88 SHOOTING SPORTS MAGAZINE

FIREARMS | PEST CONTROL DIARY

Howard considers bullet placement and how to extract the carcass off the hill

without mechanical aids

13

Lucky

M

y very fi rst stalk on the does and

hinds was to say the least

entertaining! My problems

included getting hooked up on a fence,

freezing cold water up past my knees and a

good poke in the eye with a branch. But I

still managed to bag my fi rst roe doe of the

season before my sling broke causing me

to drop my rifl e on the scope. Luckily I

always carry a spare gun so I was not out

of the game for more than a few hours,

once again proving that proper preparation

and planning pays off!

END OF SEASON

The end of the season went according to

plan with no mishaps in fi ve days I

accounted for a mixed bag of sika and red

hinds and roe does totalling 13 in all. My

two friends in the syndicate managed a

mixed bag of six sika hinds and roe over

ground that is very challenging; putting

stalking skills and stamina to the test. Our

shoot consists of about 30,000 acres with

some hard stalking; however requiring more

work is the carcass extraction!

This proved hard going and while these

two sat it out in high seats I stalked the

wood in the hope I would fl ush some deer in

their direction. It worked with marginal

success, but out of the three of us I got the

largest bag and the longest drag picking my

way through the thick boggy wood to the gate

then returning to the wood to stalk again.

After four hinds I’d had enough so we

returned to the larder to tidy up the six

carcasses. I was out again that evening

sitting by a rock looking up towards the moor

some red hinds made an appearance. I

always think do I really want to do this but

with the cover and dense forest you have to

take them when you can then worry about

the extraction later!

Resting on a rock at 200 yards I dropped

one with a heart shot with the rest running

for cover at the sound of the shot. Now all I

had to do was to fi nd my fallen hind. Not

easy as the only marker I could use was the

When dragging a beast off the hill the last
thing I want is to have it attached by means
of a harness, using a rope this way if anything
happens I can let go

With no chance of getting

a quad or Argocat on rough

terrain like this it’s back to

good old man power