Updated stalking qualifications
Jon Snowdon takes you through the updated deer stalking qualifications and what you have to do to gain them
As some of you know, there have been changes to the DSC1 and DSC2 qualification requirements. These came into effect 1 April. The updates involve the game and hygiene assessment and a redesigned shooting assessment.
Due to COVID restrictions, many courses that had been booked over the past year were postponed. For those who have now been given a reorganised course date and assessment and were booked before 1 April, the only change is the shooting assessment, which is explained below.
Game meat and general hygiene written assessment
The 40 questions for this assessment are still part of the DSC1 requirement underpinning that the candidate’s knowledge is sound. With course and assessment bookings registered from 1 April, however, the Trained Hunter (TH) qualification will not be awarded until the candidate has successfully completed DSC2.
Changes to DSC2
From 1 April the registered candidate requirement for three Independent Cull Records (ICRs) has been reduced to one. Anyone who registered for DSC2 before 1 April will, however, have to complete three ICRs.
All of the changes were taken up after a period of consultation with trainers, approved witnesses, assessors and internal verifiers of the qualification.
Often, people dislike change, in whatever the field. I always used telescopic sights and when I started years ago they were the norm, but I still came across rifle shooters who disagreed and felt we were dumbing down rifle shooting discipline. They also thought we were using them to shoot deer at further distances. That was not the reason, but it did improve our accuracy and the all-important humane shot. Few now would have such opinions of telescopic sights.
If my memory serves correctly, the DSC1 award came into being in 1998. There isn’t any qualification around that does not have to change; it is a necessary part of keeping them relevant, as highly regarded as DSC1 and DSC2 are. Codes of practice, legislation and standards change over time. If we take the game meat and general hygiene qualification, this became EU law in 2004 and was introduced into the UK in 2006.
This qualification meant that anyone who was handling game meat to put it into the food chain had to be suitably knowledgeable so as not to compromise public safety. I have no argument with that and it should be taken very seriously. There is little impact if you poison your family (though they would no doubt beg to differ), but cause a serious outbreak of E.coli or other food poisoning in the wider population and you should rightly be held to account.
The necessity was that all game meat entering the public food chain should be traceable from where, when and who it was shot by, to the point it was purchased to eat. A hunter’s declaration is signed by the hunter and attached to the carcass confirming this. Hunter declarations are monitored by environmental health officers.
The previous game meat and general hygiene award was previously awarded if the paper assessment was passed in DSC1. As mentioned, it is not awarded now until the candidate is successful in completing DSC2. This is no surprise and I am in total agreement with the change.
Previously it was possible for a candidate to go through the game meat hygiene and general assessment paper without having handled a deer carcass. It can be daunting once a candidate has completed the assessment successfully to be given a carcass for inspection to carry out: what is normal? More importantly, what is abnormal? Where on earth are those retropharyngeal glands? Whatever that means?
Every course ever taken relies on the candidates practising what they have been taught. Many do, but we also know some don’t even think about it once they have left the classroom.
I have to hold my hands up here; I was a bit like that with maths and one or two other subjects, which I won’t mention in case of embarrassment. The updated change to the TH award ensures that those who have completed DSC2 have demonstrated practically to an approved witness and that they can do what is required and, as such, public confidence in game meat is upheld.
The updated shooting assessment is also an improvement. Yes, the approved target areas on the chest are smaller, but if you can’t get within the targets, then you should really be thinking of doing something else.
Advice on the head target
The trajectory of a bullet is its path in flight. If our work is in woodland then we would usually zero the rifle at 100m. This means that anything up to 100m and some metres over will hit the kill zone of a deer. The exception is if the target is really close or too far beyond 100m.
The trajectory of a bullet is always a curve. It will pass through our line of sight twice. On firing, the bullet leaves the muzzle. On exit, gravity is pulling the bullet down to earth; that is the trajectory curve we are talking about. The line of sight, however, is the straight sight line we take through the scope to the target.
What we do when we have fitted a scope to a rifle is to adjust our line of sight down through the trajectory curve, which in turn raises the barrel enabling us to zero it at any given distance chosen.
The centre of the scope of my rifle (customised from a 30.06 Tika T3) is around 1.5cm above my barrel. Therefore on exit at the muzzle the bullet is lower than the cross hairs on my scope. It takes around 23/25 metres travel distance to rise until it crosses the trajectory curve for the first time.
When taking a humane despatch shot on a deer or the deer target for DSC1, at distances of 20 metres or less than the bullet has not risen enough to your cross hairs of the scope, the bullet’s point of impact is lower. On taking that shot you have to aim a little higher on the target. Practice will let you know exactly where.
All information can be found at dmq.org. uk, or basc.org.uk. Thanks to David Goffin of DMQ for checking the details.
“Qualifications have to change; it is necessary to keep them relevant”