Same trip organiser but different clients - one chap placed in a tower in the bottom of a valley with rides on 4 sides. Two rides ran along the valley & at right angles were two more rides that went up either side of the valley.
Clear instructions were given as to how far to shoot up each side ride & specifically on one side of the valley the limit was given as another ride that ran parallel to the valley & formed a bench that was very easily identified. I went into a seat the other side of the valley so I could be aware of what was going on & close by with a vehicle to clear up after.
About half an hour before end-ex there’s a clear shot & strike from the client. I wait a bit & then drive around & up the main ride with headlights on to collect him, he’s waiting at the bottom of the tower, kit all packed & opens the door to get in when I stop. I ask him what he shot, he’s replies nothing… I say I heard his shot & ask which ride the deer had been on & what it was.
He looks flustered & then says ‘oh I missed a roe deer that was on the junction of the ride there’ & points to the ride going up the side of the valley with the one crossing it parallel to the main ride. I reply that there was a definite strike & we’d better go & look - bearing in mind the time between me arriving & his shot was probably no more than 20-25mins & in which time he'd packed all his kit up & was waiting for me. If he'd looked at all, he had t had a thorough search for the ‘missing’ deer.
So off we go up the ride & I ask him to show me where the deer had been stood when he shot. He walks straight to the cross ride & says it was here, right in the middle. I cast around & there’s zero evidence of any strike - either on an animal or the ground from a miss. I widen the search but still nothing so walk back down the hill a bit looking in case he’d got confused about distance due to the falling light, nothing there so go uphill a bit too.
That was when he started looking a bit edgy…
I see no sign of anything until we reach the skyline & there in the middle of the ride between the wheel ruts is a very clear splash of paint with bits of lung & a good trail. At this point he knows he’s been busted & tells me which way it went. An easy follow up produces a very dead roe doe (at least he hadn’t shot a buck!) which I gralloch & take back down to the truck. He climbs in without saying a word.
Suffice to say he was accompanied on each of his remaining outings & it was made clear to the organiser a) that particular client was not to be brought back & b) he should explain clearly to the remaining party what would happen if anyone else took a shot without a safe backstop.
There are other tales I could recount, including a sheep, but those are for another day…
