Sorry it has taken a while for 2019's first instalment of the Bushcraft Education blog to hit the net but family time, deer stalking and a busy teaching schedule and a hectic last month of the shooting season has kept me very busy.
Family time at Christmas and New Years is important and has had to take precedence over blog writing recently.
Out deer stalking on New Years Day, rising earlier is a lot of peoples new years resolution, I've never had a problem with it as long as there is some stalking to do, traps to check or a good view to be had. These new years day outings have become a bit of a tradition for my Dad, brother and I and I was lucky enough the Sallie came with me on this outing too. Between us we got three Chinese Water Deer and saw the first sunrise of 2019 in person, which was far more spectacular than the fireworks just a few hours earlier.
After this brief absence though we are back and have some exciting things in store for 2019.
The first announcement we have is the launch of a new 'micro-blog', the foragers diary blog has been growing in popularity since I established it in 2016 so this year I decided to start another one dedicated to nature observation, it can be found at countrysidefieldnotes.blogspot.com and will feature regular updates from me and from other members of the bushcraft education team. It will be in a similar format to the foragers diary blog; short posts with pictures of our observations of nature and wildlife and the countryside management activities we are involved in.
The New Field Notes 'micro-blog'
I hope this new blog will be a success and that you enjoy it but I will also be closing one of the other micro-blogs. Geoff Bushcrafts was an attempt to show my daily practice of bushcraft skills in but I just haven't had time to make the most of it and so to concentrate on my other projects I will be closing that one down and instead of micro blog posts about the bushcraft skills I use on a daily basis I will spend a bit more time this year creating in depth articles and content for the bushcraft basics pages on this site and on getting some high quality posts prepared for the applied bushcraft series rather than the cursory mentions that it would get on the Geoff Bushcrafts micro blog. Also there are just times when snapping pictures and sending out a post just isn't appropriate so I wasn't posting any where near as often as I needed to to make that particular blog a success, so it will soon be taken offline. The content will remain there for a little while but in the next few weeks it ill be gone. Instead we will be putting a lot more practical and skills based bushcraft posts onto the main blog here to make up for it.
A post shared by Geoffrey Guy (@gguy_bushcrafteducation) on
Also the content on 'Geoff Bushcrafts' was often, if not always duplicated on my instagram account so you won't miss out on anything if you follow me on instagram.
Preparing a space for stacking timber and doing green woodwork when we start coppicing sweet chestnut
This is something you can look forward to this year though; a new lease of life for the applied bushcraft series, where we discuss topics such as traditional woodland management, wildlife management and other professions or pastimes which still require ye olde bushcraft skills. There will be some guest contributors to that series and I will be making a concerted effort to improve the bushcraft basics pages and will also provide links to my writing elsewhere on the web to broaden the selection of articles on bushcraft skills that you can reach through this blog.
Brexit is at the forefront of the news in the UK at the moment and given all the worry about it and the 'prepping' that some are doing to prepare for it is relevant to the Bushcraft and Survival in the News posts that I started last year. I had promised these posts monthly after the initial quarterly release proved popular but that was impossible to deliver at the time. I do intend to follow that pattern this year though and will release one on the last Friday of each month in addition to one that will appear this Friday featuring news from the last part of 2018 and the beginning of 2019.
As well as all this you can also look forward to the usual content with monthly posts on gear and foraging as well as a mix of educational and instructional posts on bushcraft, survival, traditional skills and outdoor learning.
Pictures from last years deer course at Kindrogan
Pictures from last years deer course at Kindrogan
There will also be some real life teaching to engage with as well as I will be delivering some courses for the Field Studies Council again this year. The Deer Ecology course at Kindrogan was popular and successful last year, all the participants were able to see wild red, roe and fallow deer and we also visited the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre. Due to circumstances beyond my control though this course will probably take place at Margham in South Wales this year although I hope to return to Kindrogan for future courses. Margham will be an excellent alternative venue though as they have a deer herd of red, fallow and most interestingly Pere David on site.
Pere David deer
I will also be delivering a bushcraft course for the FSC, probably at their Millport centre on Great Cambrae in the Firth of Clyde. As soon as possible I will post links here so you can book a place on those courses.
Have a great 2019 and I hope you enjoy what I have in store for you on the blog.
In January you will get to read the full review of a product martin has been using recently one of his deer rifles, as you can tell from this little preview he is quite excited about it. Check out our usual gear review post in January for a full account.
It's never too late to have one of those "I wish I'd known about this 20 years ago" moments and I just had one! I'm 61 next birthday and have fired many weapons in a variety of disciplines and situations and I can't think of one in which the aim point micro H-2 wouldn't have made me a better shot. I grew up with small bore rifle and a lot of shot gunning for pest control and on my best days, I was good but never great. The military had me shooting with assault rifles and sub machine guns as well as an assortment of man portable antitank weapons and once again, the aim point would have been brilliant in all but the pure long range applications.
My other love, whilst the military encouraged it and civilians tolerated it, was pistol shooting. Tragedy bought that to an unnecessary and abrupt end but without doubt, this too would have benefited from an aim point micro with its pinpoint accuracy and 'both eyes open' capability, I only wish I'd had the opportunity to try it! But alas, those opportunities have gone and unlikely to return. The one I do have though, is to put it on a short, light and fast handling deer rifle for woodland stalking.
Watch this space for my experiences in the cambridgeshire woodlands, shooting Muntjac, Chinese Water Deer and Roe. See you in the woods! MG
After working late in to the night making repairs to our
little forest range, there seemed little point in driving home for 3 hours
sleep, just to turn around and come back in the morning, so I lit a lovely
blazing fire and had a brew before sliding in to my sleeping bag at Midnight.
The air was already below zero but I had been working hard, was warmed by the
fire and knew that I was exhausted enough to get a fantastic night’s sleep.
I
was right to some extent, I was really cosy in the sleeping bag and I went ‘out
like a light’ and slept very soundly until about three in the morning! After
the 3 hours’ sleep I could have had at home in bed, I awoke to find my
extremities very cold indeed! There was nothing for it but to get up, stoke the
fire and have another brew before trudging off into the darkness for an early
session in the high seat.
The walk, the multiple layers, the car journey and exertions
had warmed me for a while as I trudged in over noisy ice covered puddles and
finally took my seat and loaded up ready for the long wait.
The inactivity soon had me thoroughly cooled down again and
as the light gathered I could see frost forming on my barrel and moderator! There
was no choice but to sit and shiver whilst I continued my vigil.
I heard the unmistakeable barking of a Muntjac about a 150
yards away then, a little later, I spotted a couple of Roe does in the distance
but then on one of my innumerable scans with the binoculars, I caught a glimpse
of something that hadn’t been there before. Your eyes and the light can play
tricks sometimes but I was sure this was something real and as I focussed and
scrutinised the spot, I realised it was a fox. I hadn’t come for a fox but as I
watched its slow progress along the edge of the field, I knew exactly where he
was heading, he was off to the breakfast bar which we call pheasant pens. We
‘share’ this piece of wood with a little syndicate who have a few pheasants and
out of good neighbourliness, I couldn’t let Charlie go and wreak havoc in their
pens, I remember all too well the night a fox took my last 4 chickens. So even
though I knew that my deer vigil was over when I pulled the trigger on Charlie,
it was a choice that had to be made.
I squirmed around in the seat to rest the rifle on a side
rail and began to watch him through the scope, I was comfortable and the next
time he stopped, it was going to be his last stop! He made a 90 degree left
turn and disappeared in the blink of an eye. Still certain as to his
destination, I started my ‘distressed rabbit’ squeak and thankfully he
reappeared just as quickly but a few yards closer. I was watching more intently
through the scope now and the safety was off, ready for the shot, he was at
about 65 yards and all thoughts of deer had gone.
I will never know if a deer was going to show up, so I made
a choice based on my neighbour’s pheasants and I’m content with that.
The difference between moorland managed for shooting on the right of the fence and grazed and denuded of heather and anything but grass on the left. (Image by Richard Guy)
Misunderstanding about the environment and about the work that goes on in the countryside abounds, often championed by well meaning individuals with the welfare of animals and the conservation of the natural world at heart but without the practical experience or appreciation of the relevance of wildlife management to accept that sometimes humans need to manage the environment rather than just let nature do it's own thing.
Mark Avery, former director of research for the RSPB published Inglorious in 2015 criticising grouse shooting and supporting his call for a ban on driven grouse shooting. While he does cite some very credible literature and does make some very good arguments against large scale driven grouse shooting he completely overlooks the benefits of land managed by game keepers.
I take a dim-view of 'celebrity environmentalists' like Chris Packham and Bill Oddie who should know better than to make some of the claims they do about grouse shooting and game keepers, although there are some in that industry who certainly do break laws and persecute wildlife the work of gamekeepers is still very important to the character of the British countryside. I do though have a little more sympathy with the kind of environmental 'miss-education' that can occur in schools.
'Environmental Education' is part of the curriculum in the form of topics such as climate change and sustainability and in a 2003 paper about environmental education in Australian National Parks *1 highlights the issue of teachers without the necessary understanding of the environment to deliver effective environmental education. The authors comment specifically that although teachers may have understood environmental issues from a social or cultural perspective they lacked a sound understanding of the ecological and management issues.
I have a similar concern having experienced first-hand the effects of misguided people who were concerned about the environment, they had certainly taken a position about the environment and were attempting to influence society which are two of the highest goals of environmental education but their position and action were informed, not by sound fact and local ecological knowledge, but by media and schools where the preoccupation seems to be to presenting global ecological and conservation issues without the context of local issues and badly informed teachers who will preach, rather than teach, about a specific, possibly emotional interest they have in the environment. To put this in context over my years of working in the countryside I have had traps and snares stolen or vandalised, valuable livestock released and been yelled at and verbally abused for cutting down trees and have been reported to the police for carrying out perfectly legal, necessary and beneficial environmental management activities.
Contrary to popular belief it is still legal to trap and snare many species of vermin and predatory mammals as well as some birds under the conditions of the General Licences as well as use snares which meet certain design criteria under the UK's laws. These traps fill a vital role in controlling species such as grey squirrel and mink but many dismiss them as illegal and cruel without any proper understanding of their role, function or the lengths which have been gone to to ensure modern traps are humane.
I do not believe that it is the role of teachers and environmental educators to address the issues or specific difficulties I have faced due to ‘environmental mis-education’ but there should be a responsibility to provide local context for peoples experiences in the environment rather than them forming perceptions of nature and the environment from TV documentaries of exotic animals, deforestation, global warming and other, very important, but very distant and intangible environmental issues.
If instead of using the easily accessible, celebrity endorsed, well marketed, neatly packaged but flawed examples of the negatives of wildlife and environmental management teachers were a bit more critical of the material they delivered and were willing and comfortable to step out of the school building onto a local farm, nature reserve, shooting estate, beach or hillside their students would see the day to day activities that go on out there and be able to relate to the climate and sustainability issues in their own community rather than form the opinion the cutting down trees is bad because deforestation in the Amazon is bad and that's all they have learned about at school.
Coppice management in a UK ancient woodland, a whole different kettle of fish to deforestation although tarred with the same brush in many peoples minds because they simply don't understand the difference.
While I don't expect everyone to suddenly start hunting and foraging their own food after a brush with the environment of their local area I do think that it will be much easier to have those conversations about where food comes from and why shooting and fishing are a legitimate and beneficial way of putting food on the table once people understand how the environment of their local area is maintained and managed.
My son mackerel fishing off the Dorset Coast
It's not only about food though or the rights and wrongs of killing something to eat but about respect for the people who make a living out of agriculture and countryside management and an understanding of the UK's unique landscape and countryside.
As bushcrafters you, and I say you because I am a deer stalker by trade and I train game keepers so to many I am one of the enemy when it comes to their opinions about wildlife and the environment. YOU have a unique opportunity to teach people about those things without being a direct part of an industry that many distrust and find distasteful and can do a great deal to educate people about their countryside.
References
*1 Lugg, A. & Slattery, D., (2003). Use of National Parks
for Outdoor Environmental Education: An Australian Case Study. Journal of
Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 3(1), pp. 77-92.
November sees the start of the Chinese water deer (CWD) season and to open it I often make an outing with a few like minded companions to make a good start on the cull. This is an account of one of those early season outings from a year or two ago:
Before we even reached our parking spot, we saw our first CWD, unperturbed by our presence we could only watch him briefly before trundling
on. Once parked, we wished each other good fortune and set off after a careful
re-brief on safety and communications procedures and where everyone would be
seated on this grey, damp and increasingly windy morning.
A few minutes later we had all taken up our respective
positions and began our vigil as the light slowly gathered in the east. Through
binoculars, dark shapes could be seen but not yet in sufficient detail to be
useful, weeds and the ever present ‘bog oak’ projections, can all take on the
form you want them to in poor light and patience is the only solution.
A double Crack and thump told me that Carl had found his
mark with 2 rounds in quick succession. I awaited Carl’s call so that I could leave
my seat as I could also see deer now, though not close enough for a shot and I
was eager to move but didn’t want to rush Carl and safety and communications
protocol demanded that we were in touch before I moved. Carl’s report came, he
had two deer and was observing another, as was I. We agreed that he would make
safe and I would leave my seat to pursue one of my opportunities, Steve hadn’t
seen anything yet but the day was young.
I was out of my seat and crossed a very rough track to the
cover of some tall weeds, from here I confirmed the position of 2 deer and
dropped back into deeper cover to make my advance unseen. Progress was slow to
avoid making any noise in the brittle cover and soon I had closed the range to
around 75 yards, a safe and comfortable shot even in this morning’s stiff
breeze. I opened up my shooting sticks and rested the rifle on top, made a few
minor adjustments and slipped behind the stock to take the first view of my
target through the scope. It was a good size yearling buck, no fangs to speak
of and moving confidently and freely with no sign of impediment. I slipped the
safety catch off and as he turned broad side on to me, two deep breaths, exhale
as I put the cross hairs just behind his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The
rifle cracked and nudged me gently in the shoulder and I heard the bullet
strike its target and saw a shower of hair to confirm the fact.
Chinese water deer often shed huge clumps of fur when they are hit, this makes is fairly strait forward to track them down if they run from the point where they were hit.
My phone buzzed
almost immediately with a message that Steve had dropped a nice buck and I
replied that I had too. The deer I had shot had disappeared in to cover as they often do but
experience told me that I was only going to walk a very few yards to find my
prize. This was my hundredth CWD. I made safe
and started my gentle stroll to the spot where I last saw my deer and as I
expected, I found hair and blood at the point of impact confirming what I
already knew and a significant blood trail led the 8 or 10 paces to where the
little fellow lay motionless in a dry ditch. He was in lovely condition, fine
coat and fat. I carried out all of the carcass inspections required for meat to
be put in the food chain and got to work with knife and rubber gloves to prepare him for the carry out.
Back at home, the butchery confirmed that the animal was in
great condition, very fat from a plentiful supply of quality fodder, kidneys almost
invisible in a shroud of thick fat, this is going to eat beautifully!
The nature of this article does mean that there will be some pictures which are quite graphic and that we will be discussing a subject that some may find distasteful; PLEASE STOP READING NOW IF YOU ARE A SNOWFLAKE.
Following on from yesterday's review of the browning x-bolt I'm dedicating a whole post to a lesson related to firearms and their use for getting wild food in the UK, rather than trying to shoe-horn it into yesterdays post.
We'll be discussing terminal ballistics which is the term used to describe the path of a projectile once it has hit it's target. If we are planning to harvest wild game as part of our practice of bushcraft then we need to understand this so we select the right weapon to kill something for the pot. The nature of this article does mean that there will be some pictures which are quite graphic and that we will be discussing a subject that some may find distasteful; PLEASE STOP READING NOW IF YOU ARE A SNOWFLAKE.
It's important if we are going to take a life to fill our freezer that we do so as humanely as possible and in accordance with local laws.
I have written about archery here before and why I have never dedicated any significant amount of time to it's practice for the simple reason that it is not legal to hunt deer in the UK with bow and arrow so it practising never seemed like a good use of my time. So this post will focus on the terminal ballistics of rifle bullets and how they affect our quarry.
A range of ammunition for modern rifles; from left to right .300 Win Mag, .303, 10.3x60mm, .243 Winchester, .222
When we discharge a rifle at a deer, rabbit or anything else that we intend to kill for the pot the projectile doesn't stop moving once it hits our target, obviously it penetrates it and causes traumatic damage and blood loss leading hopefully to a quick or instant death. The path of the projectile after it's first impact with the target and it, or it's pieces coming to rest, the projectiles terminal ballistics are the topic of todays post.
To set the scene watch this video to get an understanding of what happens when bullets strike their targets. These videos are quite old but show in great detail the effect of modern and antique firearms on ballistic gelatin and bone. Ballistic gelatin is made to mimic flesh in tests and so these videos are indicative of a bullets behaviour once it strikes a live target. One of the Browning X-bolts featured in yesterdays review is chambered in the same 5.56 mm calibre for the M16 that is tested in this video, the calibre is known as .223 in civilian circles.
The video is an old one but is does show perfectly what is meant by terminal ballistics and compares quite effectively the damage caused by modern rifle bullets compared to frontier era pistols and rifles which might also be of historical interest to bushcrafters.
To put what you have just seen into perspective and relate it to gathering food the legal minimum calibres for shooting Chinese water deer and muntjac (the two smallest deer species in the the UK) in England and Wales is .220 with a minimum bullet weight of 50 grains and minimum muzzle energy of 1000ft/lbs. For the larger species of deer the minimum is .240 and a minimum muzzle energy of 1700ft/lbs (there is no mandated minimum bullet weight). This guideline exists to ensure that deer are only shot with calibres that can kill them humanely.
It is true that smaller calibres can kill deer, especially with a well placed shot but the welfare of your quarry is paramount and you should never be tempted to use smaller calibres or inappropriate shotgun loads for shooting deer. Shotguns loaded with non spherical slug or AAA shot can be used to shoot deer in England and Wales but slugs require a section 1 firearms licence and good reason to posses and AAA is really only a loophole to allow farmers to shoot deer if they are doing severe damage to crops and they don't have access to a rifle. I would strongly recommend AGAINST using shotguns on deer unless it is to dispatch an already immobilised or trapped deer that can't easily get away and then only at very close range, even AAA shot which is large by most game shooting standards only carries a few ft/lbs of energy per individual shot and is not capable of killing or even severely wounding deer except at extreme close range. One of the reasons for this lack of wounding capability is that the shot (which is actually a similar diameter to a .223 rifle round) does not deform on impact.
The deformation of a rifle round is what allows it to transfer the maximum energy to it's target and kill it humanely. In fact rifle rounds for use on deer must be 'expanding rounds' that is they are designed to deform rapidly on impact with the target.
You can see the ammunition here on the left has plastic orange tips and on the right has slightly hollow points. The ammunition in the centre is NATO Ball ammunition with a full metal jacket. The other rounds are designed to deform on impact with soft skinned mammal targets and impart maximum damage to cause a humane kill.
The ammunition shown in the video was all non expanding ammunition in that it was either fully jacketed or solid lead which will deform but only when it hits something quite solid like bone. The rounds designed to expand rapidly are generally partially jacketed in copper but split open and rapidly deform on impact, an exposed lead tip, un-jacketed hollow point or plastic tip cause the bullet to rapidly open up bursting the copper jacket and smashing open the bullet to cause maximum shock and blood loss. The rapid expansion of these bullets causes catastrophic temporary wound cavitation even more extreme than what you saw in the video but the bullets do not penetrate as far as they deform and fragment so quickly.
The permanent wound cavity of a .243 soft point rifle bullet. You can see the lead fragments at the end of the individual wound channels.
A close up of the farm end of the wound channel. bear in mind that on a live target this expansion would start at the bullet strikes the skin and passes through the first layers of meat, fat and bone before entering the chest cavity and encountering softer organs and structures, so wounds to live targets do not look exactly the same.
Comparing the wound channels of different projectiles, standard .22 rim fire hollow points on the left and expanding .243 rounds on the right.
The rim fire rounds although hollow point do not do nearly the same damage as the more powerful centre fire cartridges as they do deform slightly but do not break up or carry as much energy.
Another comparison of permanent wound cavity this time a .25-06 at the top, .22 rim fires in the centre and .243 at the bottom. You can see the .25-06 has caused temporary cavitation large enough to split the gelatin open completely.
The temporary wound cavitation shown so clearly in the slow motion video isn't obvious looking at the gelatin afterwards except in the case of the 25-06 round where it has split the gel open but that shock as it is transferred to the target is often although not always enough to knock an animal to the ground even if it doesn't kill it instantly. To ensure a humane kill though this energy needs to be directed at a vital part of the animal where the wound caused will kill quickly and humanly. In small game a head shot is often preferred and the rapid bullet expansion through an animals skull is always going to be fatal.
Entry wound of a 55 grain hollow point .223 round on a rabbit.
Exit wound on the same rabbit; you can see that the bullet has expanded significantly and the temporary wound cavity was larger than the animals head causing the destruction you see here. There is no doubt though that it was a humane kill.
While headshots on small game and vermin are acceptable they are not encouraged for deer, deer have large heads in comparison to the vital part of that head which must be struck by a bullet if the shot is going to be fatal. Not to mention that the head is the most mobile part of a deer and easily missed. Chest shots are considered best practice giving a larger target and an instant or near instant kill if the animal is struck in the heart and lungs. The head shot though has this major danger;
This might look like an ordinary young red stag but there is a gruesome story to this particular animal. It was shot due to a severe wound it was suffering from which you can see in the next picture. (Image courtesy of David Carr)
Some time before it was finally culled it had been shot in the head causing this gruesome wound but had not been killed. You can see there that the wound is heavily infected and necrotic and this animal would have been in agony not to mention unable to feed and would have eventually died of starvation or infection. (Image courtesy of David Carr)
Just because bullets are so incredibly damaging doesn't mean that they are magically able to kill any quarry or that a head shot is always successful like in video games and movies. You need to carefully select a suitable calibre and type of ammunition for your quarry and be aware of the performance of the round so you can safely and humanely select your shot placement to ensure you achieve a humane kill.
I would suggest the following calibres for common UK quarry;
Rabbit; .22 rim fire, .17 hmr, .22 magnum, small .22 centre fires such as .22 hornet, .222
Hare; as above
Fox; rim fire are acceptable at close range and if you are taking head shots but for mid to long range shots centre fire rounds such as a .220 swift, .22-250, .223, .222 up to things like the .243 and .260 are great for foxes.
Muntjac and Chinese Water Deer; although .220 centrefire rounds are legal on these small deer I am unconvinced of their stopping power and prefer something larger such as a .243 Winchester.
Larger deer; .243 Winchester, 6.5x55 mm, .308, .270 etc... for red or large fallow I would prefer something larger than .243 (6.5x55mm would be my first choice) although it will do the trick and is legal.
To sum up terminal ballistics then;
Temporary wound cavity; the shock wave caused by the energy transfer from the bullet causing the surrounding tissue to stretch and expand, due to the elasticity of flesh this will return to it's former shape once the energy has dissipated but the act of expansion may tear the flesh or split it open. Bones do not have the elasticity of flesh and will break, and may shatter, under the influence of this energy transfer.
Permanent Wound Cavity; this is the permanent wound caused by the passage of the projectile, it's pieces and potentially also of bone fragments. This will be a permanent penetrating portion of the wound where flesh has been torn away, bones broken and displaced and will not return to it's original shape. The permanent wound will bleed and will extend into the organs and internal structures of your quarry.
You have seen these permanent wound cavities in some pictures here and that is the result of a bullet wound either killing through rapid blood loss by a shot to the heart and lungs or immediately through shock at the destruction of a vital organ like the brain or heart. So that is the gruesome reality of putting meat in the pot as a buschrafter.
Traps are an alternative in some cases and air rifles are probably the most versatile weapon for gathering small game such as squirrels, pigeons and rabbits and do not have the same restrictions and licence requirements as section 1 and 2 firearms but if you want to go after deer you will need to use the larger legal calibres. Even your interest in buschraft and primitive skills doesn't allow you to use ancient methods to hunt although you can skin and prepare deer with flint tools to practice your primitive skills but must hunt and kill them according to local laws.
My working week consisted of a half day at a remote
warehouse, three long days, two short nights, 2 planes, 3 trains, a tram, two
cars and a cab, along with two hotels in two cities and I was wrecked at the
end of all that!
I arrived home at 11-00 pm on Thursday, barely safe to drive
so, after 6 hours of deep sleep, I did the bare minimum in the office on
Friday, before taking the rest of the day off to get some rest and recreation
in the Cambridgeshire woodlands!
I headed to the woods where our cameras had captured a daily
visit from Muntjac and an occasional Roe. I have the faithful Browning X-bolt,
with 100 grain hollow points today.
A range of ammunition performs a range of tasks, lighter bullets for foxes and vermin to heavier bullets for the larger deer species.
The matching Browning x-bolts one in .223 for smaller deer and foxes and one in 6.5*55 for the larger deer. the 6.5 was my choice today.
I made slow and near silent
progress to my high seat. I ascending the ladder and made myself comfortable in
my seat for a long, warm afternoon and it really was warm! I think I had a
little doze.
Checking my watch, it was close to the time of the regular
visit, this is the joy of trail cameras which date and time stamp pictures, I
was focussed on the right spot at the right time, the shortening days creep up
on you and I was a little surprised as roosting pigeons started to drop in
around me and the light faded by the minute. I was wondering if it was going to
be a no show day, when, as if by magic, a nice little Muntjac buck stood just
clear of the trees about 70 yards distant. I readied myself but I wasn’t going
to wait long as it was a narrow field of view and if he spooked, he’d be gone
in seconds. I followed him through the scope with the cross hairs over his
heart and as he paused to sniff the warm evening air, I increased the pressure
on the trigger and sent the bullet on its way.
The little fellow put up his white flag of a tail and
sauntered off at a brisk pace, clearly disgruntled but completely unharmed! I
wasn’t so tired that I couldn’t see straight and that Muntjac should now be
lying dead in the leaf litter of the forest! Disappointed, I made safe and
climbed down, making for the spot where the deer was standing when I fired. I
did all the right things and checked for signs of impact, blood, hair etc but I
knew I wouldn’t find any, the deer wasn’t touched, which is the best possible
outcome if he’s not lying dead where he should be, no wounded animal to track,
no worry about any undue suffering.
Then I saw it, a 2 inch diameter blackthorn stump had been
exactly over the Muntjac’s heart as he stood a couple of yards behind it, there
was no colour contrast between the deer’s coat and the blackthorn when I took
the shot but now there was, the reddish orange of the freshly shattered shaft
showing where the hollow point bullet had struck it and come to pieces
instantly throwing a few splinters of wood but nothing more deadly than that
towards the unsuspecting Muntjac, who had immediately done the smart thing and left
the scene! There was nothing more to be done, I cursed my luck and l laughed a
bit as I collected my kit and headed for the car. There are no guarantees, this
is hunting not shopping and you don’t always get what you came for, today was
one of those days!
I have a theory which I believe is well founded enough to
share with you: birds make mistakes!
For as long as I can remember, the alarm calls of ‘angry
birds’ has been an extension of my own senses whilst sitting in a high seat, often
in low light conditions. I like to arrive early, very early and the hour
between arrival and having enough light to shoot, is enough time for anything
disturbed by my arrival, to settle down again.
In the dark, all of your non visual senses can appear to be
enhanced, hearing is the primary one but occasionally you will get a whiff of
fox too. You can hear the footfall of animals, the thrashing of antlers in
bushes and the call of every kind of wildlife, rabbits thumping, deer barking,
every kind of bird call and the staccato drumming of woodpeckers. My personal
favourites are owls and wood peckers.
Thrushes like blackbirds or this fieldfare are often very vocal and their alarm calls are a good sign that something is moving in the woods.
I have found the most useful to be Wrens, Robins and
Blackbirds. The very essence of these tactical accomplices, is that the birds
mistake small deer for foxes and therefore give them the same kind of verbal
abuse that they would a fox! Recently I was on an outing with a novice and was
able to explain the alarm calls of these little spies, the first chorus was
fairly high in the trees and fast moving, these were driving out an unwelcome
owl. The second however, was lower and slow moving as I suggested that these
may be concerned about a fox, which may actually be a small deer walking
through the undergrowth. My suggestion was spot on and a minute or two later a
little Muntjac trotted in to view and paused briefly to breakfast on a little
pile of wheat which I had strategically placed near the high seat.
Muntjac are often mistaken for foxes by humans and birds seem to be just as confused as we are sometimes.
Go ahead and team up with the ‘Angry Birds’ and see if you
agree!
Isn’t it amazing that despite the boast we often make as country folk that we are far more observant than ‘townies’ that we can often be tricked by the simplest things.
Is it a buck or a doe? It's standing on a rutting stand, so it might be a buck,but it's quite small and skinny so it might be a doe, you can't see any antlers though so what is it really?
One occasion I remember particularly clearly occurred many years ago, at the time I was a relatively inexperienced, but very enthusiastic, deer stalker I had woken well before dawn to get down to my chosen spot well before light to await the muntjac I was sure would be there. I quietly made my way through the ditches and along the hedgerows until I was at my chosen vantage point and waited. As the sky started to grow light I saw a shape, a slightly hunch backed, dark shape moving slowly from left to right at what I thought was about one hundred and fifty yards distant. I watched it intently through the binoculars waiting for there to be enough light to allow a safe shot at what I had convinced myself was a muntjac. I never took the shot though, when it became light enough to see what I was looking at it became clear that it want the 150 yard muntjac that I thought was there but a badger seventy five yards away. The combination of the darkness obliterating the colour and making it hard to judge range had me completely fooled for the best part of twenty minutes.
As well as showing just how easy it is to be thrown off by low light and less than ideal conditions this highlights a really important safety consideration. Scopes should not be used to identify quarry or targets. That’s what binoculars are for, while it might be common practice to use scopes to observe with, or to scan a potential target in military situations in the countryside good practice and plain common sense dictates that we don’t point our rifle at anything until you are sure it’s a muntjac not someone’s Alsatian or a fox and not just a pair of eyes that might just as easily belong to a Chinese water deer, badger or someone watching owls with night vision goggles.
I’m sure these mistakes don’t only happen when we have a weapon in our hands though, I remember several occasions when I have been watching deer without a rifle, either as part of a deliberate census or just to take a few pictures and I have been convinced that I have been watching a buck only for it to take a step and the tree branch that was behind it no longer looks like an antler and it’s suddenly a doe. I’ve also been stood behind a student who was taking part in a deer census as part of his practical studies towards a college qualification in game management who had not noticed a group of three young fallow bucks sitting amongst a patch of gorse because all that was visible was the top of their antlers which just looked like twigs. They were only forty yards in front of him but almost completely invisible until they stood up.
Amongst these does is a Busk with a broken antler, he blends in well, can you spot him?
While we do sometimes convince ourselves something is there because we want it to be, we want to see something that’s in season, or bigger and better than the last stag we shot or something unique in some way, that strange abstract shape becomes that massive buck, a bit like modern art I suppose. Sometimes though we aren’t seeing things and just get distracted by something even more awesome that we were looking for in the first place. This has happened to me plenty of times out in the countryside. On one occasion, out on a stalk I was walking alongside a drainage dyke, where I have often walked before, mostly concentrating on what was in the field to the side of the dyke I was suddenly distracted by a movement in the water, not a duck or a moorhen but a mammal, jumping to the conclusion that it was a mink I began to unsling my rifle only to see it joined by another, and another and it became clear that they were too large to be mink, I got out the binoculars and it became clear, three young otters, joined a second or two later by two adults from around the bend in the dyke. I was mesmerised, all thoughts of muntjac and venison forgotten I sat on the dyke bank for a good twenty minutes, totally still and captivated by these otters. I had seen otters before in the wild but never in a family group and had never expected to see them there. After a long time they moved off and I was released from whatever spell they had me under as I stood up I saw stood not more than fifteen or twenty yards behind me a muntjac buck stood still watching me, as I moved it ran off but I didn’t care. On another occasion I lost the best part of half a days work on a deer farm in New Zealand because I was watching kingfishers catching crabs in the estuary and smashing them open against a log when I should have been feeding the deer.
A New Zealand king fisher catching crabs.
So while I should probably not publicise how easily distracted I am to my current or future employers it’s great to work in the countryside where so many distractions can be found and where as long as we are safe a little bit of wishful thinking about the size of the buck we are looking at is absolutely fine.
