Kindly give me some pointers on coming to terms with fallow in softwood timber.
I see these most outings, but rarely get a shot. I really need to cull 6/8 in the next month.
They are an almost black strain and standing in mature stands of Douglas fir they invariably spot me simultaneously, trouble is there's usually 3/4 watching my efforts to stalk them.....
I have a couple of high seats but get bored after an hour sitting at this season.
Any tactical tips would be gratefully received!!

Trans-pond.

You have my sympathy! I personally find that stalking fallow in timber is the most challenging shooting there is.

My sucess rates seem to have increased since opening up shooting lanes onto regularly used paths. I tend to drift up a path on a parallel to the deer track and settle by a lane for up to half an hour.

I have placed large lumps of rock salt on stumps in the clearings at the end of each lane. If the deer are transiting and not under too much pressure, curiosity causes them to stop, one after the other, for a few seconds. Thats long enough to achieve a cull!

Don't know if that will make a difference in the time you have - but best of luck. Working as a team, and allowing a friend to move the deer to you along these tracks could prove to be a quick solution in this case.

Where are you based in Devon - I'm adjacent to Honiton!

rgds Ian

Trans-pond, if I may suggest it, you are wasting time and winding the deer up for nil return if you creep about the woodland after them.

Set your seats up, or ground positions, clear small lanes etc, (clear, but the narrower the better so you can do the whistling thing)then let them settle. Get your team in well in the dark, shoot once, leave them to settle for a fortnight at least, and shoot again.

6-8 you should get in two or three outings -choose a low moon period, tith overcast and a little breeze.

Above all, head shoot that leading doe first, which at the shorter ranges in and around thickets is not too difficult. Leave the bigger groups (you educate too many), and when you drop one sit tight - very often the yearling, sometimes with the fawn will come back, and you have a chance at one of them too.

All of which begs the question - what are you trying to do? Do you have a cull to achieve, and therefore you are out to kill deer, quickly and effectively? Or do you want to stalk them?

Lovely deer fallow- they learn so quickly and they keep you thinking. I think they are great.

[ 01-20-2003, 03:33: Message edited by: MG-J ]

Save the stalking for wet and windy days, go slower and wear a face veil.

You will be more likely to connect without bumping them first. If you do bump them they are less likely to recognise you as human and will be more likely to stop and stare.

IMHO for the average shot, head shots will over the long term lose you more deer than you will ever gain by the decreased disturbance.

1894 - off a shooting rail from a stand, one ought to be able to take a head shot reliably out to 80 or so yards? (Please, directly front on or back on, and never, ever, from the side)

The point was not to do with disturbing the deer. As you well know, fallow are very gregarious deer, and if one runs, the whole lot will follow. Which means that in woodland, you'll ony get one shot off.

If you can drop the lead doe on the spot, (she's usually 3 from the front), plus the second in command (she'll be about 3 from the back), mostly the whole group will mill, and you may well get several more shots off- provided they go down on the spot.

Threes and fours have taken like that, and I've seen 8 taken from a group of about 60, with 8 consecutive shots. As an approach it is devastatingly effective, if the range is fairly short, if you go front or back on, if you are properly supported, and the gun both accurate and zeroed. If you can shoot an inch group prone, you can certainly do that off a decently designed chair. You have a good aiming mark in the form of its nose, and all one has to do is to cover the target, whistle, when it will stop and look at you. You will either miss it clean, or kill it stone dead.

I agree with you in principle though - head shots are not the first choice, and not necessary for single deer. IMHO they are out side on (which includes high neck) and when not really well suppported. But if you have a cull to get in a given period, and time is important, then one needs to be able to do it, and to do it with both confidence and competence.

If one is not confident at head, go low neck, but then you need be very careful about invisible fawns if they are all grouped up.

The trouble with head shots is not that they are particularly difficult under the right circumstances. It is that because of all the hype and malarkey that has grown up as a result of them beng done badly, many people are halfway to being mentally screwed before even lining up. If one practises, and picks one moment and circumstances then it becomes just another target that falls when hit. You look at most people - they are shooting well inside what is required when shooting at chest - but show them a head and they start sweating. I'ts all in the mind.

[ 01-20-2003, 19:01: Message edited by: MG-J ]

We are in danger of getting into the head, neck/body argument. Let me just put my position. Side on is a never ever, chest is the shot of choice, first last and always, head is if you have to - you're on contract, or you have a cull to get with the herding deer etc. So quite specifically I'm not a "head shot to demonstrate how good I am" person. Truthfully - I'm not a good shot. I can hit what I aim at within reasonable and self imposed stalking limits, but I'm not a flies in outer space merchant. About the only thing in that sphere that I am good at is getting close and not geting flustered!

Lets look at head front or back on - assuming, and this I stress, a good rest and reasonable range. (Or lets look at the KZ of a muntjac which is about the same size - we can all hit that standing off the sticks at 80+yards, and I still wouldn't go for head except from a chair). Your shot will either hit bone in the skull. If you are low and go through the jaw, you will still hit spine. If you are left or right of spine in the high neck, you will take out either the jugular or carotid. So, if you get a hit, you will get a kill. The worst you can do is put a hole in its ear! Apart from that its a clean miss. I can only say that, to my knowledge, I have never wounded one that way. Still, if an individual is not comfortable with that, then fair enough, let it go, and no one will think any the less of him for doing so.

Fancy shooting, no, not if you have it right. The ones that cause the problems are the high neck unsupported off the sticks, standing at 60-70 yards. The clowns who go for neck at the front of a group and find that bullets come out not-in-a-straight-line.Or reckon they can head shoot at 150+ with some super velocity job. Or the punchers through cover. That sort of thing, and that I hate, because one has no business finding out how good you aren't on a live deer. Get properly rested and get close and they go down very nicely.

As for body shots and multiples. We'll have to differ, though I take your point about getting between them and home. Yes, it can work in the open, but if they are in or near cover, I've always found that if the one runs, 9/10 they'll all go with it. There's two ways round the problem. 1 Drop your victim on the spot, 2 Set up a team in seats around the wood, so when they run, you hope they'll bump into someone else and he'll get one (or more?).So if you are going for the few big hits, and that is the way to tackle fallow, that GUARANTEED drop of the leader is very important - if you have a group in or near cover.

There is an alternative shot - very high heart close to the spine BUT, while its very likely to drop it, it is not certain. And you can take a deduction from the dealer. In the worst case you get a runner, no blood trail and a deduction! Great.

Anyway, back to the tactical tips.If you are after fallow, especially after they have been wound up a bit, it's the seats that kill deer. Prosaic, tedious, but true - especially if after shooting one you stay sat still and wait for the next. Whatever, don't go wombling about the wood to look for it. If its been shot in the chest it will be dead and not going any further, and if you didn't shoot it right, then the wait will be of benefit. And to complete the point about getting between here and home. You have to be in position in the dark, pitch dark, early enough for any residual scent on the ground to clear, because one whiff of you as they get home, and they will probably, unless they are very naive, go down and stay down.

Hi Trans-pond
I have fallow on my ground that can be difficult especially in conifer areas. One way I have found helps is as mentioned salt licks the flavoured kind apple works best for me. you csn get them from most agriculture merchants that stock for horse people.(plenty of them in devon)Put them in different locations and have views onto trails to these. Other options is to use wind fall orchard apples or set up a phesant feeder with wheat but pre soak some in aniseed they like that.They spend time bashing the feeder about to nock grain out and feed on it. I dont like shooting them on the feed sites but to and fro but choice is yours. Dont forget to fill feeder up reg as they get pretty peeved if its empty and the younger bucks give it a pasting. Hope that helps. I find them best next to roe any day, I think it is the variety and they are so good to eat!

This is not "hunting" but if it is legal and you want to cull a large number of deer - use a spotlight. You could cull 4 to 12 in the night that way.

Again, definitely not hunting but it is effective if you need to reduce numbers significantly and efficiently.

Not legal in UK

Unless your you'r an FC Ranger!

Pete, how can you think such a thing. I thought they were leading the way in standards of excellence, so everything is done excellently - by night, out of season and so on.

I think its caled Crown Exemption.

MG-J

Unforetunately, as far deer are concerned, the FC speak with forked tongue!

They were one of the main drivers to get the use of helicopters for deer control sanctioned in Scotland. If i remember correctly, they stated they didn't want to use helecopters to shoot deer from them directly (of course not!) but wanted to be able to move deer using them... I don't recall if they they ever managed to get that legalised?

Regards,

Peter

PS...You have a PM

Pete - I keep getting an error message to my reply to your pm. The answer is yes, its getting better, and when you are ready give me a shout.

I don't like all these out of season licenses. If demonstrably, it's necessary, well OK I suppose, if a fair effort has been put in before the license application. However, land is being leased out with a license attached, without any review, and people are selling out of season stalking to clients! That is not right.

I'd like to be able to say that I won't let a client shoot any deer out of season - thats not true, because many times I don't have a gun with me. If I see a genuine case - not just a limp, or a day when we cannot find anything else - then yes, thats OK IMO. But this wholesale out of season kick really gets to me, and up north it is completely out of hand.

And there is a whole industry based on out of season venison. There is some argument that the lawyers use about the landowner being a game dealer. What it is I am not sure. However, the Deer Act is quite clear. It is illegal to be in posession of venison 7 days after the begining of the close season. So its dead simple - in posession means having it in a fridge, freezer, garage, car or whatever. So all you can do with an out of season carcass is bury it. In fact I give such little as we get to whoever (the kids School fund raising barbecue got one last year) , rather than sell it, or waste it.

The real problem is that people will not put the necessary effort in during the season. The FC are particularly bad at it. I think it stinks.

interesting points but let us not forget unlike most of us the commission stalkers are doing a job not a reacreational sport. The majority of areas up in scotland are commercial forestry plantations. Dont forget that the commission is run from the public purse and is accountable for its resources, and it is run by accountants! A common commission saying around here is " if its brown its down".Being a forester I can understand the mentality as easily as I can from the side of a reacreational stalker. That is not to say I agree to everything done by the commission . Our commission area is heavily culled but still produces sufficient deer for clients to come back year after year. young plantations of 100 acres is a big area to cover especially if you have a couple in your patch! Any way this doesnt help trans pond ,possibly an approach with the use of several stalkers on succesive mornings might achieve that desired cull figure provided the ground lends itself to it . good luck

Tread, I'm not a recreational stalker in any way shape or form. For recreation I fly toy aeroplanes - I haven't been out with a rifle for fun for years, and when I retire, the first thing that will go will be my rifles, closely followed by the gun cabinet.

I'm not accountable to the public purse - only to landowners who want a job done, properly and effectively, and never, ever, yet have I had to shoot a deer out of season, or come anywhere close to it.

Quite the opposite, on all four occasions where there has been a serious move to shoot out of season, and where landowners had been advised that the 4 conditions in the deer act were met, I argued that the job(s) could and should be done in season. And they were.

It is actually very simple - its a matter of getting organised, devoting the resources and doing it. We of course are not subisidised by the public purse, so we cannot hire in contract stalkers to do the job in season, which is an option.

I'm afraid I disagree very strongly. The seasons are there for a reason, and there need to be very strong resons for going outside those rules, and I have yet to see a single case anywhere, in the south of England at least, where that is justified.

What normally happens is that the whole business is allowed to slip and nothing gets done (or there is a lucrative lease to some client who goes for bones and leaves the does), then come inspection time there is a panic.

One must not forget that the "alternatives have been tried" clause includes a REALISTIC effort IN season.

If the sale of venison from out of season deer were stopped, as the law requires, you watch how quickly this out of season shooting would stop too.Its about money and convenience and very little else - the ability to keep ones stalking effort at a minimum. And it stinks.

Sorry post got doubled.

Tread- I am sure you have seen places where there are nothing but acres of mature pine 30 feet tall. It would take a herd of elephants to do serious damage - yet there's shooting out of season going on. It stinks.

[ 01-31-2003, 01:29: Message edited by: MG-J ]