I’d heard the miscanthus (50ish acres of it…) had finally been cut & baled on one bit of a farm I stalk, so set off last night for a look with a mate in tow as the stubbles are always a draw for munties.
Moving up a headland alongside a deep wooded ditch, the thermal revealed a muntjac buck browsing in front. Creeping forward, a check with the binos showed he was behind a pheasant pen, with the wire just too high for a clear shot. I moved closer, using an old ash tree as cover, and noticed a munty doe also inside the pen but handily browsing right in front of an open gate, only 80ish meters in front of me…result! The rifle went onto the sticks and I waited for her to step clear of a few bits of hazel before squeezing the shot as the crosshairs landed on her neck.
The .308 barked, and instead of falling over as she was meant to, the doe fled out of the further gate. My (slightly younger and more lithe) mate hopped the fence and went for a look while I looked perplexed, before hearing him howling with laughter & the unmistakable sound of splashing water.
Turns out I’d expertly avoided the hazel but failed to notice a blue water pipe suspended off the floor, running between pheasant drinkers…
Fortunately it was a clean miss on the deer yet one hell of a shot on the pipe, and we mercifully found the stop tap as the drinkers had been left on (I’ll be repairing it later today…).
A further poke around once he’d stopped laughing at me led to me redeeming myself on the miscanthus with a munty buck, so not an entirely wasted night out.
Moving up a headland alongside a deep wooded ditch, the thermal revealed a muntjac buck browsing in front. Creeping forward, a check with the binos showed he was behind a pheasant pen, with the wire just too high for a clear shot. I moved closer, using an old ash tree as cover, and noticed a munty doe also inside the pen but handily browsing right in front of an open gate, only 80ish meters in front of me…result! The rifle went onto the sticks and I waited for her to step clear of a few bits of hazel before squeezing the shot as the crosshairs landed on her neck.
The .308 barked, and instead of falling over as she was meant to, the doe fled out of the further gate. My (slightly younger and more lithe) mate hopped the fence and went for a look while I looked perplexed, before hearing him howling with laughter & the unmistakable sound of splashing water.
Turns out I’d expertly avoided the hazel but failed to notice a blue water pipe suspended off the floor, running between pheasant drinkers…
Fortunately it was a clean miss on the deer yet one hell of a shot on the pipe, and we mercifully found the stop tap as the drinkers had been left on (I’ll be repairing it later today…).
A further poke around once he’d stopped laughing at me led to me redeeming myself on the miscanthus with a munty buck, so not an entirely wasted night out.
well done ...at least its easy to fix the water pipe 
