After a lay in and a fine breakfast, the morning shooting at Thormaid and then later stalking Sika Stags near Lairg with Ranger Malcolm as weather had turned nasty, blowing a gale and pouring with rain,
We could take a little lay in this morning after the early exertions of the last few days. Back to our fried breakfast in the hotel and then off to Thormaid to shoot the snipe and grouse. Nothing for me but Nigel bagged a snipe before we went off to Lairg for our appointment at the Fountain Forestry offices where we met up with game-keeper Malcolm for a late afternoon and evening stalking Sika stags. Also, the chance to get an update from my forester on some queries that I had raised with him on Monday. It seems that they were not expecting two of us and so Malcolm went off to get another rifle and, once we had driven to the plantation, Nigel took a "High Seat" whilst I went off with Malcolm.
** "Read More" BELOW for the complete story **
I found the experience very interesting and saw a lot of Sika including a beautiful stag, but these were outside the fence on a neighbouring sporting estate and could not be touched. The weather had turned nasty, blowing a gale and pouring with rain, and "our" Sika deer were holed up amongst the trees and would not show whilst those outside the fence were trying to get in! Even so, I enjoyed learning about the species from the ranger and Nigel, who was in a sheltered ride near to the burn, bagged one stag, though it had a poor damaged head with only one antler and was of no display value. This was a very mixed blessing for him as I had to lend him my game-keeper's knife and he had to finish off and gut the animal so that it would last the night until recovery in the morning! I learnt that the best all-round dog for pointing and retrieving would be a German Pointer, but Malcolm had a Springer Spaniel. Back to the hotel very late where Ian McGregor had kept a meal for us as we were cold and hungry