Hi All,
This is in answer to a question about the hunting I do. First I thought about this then started to post a thread about UK in general but then re-read the question and it was about my hunting to here goes.
Well Mum & Dad don't like guns to it was an uphill struggle from the get-go and it was not until my late teens that I brought my first proper Airgun which was a BSA Meteor Std .177 fitted with a BSA 4x20 scope it accounted for a lot of vermin and Rabbits. Then at 19 years of age I brought a Feinwerkbau 127 .22 air rifle and fitted it with an ASI (Anglo Spanish Importers) Japanese made 4x32 scope mounted in a Rhino one piece mount with recoil arrester to stop scope creep on this powerful springer. I then applied for and got my first shotgun certificate and brought through a mail order catalogue that a friends mum ran (Kays) a Baikal SxS 12 bore Non Ejector and paid for it over 20 weeks. Cost was £120. Now in my teens I not only went through Scouts and became a Patrol Leader but also joined the Army Cadet Force and became a Lance Corporal and it was here that I learned to shoot full bore rifle qualifying as Marksman with the .303 Lee Enfield no4.
I enquired about a Firearms certificate but met with strong opposition from the parents and could not find a Shooting Club locally that I liked. Most were serious small bore clubs with stuffy old men and weird heavy rifles. I carried on rough shooting wtih a little claybusting thrown in. Mum and Dad moved north into semi retirement (cheaper houses so had a little nest egg to fall back on) and I found out about Combat Shotgun (practical Shotgun) and brought a Mossberg Slugster 12 bore.
I too moved north to be with Mum and Dad and then came the 86 ban on semi auto rifles and multi shot shotgun after the Hungerford shootings by Michael Ryan. I located a local indoor pistol club and joined it and took up Police pitol and Practical pistol shooting. Due to work I again moved back south and found and finally found a club which I could enjoy, they shot on a Wednesday night at the local TAVR (.22 rimfire at 25 yards) range and once a month on military full bore ranges and a monthly pistol shoot on a Friday evening. It was then that I acquired the rifles my first was a BSA CF2 in 270 that I still have followed quickly by a sporterised Lee Enfield No1 Mk111*.
At that point I was still hunting with the air rifles and the shotguns but wanted to get into Deer Stalking but that proved more difficult than I expected. Frst there was getting the licence varied to allow the use of rifles for deer stalking and then finding some land over which to hunt. I finally ended up taking a weekend introductory course to Woodland Stalking in Hampshire and joined his Permit scheme to get a named piece of land for stalking over. The Police insisit on having a "Named piece of Land" to put down in their paperwork. My deer stalking consisted of outings. Normally a morning starting just before dawn and taking 3-4hours depending upon the etstate. My quarry was Roe Deer:-
Roe Buck are hunted during the spring and summer season starts April 1st and finishes October 31st. Doe season opens November 1st and closes Febuary 28th. Yes we have a good season and plenty of deer however it was about 2 years before I bagged my first Roe and that was a Doe in Febuary and by this time they had banned Pistols. I used the compensation, or some of it, to buy a new Brno ZKK 601 in 308 and it was with this rifle I bagged my first deer and I was also hunting with another guide who was recomended by Roger whose course I had gone on. Sadly Tony is no longer with us having fallen to cancer of the stomache!
Through Tony I met and became friends with Cliff and it's from Cliff that I have learned a lot and with him hunted a new species, Muntjac:-
Muntjac Buck & Doe.
Muntjac Doe
With a nice Muntjac Doe, and yes it is fully grown!!!
Nice old feller this one a Muntjac Buck past his prime.
A life long Gamekeeper who has always worked with deer sadly too his health is failing and after surviving Weils desease he too found that he had a cancerous growth near his spine and is now in remission but how long only time will tell. He is no longer a young man and so I can no longer enjoy our hunts together. Oh he still maganges the deer on a farm estate with his grandson but due to conflicts with the Pheasent shoot keeper and stupid health and safety rules. The farm estate has implimented rules on "Guests deer stalking" which Cliff finds too onerous and complicated to comply with so it's just him and his grandson stalking there now.
I am now looking for new places to hunt however money talks and you don't very often find somewhere you can hunt for free now and a lot of land is tied up with syndicates (like your hunt clubs). I do have permission to hunt a small place in Sussex but that's 200 mles away and with the price of fuel and what with helping vare for my parents it's not easy to get down there. Added to that unless you spend lots of time there hunting is difficult as you simply don't know the deer patterns and the farm which surrounds it was brought and left idle and that has really screwed up the deer movement and feeding patterns:-
I used the ladder stand there quite a lot although most of the deer shot there are from a certain tree:-
Young Fallow Buck, this one was really too young to shoot however he had lost his Mum in a collision with a car. I passed her just outside the property on the road and found this little lost one wandering around. After watching him for some time to make sure mother was not around I took him as he would likely starve without her as he would still be suckling at this age.
Roe Doe taken on this place.
Now I also do a little Squirrel control as they are a pest here:-
Rifle is a BSA Super Sport Five .22 LR that is fitted with a sound Moderator as seen here with a half grown rabbit. Oh no close season for rabbits as they too are vermin:-
Also a little fox shooting, we only have Red Foxes as a species and this one fell to the BSA Model E in .303 British at about 65 yards. Aprt from a little Pigeon shooting using the shotguns and the occasional Pheasent, although I have shot far more Pheasents with the .22's than with shotguns. Out back we have a small 5 acre feild which I also walk over and shoot the odd Rabbit and Pheasent.
