Evening Outing

[sussex 5,777]

On the way home yesterday from sorting out the new pup(more on that later) I stopped of to glass up a few fields on one of my places that has just been harvested ,leaving the game cover along one side of the wood & a two acre block that the deer have been making a proper meal of . There were four or five heads bobbing about in it so I decided Monday evening this was the place to be .

I arrived at about 4.30pm grabbed the kit (dog,gun ,sticks,bins) and set off down the side of a field of maize, keeping tight in I walked slowly towards the wood as I reached the end of the maize I looked left down the headland between the wood & maize and was greeted by the swishing tail of a fallow and forty metres further down a roe buck , both were safe ,the fallow because there was no back stop ,the roe because there a rarity on this place .Had they been in the opposite places the pricket was a candidate ! I watched them for 15 min , the pricket moving between the ride & the maize , not really going anywhere .I opted to go to the nearest seat , turning right along the wood & cover crop for a hundred meters then left past the 2 acre block ,another hundred metres to the seat.The dog settled under the seat ,I settled up it & we waited .....40 min later two does & fawns appeared seeming to come out of the cover crop they bolted directly in front of the seat to stop 250m to my left & start to feed,10 min later they were joined by 5 more does again coming out of the cover crop, they must have been in the maize and were now filtering into the cover and then onto the field ,although it looked fairly lean pickings from my point of view the deer clearly had other ideas .As I watched them feed I glanced back to my right to check the cover crop and standing 40 m out from it stood a lone pricket , as he moved it was obvious he was in trouble ,hobbling ,with a hunched gait he was skin & bone .Being injured he seemed ultra cautious , I very slowly raised the rifle , put the dot on him ,squeezed & ended his agony ....We waited a few minutes , all the time the rifle still aimed at him should he need a 2nd round ,he didn't ...One back leg busted at the joint ,the other leg injured by the foot .I gralloched him , checked for any internal problems ,he was clean but I decided he was only fit for the dogs .

Whilst in the seat I did see a big buck ,400+ m away with does , this after a conversation with a stalking pal this morning who watched three different pairs of bucks going at it big time , followed by much grunting , makes me think it could be an early rut ..

 

.

 

 

 

 

 

,

[seprim 32]

Nice write-up Rich and good pics too !

Andrew

[hutchey 147]

[glogin 87]

[Rob58 1,599]

[The one 8,477]

Sounds like a car accident ?.

[beast 1,884]

nice work, for me its in some ways more satisfying to take a sick or injured animal out of the equation than it is to knock over a big old buck