Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Hinds high on the hill
A day’s stalking on the Ross-shire moor is exhausting for the fittest of men but an extra hour’s climb was almost too much for J. E. F. Rawlins
Some time ago, when a deer stalker was criticised for firing at a stag at 500 yards with a high-velocity .22 rifle, he defended himself by stating that, as the conditions were perfect and his eyesight good, the risk of wounding was negligible. This statement brought back to me the vivid memory of my one and only day’s stalking and of how sadly inept, by comparison, my own performance had been.
There was in Ross-shire a 3,500acre grouse moor, much of it now afforested, which a few of us rented for several years from friends of mine. It was an admirable walking moor in superb scenery, yielding 250 to 300 brace in a decent season. In November an uncle and I used to go up there for the low-ground shooting.
Though the moor ran up to 2,750ft at one point, most of it was too low to hold deer. They came down in the colder weather and every year Tom, the keeper, shot a fair number of hinds. My hostess had suggested that I should have a day’s stalking with him but I had put it off, preferring to work my dogs after the elusive partridges and the cock pheasants in the glens.
Once, however, during our third November there, my uncle, who was then 80 years old, thought that the low-ground game and he could do with an extra rest and I decided to have my day’s stalking, using Tom’s army pattern .303 rifle. A tin set up on the hillside was punctured satisfactorily with half-a-dozen trial shots from about 100 yards, so we arranged to go out on the next day.
The usual pony man being absent, the gardener agreed to take his place. He was a new man and did not know the ground. Tom therefore took him to the edge of the moor and showed him exactly where he was to wait for us with the pony.
Off the hill
Next morning broke fine and clear. There was a strong westerly wind and a sprinkling of snow on Ben Wyvis. We left early. November days in Rossshire are short. If you kill a hind too late you cannot get it off the hill before dark. I insisted upon carrying the rifle myself. It had always seemed to me that the great disadvantage of deer stalking — aside from the fact that dogs cannot take part — must be that all the interesting mental work is done by the stalker. If you allow him to do all the physical work as well, you become a mere encumbrance.
We walked far before reaching the deer. At last we found about 30 hinds on a hillside downwind of us. It was useless to go after these; we could not get to leeward of them without going over the marsh. Then Tom spied a small parcel away up on the slope to windward. We sat down to eat our lunch before beginning the stalk.
It was a long, slanting climb, for the deer were far enough off and well above us, but the stalk itself was fairly simple. We concealed ourselves by crawling a tortuous course among the peat hags and it was only for the last 30 yards or so that we were actually