Stalking into a ladder last evening to cover a small field between two bits of woodland often frequented by the fallow, I used the thermal to check ahead & picked up a heat source deep in the wood. I’m moving well into wind so keep tight to the wide hedge line & on towards the ladder.
Suddenly I do a double take, there’s something dark inside the wood - fallow! Thermal up to see if it’s on its own & wtf! There are two heat sources, one on four legs the other on two… Look again & it’s a flat coat retriever off the lead & a guy in a blue jacket who comes out of the wood & turns towards the other wood
Abandoning the stalk, I unload, remove the mag & put it all in my jacket pocket before setting out across the field. The guy seems to pick up his pace as he sees me but then realises he isn’t going to make the other wood before I cut him off. I put the rifle up against the hedge along with the sticks & wait for him to come to me before asking what he thinks he’s doing there.
It seems he’s house/dog sitting at a house in a little hamlet ‘in the middle of nowhere’ locally & had been told it was fine to walk the dog here. A quick explanation about what I was doing there, what the implications for his safety were & that there could easily be stalkers out there any day of the week as one of our team is retired & two of us work shifts. He tried the ‘I was on the path’ routine until I asked him where exactly he thought the path was as there clearly isn’t one.
When I asked him where exactly he'd been because there was no point me trying to shoot deer in an area he'd already been through with the dog he said just down the hedgerow I was on, along the ride to the end of the wood & then back again the same way. Hmm
if that was the case why was he heading back in a different direction when I caught him? The direction he was going would take him back in a circular route to the house he was ‘sitting’ so I reckoned he’d been a bit further than he admitted to.
With a flea in his ear & a request for him to let the house owners know that neither they nor anyone else was allowed to wander around the farm, he went on his way while I decided whether to stick with Plan A as fallow are transient & he might not have spooked them or work out a Plan B. Given the time I decided to sit tight & see what happened. Turned out to be a good call as I managed to catch up with a Muntjac later in the evening, although no sign of the fallow I was after.
As a follow up, speaking to one of the other guys who lives in the same ‘middle of nowhere’ hamlet it turns out the same chap had been caught on, & thrown off, land the other side from the house that very morning. Spoke to the landowner this morning & he's going to be writing to the house owners reminding them there’s no ‘right to roam’ - it’s been about 4 years since he had to do this after the same dog & a different walker appeared in the background of the sight picture just as a muntjac was about to get the good news… in the middle of a wood, no paths or rides anywhere near…
Be safe out there folks!
Suddenly I do a double take, there’s something dark inside the wood - fallow! Thermal up to see if it’s on its own & wtf! There are two heat sources, one on four legs the other on two… Look again & it’s a flat coat retriever off the lead & a guy in a blue jacket who comes out of the wood & turns towards the other wood
Abandoning the stalk, I unload, remove the mag & put it all in my jacket pocket before setting out across the field. The guy seems to pick up his pace as he sees me but then realises he isn’t going to make the other wood before I cut him off. I put the rifle up against the hedge along with the sticks & wait for him to come to me before asking what he thinks he’s doing there.
It seems he’s house/dog sitting at a house in a little hamlet ‘in the middle of nowhere’ locally & had been told it was fine to walk the dog here. A quick explanation about what I was doing there, what the implications for his safety were & that there could easily be stalkers out there any day of the week as one of our team is retired & two of us work shifts. He tried the ‘I was on the path’ routine until I asked him where exactly he thought the path was as there clearly isn’t one.
When I asked him where exactly he'd been because there was no point me trying to shoot deer in an area he'd already been through with the dog he said just down the hedgerow I was on, along the ride to the end of the wood & then back again the same way. Hmm
if that was the case why was he heading back in a different direction when I caught him? The direction he was going would take him back in a circular route to the house he was ‘sitting’ so I reckoned he’d been a bit further than he admitted to.With a flea in his ear & a request for him to let the house owners know that neither they nor anyone else was allowed to wander around the farm, he went on his way while I decided whether to stick with Plan A as fallow are transient & he might not have spooked them or work out a Plan B. Given the time I decided to sit tight & see what happened. Turned out to be a good call as I managed to catch up with a Muntjac later in the evening, although no sign of the fallow I was after.
As a follow up, speaking to one of the other guys who lives in the same ‘middle of nowhere’ hamlet it turns out the same chap had been caught on, & thrown off, land the other side from the house that very morning. Spoke to the landowner this morning & he's going to be writing to the house owners reminding them there’s no ‘right to roam’ - it’s been about 4 years since he had to do this after the same dog & a different walker appeared in the background of the sight picture just as a muntjac was about to get the good news… in the middle of a wood, no paths or rides anywhere near…
Be safe out there folks!
