Charlie fixed my Discovery as we unsuccessfully stalked the large stag, but found many signs of him having paced along the fence. This evening we spotted geese landing but failed to get a clear shot. We also managed to hear from Chris and Malcolm to arrange for stalking for Nigel for the next few days.
We were up early at 5.00am and out to stalk at Broubster. I had heard red deer stags roaring in the vicinity of Broubster both yesterday and the other week and worked out that if there was a couple of stags inside our fence and no hinds to go with them (which was the view of ranger Chris) then they would be pacing the fence to try to get to those the other side as they were rutting. It was a wet morning for us to get soaked and Nigel was complaining that we were too early but I wanted to get into position downwind so as to give us a long stalk along the fence to try to find the stags.
**"Read More" BELOW for the complete story**
We could hear nothing but pressed on and slowly got up to the fence when I went ahead and saw a great deal of churned mud and some heavily marked trees to show that there was definitely red deer inside the fence. To me it looked like a herd of cows had been along it! Despite conducting what I thought was a good stalking manoeuvre and finding plenty of signs of the stags we could not see any and had to give up the stalk without success. I had let Jim Bird carry my rifle and Nigel carried his with me undertaking the stalking. We got soaking wet and were pleased to get back to the hotel for breakfast and a change of clothes after which we went over to Charlie Sutherland to see if he could fix the leak in the cooling system.
I was pleased that he found a pierced hose to be the problem. Oversized hose clips had been fitted and the tail from one had pressed on the other hose and punctured it so that it leaked coolant when under pressure. On to Thurso for some shopping and lunch and then back to Broubster to try walking up grouse in the rain. We were driving back down the track towards the picnic table junction when we saw the red stag crossing in front of us. It was immense with a good head - far better than any we had shot before. It was surprised to see us and stopped to look back, but we were equally surprised to see him and could not get our rifle out and loaded in time.
I called out and stopped him once more before he went but then he scampered off down towards the fence where we were stalking in the morning! We went on to The White Loch to set up some hides and put out the decoys before settling down to the evening flight as dusk fell. Waiting nervously in the hides it was ages before anything happened and then a skein of fifty or so geese flew in, wheeled round as I used the goose call on them and settled away from us. I tried to call them closer but I think that they winded us and then flew off again leaving us empty-handed.
The rain which had poured since we arrived eased off and then turned into showers and we heard the stags roaring again with some of the calls sounding close enough to have me planning another assault for the morning. This evening we also managed to hear from Chris and Malcolm to arrange for stalking for Nigel for the next few days.