After several long flights I made it to Edinburgh where I picked up my car and started the drive to Banchory where I would be staying for the week. I know the area well so I decided to leave the main road and take a back road into Banchory via Fettercarin. Here is a picture coming over the pass into Banchory. It felt good to be in the highlands!



Once I arrived I checked into my hotel for the week. I stayed at the Banchory Lodge. I have stayed here several times and always enjoy it. It is very comfortable and the staff are very friendly.



The Banchory Lodge sits on the River Dee and has a nice view of the river.



Every morning I took the 1 hour drive up to Braemar from Banchory. It is a very pretty drive with lots of nice scenery and little villages. You pass several famous estates and castles on the way. I said hi to the Queen every morning when I drove by Balmoral. I am pretty sure that she and the corgis said hi back…

The first day started as you would expect meeting the Stalkers at the lodge, shooting the steel target and then heading out to the hill. We ended up walking to the back side of the estate and glassing down the canyons as we came back. We stalked up to a large herd of Hinds but saw no shootable stags that day.

The Second day started with a nice drive up Deeside again and then off to the hill.





We spotted a heard and went after them. When we started to get close and were in our final stalk a group of walkers in the valley floor started making all kinds of noise and the heard was off.

The only way to get to them was to crawl up a burn fully exposed. We spent the next two hours crawling on our stomachs up a burn. It was a miserable stalk, cold, wet, and by the time we were done my back and knees were killing me. But it was soon forgotten when I pulled the trigger. This is my first Royal and I will remember the stalk for a long time to come!

Day three started off quite a bit colder and the weather was starting to turn a little more Scottish, the clouds were very low and we could not see very far.





There are some giant hills behind where we were stalking but we could not see them all day.

It was a wet and blistery day and the deer were very spooky. We had several failed stalks and at about 4:00 in the afternoon we decided to give a section of trees a try. I have never stalked in the trees, it is an interesting experience. I shot this stag at 20 yards. I was standing and the rifle was resting on the stalkers shoulder. It is a weird feeling to be in the trees with a large heard of stags that close.

By Day four is was quite wet, we headed off after a group of stags and ended up with several unsuccessful stalks as the deer were still very jumpy. Every time we got down to the final stalk we would jump a covey of grouse and off the deer would go. Eventually we ended up stalking into them and I was able to shoot a cull stag. By this time it was raining very hard and we were soaked.







I got a kick out of this, my Stalker James is a smoker and e roles his own “ciggies” as he calls them. Here he is trying to roll and light his ciggy in a downpour. He did eventually make it happen but it was quite comical.



After the stalk we relaxed in the lodge for a dram by the fire we all needed to dry out.

Day five started off quite wet, cold and my clothes had not dried out from the day before, at about one o’clock after a failed stalk in a downpour I decided to throw in the towel. I was simply too cold and wet to go on. So, we went back to the lodge to warm up. Scotland is a beautiful place and these pictures don’t do the highlands justice. I never feel more at peace than when I am there.



After the stalking portion of the trip I did a little sightseeing and met up with a friend from the board in Edinburgh. Here are a few pictures of my favorite castle in Deeside.

Exellent hunt and report!
Way to go

Brad:

Sometimes it seems hard to believe such a beautiful place is less than an 8 hour drive from London.

Great trip and fine report. Thanks for taking the time to put it together!

Good read supported by some nice photos.

Waidmannsheil!

At the beginning I was wondering what country you took the photos in; as I have been to Scotland a time or two - I don't think I have 9 pics total with that much blue sky in them. You must have been during a dry spell.

quote:

Originally posted by Gerry:
Good read supported by some nice photos.

Waidmannsheil!

At the beginning I was wondering what country you took the photos in; as I have been to Scotland a time or two - I don't think I have 9 pics total with that much blue sky in them. You must have been during a dry spell.

Gerry:

MsAZW was bugging me to go on my bear hunt in AK; I told her it was just like stag hunting in Scotland (which she loved) except instead of going back to a cozy hotel to warm up and dry off, you have a tent.

Excellent report Brad, the weather looked like I remembered September and October was back in 1979 when I was at the submarine base in Holy Loch on the west coast.

Wifezilla and I drove around Scotland playing tourist in June and we loved the Highlands but we had beautiful sunny weather almost the whole time. We didn't go as far east as you though we drove back down from John O' Groats through Inverness to Edinburgh.

I grew up in Lompoc just down the road from you.

Great report! Thanks for putting it together and posting it.

.

Great write up and pictures. What rifle did you use?

Thanks for posting.

Charlie

.

Well done!!
Thanks for posting.

Beautiful stags and lovely photos of the Highlands. Thank you for sharing and safe travels......LL

You had some nice stags there and pleasure to have had lunch with you and talking about stalking and other matters. Trust that you and yours are all safe given the Californian fires - pretty terrible by the looks of it.

Thanks for the responses guys!

Fjold, Yea I remember that you grew up in Lompoc, for some reason your avatar left a lasting impression on me…

Charlie, I used an estate rifle. It was a Moderated Howa .243, Two stags were one shot kills. The third I put a second in for good measure but I am not sure it was necessary.

Heym, Thank you again for taking the time out of your day to go to lunch with me, and buying me lunch on top of it. It was great to meet you, talk about Stalking, and Scotland’s economy. I really enjoyed it. Yes, I am safe from the fires, they are in northern California, it is really bad up there.

What a hunt, congratulations.

I head up in two weeks, can't wait!!

Smashing hunt!

I've been looking forward to this report, well done on all fronts!

That first stag is an excellent free range trophy.

Thank you for the wonderful report. Your photos bring back fond memories of the time I enjoyed deer stalking the in the highlands. Such a wonderful experience.

Bloody well done, Brad and thanks for sharing. Question, please: did you bring any of the antlers back? If so, how much of a hassle is it?

quote:

Originally posted by Kamo Gari:
Bloody well done, Brad and thanks for sharing. Question, please: did you bring any of the antlers back? If so, how much of a hassle is it?

I am in the process of having the dried heads/antlers shipped back now. You can hand carry them back but if you want to do it properly it is not practical because you need to make arrangements to meet with Customs, US Fish and Wildlife and the Department of Agriculture.

So, I decided to ship them. I spent several months calling all the of agencies involved and the process is fairly straight forward. In a nutshell there are three agencies involved and this is what they are looking for:

US Customs – Wants to confirm that you have declared the item properly, then they will send it on the US Fish and Wildlife.

US Fish and Wildlife – Wants to confirm that what you are importing is legal to bring into the US, you had the proper licenses to take the animal, and is not on the protected and endangered list, then will send you on to USDA

US Department of Agriculture – Wants to make sure that the Trophies, have been properly cleaned and are disease free.

There are services that you can hire to handle the import and paperwork, but I chose to do it myself (using my shipper as broker) because I did all the research.

If you want to bring more than just horns, it gets much more complicated.

Good stuff! Thanks for posting.

Thanks for posting your hunt,great photographs of the Highlands .jc

Beautiful pictures. Thanks for the report