Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Stalking Diary
Another game season has been consigned to the books and relative peace has been restored, but there’s always work on the deer front
AChris Rogers is a deer manager in East Anglia, CIC head measurer and NGO committee member s you will have guessed from reading my diary entries, my job is fairly consistent; I am always out stalking, mostly with paying clients or occasionally on my own. I’ve never done a huge amount of bird shooting, even though I originally trained as a gamekeeper, so it was nice to be asked to fill a COVID-19 cancellation on a local shoot, Ampton near Bury St Edmunds.
A change is better than a rest, apparently, and going on a day’s shooting with all the trimmings is a good way for me to reflect on the work I do and how the two forms of shooting differ. While driven shooting is great fun and challenging for someone who normally shoots everything stationary, with the aid of a riflescope, it reminds me how much I love stalking.
There is something special about heading out at dawn, looking for your quarry, sneaking into a shootable distance, and selecting an individual to cull when their time has come, or when it’s the right thing to do for the wider population.
Having said this, I do enjoy shoot days. It’s nice to be a part of a wider group of people heading out hunting together, and though the different groups on a shoot day can remain fairly separate, it’s nice to see everyone enjoying themselves in the fresh air. A final added bonus from the day is the chance to take some birds home, giving me and my family a break from our venisonheavy meals.
As I write this, on 24 January, we are at little over halfway through the female culling season in England and the game season will soon be done and dusted, returning the estate back to relative peace and quiet again.
Another good side to the end of bird shooting is our maize cover crops — what’s left of them — will be chopped up, removing a safe haven for the deer, particularly the roe. This removal of cover combined with some colder weather should make it a little easier for us to complete our cull.
Below zero
The winter months have been fairly mild in East Anglia, which helps the deer as they are under no pressure to feed hard. Now we have had some harder frosts, things turn in our favour and the deer are forced to come out into the fields more to maintain body condition. Prolonged days of cold weather really affect the muntjac, as they carry little in the way of fat reserves, and it’s amazing how many more you see if the temperature drops below zero for a few nights.
While the muntjac and roe are coming out more and are easier to pick up, the herding deer are the opposite. Nearly three months of being stalked by us, our neighbours and regional stalkers leaves them less willing to venture out in good daylight. Shooting at dawn and dusk is inevitable and an already tricky shooting
“There are some situations where the job is best done by the professionals”
situation is almost impossible with inexperienced clients.
For this reason, I tend to do most of the red and fallow cull myself — there simply isn’t time to point out the deer in the gloom, select an individual to be culled, explain when and where to shoot and keep an eye on what has happened to the chosen beast before it drops.
Though clients are important to us on the estate and we take their enjoyment of stalking very seriously indeed, we are first and foremost responsible for the humane culling of our deer and there are some situations where the job is best left to the professionals.
For stalking opportunities, email eustondeerhunting@yahoo.co.uk