And We Know What Happened To The Mammoths

Well we've had a load of snow this week. More than we can cope with to be honest with you, although saying that 'sticks in my craw' after bleating for months that we need harder weather.

Anyway, there's so much snow, that we've hardly been able to get to our hinds. There's about 2 feet of it, plus there was serious drifting too.

I've spent a fair amount of the week digging or- better- snowploughing with the tractor. The snow is so soft and deep as to make our snowbikes and snowtrac useless.

I've included pictures of the two days I did get stalking. The first was after some 'handy' hinds not far away but up a steep face. Getting up there was a real battle and I was glad of the help from our young trainee to drag them back down.

The second time was yesterday. I was joined by a good friend and we decided to have a look out the floor of  a wee side glen. We found deer alright but resorted to walking up the river rather than the thigh deep plunge that was the alternative.

It took about 2 hours to go a mile. We eventually got stalked in and bagged a couple of yeld hinds. Eric brought Fergus up, and when he was loaded, it took another 2 hours to get back to the rover. It was a mammoth effort (har).

All the time I was doing this I wondered why I bother. It must just be in my nature to give it 100% every day. It's a shame it counts for so little.

Infamy

Happy New Year to you, one and all.

Over the Christames break, my colleagues and I have been praying for some harder weather to 'bring the deer in' a bit. It didn't happen.

I also though that, with my ground left quiet for a fortnight, the deer might have settled down a bit. I even thought the big herds might have broken up and spread out a bit. Didn't happen.

We're now 2 days back in the yoke. And both days we've had mist and rain and very little to show for our efforts. Personally, I'm getting extremely windy about how far I'm behind with my cull. The problem is, there is very little any of us can do about it. Even if we were to get the hard weather now, I really don't think we could make up the numbers we need to.

I can't remember if I mentioned it in a former blog, but I had a(nother) cameraman out with me a few weeks back. This one was filming for an internet programme called The Shooting Show.

As it turned out he also (I say also because this is the second cameraman I've had out with me recently) had very poor conditions to film in. All I can say is that the camera never lies- this is what we've been having to put up with all season.

You can catch the programme (dated 7.1.13, I think) on www.theshootingshow.tv.

Enjoy.

On The Silver Screen

Well I managed to survive until the Christmas break. Out of the last 6 working days, 5 have featured mist, wind and lashing rain.

On the last stalking day I managed to bag 4 beasts. Although it was a refreshing change to get more than one shot off, it did come at a price. That price was that this required 2 trips with the horse.

 I got so cold waiting for Eric and Fergus to return that any distraction would do....like taking pictures of  my misery, for example.

On a similar note, I had a filmmaker-Rob- out with me a few weeks back. He was doing a promotional video for wild venison. As luck would have it, the day he came out was a fair representation of what a days hind stalking entailed.

As we trundled away from the larder in the morning, Eric asked as to whether he had a rain cover for his (rather expensive looking) camera. When he responded in the negative, Eric offered to fetch a bin-liner.

By the time we came off the hill, that bin-liner was in tatters. Those tatters, however, were still being carefully wrapped around the camera after each sodden attempt at a take. By the time the stalking party was down on the flats of the glen, the misted lenses rendered the camera useless. Which was a pity as a pair of salmon were putting up an excellent display of spawning in a shallow pool just a few yards away.

As it turned out Rob returned for another day and managed to get the shots he needed. You can get a sneak preview of the drier parts of our first outing on http://vimeo.com/53165007 . Hopefully I'll be sharing the second outing with you soon.

Finally, I'd like to thank all you folk out there in cyberspace for your continued support. My last blog must have had an air of despondency about it. It garnered a few comments of encouragement which were just the tonic I was needing.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and all the best for the coming year.

 

New Bloods

A couple of blogs ago, I mentioned that we'd behaving a different sort of group coming stalking for the week. Well they're here- and they couldn't be more different from the group who were staying at the lodge last month.
This lot are dossing down on the floor of the village hall. There's not a square inch of tweed to be seen. And, although a lot of them have never stalked before, they know one end of a rifle from the other.
They are a group of army snipers and this is 'Adventure Training' for them. When I hear that expression my brain automatically replaces it with 'Busmans Holiday'.
A lot of them were here for the first time last year (see blog of 16th December 2011) and it's great to catch up with them again. But it's also nice to see there are some new faces with them. This means we'll get to give the new bloods a blooding. As I've said many times, I love introducing 'virgins' to what I consider to be the most challenging and rewarding of all fieldsports.
It's also great to see that the weather has improved; although some would not see -10C as an improvement. As you'll see from the pics we've also had a bit of snow. Not enough to shove the deer right 'in aboot' but enough to have totally stymied the delivery driver who took his van down my drive to deliver one tiny parcel.
Speaking personally, my only regret about the snow is that I have to leave Lottie (my young terrier) at home. She's not yet steady enough not to dance about while I'm stalking in. This isn't too much of a problem on 'black ground' but she sticks out like a sore thumb on the snow.
The forecast sounds like there will be a lot of rain arriving at the end of the week so maybe it'll be 'business as usual' for us both come Monday.
In the meantime, there's a lot of miles to do with this lot. And they don't ever seem to need to stop for a 'breather'. Unfortunately.

 

Water Biscuit

Those of you who live in the uk will need no telling about the weather we've had this last week. Flood warnings are in place the length and breadth of the land.

For us, Monday was diabolical. Not a day for the hill at all, really. But with us falling behind further and further with our hind cull, I felt I had to go out and try.

Tuesday turned out to be even worse. And I had a guest out that day. I'd like to think we'd have had a result as well but the wind changed on us when we were only 200 yards of the beasts. Then later mist obscured another lot just at a crucial time. Excuses, excuses....

But Thursday really took the biscuit. And what a soggy biscuit it was. Again I had a guest and we were fortunate that, although we had lashing rain, the cloud base remained high enough to be able to see what we were doing.

As it was, we got a couple of beasts and a good soaking.

As I write this I can see a greyness to the very tops of the hills. But we're needing a lot more snow than that if the deer are to be shoved in to our more accessible ground.

I heard that some Danish scientists, monitoring sea temperatures off iceland, are predicting a very hard winter. Be careful what you wish for? Bring it on, I say.

For a wee while anyway.

Sore Calves

As I had guessed, going back to work after a fortnights holiday was a bit of a shock to the system. Especially as I was straight in to doing up my grouse butts.

The first line we went to was a brisk 45 minute walk with a nice wee pull up a brae to finish. And it just about finished me.

Well here we are 3 days on and today I started off doing a grouse count then continued by touring round some gritting stations. We have to withdraw the medicated grit from the grouse diet in advance of the shooting season so I have to get round all 200++ of my trays in the next few days.

Today I got round 80. And if you consider they are 200 yards apart, that's a lot of yards. (That's certainly what my legs are telling me.)

I thought you'd enjoy these pics. One is of a red deer calf that Ed latched onto. Normally you try and leave a calf like this alone- and not put any scent on it- but I had to ward off Ed and 3 spaniels.

The other pic was taken right up by my march with the neighbouring estate. It took me over an hour to walk up there but I'd rather that than a road like the one in the shot.
I had to do a double-take when I first saw this pic- I thought the dogs were practicing their circus trick.

Taking the Plunge

It's a sair fecht!

The light covering of snow is making heavy weather of the stalking. There are no short-cuts when you stick out like a sore thumb. Furthermore, the long detours (to keep you out of sight of the deer) force you higher up the hills and into snow up to your f..f..f..fetlocks.

Generally speaking, the deer are still in great nick. This becomes very apparent if you make the slightest mistake.

Take yesterday, for example. I had a regular guest- John- out. The deer were low down on one side of the glen. So we took a long, slow plod over the hill above them. And as we did so, the deer casually crossed the glen.....

So John and I had a long belly crawl down a (mostly) frozen burn to cross the floor of the glen without them seeing us.(See pic!) As we did so I noisily broke through some ice. Brrr! 500 yards away one or two hinds got to their feet.....

By the time we were able to move freely again, most of the 400-strong herd were on the move. By the time we got to our shooting point there was 1 scrawny hind and her scrawnier calf left- and they had their bags packed and their passports stamped. John managed to nail the calf.

It was a massive amount of effort for 15kg of venison but it's typical of what this season has been like.

Today, for the first time in ages, I managed to come home with a decent bag. But it required a long walk, two long stalks and nearly all the daylight that was available.

I love my stalking but I have doubts as to what is going to come first- the end of the season or the end of my tether.

Waiter, This Venison is Tough!

Well things aren't getting any easier. The mild weather continues and the deer are playing hard-to-get. Very hard-to-get.

Every year we stalkers get a beast each for ourselves. Needless to say, they're usually the biggest and best beasts of the season, and clean-shot. But getting near enough to them to be sure of a neck shot is no walk in the park just now. More like a walk in the minefield, in fact.

It dawned on me that, with the end of the season fast approaching, I was running out of time to get my beast. As Tuesday was a horrendous day of driving rain, I thought I'd make getting one good hind my sole objective for the day.

The good news was that the foul weather had pushed a herd onto some handier ground. (Relatively speaking.) The bad news was that they were in a spot that turned out to be nigh-on impossible to get near.

I snuck up a wee burn and waaay before I was anywhere near the beasts I was crawling-to avoid disturbing sheep. (The Red Deers answer to NATOs Early Warning System.)

Anyway I crawled into the next postcode and to within 250 yards. The deer were still on their feet and grazing towards me at this point. Then, one by one, they lay down. Nooooooo!!!!

Dismayed, I crawled up and down the same stretch of burn 4 or 5 times trying to find any way of getting closer. With 150 pairs of eyes looking down the hill at me? Not a chance.

My only option was to wait. And wait. And wait.

I was starting to feel decidedly chilly (and not a little frustrated) when the weather took a turn for the even-worse. The freezing rain started coming down in sheets.

"Thanks very much!" I muttered heavenward. .....then the deer started getting to their feet. Perhaps this cloud really did have a silver lining.

The filthy weather was too much even for these tough hombres. They got up,turned their bums to the rain and walked away. When the last pair of lugs disappeared over a nearby rise I could have wept with happiness- I could move!!

I followed them on and as I crept around the corner I found most of them already out of range and still moving into the vast open stretch of a sheltered bowl. Utterly unstalkable. Lifting my head a little higher I found that a handful had stalled- and lain down just after entering the bowl. And looking through my binoculars, I could see that one was an absolute clinker.

I started crawling forward to get a clear shot- all the time aware that I was coming into sight of more and more deer. And as I crawled I noticed the 'stragglers' were, one by one, getting up and following the herd again. It was a case of 'take your time but hurry'.

When I got to my firing point there were only 3 beasts left in range- but the clinker was one of them. As I got the crosshairs on her I saw her looking about as if to say "Hey, where has everybody gone?"

She became the dearly departed just a moment before she deerily departed. Getting her two companions was the icing on the cake. Albeit a very moist cake. I was ecstatic....right up until I contemplated the monster drag that awaited me.

Boy, she had better taste good.

Winter Lite

I would love to say that my latest silence was because I was taking a break on my yacht in San Tropez, or that I was owf skiing at St Moritz. Then again I'd love to say that Jennifer Anniston keeps bugging me to be her Friend on facebook. Dream on...

Nope, the simple truth is that I've been snowed under. I seem to have had so much on my plate just recently that all you can see of the Willow Pattern is a swallows tail.

Recent storms haven't helped either. On 3 seperate occassions in the last month, we've had winds of nearly 100 mph. Thats 180kph in new money. What that means for us on the ground is that it's a battle to move about the hill, a greater battle to shoot straight and- when you eventually get some time to yourself- there's a power of tidying up to do back home.

And in the past month I've had to reglaze half our greenhouse, re-fix some of the corrugated iron sheets on our shed, cut and split some fallen trees... and I've yet to get round to re-felting the kennel roof and raking up the ton of branches littering the garden.

And yet, this could never be classed as a hard winter; anything but. We've hardly had any snow and hardly a frost. This has meant that our deer are keeping an extremely healthy (for them) distance from us. Recently I've been spending a lot of my day hiking out to where the deer are. And then it takes another big chunk of the day getting it horsed home.

The soft weather also means the deer haven't had the edge knocked off their condition. As a result, as soon as a shot is fired the rest are racing for the horizon. Last week, for example, I had 10 beasts for 10 stalks. That's just plain hard work.

All this might be about to change. The weather does seem to be getting a bit more seasonal. You'll see from the pics that we had some heavy snow showers today- and we managed some outdoor curling at the weekend.

They say 'be careful what you wish for.'

I say "Bring it on!!"

The Post of Christmas Past

Happy New Year to you all.

I was shocked to see how much time had passed since my last blog. In my defence, I've managed to cook up a couple of plausible excuses. My first is that the run-up to Christmas became more akin to a desperate scramble for me. The second is that we stopped our culling on the 20th December as there would be no collections from our Game Dealer after that.

I have to say that I was more ready for a break than I ever remember. I like to get 100 hinds in the bag before Christmas if I can. This year I had 95 and it feels like they've come harder than ever. I put this down to a)having lots of guests to take out b)open weather(ie no snow)allowing the deer to stay a long way out on the hill c)a lot of really crappy weather in the way of wind, mist and rain making every task more difficult d)getting older!!!!

And as I write this, the house is being battered by 90mph winds and thick sleet is blowing past the window. You've got to feel sorry for anything 'oot the hill' on a day like this.

Mind you, it wasn't much different yesterday and I took a friend out just to see if we could get a beast for him to buy. They say a picture speaks a thousand words; the one I've posted of yesterday is uttering nothing but expletives!

And there were a few more when we missed!!!!!

Operations will be back to normal on the 9th but before then I'll hopefully be taking my 14 year old niece out for her first hind. If it happens, I'll keep you posted.

Storm Troopers

Since my last blog, the weather has turned a lot more...er...seasonal. We've had frost, we've had snow and we've had wind. Lots of it. On the top of Cairngorm (about 30 miles as the crow rapidly flies) they recorded a max. wind speed of 165mph.

Through all this, I've been stalking hinds. More often than not with a guest. This week we've been host to a group of army snipers. Each day I've had two of them out with me. It has meant full-on days, trying to get a shot for both. On the plus side they've certainly been more help than hinderance. They know how to spot, they know how to stalk and they know how to shoot.....and I took it upon myself to teach them how to drag!

And despite the inclement weather at the start of the week, they've managed to bag over 40 hinds over the 4 beats. Good going guys

It's one of my great pleasures introducing rookies to what I consider to be the most challenging- and rewarding- of fieldsports. And I make no excuses for the enthusiastic 'bloodings' I gave them. As with everything that was asked of them, they were well up for it.

But for now, my rifle is cleaned and locked away; my gear is drying out and my radios are charging. And I've got all weekend to summon the energy to do it all again come Monday.

So if you'll excuse me, it's time to throw another log on the fire.

A Fresh Pair Of Eyes

You may remember that I recently had a young lady out stalking. It was her first time and I thought it might be of interest to all you out there to hear what she thought of the experience. So here you are!

A week or two ago, Andy invited me to spend a day stalking. As a meat-eater who is also determined to choose the ethical option – I buy free range and wild food whenever I can – I was really interested in this. At the same time, I didn’t know how I would feel about shooting an animal. But I know the deer population in the hills has to be controlled, mainly because we no longer have top predators such as wolves to curb numbers.

I had never used a rifle before, so Andy and I started off at the range. He showed me how to use the sight and explained that I’d need to squeeze the trigger gently. I was surprised at the lack of kick from the gun. I aimed at the deer target amongst the trees, hit it first time, so I was ready to head up the glen. Andy explained that, if possible, we’d be waiting for a beast to stand side on, which gave the best margin for error. I was worried I might miss the target area, and maim the deer. But Andy assured me that if this happened, he would take the rifle and shoot it properly.

We drove to the top of a hill, leaving Eric to collect Fergus the pony. Another ghillie, Angel, came with us, then went back down with the Land Rover. Andy and I set off with Ed the dog. The weather that day (swirling mist), was less than ideal for stalking, but it lent a certain atmosphere to the occasion. As we walked off, Andy explained the principles of stalking – you have to imagine where the deer would be on that day, and then try and approach them so they don’t know you are there. One of the most important factors is wind direction, because you don’t want the deer to smell or hear you coming. So we set off upwind to where Andy thought they might be. We found some very fresh deer droppings on a path, and so decided to follow their tracks. As we rounded a corner, we stopped and waited rather than push on in the thick mist. The tactic paid off as, a minute or two later, it lifted just enough for us to make out shapes on the next ridge.

Andy signalled to me to drop down, and we crawled through the heather towards them. The mist was swirling about and kept blocking our view, but then it would clear again. The deer didn’t seem to know we were there. Andy set the rifle in position for me, and showed me which hind would be a good target. He picked one grazing, side on to us, with no other beasts around it. I got into position and looked through the sight. It took me a while to ready myself for the shot, and in that time the mist had come back in, so I had to wait for it to clear again before I could shoot.
Then, when I could see properly and the deer was in place, I squeezed the trigger. Andy was a bit unsure of the shot so he took the rifle and shot it again. The gralloch (removing the stomach and intestines) revealed that my shot had hit the liver. Andy assured me it was a killing shot but with the poor visibility, he had erred on the safe side.

As I had never shot an animal before, it was now time for my “blooding”, which is a ritual performed after shooting. Andy drew blood across my cheeks as a mark of respect for the dead animal. We then radioed Eric with the pony and set off down the hill with Andy dragging the hind. As it was still morning, we dropped off the beast on the pony path and headed back up the hill for lunch. After sandwiches and thermoses of tea on the side of the glen, we set off again to look for more deer.

This stalk was much longer. It had been far too easy in the morning! But, eventually, as the light was starting to fade, we found another herd, and we crawled into place. This time I was quicker at getting into position and readying myself for the shoot. I squeezed the trigger and shot the hind. My shot was much better and the beast went down first time because I had hit a major blood vessel in the chest. Again we gralloched the animal, and then dragged the beast down the hill, this time through a burn! We met Eric and Angel on the pony path, loaded the hind on to Fergus, and walked out as the sun was setting.

All in all it was a very interesting experience. I am a keen hill walker and mountaineer, so I was doing something new in a very familiar environment. I realised stalking is a special skill and I couldn’t believe how close we could get to the deer (a necessity on a day with such low cloud) without them knowing we were there.
I certainly didn’t get any kind of thrill from shooting an animal, but I have a great respect for the skill involved in stalking, and I feel that if you are going to eat meat, wild, organic meat is the most ethical choice.

The Old Dear

Yesterday was the first clear day we've had for ages. It was so useful to be able to spy my ground from a vantage point and see where all my deer had been hiding.

While I was doing this I spotted a single beast lying in a tiny hollow on a face a mile distant. Unusual.

However I made a mental note of it and carried on with Plan A. Eventually, after Plan A had mutated into Plan F, I returned to the land-rover with a couple of beasts. When I spied back across the glen, the single beast was exactly where she had been. Highly suspicious.

Although there was only about an hour of light left, I decided to go and see if I could get this beast. I was pretty sure that if I did, I would find that there was something wrong with her.

Three-quarters of an hour later and I was crawling around on that hillside, trying desperately to find a place from where I could see into the little hollow. Fortunately for me she stood up and presented me with a shot.

When I went up to her, I could see she was a big hind in seemingly good condition. I checked her legs, body and head for damage- nothing. As I gralloched her I found nothing untoward apart from the wall of her rumen was so thin that my fingers went through it as I tried to remove it.

Puzzled, I looked at her again. She looked rangy- big framed but a bit thin. I could see from her coat that she wasn't old but I decided to have a look at her teeth anyway....and all became obvious.

Her teeth were worn down to the gums. It turned out she was one of the oldest beasts I've shot in a long time.

I have to say, I felt a huge admiration for this old dame. She had been a huge hind in her day and was still in incredibly good strip for her age. But, more, she'd managed to give me, my predecessor, and probably the stalkers on two or three of the neighbouring beats the slip for about 14 years. The only reason I'd eventually caught up with her was that she was so done in that she could no longer keep with the herd.

There is a real sadness to shooting an exceptional beast like her but it would have been far worse- in my eyes- to have left her to a lingering death in the depths of a winter storm.

I've Seen The Light

Finally, after about 3 weeks of mirk and gloom, the sun came out today.

The morning started off as per usual; thick mist to halfway down the hills, dark and with a heavy drizzle thrown in for good measure. As usual, I donned my waterproofs on departure from the landrover. And proceeded to walk the hill in my own personal sauna.

As I started stalking, the mist started to break up. I watched the scraps intently as they drifted this way and that. There was no discernable wind and it was so quiet I could hear the blood thrumming in my ears. (Not the best of times to be in full waterproofs.)

I managed a successful stalk in the morning and another in the afternoon. Just as Eric arrived with Fergus to pick up the second beast, the sun broke through. I swear I could hear a choir somewhere.

"I'm blind, I tell you! Blind!!" I yelled, falling to my knees. Then I thought I'd better get a snap quickly before it went away again.

I offered this rare pic to the Daily Record for £10,000 but they weren't up for it. They did suggest I contact another of the tabloids but I'm damned if I can remember the name of it.....

Roamin' in the gloamin'

Extract from a phone call 20 minutes ago:-

"What was it like out the hill today?"
"Och, just another really dreich day. That's six stalking days out of the last seven been nothing but thick mist."
"And have you been getting any hinds?"
"Aye. I got a couple yesterday and three today. After a lot of trying."
"Has anybody else been getting any?"
"Not these last two days."
"So how do you do it?"
"Och, I just go oot the hill and fire off a wheen of shots into the mirk. Then I have a rake aboot and see what I've got. I found 3 braw rucsacks today and all!"

I was joking of course, but if conditions go on like this for much longer, David Attenborough will be doing a special programme about us. We'll be like those fish that live in pools deep inside caves that have evolved without eyes.

By last Friday I think I was starting to suffer from SAD (Seasonally Affected Disorder) but now I'm definitely AHOLED (Absolutely Hacked Off from Light Emission Deficiency).

As I write this, I've just caught the forecast for tomorrow:- Mild, with South-East winds. It's going to bring in low cloud off the North Sea that might be slow to clear in some areas....for a change.

On a brighter note, the accompanying picture is of a young lady who shot her first hind with me yesterday. I'm hoping to bring you her account of the experience. Once she's recovered.

4 Eds Are Better Than One

Would you believe it? I had 3 guys out stalking today and they were all called Ed. This morning, when they asked me the name of my dog and I answered "Ed", they wouldn't believe me!

So I include a picture of the 4 Eds. While you're looking at it, please note the crappy day in the background. We spent a highly frustrating day working the steep walls of the glen in the background. Visibility varied from bloody murky to blotted out. We stalked hinds only to have them obscured by the mist at the crucial time. We winded hinds when the light wind eddied and spun the mist in circles. We stalked shapes only to find they were all stags when we eventually got to our shooting position. We found hinds in a great position at the end of the day when there wasn't enough light left to stalk them and Fergus (the horse) was already on his way home.

I once managed to go an entire hind season without having a blank day. 198 hinds on the trot- as it were. I was hoping I might have managed it again this season.

Looks like it'll have to wait until next year now.

Hogwash

You may have read on my blog of the 13th October that a TV production company had been in touch. Well there's more.....

They are doing a series for National Geographic channel called Wild Case Files. In this series they investigate unexplained natural phenomena. One such phenomenon is this strange jelly-like substance that can be found in the countryside at this time of year.

A couple of years back I left a comment on the BBC 'Out of Doors' website claiming that I knew what this was- stag semen! (After all, that's what I'd been told when I asked my colleagues about it 20 years ago.)

Anyway, these TV folk just wanted me to voice my theory for the camera.

Before doing this I thought it prudent to ask around and see if I was, in fact, about to make a monumental Horses Arse of myself.

Amongst the people I asked, I heard theories ranging from 'ectoplasm' to ' frogspawn squeezed from the frog by a predator' to 'slime mould'.

When the TV crew eventually appeared I told them I'd changed my mind and wanted to say it was a 'polysacchirate mucus exuded by a fungus belonging to the trellus genus'. They told me to stick to the script.

So, after waiting 48 years for my big break, I've spent my Golden Opportunity spouting the biggest load of hogwash since the last election. I guess I'm going to be losing the deposit I made on that tasteful mock-Roman Villa in Beverly Hills then....

It's just as well I didn't give up my day job. However that's not what Angel (our Spanish ghillie) was thinking when he had to drag a calf 2 miles back to the landrover today.

I'd already shot a horseful (3) but wasn't going to let that stop me taking the chance when it presented. I know from bitter experience how hard you can work for just a single beast some days. Anyway, it was just a wee calf....honest.

So that's 11 in the bag now. Just another 139+ to go. I try not to think about it too much.

Hallelujah!

Strange. For the past couple of days my feet haven't quite reached the ground when I walk; everything I look at takes on a golden glow and when I listen carefully, I'm sure I can hear choirs singing.

Yes, the stags have finally arrived on the ground! The ones that are old enough and of poor enough quality to be considered 'shootable' are still thin on the ground.

But I don't care.

There are always loads of young stags and 'good' stags in the way.

But I don't care.

It was blowing a gale and lashing with rain yesterday.

But I don't care.

In fact, the only thing I'm bothered about is the fact that I have only 11 stalking days left to my season- or 100 if you include the hinds.

So that's alright then.

Out OF Stalk

Those of you who are regular followers of my blog will know how much I enjoy my stalking. I enjoy it even more when taking a guest out. Stag season used to be one of my favourite times of year.

But I've still no stags on my ground. Guests- many of them regulars whose company I really enjoy- have come and gone from the lodge. They've been out on the beats where they've had more chance of success. Which is as it should be.

As for me, I've been using this opportunity to catch up with a heap of other stuff. My grit piles have all been switched back to medicated grit. I've dug another 50 or so new ones. I've been round my stoat traps, upped my lamping activities, fenced, collected firewood, disinfected kennels.... hell, I've even brashed rides through a small wood. That one's been on the back-burner since I came to this beat 7 years ago!!

I'm told that there is a lodge-full of guests next week and that I'll be stalking, regardless. I must say it will come as a relief; but only if the rut gets going and those blessed stags put in an appearance.

Falling for The Fall

Today is the first of September, which means 2 things:- 1) It is the first day of Autumn and 2) There is a yoghurt in the fridge that constitutes a major biohazard.

With respect to 1), you would well believe it. Today was overcast, cool and windy. Very autumnal and very conducive to driving grouse but perhaps not to hitting them. The guests assured me that it was fun trying, tho'.

But Autumn is definitely here. The Rowan trees are laden with scarlet berries (a sign of a hard winter to come, according to folklore), the brackens are starting to turn yellow and the first leaves are turning on the birches. The swallows are flocking prior to their long migration to Africa and the stags antlers are- for the most part- clean of velvet.

The hills that were bright with the purple bloom of the heather are fading fast and it wont be long until the first frost.

It's a time of year that I love- especially later in the season when we are out stalking and the Red Deer rut is in full swing. At that time our resident population of about 3000 hinds and calves is joined by a further 1500+ stags and the noise and spectacle of the roaring and fighting and chasing is fantastic. Better, even, than the 'toon' on a Saturday night.

But there's plenty going to be happening before that, starting with dealing with 2).

If this is my last blog, you'll know I didn't make it........