The great British summer is the perfect time to stalk through the picturesque
valleys of Cornwall with Chris Gale in search of roebucks.
However, there's one thing for which the weather in Britain is known the world
over, its unpredictable nature. Sunshine one minute, driving wind and rain the
next. Stalking here has so far proven challenging.
After a rocky start the weather has given us a brief reprieve enough to allow us a clearer
view but even with Chris's keen eye and my experience in the field we're
constantly coming up short of sightings with only the odd curious doe and their kids making appearance.
But, even after the disappointment we persevere, trekking
on through the dense trees and undergrowth and across miles of
beautiful countryside in the hopes of catching up with the bucks that are so insistent on remaining hidden.
After days of patience stalking, for once we find
ourselves in the right place at the right time.
A beautiful cull buck presents itself through a clearing and I make the chance count.
A clean shot and a nice cull buck provides a welcome relief.
But, we still have one more day and this buck has raised our spirits as we set off one final time into the Cornish countryside.
It's early and the morning light has yet
to dissipate the shadows offering perfect cover for our stalk through the forest.
Our enthusiasm remains strong as I scan the trees for movement through my
Hawke Endurance binos. My eyes grateful for their large objective lenses and multi coated optics.
Chris continues to lead the way,
he knows these woods intimately and his highly tuned senses scour the environment for any potential signs of Roebuck
I set up the rifle on my vanguard B62 shooting sticks
and ready the Hawke Sidewinder scope, winding back the magnification ready in
case a shot presents itself suddenly.
At such close quarters we must remain perfectly still and blend into our surroundings.
This is where my Realtree camo really
comes into its own. The near perfect representation of nature breaking up
your edges and it's sophisticated shadow effects softening outlines.
We don't want to spook the bucks and blow our chances. All that's left to do is wait.
After a few moments is clear nothing will come our way, so we keep moving to find a better vantage point.
Stalking is all about patience and waiting for the right moment, always hoping that luck is on our side.
We move from place to place, stopping to call and see if we get a response, but never lingering for very
long and trying to cover as much ground as possible.
Yet again the forest remained silent and we move on once more, hoping for better
results out in the open.
As we skirt the edges of the woods, we spot a doe and a buck lounging in the shade in a neighbouring field.
We must move quickly, but quietly if we want to get in closer.
As luck would have it, they've not moved and we stalk in close along the edge of
the field just as the buck is bedding down to rest.
We are now out in the open moving, any closer would further expose our approach.
Our best bet is to set up on the sticks in the hope we can call in the buck or the doe closer. bring the doe
and the buck will almost certainly follow.
The call catches the doe's attention as we'd hoped and are ready myself for the shot, knowing it's just a
matter of time before the doe succumbs to her curiosity.
As expected the book follows suit.
I can immediately see that he's injured and take the shot as soon as he comes to a stop.
Perfect, thank you very much.
Wow.
what a beautiful buck.
Let's have a look at him.
Wow.
Here is he.
A beautiful Cornish buck.
Now, this is obviously the culmination of
four days stalking, this is our final outing of the trip. We've seen some great
countryside, we've had sunshine, wind gale force rain and everything in between and
then on the final morning I thought we'd come out and scout a ground the area
ground that you know you have some good bucks and we find this little
two-year-old. He's got a injury on his leg which isn't great and he was
hobbling along with that doe but we managed to stalk in across the bottom of the field
here we're actually trying to get little bit closer but as luck would have it and
it's the first time it's been with us the doe decided she's gonna skip into
the field and come towards us. A few peeps on the call he was laying down she
got very inquisitive, wondered what was going on
we were perfectly still even though we were kind of out in the open at your
corner the field here and as soon as she moved away, from him about 50-60 yards up
he gets to move on after her and then we knew we had the shot. Of course he could
have done with a little bit more time he's not a great buck anyway he's a
perfect cull buck to take out a few management and it's always great to have
one taken out clearly carrying an injury. In terms of the numbers of books you've
had there are healthy populations around here, they just don't seem to be
moving during the rut. No, this is very very quiet you expect them to be flying
around everywhere you know we've been calling you would expect the cull bucks
like this to come in whether they're rutting or not because they're
inquisitive young and a bit dumb to be fair. Well, he had absolutely no interest
in the call it was the doe that came in as typically happens anyway she was more
inquisitive than aggressive which was interesting to see and he just wanted to
make sure that he was still there with her and he did want to get out yeah so
you know numerous problems with with his leg as you can see and a great one for
the pot so once again thank you very much indeed it's been an amazing trip and we've got some work to do.
So there we have it, four incredible days out
hunting in the Cornish countryside. One thing's for sure they made us work for
it. These bucks either their pre rut or
mid rut, but they just weren't responding to the call. The weather conditions for
the first couple of days obviously held us up kept the doe's
and the bucks hunkered down, they didn't want to come out and feed on the margins,
they just waited out and weather the storm. But, when the way that did pick up
that's when we started seeing movement once you do see them
being around that's when you get confident, that's when you you get a skip
and you stride you you're willing to put them hard miles in you're willing to put
the extra hours in and ultimately it pays off. Now, there are big bucks here we
know that we've seen the one trail cameras and they've been glassing them
for weeks but they're big for a reason and they just weren't showing themselves.
However, we did get two really nice cull bucks, perfect to take out great
management animals particularly the last one which had to wound on its leg and
underside of its belly from skipping over barbed wire. So, while it's great to
be out here chasing the big bucks we've still got responsibility to make
sure that those cull bucks, those weaker animals are taken out allowing the
stronger animals to come through and repopulate the gene pool. But, it's been
an amazing experience, Chris has been great he's put so much time in so much
effort and you can tell he's passionate about his countryside and his deer. Would
it be the last time? certainly not. There's a huge amount of
countryside here to cover, a huge amount of different game species it really is a
hunter's paradise down here in Cornwall. But for now our journey has come to an
end but we were very much look forward to coming back sometime again in the future.