First ever day

[Wiltspaniel]

This past weekend I was lucky enough to be invited for a day’s stalking on my sister-in-law’s family estate in Scotland. This was to be my first ever day stalking and took place in stunning surroundings.

The day started with rain pounding on the windows and after a bacon sandwich and a cup of coffee the ghillie for the estate collected my brother-in-law and I, and the day began. As we headed off to check our skill using the rifle the rain started to ease and some sunshine began to break through the cloud cover.

After proving that we were able to shoot straight and true, we drove out for around 5mins before parking up the truck and beginning the stalk. Within 15 minutes the ghillie managed to spot a very impressive sika stag around 50 yards from the path. After watching him for a few minutes presenting himself perfectly for a shot (if only we had been there a few months earlier) we pushed on up the hill, almost immediately spooking two sika hinds whole made off along the face of the hill and out of sight!

We continued for around an hour to up and along the hill with nothing else seen. The weather began to be very Scottish, alternating between bright sunshine, heavy rain and hail what seemed to be every 10 minutes. After stopping to scan the terrain for a while the ghillie spotted multiple young stags on the face of a hill around 2/300m from where we were. We decided to head that way and as we did came across a very large red stag hunkered down out of the weather. He had broken his right antler but still looked very impressive. One for next year maybe!

After leaving him we continued around the hill following a the path of a burn around 50m below us. After another 30 minutes the ghillie spotted a small group of hinds in the distance and began to lead us towards them. It became apparent very quickly that this stalk was going to be difficult as all the hinds were looking down the valley towards us. The stalk took around an hour with us using the path of the burn to stay out of sight with the wind thankfully in our faces the whole time. As we got close we crawled into a shooting position and the ghillie identified a hind who was sat separate to the rest of the group who would provide the best opportunity for a shot. As we lay waiting for her to stand the rain came in again and the temperature dropped significantly making it very tricky to hold the rifle steady. After around 10 minutes she stood and after a few tense moments presented herself side on for a safe shot. The shot hit just behind and slight lower than her shoulder and she took 10 steps before dropping.

The rest of the heard scattered at the sound of the shot except for one who very luckily provided a perfect shot for my brother-in-law to take his first ever deer, making the day even better!  

[marsh man]

Excellent report on what sounded a very exciting day despite the changeable weather , only ever been to Scotland once and found the scenery and the people second to none and one day hopefully I will go back up there .