As some of you may recall, Devon Deer (Richard) picked my name out of the internet hat to hunt deer in England with him. Later Lee Cooper offered to include a few days in Norfolk to the trip.
Timing and schedules prevented my family from joining me on the trip. I hunted six days do it’s a lot of content for a thread. I’ll give you some tidbits into the hunts.
The Devon countryside is beautiful. Lush green grass on rolling hills. Spring had started with daffodils blooming. I’m contrast, Idaho was having its third winter of 2019.
A typical hunt is that we’d glass in the dark with Richard’s thermal and then pursue animals if we saw any. I’m England the shooting hours are an hour before daylight and an hour after daylight. This made for some fun outings! We typically saw roe deer in most stalks but we’re spending our time chasing red deer. The red deer seemed to be one move ahead of us the whole trip. I saw plenty of fresh tracks and a few by long distance thermal.
As part of the hunt, we hunted Dartmoor park area for deer. The park is special with its moor grass. As dusk approached, the thermal died and we used our binos. With ten minutes of shooting light, we spotted two Farrow deer. After playing with the shooting sticks, I was able to shoot a fallow by moonlight. Richard shot the other. After cleaning, I rode with Richard to deliver the deer to the game dealer for sale. The whole process was very interesting.
The next morning I was able to take a roe doe. With that, we decided to spend my last evening trying for red deer. We approached the field, one of the farmers past us on his tractor towing a wagon. We had several roe out but passed hoping a lady light red stag would appear. As might slowly faded, Richard spotted several new dots in his thermal at an adjacent field where we didn’t have permission. We both stared at it for a while and declared the spots red deer. We stalked back to the truck and waited for the deer to come into our field. I was set up for the shot. After several minutes, Richard walked back and said what I thought was “shit”. With the accent barrier, I replied shit?, thinking something was wrong with the deer. Richard said, no, it’s shit! After a second, I realized we had stalked manure the farmer had spread. The temperature had dropped enough to make it glow in the thermal. We had a good laugh at that.
The next morning Richard helped me get two new tires for my rental. The learning curve for English driving was two tires for me. With new tires, I said goodbye to Richard and drove five hours to meet Lee in Norfolk.
Norfolk, in contrast to Devon, is completely flat. The whole area has former WWII US bomber bases every ten miles. We hunted next to two nd I took a side trip to visit the base my grandfather fought from.
In Norfolk, we’d concentrate the hunt on muntjac and Chinese Water deer although red and roe deer were available. Lee had stands at many of his fields. We’d start most hunts in a stand and then start stalking once we got bored of the stand.
I had several chances at CWD. We couldn’t shoot one due to shot angle being towards a road (this happened several times) or due to fading daylight. We had one CWD in a field at dusk growing at us sounding like a bobcat. Once again, I saw several red deer fresh tracks but no red deer. I’m starting to think they’re a myth. I was able to take a muntjac and a roe with Lee. (I can't figure out how to flip these pics)
There are so many things I could add to this thread. I want to thank Richard and Lee for their hospitality. Both have open invitations to hunt Idaho with me should they wish.
Timing and schedules prevented my family from joining me on the trip. I hunted six days do it’s a lot of content for a thread. I’ll give you some tidbits into the hunts.
The Devon countryside is beautiful. Lush green grass on rolling hills. Spring had started with daffodils blooming. I’m contrast, Idaho was having its third winter of 2019.
A typical hunt is that we’d glass in the dark with Richard’s thermal and then pursue animals if we saw any. I’m England the shooting hours are an hour before daylight and an hour after daylight. This made for some fun outings! We typically saw roe deer in most stalks but we’re spending our time chasing red deer. The red deer seemed to be one move ahead of us the whole trip. I saw plenty of fresh tracks and a few by long distance thermal.
As part of the hunt, we hunted Dartmoor park area for deer. The park is special with its moor grass. As dusk approached, the thermal died and we used our binos. With ten minutes of shooting light, we spotted two Farrow deer. After playing with the shooting sticks, I was able to shoot a fallow by moonlight. Richard shot the other. After cleaning, I rode with Richard to deliver the deer to the game dealer for sale. The whole process was very interesting.
The next morning I was able to take a roe doe. With that, we decided to spend my last evening trying for red deer. We approached the field, one of the farmers past us on his tractor towing a wagon. We had several roe out but passed hoping a lady light red stag would appear. As might slowly faded, Richard spotted several new dots in his thermal at an adjacent field where we didn’t have permission. We both stared at it for a while and declared the spots red deer. We stalked back to the truck and waited for the deer to come into our field. I was set up for the shot. After several minutes, Richard walked back and said what I thought was “shit”. With the accent barrier, I replied shit?, thinking something was wrong with the deer. Richard said, no, it’s shit! After a second, I realized we had stalked manure the farmer had spread. The temperature had dropped enough to make it glow in the thermal. We had a good laugh at that.
The next morning Richard helped me get two new tires for my rental. The learning curve for English driving was two tires for me. With new tires, I said goodbye to Richard and drove five hours to meet Lee in Norfolk.
Norfolk, in contrast to Devon, is completely flat. The whole area has former WWII US bomber bases every ten miles. We hunted next to two nd I took a side trip to visit the base my grandfather fought from.
In Norfolk, we’d concentrate the hunt on muntjac and Chinese Water deer although red and roe deer were available. Lee had stands at many of his fields. We’d start most hunts in a stand and then start stalking once we got bored of the stand.
I had several chances at CWD. We couldn’t shoot one due to shot angle being towards a road (this happened several times) or due to fading daylight. We had one CWD in a field at dusk growing at us sounding like a bobcat. Once again, I saw several red deer fresh tracks but no red deer. I’m starting to think they’re a myth. I was able to take a muntjac and a roe with Lee. (I can't figure out how to flip these pics)
There are so many things I could add to this thread. I want to thank Richard and Lee for their hospitality. Both have open invitations to hunt Idaho with me should they wish.
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