Over to you Ghubert.....

Bloody scary photo there Amir.

You boys making a horror movie, slightly psychotic expression there....

Nice one, give us the story Amir.

Thanks LH....

'Tis true folks; I have broken my Muntjac duck with this little lady.

Apologies for the terrible quality of the photos I didn't bring a camera and we had to resort to a camera phone well after dark.

I took it out of high seat on an estate that Londonhunter has permission to shoot over to the north of London.

A slow Wednesday last week was interrupted by a phone call from LH asking if I fancied a stalk that evening. I practically bit his arm off and so after picking him up, we drove to the estate to meet Richard.

Richard is an artist living in a cottage on the estate, he also happens to be a stalker and a meat hunter in the truest sense having come to stalking through an interest in natural food.

As we had arrived at about half past five and last light was not until gone nine o'clock we had a cup of tea in his curio barn cum studio talking and planning for the evening ahead.

I confess that we did more talking than planning, Richard is a very talented artist and specialising in paintings of game animals and well-observed female nudes as his primary output meant we went off-topic early...

The estate we were to stalk is a mix of deciduous forestry and wooded hedgerows breaking up stubble fields and large patches of cover crops, with the sun out and the weather warm things looked set for a wonderful evening out in the countryside.

The estate has large numbers of Fallow and Muntjac, at this time of year Fallow bucks and both sexes of Muntjac being in season a chance of shot seemed highly probable.

The trouble with impromptu stalking, as vicariously pleasurable as it is, is that you can usually guarantee you're going to leave some vital bit of kit or other at home. Readying ourselves to go therefore revealed one or two minor omissions that would add spice to the stalk and challenge our skills of bushcraft just that little bit more than the run-of-the-mill organised stalker.

LH had forgotten his rifle slip and the moderator for his K95. Not wanting to be outdone, I had somehow neglected to pack my right glove, warm clothes and, most shamefully, my knife...

This left us in the position of LH not wanting to shoot as his point of impact might be radically different to normal and me not wanting to shoot as the prospect of gutting a deer with my teeth would require a bit more commitment than I was prepared to give on such a nice, sunny afternoon.

Still, I could always borrow a knife from Richard if need be and LH could always use my rifle if need be so deciding that whilst individually we were doomed to dismal failure, together we added up to one functioning stalker but blessed two pairs of eyes, we would stalk and sit up together that evening.

We then agreed a revised plan of action so as to stay out of each other's way, though with 3000 acres to play with it was not too difficult. LH and I were to stalk south out to a highseat in a mature hedge-line straddling two fields. The north field was bordered on two sides by forestry, by a mature hedge on one other and a cover crop of maize on the last. The south field was a massive L shaped field bounded on three sided by forestry and with a nice large patch of cover crop in the middle. Richard had elected to walk stalk all evening into the forestry, basically boxing round us to begin with and then heading off to the north to meet us back at his cottage.

The first little adventure of the evening was to cross a fairly busy road in front of Richard's cottage in a commendably cosmopolitan though rather suspicious manner, given that I had the only rifle slip between us.......

God knows what a watching policeman would have made of an three blokes acting out the old corn/chicken/fox on a boat riddle with a rifle slip but there you go, sometimes needs must!

Once safely in the woods we drew tossed a coin to see who should load up and stalk in front until our paths diverged, Richard won the toss and we slowly stalked about 500 yards to the boundary of a field.

This was where we would split up, Richard stalking back into the wood and eventually around the fields we were to now approach.

We bid him waidmansheil, which he liked, and stalked along the hedgerows to our chosen spot four fields over. The ground was difficult to move quietly over and this type of stalking being chiefly the art of getting to vantage point as quietly as possible, glassing the field and trying to do the same with the next field, made slow but cheerful progress arriving at our highseat at about one and half hours before last light.

Purists may moan that his is not quite cricket and one should stalk until almost dark and then secrete oneself in the manner of a wraith above a field with the prescience of a prophet as to precise time and place.

Whilst I quite agree in normal circumstances, on a school night, knackered from a long day at work (in LH's case at least), the prospect of a nice and relaxed chat and cup of coffee watching the sun go down was definitely the way forward.

Getting the deer is not always the point of the exercise after all!

There being two large formal shoots based on the estate, poults were everywhere. Much as I love the majesty of a rocketing cock pheasant on the wing and the challenge of knocking him out the sky, stone dead, at 40 yards; the little bastards actually manage to push the panicking woodpigeon into third place in the “All time most annoying creature to be encountered whilst stalking, ever” stakes.

Sheep occupy the first winner’s podium as far as I’m concerned, in case anyone was wondering.

Anyway we sat and quietly put the world to rights, LH covering the south field and I the north.

The wind was tricky to work out, of swirling about in the middle of the hedge but seeming to be blowing south-west. This was annoying as it meant that the bit of the field on my side bordered by cover crops, where I was sure the deer would be coming out of, had the sun directly behind it making observation very difficult and should the opportunity arise the shooting also.

There was even a tantalising gap between in the middle of the cover crop that looked exactly like the sort of thing deer would do. The gap was a good 260 lasered yards away however and looking around again with this discovery I realised that any shot that presented itself would be at a fair old distance.

Some of you may remember that I had a little wobble about shot placement and accuracy on deer a few moths ago.

I posted a thread and got some excellent advice, I then went on to shoot my roe just were I wanted to in Scotland a few months ago but that was a reasonably big bodied buck at 120 yards. These Muntjac could potentially be much smaller and from the look of things would be stepping out at somewhere between 200 and 400 yards. This was not doing my confidence much good as it is never a good idea to shoot a deer in the arse on your first trip out to a new ground….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WypbzC6mi8

There was nothing for it, except to keep the sort of grim watch a surfer in a Guinness advert would, hoping that anything that did come out would be in comfortable range.

I felt a dig in my ribs, LH had his bino’s up and whispered “Doe! Over there by the edge of the cover crop”

I leant over him and took a look through my binos, Sure enough there was nice fat doe browsing it’s way across the field from one of the corners of the bordering forestry to central cover.

“shoot it mate” I said, it was after all on his side

“It’s three hundred yards away, I don’t trust my rifle”

“use mine”

The followed the inevitable argument of “no you” “I couldn’t possibly sir, it’s yours” “no, you’re the guest” “ you are a most excellent host and it is on you side” etc until finally I pushed my rifle into LH’s hands and grabbed his Blaser.

LH took aim at the constantly moving doe but by the time he got comfortable, only two or three seconds, the doe had melted into the cover.

Bugger.

Muntjac….they just don’t stop moving do they?

We resolved to be less oriental next time and whoever was presented with the best shot would take it, no arguments.

LH counselled patience, now was the golden half hour before dusk became night and considering that we had not spooked the doe it was entirely possible that another would step out.

Ten minutes late one did but browsing in the opposite direction to the other, going along parallel to the forestry edge at a distance of 180 lasered yards.

LH saw it first and having gotten the bino’s on it to range it leant backwards and told me to shoot it now as I had about 15 seconds before it got back into cover.

The adrenaline was going now but with the crosshairs on the beast I realised I would have to pull myself together to be in with any chance, the crosshairs were bouncing over a subtension that was twice the size of the deer! I do recall, thinking about it, that the deer looked very small for 180 yards but trusted LH's Leicas over my distance judgement skills any day of the week.

I forced myself to calm down and tracked the thing in the scope waiting for it to pause.

It didn’t stop.

I kept tracking it wondering what to do, “bugger it” I thought “I’ll put the crosshairs on it’s shoulder and next time that head goes down I’ll shoot it”

And I did.

BANG.

As the familiar orange haze cleared from the view in objective and the boom rolled away into nothing I could see the deer lying at the angle it was standing, absolutely still.

LH was saying something that sounded complimentary but I was beyond communication at that point, my chest was heaving and my breathing ragged as the suppressed adrenaline came flooding in.

We went up to it and popped it in the roesack to gralloch back at Richard’s place.

The pictures above are the only one I’ve got and were taken by LH on his phone whilst also holding the torch, so please forgive the quality.

The second shows the damage caused to the heart and lungs by the 150 grain soft points. The exit was about 2 inches in diameter and the lungs mush. I had put the bullet exactly where I had aimed and if I may say so myself, am jolly pleased that I seem to be over my shooting them too far back problem.

My thanks must once again go to LH for a wonderful evening stalk and equally excellent company, we finished on high note, and a curry, going home well satisfied.


Regards,

GH

All I can say is bloody good shot
What buck fever ?
I must confess I cannot make that shot at such low luminance at 156 yards.
Have you consider shooting for your country?
BTW Brian says we are making a scary movie.
If you look at the the time stamp on the photo file the deer was shot on 09/09/09 at 09:09p.m. how much more scary can that be...............

You are welcome my friend any wednesday during season you know that.

Scenes from the Blair Munty Project

NIce one Ghubert. It looks about the right size to skin and roast in one go.

Congrats!

Pleasantly surprised by the lack of meat damage from your '06?

Always depends where you put it of course!

Rgds

Ian

It's not the most flattering photo, I must admit.

The reason for the insane rictus is a wholly inappropriate joke, about the best place for the first cut.

I promise I didn't look like that all night, though I freely admit to perhaps having needed a shave....

The meat damage wasn't too bad on such a small beast

This is the exit

The offside shoulder was junk but the rest not too bad.

The bullet broke two ribs going in and four going out before clipping the bottom of the offside shoulderblade.

From my calculations the impact velocity was around 2400 fps, the speers performed just fine at that velocity.

I ahve recently started downloading the 150 grainers to 2800 fps at the muzzle, it seems to be a good combo.

Those with 308 have no reason to go for a larger case capacity if all they intend to shoot is 150 grain bullets, as far as I can see.

As usual, a story very well told.Pleasure to read always.Thanks for sharing.

Best-
Locksley,R