[Music]
Now it may appear to regular viewers that Roy hasn't been quite so eager to pull the
trigger of late.
A few opportunities during the roe and fallow rut have presented themselves, but Roy has
fought temptation in the name of deer management.
All good things come to those who wait.
A bit of will power means a deer that looks good one year can mean medal quality the next.
Well that's all very well and good in theory but then someone comes along and screws it
all up.
And more often than not these days it's poachers.
Roy has got a few of those making their presence felt on his ground in Hampshire.
Now unfortunately we have got a big problem which is emerging throughout most of the country,
and that is commercial poaching.
Unfortunately this old boy here has been a victim of it, but the biggest problem we are
facing is it is not just one or two individual animals which are being taken.
We are now looking at poaching on a commercial scale.
So it is not your romantic view of a poacher going out and getting one for the pot, it
is organised groups of individuals going out with illegal fire arms shooting deer, or taking
deer with dogs and that is having a massive effect on the population and a massive effect
on the deer management.
Up until now a lot of the police forces have been treating this with a little bit of apathy.
My hope is that by working together with stalkers, estates and the local wildlife liaison officers
that we can put an end to commercial poaching.
And hopefully put an end to seeing sights like this and finding poor old beasts left
in the middle of the field.
With that off his chest Roy turns his attention to the evenings stalking.
He is here for roe does which are really only evident at last light.
We have got about an hour and a half before it is dark completely, so we are going to
have a quick scurf around to see what we can come up with.
There are couple of does that I don't really want to take out.
We have got a doe just down, which has been working the piece of ground to the left hand
side and she had triplets this year so it would be nice to leave her on . So we are
either going to look for a yearling doe or maybe somebody who has been less productive.
With his recovery from his hip op going well he's now down to just one crutch plus shooting
sticks - which we think gives him a look of Gandalf.
Our first port of call is a wood which always delivers.
Nowt.
It is weird how some places just feel right for deer but for some reason it's a desert
- certainly in our case.
Never mind.
It's a beautiful evening - perfect for a stroll in the British countryside.
With the pheasant and partridge shooting season in full swing the deer are a little more cautious
which makes this stalking more of an educated guess than normal.
We are just going to have a quick run around, try and find the hot spots and try and get
into position when the does start feeding out from some of the cover crops and some
of the woods.
It is always a gamble.
You have just got to pick a spot and hope.
We keep watching, we keep stalking, but there is nothing about.
This is a Roy stalking outing.
Apparently failure is not an option.
I can see the sun is starting to dip behind the trees and we have got a rather eager cameraman
to highlight the start of the doe stalking season and so far we haven't seen a deer.
So this is the panic stage.
And from the panic stage you hope you can up with some concoction to get on to a deer,
but if they are not out, there is not much you can do.
We lose the light and the chance of a deer.
Roy does spot one with the superior glass on top of his rifle but we lose her in the
cover crop.
Of course there's a host of reasons why we blanked - but Roy can't help feeling it's
down to poaching pressure...
We have been beaten by the light, but the odd thing is though, normally on this estate
on an evening's stalking you will easily see 20 may be 30 deer just on the little route
we followed and this evening we have had perfect conditions for it.
It has been a nice relatively warm evening, the wind wasn't too hard or too cold.
You just couldn't want for better conditions and yet we didn't see a single beast and I
think unfortunately we are seeing the results of a lot of poaching going on, not just on
this estate, but in the surrounding areas.
We will come out in a couple of evening's time and see if we can find a roe for the
freezer, but at the moment it is certainly not looking good.
Not to be beaten Gandalf keeps to his word and without any help from a camera man nor
stalking buddy heads off to try and shoot and film some roe.
This time he's on the other side of the estate which hasn't been targeted by poachers.
Roy chances upon a roe doe lying up on a ride about 90 yards away.
It was just a flick of the ear that gave her away, otherwise she would have gone unseen.
We have got a doe and a kid just couched up along the ride.
Now what I want to do is just wait and hopefully one of them will stand up and hopefully give
us an opportunity of a shot.
The only problem is that can very often happen if you are waiting for a deer to stand they
can stand up and turn off carry on away from you and disappear.
That is the chance we will have to take.
Roy's patience pays off and eventually the doe stands up.
He shoots and she drops in the cover crop.
She isn't alone.
Roy repositions and takes the kid as well.
It's probably not dependent but Roy feels it's the best thing to do with winter on its
way.
We have caught up with where the doe is she was just on about 90 yards from where she
was shot she has probably gone 2 or 3 yards just into the thick, heavy cover there.
No problems finding her and obviously the kid just dropped on the spot further down
the cut out in the game cover strip here.
Nice successful evening now it is to drag them out and sort out the gralliching and
we can go home and have a nice cup of tea.
So a good result and a grand effort by Roy who managed to shoot two deer, capture it
on film having stalked into them while carrying a video camera plus tripod, a set of shooting
sticks, a crutch, a pair of binos and a rifle.
Maybe he does have magical powers after all.