We are up in Aberdeenshire at the moment, stalking Roe bucks and watching the rut trickle slowly into action despite the crappy weather. With us is Mumbles, who is fairly new to stalking and up until this week, he had only shot does and spikers. We now realise he has the luck of the devil, not just because his tally since Sunday evening is five nice six-point Roe bucks and a spiker cull buck but because, on hearing the sound of six-pointer no.5 being shot at 5 a.m in a scrubby strip of conifer planting, a pair of Red stags stood up 200 yards out into a field of barley, within our permitted shooting area.

Given the OK - there is zero tolerance of deer on the crops within the legal seasons - Mumbles is on the rifle and the larger of the two stags drops to his .308. The result, after a further three hours of dragging and the need for four blokes to get him into the truck, is this fellow:



Allowing for the fact that this was a culling exercise rather than a deliberate trophy hunt, hence shooting the stag in velvet, it's still a stonking beast for any hunter. Not sure of the weight (300lbs +) asthe scales topped out at 250lbs and the needle went halfway round again before they broke. Head is a nice balanced 14 points and the velvet is ready to shed, so should be able to be removed and the antlers colured for a nice chest mount. It looks as if this fellow has spent his life in a barley field as he's gat as butter and in perfect fettle, not your usual hard living hill stag.

Mumbles has now been rechristened 'Golden Balls' and is off to the village to pick up some lottery tickets!

Adam.

Some days it's your day and most days it isn't...that's hunting I guess.
I went out last Sunday and saw nothing except some very old slot in the bottom of a puddle.

Nice stag,he will be a good eater.

Nice beast, he looks fat as butter. Pity he wasn't shot once he stripped off and coloured up, but then again, he wouldn't taste as good at that stage!

Great looking stag!

Well the roe rut is over for another year! I had some nice bucks two silver medals and one drying out waiting to be done .we have just got back from scotland after are two week trip the count was 14 roe bucks and 1 14point red stag, and 5 missed bucks (the old buck fever ).. a great time was had by all, i had a few friends over which was nice to catch up, they all got a buck or two so everyone went home happy. One of the lads went home with a medal roe buck and one went home with his 14 stag which is know at the taxidermist. we didn't hunt every day and managed to get over to Moy game fair for the day which was a great. Will get some pics up when I get a minute .

Getting a Stag in Velvet would be very cool in my books!!!!!Congrats Mumbles

sounds like quite a run of luck
and some good marksmanship.
Beautiful stag
any photo's of the roe deer?

very nice stag

That's a heck of a bonus! congratulations, I''d rather be luky than good comes to mind on this one