make ready on the sticks and wait for a
safe shooting opportunity. They need
to be relatively close to you and you
need to be accurate – it is really good
practice for any kind of rifle shooting.
With squirrels, you have to be quick
and getting into position can be very
frustrating, but I had a good afternoon
out and bagged a dozen or more of
the little critters.
This time, I thought I
would do some field
butchery and cook them in
the woods, so I took my
campfire and pan and did
some proper redneck
shallow-fried squirrel.
Squirrel is a nice meat when
fried – it’s sweet like pork crackling,
but the amount of work involved in
getting the meat off in the first place is
more hassle than it is worth to eat
them on a regular basis.
3$7,(1&(,6$9,578(
Back to the deer, we had a couple of
muntjac to take out. The cover is
getting so high now that the only real
way to be successful is from a high
seat. I have said before that I use
mobile seats for areas that we don’t sit
too often, or for the summer months
when we need to move them around.
I set up a seat overlooking some
tree tubes where a roe buck had been
seen, as well as a really good number
of muntjac moving through on our
cameras. To the right of the seat was
some rhododendron, which the deer
would lie up in before coming into the
clearer area to feed. It looked like a
great spot under some pine trees,
offering good cover for the stalker- important as the shots would only be
50 yards max. So, slow movements
and sitting still were required.
I sat in the seat on a glorious
evening, and about an hour
before dusk I could see a
muntjac in the thermal
moving around in the
rhodies. Checking with the
binoculars, I could see it was
a yearling buck. I waited for it
to come out, but as time slipped
on, he didn’t look like he would.
A group of fallow bucks came out to
walk through the clearing and all
presented perfect shots, as they would
when they are out of season! They
were followed by a very pregnant fallow
doe going the other way. I am usually
very patient when it comes to taking a
shot, and follow the mantra that you
don’t need to pull the trigger, just come
out again tomorrow. I am lucky that in
most instances I can do that, but on
this occasion I didn’t heed my own
advice. I watched the munty buck get
to where I could see him clearly. I
would be shooting down towards him,
but it was close, not 40 yards.
I slowly made ready and moved the
rifle into position. I could clearly see
his head and neck and he was facing
away from me. I like to neck shoot,
either from the front or back, on the
larger species of deer; it gives slightly
more room for error. Even though I tend
to use a ballistic tip bullet such as a
Winchester Silver Tip in 95gr in my
.243, I try not to leave anything to
chance. The shot was simple enough,
so I cocked the rifle, took aim and
squeezed the trigger. The deer fell
instantly on the spot. I reloaded and
kept ready.
I got down from the seat and
reloaded the rifle to approach the deer.STALKER’S DIARY
http://www.rifleshootermagazine.co.uk 55»
It is
estimated that
bark stripping by grey
squirrels costs the UK
timber industry £14
million per
annum.ABOVE: Unbeknown
to Tim, the bullet had
clipped a small
branch before
reaching the deerBELOW: Although you
see them often,
squirrels rarely stop
to present a shot!PICTURE:ALEC OWEN-EVANS / GETTY