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First roe buck of the season


243deer
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With the weather turning decidly chilly I decided to go and drop some venison off to one of my land owners and have a look around at the same time.

At around midday I spotted 6 roe deer at the far side of a field I know to be 380 yards accross. I spent a very enjoyable 10 minutes observing. I never tire of this, watching them behaving naturally. 4 does and 2 young bucks in velvet made up the pod. The damage that they are doing to a relatively new hedgerow, now 10 years old, made up of blackthorn and hawthorn, is becoming more significant every year with a very apparent browse line now appearing. The 2 bucks are not particularly good quality so there is no reason not to harvest them for meat.

The only cover that would get me anywahere near is a netting and two strands of barb fence that has some patches of bramble growing up to post height. With some stretches of 40 yards without bramble this was going to take a while.

Fortunately the deer are moving to the corner of the field meaning that the effective length of the gaps is lessened. With 6 pairs of eyes on the lookout it will just need patience. The wind is steady, about 20mph and coming from my 8 o'clock so I judged that I should avoid being winded if I took a shot from around 100 yards. A little further than I usually like but still a challenge to get that close all the same.

Over the next 20 minutes I did a hands and knees stalk simply keeping each movement slow and easy as it was impossible not to be seen at times. Stopping each time a head was lifted from feeding. A dry, grassy field that will be cropped for hay this year makes this type of stalk a lot more pleasant than it might otherwise be.

For once everything went according to plan and the selected buck dropped cleanly. The 2nd one can wait for another time.

To get the chance for this type of traditional stalk was a real privilage and it made a change from the more opportunistic stalks that are the norm.

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Great stalk and write up. :good:

I had my first of the season on Thursady. A tricky stalk on the other side of the hedge upwind from the buck layed under it. A very old buck with the purlins a continuous piece at the base. I put the shattered head in the compost only to find it gone the next day. I found it a couple of days later at the top of the field (taken by foxes). It's back in the compost now (or at least it was on Sunday). 

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Well done.

I took out a group of 3 bucks on Thursday, the first day of my retirement.  Had to crawl into them as they fed on the farmer's winter wheat and then they proceeded to sit down in the lee of the very cold wind.  I waited until one stood up again about an hour later and neck shot one that was still sitting then took the other two out too.

I had dropped some venison off to the farmer upon arrival, which was from a couple of does taken a few weeks earlier, so the freezer is now topped up again.

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Good going all around.  Had my 22rf with me yesterday and as I got to the end of a long slingy copse at least 40 fallow walked out .  They had winded me but did not know exactly where |I was and a couple of nice fat prickets stood absolutely perfect. I am certain they knew I was of no real danger because they started to graze across the wheat field. I had a muntie last week and as I am really a guest on this estate I don't like to be greedy so did not put a deer rifle in.  It was one fanatstic **** to see anyway.

I do miss those long hands and knees jobs, afraid the old legs not up to it these days so ambush is the name of the game but not half as much fun.Ooowee probably nicked that one off my old ground.  Gods country down there and I'm an athiest.

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