My stalking mate C messaged me earlier in the week, seeing if I fancied going out at the weekend. He farms some of the ground I shoot over and has been learning the ropes with me for a while, with his FAC hopefully arriving in the next month or so. Agreeing that Sunday morning’s weather looked promising, I agreed to pick him up at 04.30.
Pulling up outside his cottage, there were no lights on and another car parked next to his; the little sod was obviously engaged in some rutting. A text to say I was there went unread, so I messaged saying where I was going if he did wake up & left him to whoever she was.
Parking the truck on the back of a big block of miscanthus that had shot up in the fortnight since I’d last been there, I made my way slowly over a gentle rise to look out over a track with a tree-lined deep ditch on one side & a rape crop on the other. I popped the rifle on the sticks while trying to work out if it was a hare or a fox’s head sticking up at 200yds (hare), when a fat muntjac doe sauntered out of the ditch, across the track and along a tramline, heading directly for me. Whistling her to stop at 30m, she dropped to a neck shot. Happy days, it was 04.50 & a deer down. She was gralloched & hung on a metal tree guard protecting a small oak, allowing her to cool down in the shade and with a decent breeze to keep any flies off.
Making my way along the track, I counted 9 hares out in the fields before moving slowly down the side of the ‘big wood’, scanning the margins as I went. There’s no point going in there in summer as it’s too thick, but muntjac are regularly on the fringes in the mornings. Moving along & checking the wood to my left, I happened to scan down below me and saw a deer on the edge of a rape crop, browsing on a grassy patch below an oak tree, about 250m away. A quick check revealed it was a roe buck I’d been after but had so far eluded me.
Using a chunky hawthorn bush as cover, I closed the gap too 110m and peered around the foliage. Obviously my choice of cover wasn’t as good as I thought, as he was staring right at me and not looking happy. Chucking the rifle onto the sticks, I took a quick shot, with a solid thud of the .308 hitting home before he bolted into the crop.
Giving him a few minutes, I moved down to where I had marked him as being stood and, after a short search, found good blood splatter and hair. This was tracked slowly into the standing crop, occasionally having to check around to pick it up again. Fortunately, after a careful 5 min track, I found him stone dead 70m away from where he’d been shot, but utterly concealed by the crop.
My 150gr bullet had taken out his lungs, but only grazed the heart, so I’m presuming that with the adrenaline from seeing me made him have one last dash.
He was duly dragged out and gralloched, into the trusty Monarch roe sack, and back round to the truck, collecting the muntjac on the way.
All in all, a very enjoyable morning. C’s not read my original messages just yet, so I’ll wait until he does before showing him what he missed!
Pulling up outside his cottage, there were no lights on and another car parked next to his; the little sod was obviously engaged in some rutting. A text to say I was there went unread, so I messaged saying where I was going if he did wake up & left him to whoever she was.
Parking the truck on the back of a big block of miscanthus that had shot up in the fortnight since I’d last been there, I made my way slowly over a gentle rise to look out over a track with a tree-lined deep ditch on one side & a rape crop on the other. I popped the rifle on the sticks while trying to work out if it was a hare or a fox’s head sticking up at 200yds (hare), when a fat muntjac doe sauntered out of the ditch, across the track and along a tramline, heading directly for me. Whistling her to stop at 30m, she dropped to a neck shot. Happy days, it was 04.50 & a deer down. She was gralloched & hung on a metal tree guard protecting a small oak, allowing her to cool down in the shade and with a decent breeze to keep any flies off.
Making my way along the track, I counted 9 hares out in the fields before moving slowly down the side of the ‘big wood’, scanning the margins as I went. There’s no point going in there in summer as it’s too thick, but muntjac are regularly on the fringes in the mornings. Moving along & checking the wood to my left, I happened to scan down below me and saw a deer on the edge of a rape crop, browsing on a grassy patch below an oak tree, about 250m away. A quick check revealed it was a roe buck I’d been after but had so far eluded me.
Using a chunky hawthorn bush as cover, I closed the gap too 110m and peered around the foliage. Obviously my choice of cover wasn’t as good as I thought, as he was staring right at me and not looking happy. Chucking the rifle onto the sticks, I took a quick shot, with a solid thud of the .308 hitting home before he bolted into the crop.
Giving him a few minutes, I moved down to where I had marked him as being stood and, after a short search, found good blood splatter and hair. This was tracked slowly into the standing crop, occasionally having to check around to pick it up again. Fortunately, after a careful 5 min track, I found him stone dead 70m away from where he’d been shot, but utterly concealed by the crop.
My 150gr bullet had taken out his lungs, but only grazed the heart, so I’m presuming that with the adrenaline from seeing me made him have one last dash.
He was duly dragged out and gralloched, into the trusty Monarch roe sack, and back round to the truck, collecting the muntjac on the way.
All in all, a very enjoyable morning. C’s not read my original messages just yet, so I’ll wait until he does before showing him what he missed!
