the roe buck, once it was hung from a suitable
tree by the ingenious Apex Tree Hugger, with its
rubberised webbing and S hooks. Wearing rubber
gloves, I was able to quickly and easily perform a
suspended gralloch. I rarely cut open the sternum
as the carcass loses shape and doing so offers
more opportunity for contamination as there is
more meat open to the environment. The Apex
Truck Click with Auto Lift has been very useful for
gralloching larger deer on the tow hitch, making it
much easier to swing them into the back of a pick
up when lone working too.
With some light left in the evening, we got the
carcass back to the track side, and then pottered
off along another ride, only to be confronted by a
larger buck browsing on the vegetation under the
overhanging hazel coppice. Sliding my first rifle, a
.243, off my shoulder and onto the Spartan
Sentinel stick system in the quickly decreasing
light, I approximated the shot to be 120m. The
buck turned enough to offer a shot to the front left
shoulder. There was the satisfying ‘thwack’ as the
bullet struck; the deer jumped up and kicked out
his back legs, and then ran towards us before
crashing into the woodland some metres away.
The bullet strike and reaction to shot would never
have been visible with an unmoderated rifle, due
to the muzzle flip.
We stood and chatted about the shot and the
animal for a number of minutes as Sab stared
unblinkingly into the wood, waiting for us to move
forward and find the buck. Approaching the strike
site, my heart sank as there was nothing visible on
the ground, although I was confident with the
shot. But there was no blood, tissue or pins (hair).
Out came the thermal spotters, still nothing.
Admittedly the bracken, grasses and brambles
had begun to grow up. With confidence, I cast
Sab back and as Richard and I both stepped
forward Sab appeared back through the bracken
and we all stumbled across the dead buck, laid on
his back in a forestry extraction rut, well below our
line of sight. The bullet had never exited, so with
no exit wound there was not going to be any
blood at the strike and also no blood for a trail;
Sab had air scented the animal in the cover.
It was a successful and satisfying evening, all
achieved within half a kilometre, if that. The
forester would be happy and Richard’s freezer
would be ready for the summer BBQs.
GAMEKEEPING
‘Sabbath, the Lab,
stood peering into the
cover, so Richard and I
squatted with him and
scanned the area with
our Pulsar spotters’
The sharp Apex 46 knife
makes swift work of the grallochNapier’s Apex Tree Hugger is
an ingenious piece of kit