We're getting to the point in the year when the dawn stalking alarm is starting to get painful.
Out of bed and kit sorted, I left slightly later than planned as I nearly forgot a bottle that I needed to give to a landowner. So by the time I arrived at the farm yard, the light, helped by the clear skies and full moon, was already coming up rapidly. I finished getting ready, then headed onwards across the estate to the gateway that I planned to start from.
With the wind coming in from the north, this is a relatively sheltered field, with the winter barley starting to get some attention from the roe. It's a very undulating field with a small valley running across it, that the roe tend to like sheltering in, which happily also offers a great backstop. Deciding to go bold before the light was fully up, I headed across the middle of the field towards the valley, slowing as the valley became visible, to a step, scan with thermal, step, scan, repeat... 75m or so later, it was apparent that "no roe" were home.
So on to Plan B. Turning north it was time to make swift headway to the hedge and some cover before moving on, a couple of scans along the way as the contours opened up a few previously hidden sections of hedge revealed nothing.
Having reached the hedge I slowed to a more conventional stalking pace, heading east and scanning into the next field when there were gaps in the hedge. Eventually I reached a hole in hedge, where I could turn into the wind again and scan all of the next field, a couple of hares and a partridge was all that I could see. Onwards again, downhill now into the wind. Roughly 100m later a roe of some sort appeared ahead, looked up hill, saw something it wasn't sure about (me), stared for a minute or so, as I did my best statue impression, before doing a U-turn and walking back into cover. As it hadn't run off, I figured there was a good chance with a bit of patience, that it would be back. So finding a hollow in the hedge a couple of paces away, that gave a better background behind me, I put the rifle up on sticks to wait and see what developed.
A hare ran across the field towards me, passing 10m away, but oblivious to my presence and a couple of blackbirds had a vocal spat just along the hedge. Then a short while later a young roe appeared in the corner below me, not safe to shoot where it was, it would need to move about 75m along the hedge first. As it browsed and started to move, I was able to glass it and confirm that it was a young buck, no bother, hopefully as he moved along there would be more following him. He made it the 75m, then turned away and headed into thicker cover, but with no sign of a doe or siblings following him he was safe. I waited a while longer, but nothing else showed, well, the blackbirds had another argument, but no more deer.
Hmmm, what next for Plan C, carrying onwards along my route seemed like a better option than continuing to wait in the cold wind.
Glancing round before moving off a deer had appeared on the skyline behind me, unfortunately it had already seen my movements and was locked on, staring at me. The only good news, being that it looked to my Mk.1 eyeball, like a buck. After a while of us both doing the statue impression game, it decided to move a few steps, giving me a chance to bring up the binoculars, and confirm that it was most definitely another buck against the hedgerow. Watching it begin to browse along the hedgerow and searching behind it for other signs of life, there were two more deer behind it, in a stand of trees at the diagonal opposite corner of the field. Surely they couldn't both be bucks! Eventually one moved up the slope enough to be skylined, and of course it was another buck, hmmmm. So hopefully fourth time lucky. It took a while, as the other beast was feeding on the other side of the hedge, but eventually it reached a gap and all that I could see was ears, it then turned and I could see that it was definitely a doe, finally!
Now, the small matter of not much in the way of a backstop, and it being the wrong side of a swirling (cold!) breeze. Watching for a while I hoped that it might be taking the same route as the second buck of the morning, which would mean that I wouldn't need to move and would have a 150-100m shot into the hillside, depending on how much I trusted the wind to let her close the gap.
Maybe 15 minutes later it was apparent that they were actually minded to head up hill, which offered roughly 100m of ground with a backstop behind them, before they would reach the skyline. However that would mean flirting with the wind, and trying to stay far enough to the side to not be upwind. Oh well, it's the only doe I have seen, so game on.
Retracing my steps quickly back up the slope to the hedge and turning left for about 200m to get into the right area didn't take long and although I checked a couple of times with the Thermal, they were out of sight all of the time.
Slowing again, checking that the scope was dialled down to 3x, it was back to the slow routine of step, scan, step and scan. I moved up the slope through the stand of trees searching for them. Rabbits, tick, squirrels, tick, hares, tick, plus an annoying pheasant that decided to flush. However not a sign of the deer, damn. Presumably the wind had busted me, or perhaps once out of sight, they just had somewhere that they wanted to be.
Not sure what plan I was on to by now, but as I was back in the field I started, albeit the other side from where I had parked and dog walkers would soon be across these fields, back to the car seemed like the best plan for a drive around and relocate.
Getting back to the car, meant crossing the valley that I had started the morning looking over. Although generally once fully light deer have moved out of it.
Picking a tractor track that looked like it should finish adjacent to my car, I set off across the field, looking to get back to the car for a brew and to warm my hands from the cold wind. As I got close to the valley I spotted something small, moving ahead and paused. Ears! In fact two pairs and only the second pair had antlers. They were moving right, into the wind, so I dropped back and looked to get ahead of them, hoping that I knew the gap in the hedge that they would be making for. Having covered three sides of a 75m square to get safely ahead of them, I was back to the familiar scan and step routine to see where in the valley they had got to, hoping that they had continued on a similar line and not drifted up towards me. I began to loose height into the valley, and eventually found a heat source, which by the time I had switched to binoculars, had the body of a deer without antlers, at about 120m. Not a backstop that I liked, but if it continued on it's path for another 50m it would be in trouble. The buck also appeared and I got setup on the sticks, lined up with the first point that I felt that a shot would be safe. Gradually they headed that way, occasionally looking in my direction, but not concerned as they continued to feed. They eventually reached my safe shot threshold, but were now fully visible and the further they went the better the shot option became, so I let them continue as they were both completely relaxed. Eventually at about 90m, the doe moved clear of the buck and fed broadside, the shot behind the shoulder felt good as it went, with a good reaction, a short dash leaving a thick blood trail and she was down.
The gralloch was routine and clear, leaving just the small matter of the slog into and out of the valley, back for a flask of tea.
Out of bed and kit sorted, I left slightly later than planned as I nearly forgot a bottle that I needed to give to a landowner. So by the time I arrived at the farm yard, the light, helped by the clear skies and full moon, was already coming up rapidly. I finished getting ready, then headed onwards across the estate to the gateway that I planned to start from.
With the wind coming in from the north, this is a relatively sheltered field, with the winter barley starting to get some attention from the roe. It's a very undulating field with a small valley running across it, that the roe tend to like sheltering in, which happily also offers a great backstop. Deciding to go bold before the light was fully up, I headed across the middle of the field towards the valley, slowing as the valley became visible, to a step, scan with thermal, step, scan, repeat... 75m or so later, it was apparent that "no roe" were home.
So on to Plan B. Turning north it was time to make swift headway to the hedge and some cover before moving on, a couple of scans along the way as the contours opened up a few previously hidden sections of hedge revealed nothing.
Having reached the hedge I slowed to a more conventional stalking pace, heading east and scanning into the next field when there were gaps in the hedge. Eventually I reached a hole in hedge, where I could turn into the wind again and scan all of the next field, a couple of hares and a partridge was all that I could see. Onwards again, downhill now into the wind. Roughly 100m later a roe of some sort appeared ahead, looked up hill, saw something it wasn't sure about (me), stared for a minute or so, as I did my best statue impression, before doing a U-turn and walking back into cover. As it hadn't run off, I figured there was a good chance with a bit of patience, that it would be back. So finding a hollow in the hedge a couple of paces away, that gave a better background behind me, I put the rifle up on sticks to wait and see what developed.
A hare ran across the field towards me, passing 10m away, but oblivious to my presence and a couple of blackbirds had a vocal spat just along the hedge. Then a short while later a young roe appeared in the corner below me, not safe to shoot where it was, it would need to move about 75m along the hedge first. As it browsed and started to move, I was able to glass it and confirm that it was a young buck, no bother, hopefully as he moved along there would be more following him. He made it the 75m, then turned away and headed into thicker cover, but with no sign of a doe or siblings following him he was safe. I waited a while longer, but nothing else showed, well, the blackbirds had another argument, but no more deer.
Hmmm, what next for Plan C, carrying onwards along my route seemed like a better option than continuing to wait in the cold wind.
Glancing round before moving off a deer had appeared on the skyline behind me, unfortunately it had already seen my movements and was locked on, staring at me. The only good news, being that it looked to my Mk.1 eyeball, like a buck. After a while of us both doing the statue impression game, it decided to move a few steps, giving me a chance to bring up the binoculars, and confirm that it was most definitely another buck against the hedgerow. Watching it begin to browse along the hedgerow and searching behind it for other signs of life, there were two more deer behind it, in a stand of trees at the diagonal opposite corner of the field. Surely they couldn't both be bucks! Eventually one moved up the slope enough to be skylined, and of course it was another buck, hmmmm. So hopefully fourth time lucky. It took a while, as the other beast was feeding on the other side of the hedge, but eventually it reached a gap and all that I could see was ears, it then turned and I could see that it was definitely a doe, finally!
Now, the small matter of not much in the way of a backstop, and it being the wrong side of a swirling (cold!) breeze. Watching for a while I hoped that it might be taking the same route as the second buck of the morning, which would mean that I wouldn't need to move and would have a 150-100m shot into the hillside, depending on how much I trusted the wind to let her close the gap.
Maybe 15 minutes later it was apparent that they were actually minded to head up hill, which offered roughly 100m of ground with a backstop behind them, before they would reach the skyline. However that would mean flirting with the wind, and trying to stay far enough to the side to not be upwind. Oh well, it's the only doe I have seen, so game on.
Retracing my steps quickly back up the slope to the hedge and turning left for about 200m to get into the right area didn't take long and although I checked a couple of times with the Thermal, they were out of sight all of the time.
Slowing again, checking that the scope was dialled down to 3x, it was back to the slow routine of step, scan, step and scan. I moved up the slope through the stand of trees searching for them. Rabbits, tick, squirrels, tick, hares, tick, plus an annoying pheasant that decided to flush. However not a sign of the deer, damn. Presumably the wind had busted me, or perhaps once out of sight, they just had somewhere that they wanted to be.
Not sure what plan I was on to by now, but as I was back in the field I started, albeit the other side from where I had parked and dog walkers would soon be across these fields, back to the car seemed like the best plan for a drive around and relocate.
Getting back to the car, meant crossing the valley that I had started the morning looking over. Although generally once fully light deer have moved out of it.
Picking a tractor track that looked like it should finish adjacent to my car, I set off across the field, looking to get back to the car for a brew and to warm my hands from the cold wind. As I got close to the valley I spotted something small, moving ahead and paused. Ears! In fact two pairs and only the second pair had antlers. They were moving right, into the wind, so I dropped back and looked to get ahead of them, hoping that I knew the gap in the hedge that they would be making for. Having covered three sides of a 75m square to get safely ahead of them, I was back to the familiar scan and step routine to see where in the valley they had got to, hoping that they had continued on a similar line and not drifted up towards me. I began to loose height into the valley, and eventually found a heat source, which by the time I had switched to binoculars, had the body of a deer without antlers, at about 120m. Not a backstop that I liked, but if it continued on it's path for another 50m it would be in trouble. The buck also appeared and I got setup on the sticks, lined up with the first point that I felt that a shot would be safe. Gradually they headed that way, occasionally looking in my direction, but not concerned as they continued to feed. They eventually reached my safe shot threshold, but were now fully visible and the further they went the better the shot option became, so I let them continue as they were both completely relaxed. Eventually at about 90m, the doe moved clear of the buck and fed broadside, the shot behind the shoulder felt good as it went, with a good reaction, a short dash leaving a thick blood trail and she was down.
The gralloch was routine and clear, leaving just the small matter of the slog into and out of the valley, back for a flask of tea.
