A productive weekend…

I’ve just spent a long weekend down on my stalking club lease at Thetford with the primary aim of culling roe doe’s. To reach our target we needed an additional 29 before the end of Feb, so this month its going to be hectic as we try to reach that.

Because of the large numbers of the public who use the forest for recreation, I generally prefer morning stalks to evenings, and as it turned out, I managed to take a doe on Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning respectively, so I was quite pleased. The rest of the guys (probably about another 10) got a further 4 roe, plus about 8 Muntjac, so the racks in the chiller were rather full by Sunday!

The terrain in Thetford is very flat so stalking is physically quite easy (carpet slipper stalking!) but the forest is used a lot by Joe Public for walking ect, which means safety is a major concern plus the deer are constantly being disturbed.

I only managed to get a couple of pics as my camera battery went flat, and like a dummy I’d forgotten the charger.

To give you an idea of the terrain and habitat, here are a few I’ve taken previously of the same ground.

The first is a friend about to connect with a Muntjac.

The next just show a little of the forest itself:

The next shows the first doe I took on Friday morning. She was one of a group of three half hidden up a rack (cutting) in a young conifer plantation. After spotting the group it took me a little while to sex them, (we have a proper doe season as opposed to “antlerless deer”) and wait for them to separate out to give me a safe shot.

I eventually shot her in the nape of the neck at a range of about 40 yards, standing using sticks for support.

(Mods feel free to delete pic if it’s not deemed suitable)

The pic above shows her gralloched, and the organs laid out for inspection. Any carcasses that are destined for the game dealer (ie the commercial foodchain) must be inspected by a competent person and you are required to sign a tag stating if there were any sign of disease or other abnormalities..

The other two does I took over the weekend were really more of the same, except the last one was taken with a heart shot as it was a bit further away.

All dropped on the spot with no dramas. IIRC the carcasses averaged about 30lb with their heads and lower legs off, but jackets on. I elected to leave one for the game dealer and now have the other two hanging in my mini-chiller at home awaiting skinning and butchering, which I’ll probably do next weekend.

All were taken with my Sako in .260Rem and I must say I am really starting to enjoy this caliber, which is relatively new to me.

The other high light of the weekend was that on the Saturday evening, we laid on a dinner for one of the older members of the Club who was “retiring” as a Club instructor. The guy has been in the Club 27 years, so we thought that deserved a “thank you”.. That turned into a very good night, with plenty of good food and drink, and excellent company. We had a few extra members not hunting that weekend turn up so it was very much a full house as we sat down to eat..

There were a few sore heads on Sunday morning and a couple of the guys failed to show at all, but every one really enjoyed it.

So all in all a very productive and enjoyable weekend..

Regards,

Peter

Good stuff Pete

Thanks for all the info we are all learning alot from you

Sounds like fun wish our deer season was open right now.

Great stuff Pete,

Can you elaborate a bit on your climate this time of year? Wondering what the typical weather is like for you chaps.

Thanks!!

John

Great Job! Like the pictures, keep them comeing.

John,

As you might expect it varies quite a bit depending where you are in the UK, but generally we don’t get the extremes you guys get..

For us in Thetford, Friday was pretty wet and miserable, with drizzle and a bit of mist, but temps just above freezing..Saturday was dry but cold, with temps a few degrees below, and again a patchy mist first thing in the morning…Sunday was probably the best day, it that it was a touch warmer, but still misty…

A couple of weeks back, we had about 6″ of snow on the ground, so I was glad when that went, although we are expecting more, but again nothing like you guys on the north east coast are getting at the moment..

Regards,

Peter

Pete sounds like a awesome weekend, good read

Awesome Pete sounds like a great time

Congrats on your successful weekend Pete! It just doesn’t get better than that spending quality time in the woods and celebrating with your friends.

I thought it as interesting in regard to the inspection of the carcasses. What type of diseases are present in your area?

Brad,

By and large wild deer in the UK are pretty healthy. Out of the several more serious diseases we look for theonly one that crops up with any regularity is TB. Other possibilities would be foot and mouth, and anthrax, but neither have been found in British deer to my knowledge.
If the carcass shows any signs of these “notifiable” diseases, you have to notify the State Vet and get him to involved.

A couple of more common conditions of a less serious nature which crop up from time to time are liver fluke and tapeworms..

If you go to
Best Practice Guide and then click on the link “Carcass Preparation” on the left had side of the page, you will get a number of sub headings including two on Carcass Inspection and these will explain thing far more comprehensively than i can..

Regards,

Peter

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Great story Pete, by the way what is a muntjac?

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Darrin,

They are small primitive type of deer originally from Asia that were introduced into the UK in the late 1800’s and have since become feral.

They breed like rabbits with the does being more or less constantly pregnant from the age of six months and dropping a single fawn every 7 months.

Because they are non native and have no fixed breeding season, we can shoot them all year around. Ideally, you need to shoot either the very young or heavily pregnant to prevent orphaning fawns.

In Thetford we cull these to control numbers and reduce their impact on the local fauna…

To give you an idea of their size, the pic below is a yearling doe I shot last year..I’m guessing she is about 10 months old as although she had lost her fawn spots, all her permanent teeth had not yet errupted…

The next pics are off the net and show Muntjac bucks, although the second one is very much a trophy class animal.

Regards,

Peter

cool stuff… awesome to see other parts and animals of the world

Checked the carcasses in the mini-chiller tonight and decided to cut and butcher them tomorrow.

So spent a little time skinning them out this evening to allow the meat to “set” over night…

Every body has a different way of skinning out a carcass, but the gutting hook below is about the best skinning tool I’ve tried.



The hook part is great for making the initial cuts up the legs ect and by turning the blade around and using the blunt curve on the back, its great for pushing between the skin and the meat. I used to “punch” the skin off using my hand/fingers, but this is far easier, especially on a cold carcass.