the stalk).
We then moved on through a small wooded area and down another slope to an area that was like a corridor between a very big patch of overgrown brambles etc and a hedge/ditch. The clear area between these 2 obstacles was about 20 yards wide, as we started to move down the corridor we saw a movement ahead so froze. It turned out to be a small Munty buck and as it moved across to the ditch it became apparent that there was another small munty with it. Jason signalled that these were too small to take, so we were stuck for a while watching them go about their business. After a bit of foraging and running about and even a bit of head butting and play together they looked as if they would move off and we would be safe to continue without spooking them. At this point a quite large Buck broke cover from the brambles about 20 feet from where we were standing, unfortunately he saw us as soon as he came out and ran.
We then stalked on down the corridor and saw nothing else, so Jason suggested we try a small wood at the other end of this piece of land. He mentioned as we were walking towards it that he had never stalked this particular wood as he always seemed to get something before he reached it, I thought that this was a good plan and the wood looked to only be about half a mile away at the most.
We slowly made our way in the direction of the wood, pausing at likely places but making good progress. About half of the way there, on a farm track we saw a munty on the verge. After a quick spy through the binos it was clear that it was a doe, but I was happy to take it anyway (bird in the hand etc...), it was in an unsafe position where it was, as there is a farm cottage at the end of the track so we had a tense few minutes waiting and hoping it would move to the other side of the track. Eventually it ran across the track and disappeared into the bushes there, I thought that that was game over but as we waited to see what would happen we saw it poke its head out of the bushes. The rifle was already up on the sticks and it only took a couple of seconds to get the scope on the doe, but had to wait as it slowly exited the bushes. The doe was quartering towards us moving from left to right at about 70 yards distance, so as it moved clear I placed the crosshair just in front of its right shoulder and squeezed.
The doe went down without a twitch and after waiting a couple of minutes we approached it and made sure it had expired.
The shot had hit where I had aimed, so I was happy with this, entry at the front of the right shoulder and exit at the rear of the ribcage on the left hand side. Jason did the gralloch and the shot had completely destroyed both of its lungs.
So for 3 visits to Jason that's a total of 3 Munties culled!
I'll definitely be back!
the locals in the pub welcomed us like we were locals. Saturday afternoon stalk we swooped around and I went with Mike and we walked miles. Again the amount of deer was incredible but never had any luck could have shot a few does but I wanted bucks. We stalked a doe from 320 yards and got to 64 yards we could have got closer but a buck stuck his head out the hedge. And we were more interested in him. But he just vanished into thin air. Gary and Jason went some where else and Gary shot a buck. This morning I went with Mike again and it was freezing and very windy. Every thing was against us. The deer were in pockets out of the wind very jumpy. Again lost count after 20. We walked this wood for about two and a half hours with not presenting its self for a shot. We got back the the truck and Mike said do you fancy just walking down here one more time. Just a 100 yard track. I said why not, we walked down a third of the way and I saw a buck 180 yards down a ride. We talked about how we should go about it. Walked back the way we came down a track by this time the wind was behind us and we were not 100% sure where he was. Walked into the wood and bumped a doe. Looked at each other and said that's messed it up. But Mike saw the buck standing perfect for us but I had to move to get a shot. So one more buck I was we'll happy a very hard and rewarding stalk. Gary's stalk went well and he shot a nice big buck.. This place is amazing if you want to shoot muntjac on foot (not from high seat) this is the place to go. Jason and Mike are two top blokes have the crack and make you feel really welcome. I would like to thank you both for a brilliant weekend. It was that good already booked up the next two trips up there. Cheers boys a couple of pictures to follow.
