Guys, I was really pissed off last night.

Went stalking last Friday evening in some forestry I have access to here in NI. One of those nights when everything went to plan. Looked at the weather and wind, picked a spot. 55 minutes later I shot a nice 6 point Sika buck for the freezer. 140gr .270 in through the left shoulder, perfectly through the heart and out just behind the shoulder on the far side. First beast with my own handloads. I was a happy boy.

Gralloched the beast and hung him up in my friends cold room. Job done you think.

Went last night after work to collect the buck so I could skin him and cut him up for the freezer. 100mile round trip.

Anyway, I got him home, hung him up and started to skin the hind quarters. It quickly became obvious there was something wrong. Left hind quarter was very badly bloodshot, and had a large yellowing bruise. Skinned on down the rib cage to find another area of bruising and and more blood high and well back in the ribs. I then noticed a nice .22 sized hole. I dug around and eventually pulled out a distorted .22 slug.

I can only conclude that some little asshole popped off a few shots at this buck 1-2 weeks before I shot him.

In the future, very time I hear some prick say, "what do you use that cannon on deer for? I could kill them with my .22", I am going to hit him with the nearest blunt object.

Regards

Claret,

I don't skin most of my deer but I do come across muntjac with shotgun pellets (generaly #6) in their hind quarters.

The best roe buck I shot this year turned out to have a 22 air rifle pelletembedded in his skull right between the eyes. An absolutely moronic stunt that luckily did not appear to affect him and which makes for an interesting trophy!

A friend of mine shot a nice doe while bow hunting only to find some Pric* had shot it in the back 3 times with a 22lr fortunately it did not ruin any of the meat. Why in the heck would any one shoot a deer with a 22lr is beyond me.

The first Deer I ever got had been shot in the front knee and I had to throw the whole leg away. Why these people don’t take the time to track a wounded deer makes no sense.

Good luck with your hunting.

quote:

Originally posted by Swede44mag:
Why in the heck would any one shoot a deer with a 22lr is beyond me.

Most of the deer poached around us are shot with 22 lr for noise control. That's why so many are shot in odd places; night poaching.

hi Claret,
there"s a lot of deer being taken, and many more being cruelly maimed, by assholes using anything from .22"s up to .222"s , and as you know these guns are now much easier to get for vermin control. a friend of mine found two fallow bucks last year , shot with .22 centre fires, with just the heads removed.
all we can hope for is that someone can get car registrations, pics or footage of these idiots at work, and report them to the authorities. failing that, a shovel, a length of rope, a bag of lime and a shallow grave might be another option !
good shooting.

quote:

a friend of mine found two fallow bucks last year , shot with .22 centre fires, with just the heads removed.

Just curious....but.... how would you know if they were shot by a .22 centrefire ? (barring obviously bullet recovery)

And if they were shot by a .22 centrefire they obviously did the job x 2

Also there are a HUGE number of people on this website in various forums who shoot just for the trophy and not necessarily for the meat.Poaching and illegal shooting is of course illegal,wasting the fallow meat was adding insult to injury and was immoral.

roebuck

i"m assuming that he recovered enough of a bullet to identify it as sub-calibre. there are a lot of poachers here using .22 rifles, which are held for fox control, who are tresspassing ,usually at night, on stalking land. they are stealing venison and trophies, or sometimes just shooting deer and leaving them. most of the culprits don"t have deer legal rifles, dsc1, or their own stalking.
i imagine that if someone with their own stalking and a deer legal rifle went to the trouble of shooting someone else"s deer, they would"nt just leave it ! (that"s an opinion, not a confession!)
good shooting.

I'm guessing from your post that 22 centerfires and not legal for fallow in your area?

quote:

i imagine that if someone with their own stalking and a deer legal rifle went to the trouble of shooting someone else"s deer, they would"nt just leave it ! (that"s an opinion, not a confession!)
good shooting.

I would also imagine any poacher taking one for "the pot" also wouldn't go to all the trouble (massive fine, jail,confiscation of vehicle if used etc) just to leave the beast lying....(also an opinion not a confession)

I know of several of the "old guys" in the area who have taken plenty of Roe with the diminutive .22 not saying its right but they did it, bullet placement being everything,guess after the WWII they had had their fill of rationed food and thought to dine on M'lords best Roe.

Triggertate legal min cal is .243 100gr soft nose or expanding head ammo for ANY deer in england.

This deer was in Northern Ireland. It was a Sika, similar in size to a fallow, but heavier built.

.22 centrefires are not legal for any deer in NI. In fact I would not presonally entertain shooting a Sika stag with anything less than a 6.5mm.

Since our political situation calmed down 10 years ago, huge numbers of centrefire rifles have been licensed particlarly .22's. To get a deer legal calibre, one must pass the DMQ 1 here. This is not required for a varmint calibre. Result, a disproportionate number of pricks have these.

I watched this deer for several minutes before I took the shot. He did not seem to be carrying any injury before I shot him. In fact, he jumped a drain and a 1.4m fence, and showed no signs of being injured.

Must be the most unluckly deer in Ireland, to get shot twice in a 2 week period.

we had some land in Ayrshire last year. my mate butchered a Roe which he shot a bit too "ruthlessly" for the gamedealer. we found what looked like no 6 shot in one side of it.
not surprisingly there is a driven pheasant shoot on the other side of the road!
deer legal calibres were designated for a reason. i don"t care what some old hand might have shot in the head with his trusty .22 during the depression. above deer legal calibre,
it"s up to individual choice what anyone wants to use, but a lot more deer are injured with shotguns and unsuitable rifles(and even bows),
than the few that are cleanly killed with sub calibre rifles. i heard a person in Scotland boast about how they have shot stags with a .22-250 when out Roe stalking. the same person admitted that he would not set out to look for a stag with less than a .270.
all we need is for a few pictures of wounded deer turning up at the side of the road, or outside a school, to be plastered across the papers, and our sport will suffer. anything less than legal calibres should not be tolerated by the responsible shooting community.
good shooting

Agree entirely BT.

The state of field sports is so precarious we cannot tolerate shit like this.

Also, it is so completely disrespectful of a fine game animal to treat it in this fashion. We then all get tarred with the same brush.

The Americans call these people "slob-hunters". That would be charitable compared to what I might say.

regards

Its always sad when someone does something distructive to a fine animal. Not to mention it doesnt help the view of others on our sport, sorry to hear about it, I agree, sock the next brat who claims he can drop a deer with his 22.