The Outdoor Gibbon
Join me on my journey through stories and interviews talking to like-minded individuals. It doesn’t matter who you are this podcast will hopefully educate and guide you through the world deerstalking, shooting and the outdoor world.
The information in these podcasts is for you to enjoy and develop you own opinions, if you take everyday as a school day you will see the bigger picture.
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The Outdoor Gibbon
71 Finding Your Lost Deer: A Comprehensive Guide to Tracking Wounded Game with UKDTR's Al Haynes
Every ethical hunter's worst nightmare is taking a shot that doesn't result in a clean kill. What happens next can make all the difference between a successful recovery and a deer lost forever. In this candid conversation with Al Haynes of the UK Deer Tracking Recovery (UKDTR), we dive deep into the realities of what to do when things don't go according to plan.
Al shares invaluable insights drawn from years of tracking experience, revealing why immediate pursuit of a wounded deer is often the worst action you can take. Learn how to properly assess the shot site, interpret deer reactions, and set up conditions that maximize recovery chances. His specially-trained tracking dog can follow trails 24 hours old with minimal blood sign, demonstrating capabilities far beyond what most stalking dogs possess.
The discussion challenges common misconceptions about using technology like thermal imaging for recovery, explaining why even the most sophisticated drones can't match a dog's nose when it comes to finding wounded game in thick cover. We explore the controversial topics of head and neck shots, copper versus lead ammunition, and why there's still such stigma around admitting when things go wrong in the field.
Whether you're new to deer stalking or a seasoned professional, this episode offers practical wisdom that could prove essential the next time you face uncertainty after a shot. The UKDTR's non-judgmental approach to tracking provides not just assistance in finding animals but also peace of mind for the ethical hunter who wants to do right by the quarry they pursue.
Ready to improve your tracking knowledge and ethical hunting practices? Listen now and be prepared for that moment we all hope never comes, but should always be ready for.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Outdoor Gibbon Podcast, september. Wow, that came around quick. We are still in drought conditions up here in Aberdeenshire, don't you think we've actually had proper rain now, and I mean real, proper rain since back in probably about February time? I know we've had rain showers and things like that, but we've not had decent heavy rain for a long time and it's really starting to show our water tables all over the place. It's very unusual to see a warning go out about the use of water extraction hose pipes etc. Etc. In the northeast of Scotland. Well, in Scotland in general, but for Aberdeenshire, which is probably one of the driest parts of Scotland, we've actually had water restrictions. We've seen wells drying up. You just have to look at the ground outside. Seen wells drying up. You just have to look at the ground outside as you're driving along you can see this brown shade moving gradually down fields where the the water table is just dropping away.
Speaker 2:But September also marks the opening of partridge and wildfowl, so people are now out shooting and enjoying themselves. I've seen that shoots down in england have started, I think. Uh, posts on social media showing guys out on the ducks, uh, guys out wild fouling. Uh, yeah, so that's it. We really are into that autumnal type of year, even though when I look out the window it still feels like summer. The nights are drawing in and it is starting to cool down a bit, but it's still incredibly dry out there. It's amazing to be able to just drive around everywhere and not think about getting stuck or any mud coming off the road or onto the tires or anything like that. It's absolutely phenomenal. We have our pheasants in their pen and they seem to be doing quite well. A bit of a mixed batch, as I say, because, because I obviously help out at the rearing field, we kind of get the last off the field, so we probably won't start our shoots until mid, late November type of time. But that's great because it allows us to carry on through the winter period and out into January, february, which is always good fun.
Speaker 2:So in other news, I was out today setting some mink traps, working in association with the scottish invasive species initiative. Basically it's a group organized that get volunteers to monitor either clay rafts so you put a clay pad on a on a raft to see whether you've got mink or anything like that or you can actually set a trap up on there and live catch. Now ours are set up and they are their remote monitors. So they've got this um remote system fitted to them which basically every time if the trap fires, it pulls a little magnet off and it will send out a text message or an email to tell me that the trap has been fired. I'm used to going and checking traps, so I'll probably check my trap quite frequently anyway, just to make sure. But the remote is there, literally if I'm away from it for a bit it will fire and tell me what's going on. So I'm quite looking forward to that. Hopefully we won't catch any mink. That's the the main thing. There shouldn't be mink in the area, but let's uh, let's find out if there are.
Speaker 2:So let's get on and talk about this podcast. So in this one I actually sit down and have a chat with Al Haynes of the UKDTR and it was all after I shot a deer. Well, shot it, it ran. I got UKDTR involved to help try and find it had a few issues, we didn't find it, etc. Etc. So basically this is a bit of a step-by-step guide, a chat through what you should do should you have an issue, should you have a problem and hopefully you'll find it interesting. The outdoor given podcast is proudly sponsored by the shooting and hunting academy, an online training platform and uk registered learning provider that provides a host of accredited and nationally available courses and masterclasses delivered by leading industry experts. Another episode of the outdoor given podcast. Tonight I am joined by al from the uk dtr and we're going to talk about all things that relate to basically deer tracking and what happens when it all goes wrong kind of thing.
Speaker 3:How you doing hey, have good day. Yeah, no, good um. No, thanks for inviting us on. Um, yeah, it's quite. I know that you bring it up now, but yeah, kind of surprisingly, looking back way back on, some of my friends are very mutual friends to your friends. You are now also members of uk btr. So, as I say to a lot of people, it's a very small world it's an incredibly small world really.
Speaker 2:yeah, I couldn't believe it when, believe it when people are like, oh, you know this guy. It's like, yeah, there you go, we're what six, seven hundred miles apart. But yeah, it's amazing how you know people, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, such a small world.
Speaker 2:So let's sort of start at the beginning. How obviously the main thing is you're, obviously you like to shoot, and all the rest of it. How did it move on from being sort of a stalker and going into deer tracking? What was the passion that led you that way?
Speaker 3:I guess it's quite, quite interesting really. I'm saying let's not talk too much about, you know, but in ex-military finding more time, you know, I grew up in the background sort of stuff, but finding more time I had into it and I was doing more and more shooting and I, I guess, for my part of it, I lost a roebuck one evening and I, you know I was like collie dogs and I spent hours, you know, looking for this deer which I knew was dead, but I just couldn't find it in the long grass, didn't have my dog with me. You know your call used to everywhere with me. Fine, decided to go home within three minutes, you know, put him on the scent. There's my deer, you know, literally 100 meters away from where I was and it was. It was half cut hayfield at the time, the grass, and you could see my tracks up and down, up and down, and I'd literally wall, passed it 10 times. Ed couldn't find it, dog found it within 30 seconds. So I was like, right, eventually, when I get more time, I'll leave the military and sort of stuff settle down, I'm gonna get a dog. Just more more specific to deerstalking, specifically with ukd.
Speaker 3:I had no intention of joining ukd I knew one of the lads very close to me rang him for some tips. He put me on to knobby I think you're gav clark, you're the legend that he is. He took me under his wing and gave me some tips wanted, and it was at the beginning of covid or just before covid. I started training. Covid obviously helped. I had plenty of time working from home, I had a dog and time myself to invest in the training the dog and I sort of the dog got better and better and I was enjoying it, enjoying it more. I guess it was like, instead of taking fitness or running like a lot of people did in covid, I was, I was training a tracking dog. Um, and then it sort of got to the end. I started going through my test anyway because I was like let's just do the test, just so I can say I've got the tick in the box. And then I sort of realized that actually, present you, I'm not full-time stalker, I'm a very much a recreational stalker a little bit more. I've got more and more stalkings.
Speaker 3:That period has gone on doing a little bit contracting type stuff. Is that if I don't join the register and that sounds bad calling it a register or I didn't join the call-out list. The dog's probably never going to get that much work. I've invested almost 18 months, two years of my life, in training the dog to a standard, to pass the standard and pass it very well, and it would almost be for nothing, you know, because most people don't lose that many deer. I'm not saying I haven't lost a deer in that period and she hasn't worked for me, but it's very minimal. So, yeah, I'm invested in. It was what then led me. You know, I'll be very open and honest. I had no intention of joining UKDTR. It was all. It was all about myself, not selfishly about myself myself, but it was to help me out. Um, if I did join the, join ukdtr, the dog would probably never work to her ability.
Speaker 2:I was going to say she'd probably just come out with the occasional stalk with you.
Speaker 3:You already know where the deer is and the dog's just going to kind of wander in and find it sort of thing yeah, so, and again, we're talking very much about the stalker's dog and she does stalk with me now, as you know, as a stalking dog, not as a tracking dog. Um, especially a lot of stuff we're stalking now, you know we'll lose a stag in some heavy cover, shot across a re-entrant or gully. Actually, you know, instead of spending two hours looking through the course and bracken for a deer, I found it within. You know, I might have to walk all the way around it 10, 15 minutes of walking dogs found it within a minute, instead of like wandering around in nowhere. But that's not the tracking sheet. That is very much the stalking stalking partner, stalking dog.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so she gets a lot of work in that sense, but not the. Obviously we do when we get the call out to the actual tracking side of it, which is very different from your stalking dog. Yes, finding the, which is very different from your stalking dog, yes, it's. Then you're finding the well-shot deer very easy for any dog. Say that. But then following up on a deer 12, 6, 12, 18 hours after is a different having seen it now firsthand and um, we didn't find the deer.
Speaker 2:Obviously, that I posted up on social media, but putting the dog to my shot site and then being able to know exactly where it went and watching the dog work absolutely phenomenal. Unfortunately, we probably disturbed it far too much trying to find it ourselves and we bumped the deer on. But what was really interesting that I learned a lot from and I'm sure we can talk about this in a minute is knowing all of the key elements and being able to tell, for example, the, the ukdtr, whoever's coming out to track exactly where you shot it, what the deer's movements were and what happened. And I think that was critical and I think a lot of stalkers actually struggle with, with sort of that information.
Speaker 3:To start with, yeah, I'm saying you're exactly right and there's no, it's no bad thing, it's just not part of our culture or ingrained in us. And I'm not going to say dse1 or p, you know, I know the pds guys as well, all very good. It's very much brushed over in the follow-up of it. There's a little bit of open shot, the deer try and find some blood. There's not the whole process and the risk assessment. You know we talk about risk and I think that's the big thing is it's the risk that your actions will either. If you're going to follow up yourself, you know it's not necessarily about calling a dog in, but you might have to leave that deer to settle for a bit, understanding how the deer has reacted to the shot and what you're finding on the shot site. I know in your instance we spoke quite early on in oh yeah, I love it later on it, but more so you. You got hold of me and I was doing other stuff that I got back to you, but it's tying up.
Speaker 3:Deer's reaction evidence will inform how we go on with it yeah, yeah, yeah we, you know, and internally most, most british talkers there isn't that many instances of it, there are probably a lot more deer get quite openly a shot. I thought have been missed and not followed up on, because either the stalker can't find the strike and haven't seen the deer's reaction so a quick.
Speaker 2:This is just throwing something in there. Now, with all these, with more and more people now investing in a stalking dog because the dog is going to be your companion, you're out. It finds well, shot deer. Do we think as as a just devil's advocate? Do we think people are losing the basic skills of being able to go into a shot site, find that tiny speck of blood that might be on the blade of grass and being able to do the initial track from from that point?
Speaker 3:I don't think we're losing the skills of it, but potentially a part of it is. It's not a general. You know there are good videos Bastard done lots of stuff, ngo has done lots of stuff around it but it's not taught at the basic levels of you know and what we'll find. You know, I've done a bit of guiding over over the last few years, you know, and it's all things of how do we say? It's just not taught, it's not understood like it is in in europe so much.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, yeah, you know, marking, picking a reference point between the shooter so you, the deer's there and the and a point behind it, a reference point behind it, a reference point behind it which dictates effectively the bullet flight line.
Speaker 3:And in that range, I think very much if you go and ask people to range something just by eye initially we do days, we call it the Bambi game the 30, 40 metres out every time, even when you're using your binos or lanes or rangefinders with that capability, you still need to be accurate to help you ascertain that if you can walk a bullet flight line somewhere along that and that's why we say don't try and disturb it too much, etc.
Speaker 3:You know we can work the dog along between the point you took your shot from to a reference point behind. It's not always possible, absolutely it's not always possible, especially where you are. You can't always get a point behind this, yeah, yeah, and some on the flat ground, but in principle, if you could try and achieve that, we can work the dog along that line and the dog will absolutely, our dogs will absolutely indicate that along that line, working along that bullet flight path, a a shot there, you know they will find that strike site for you, they will indicate it and that's always a good point to go from. And wherever the dogs suddenly start indicating, you can then investigate it further. Um, it's not so I wouldn't say we're losing it.
Speaker 2:It's just never really invested in any talk I was going to say I suppose that's one of those things, that that's the education side of it.
Speaker 2:That's where the the mentorship. I think I raised the point a couple of a couple of days ago, talking about education and all the rest of it and how it's becoming a bit more of a just getting three people through and passing qualifications, whereas actually it should be a bit more about yes, you can do the fundamentals, but then you need to go away and actually gather that experience. Go with somebody that understands about taking the shot, shows you how the shot, the deer, reacts, the shot site tracking and things like that. And I get guests out and they love it. When you go up and go, look there's a speck of blood there and you walk it through and they're like that's amazing, I've never seen that before kind of thing and you walk them straight into a deer yeah, and I think you know again, I don't want to be derogative of the deer stalking community at all because it's not just sometimes how, how we're brought up and very much in the recreational store.
Speaker 3:You know the recreational store it doesn't lose that many deer because they do, some do and some, some don't. You don't see repeat offenders. You see the repeat offenders coming from. Please, professional guys, don't take this to offense. You're shooting more deer, so something's going to go wrong and that's always, always the study, isn't it? Yeah, but also those same guys the professional guys are very much can go. This is where the deer was, this is where the strike was, this is what the deer, this is how the deer reacted.
Speaker 3:When you go into the wreck more the recreational side or you know different, a bit part-time, or doing your deer to the freezer it generally can't tell you how the deer has reacted and where the strike site is. It was here somewhere and it's. You know you're like okay, cool, but it doesn't help us because we need generally try and pinpoint a spot. You can't say you know you can go back to and go. You know we rock up the next morning, do? I was somewhere here and the deer was somewhere there and we like you know to try and work that, but I suppose it's not just that learning point.
Speaker 2:I suppose all of that comes though. What most people do is they get themselves either behind the binos or in the scope and you end up with that focused tunnel vision. You see the deer. You've wound the mag up so you get a nice picture of the shot, but you have no information of the background behind it, and I think that's a as a big thing that a lot of people they they don't look around, they don't take the whole picture in before they take the shot yeah, and the areas again I you know I talk and I'll talk about this throughout this presentation or this podcast a lot about risk and it's understanding and managing risk essentially further on down the line.
Speaker 3:But everybody, for whatever reason, can these days sit and we'll punch a thumb hole group and that's what they're all possessed about. At 100 metres. Don't shoot from other positions. They're all prone. And then when it comes to actually shooting a deer like yourself, you've done a little bit, you've got far more guidance than I've done. The mag goes whack straight. You know, you've got your. You've got 25 on your mag. You shoot the deer, the rifle recoils, you flinch because you, you know, because, for whatever reasons, your marketing ship skills aren't ace, are brilliant, but your mag is so high that recalls you can't see the deer's reaction yep and for whatever you know.
Speaker 3:And then so when we're trying to tie, yeah, you haven't got that whole whole picture around you, that building, that whole scenario picture, and then you can't see the strike as well to go locate it, and you haven't taken that breath before taking the shot and seeing what's around, you haven't captured the deer's reaction, and then it was down near that head, somewhere between there and there, between that gate and that tree, and it doesn't allow you and you haven't marked where you've taken the shot from. So that's generally our first hurdle to get over. It's not knocking anybody, it's just trying to say you know, just bear, and that's what we say, just bear in mind, try and remember where you leave your sticks. No, the deal ran on. We can't find the deal. If you're going forward, leave your sticks or something.
Speaker 3:You've got a peg, a market, where you know how's the deer reacted, where I've taken it from, and just think you know, what do I need to do now? But it's not taught either in any of the courses of how to manage that situation. So that's what we, you know, we're trying, we're spending a lot of time trying to just we call it best practice. It's what we call. It is best practice to help, help you either recover the deer or or set the scene or or set the conditions I guess is the best word to allow us, for yourself or us, to come in with a dog.
Speaker 2:Move on, for, for, for now, no, I, I absolutely, and I think that's the thing that the uk it's not. It's not new, but it feels like it's new compared to europe, who this is? Just, this is standard, and I think there are um, I was talking to different places and if you shoot something, it's you, the hunter's responsibility to, to find that animal in many ways, and you have to then call in a deer tracker or something like that. You don't leave the site and I think we just touched on this just before we came in. I think a lot of people get to that point. It's last light. Let's just say they're, they've got their rifle up on the sticks and that the deer they've wanted it just comes out at last knockings and pretend, of course, and it and it's that it's, and of course, that shot is potentially just pushing their skill limit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and again, it's that risk. Don't pull the trigger in those scenarios. You don't need us. The deer will be there tomorrow, the next day, but inevitably you've just spent three hours walking around, whatever mission you're on, because you're about to blank or you're not going to blank. Yeah, what? What's the risk level? Well, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna have a go, you know, and inevitably that is at last life.
Speaker 3:You, I'm saying you're very capable out to 150, 200 meters of a shot. It's 250, 300 meters away. I can aim up a shot. It's 250, 300 metres away. I can aim up a little bit. It's on the boundary, which is enormous for us. And you go well, sorry, let's have a crack. And that's where it suddenly then starts going. And then I've got to get home to the missus, because I've got to put the kids to bed, she needs to go swimming, she needs to go for a run or do whatever she needs to do, and it all starts snowballing from that point onwards. Um, so, yeah, just stop and stop and think and and just look at the risks that you could possibly.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I think that's the biggest thing, isn't it? That people I think a lot of people that will push themselves because they've maybe come up for a, they've gone to their lease, they're away. It's that maybe it's coming up to like the last day. They really want to get something and it is. It's that point where they push it and then then it, and then then it all. Then it unravels and that's when when the sort of the ball of strings falling out your hand, and now it's it's a mess on the floor because all of a sudden every and nobody talks about missing deer.
Speaker 2:It's the big, big taboo subject that people don't like to admit that they've missed something. Because we all go out, we punch paper, we put lots of groups in and everybody says, yeah, it's great. And as soon as it goes wrong, you wouldn't go down the public. I missed one tonight because all your mates would sit there and go oh you're. And actually I heard people are worried about saying they missed, shoot, they missed, or they've missed a deer because they're worried that the feo might think that they can't shoot yeah, and that's absolutely.
Speaker 3:You know, and it's very much. She's a very rich thing in it. We all like to take piss, we all like to take the making. You don't want to be that one there or there's that extra, especially now around firearms licensing, that let's not admit this, let's not do this and do this. And nine times out of ten we'll never know how many deer have missed a year because nobody talks about it, nobody comes in and says I've missed a deer.
Speaker 3:So we've got syndicates down this way that actually you know if a shot's taken or a shot's heard, you either you know you return with a deer or one of us is getting a call. You know, because we've got that relationship with some of the syndicates and we don't always publicise it. It doesn't always go on Facebook. It's all kept relatively hush-hush to a degree. You know I hope we provide ourselves and sometimes on that level of confidentiality that you know if it doesn't want to go on Facebook or social media to publicise this, then we don't.
Speaker 3:You know we absolutely respect the stalkers. You know we've made it. You've called us out the call. We've either had a successful recovery or we haven't. Yeah, I think we ought to do more personally myself. We ought to do more on the stuff where we've had a good track but the deer has crossed the boundary or we haven't found it. The deer's missed. We ought to. We ought to do more on that social media. But as far as the stalker goes, if he doesn't want his picture taken or he doesn't want us to publicize it, then and then we're not. You know, we're not putting it on a facebook group, we're not putting it on instagram, it's all do we think that ukdtr is is well enough known?
Speaker 2:I'm that anybody who's been to the shows will know that there is a deer tracking service. But looking at the actual charts of where you guys are spaced out around the country, et cetera, et cetera. So you look at me up here and I think there's about three guys that are part of the team and for and somebody was, somebody was wittering all about one of those on one of my posts about. Well, I called a guy and he came to see him and he was three hours away. I'm like, well, that's, that's pretty, that's commitment and it shows that he's willing to travel to, to come and help you find a lost deer. But do we think that the there needs to be a bit more growth within ukdtr or?
Speaker 3:and yeah, absolutely, you know, and it's one of our key aims. If you ever look at, our key aims is to grow and educate and all that sort of stuff. And don't get me wrong, through the mentoring scheme. We've got the mentor scheme running. Uh, as a relatively new approach has been running two years, you know, a couple of years, and it's providing more, but it's slow. And also we've got to uphold the standards.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, you know, we pride our dogs that we can track them. You know, 20 hours, almost no blood or very limited blood. So we've got to uphold the standard or else it's not and not everybody meets it. We get a lot of people come on and they drop off or people fail and then they don't come back or they don't want to continue with their dog. But it's all about, same time, upholding a standard. Yeah, whether that's how you dress, how you approach it, how you speak to people, how your dog works, you know there has to be a standard applied to this because we're trying to uphold you know, mirror in somebody's respect a european standards of doing business.
Speaker 3:You know I have plenty of people which will come to me at times, or other people or just me, and go. I've got the best dog in the world and I'll lay a three-hour trailer, less, yeah, how old you want your track to be. Prove to me it's education that your dog's a little bit older. You tell him it's a good dog, that you want to come to me, and then you want to go onto the mentoring scene. Let's have a look at your dog and initially they'll go. Yeah, I can do 16, 12, 24 hours. It's amazing. And it comes to the day before I go right, you're happy with me to lay a 12 hour track and they'll go. I can just make it three, we'll make it two and the dog can't, can't, perform right either.
Speaker 3:you know and I'm not knocking the general stalking dog, but people big up some of their dogs and if we don't hold that, withhold that standard, uphold a standard, then what's the point of us being?
Speaker 2:No, absolutely. And to be honest, as we say, we've done a lot of chats with Europe and you go over to Europe and the standards are incredibly high and you've just hit it nail on the head. Those tracks can go on for 24 hours. They can be tracking a piece of driven game that's been hitting the spleen. And I remember chatting to a um, a swedish tracker, and I went through the night, I got to about two o'clock in the morning, on on on messages, and I was just like do you know what? I'm going to bed, and they carried on and they were like, well, we're still tracking. We've, oh, we've just found a piece of spleen. We'll see how far we can go, and and that's it, and it's just, it's the commitment to staying in and doing it to go after somebody's lost, lost animal yeah, I'm saying down our part of the world.
Speaker 3:Obviously you probably hit a boundary before that time, and you know. But you know I've gone out and I've tracked all day for a good four or five hours of a track and I might have only done 800 meters in that time, going backwards and forwards. There's a big deer population to you know, fight through and where stuff's going on, you keep coming back. You find a little bit more. You keep going. You're like you run out of light and you're so desperate to go where I'll come back in the morning. The stalker meets you in the morning. You might bring in another team and you reprove the last part of the track and you keep going until you go.
Speaker 3:But now we're at a boundary. You know the deer is ever going to be found, or it might have been, and have we pushed it on? Potentially we have pushed it on or the deer is just very capable of going. You know you find a bed down point and you're right, cool, so we found blood. Cool, let's keep going, keep going, keep going and you're never going to find the deer. Nothing can uk, you know, with it. And then you get to a boundary and you can't cross a boundary, then because it then brings in some other complications this is the big problem, isn't it the uk?
Speaker 2:we struggle with this, obviously. Yeah, the europeans. They make a quick phone call. They find out who owns the boundary. Can we cross the boundary? Yeah, in most cases you carry on. The next hunting land starts here. Yes, we want you to carry on and track through the uk. Oh no, you're not coming on my property with a firearm yeah, and that and that's very much, very much.
Speaker 3:You know. Speak of denmark, which we model there, our training and our opinions office very much across the whole of europe. But you know, if you look at denmark itself, the oh, I think you, you can go anywhere when you're tracking dog. You know a car, you know you hit deer with your car. If your insurance is going to pay for your car, you've got to be called a tracking team. Yes, yeah, yeah, you know, for the insurance to pay it. And I think that's the same with luxembourg, with the lads I know from you know out there, um, and the only sort of land you can't really go on without clearance is is is defense land, you know, but you can go on it. You just have to make sure that there's no live firing or somebody's getting bonds on you out there.
Speaker 2:Apart from that, the deer is your priority, but but that could.
Speaker 3:That could easily be changed in legislation in this country as a welfare issue, especially when we see it as you say we see, and it's a debate, yeah, I know you guys up in scotland having these sort of things change your legislation. I think it. It's not a pipe dream but it's not going to happen in my time or your time. No, that. Yeah, the governments have got so much. Yeah, I know there's stuff going on in scotland but there is about dogs and tracking and what's right or wrong.
Speaker 2:But you know the government's got bigger things at the moment to worry about whether we can follow the follow-up on a deer I was going to say don't talk about dogs and tracking in scotland, because technically that's a whole nother debate that basically, if you're trying to work a dog, you've got to be so careful to keep within the law these days because suddenly all of a sudden you could actually be be charged with something that you're hunting with dogs because of that policy and that that law. That came in up here and let's not go into that now. But no, exactly it's a whole. That's a whole other topic to talk about, which is which is changing and and then scotland, they want more deer shot. So there will be, there are more of these. We had it on the hill this year. We we ended up having I got the guests to actually take a deer out that had obviously come from contractors and, yeah, had a fairly fairly manky hole in through its neck.
Speaker 3:Yeah I mean, I think we talked about that but, um, yeah, over some stuff we did before, but yeah, that I mean. So that's, that's a different piece, the legislation piece, and whilst there's a little piece to go on and trying to do that, I don't think that's ever. You know, we, I don't think ukdtr, has got the capability at the moment to to fight that side of it. You know, the bass, the ngos or forestry land, scotland, depending on those sort of organizations, can help do that and we can advise on it. But we, as ukdtr, in, rightly or wrongly, whilst we've got the experience with you know, we've, as you said, the numbers that we have got, we we do have experience and can advise on it, but I don't think we're in a position. You know, trying to change legislation, as you know is well, maybe, you know, we all know, at the moment there's there's bigger problems going on rather than whether we can hunt oh, totally yeah, but but it's, it's.
Speaker 2:It's sort of one of those debates everybody's about the welfare of animals and the and the culling of deer and deer. At the moment, wherever you are, the fallow problem down south, the, um, the red problem, they, the so-called red problem up here it deer make, the deer make the press. Yet nobody ever talks about at the and that's another big thing that we're we can talk about, which is a another podcast. It's obviously you've had game dealers now changing their, their ideas and and saying what they'll have, especially down south. Has that increased? Um, obviously I'm talking here about head and neck shots. Have you seen a increase in having to track deer that have so-called been shot in the head or the neck?
Speaker 3:not necessarily. I think. I think the numbers remain stable. Whatever social media might say, whatever's forced, I think majority, majority are still. You'll see a lot of professional guys, I guess, doing more head, head in neck shooting.
Speaker 3:There is a little bit coming from social media. You know, don't get me wrong, I'm not going to tell you head shoot wrong because I'll head shoot myself if it's within my. Yeah, I think I think it's within my abilities. But the risk around and again I talked about risk the risk is much higher. Understand that.
Speaker 3:You know you're going to take a shot ahead. That head moves slightly and it can essentially go into a whole whole different world and the deer is no longer. You know. It'll either fall on the floor, it'll fall on the floor, get up and and see you next year. I'm left, exit and I'm gone, which also makes a very hard track because the deer is very mobile. Yes, yeah, so not necessarily.
Speaker 3:I don't think it's making much of of a difference. Yeah, we'll still get a good. I will still go if I can and go deal with that shot. I've got a dog which I was chasing. Yeah, she's in her element when she's like yeah, I'm off, um, and I can hold, hold deer up. Yeah, she loves it. Is it making a big difference? Or are we getting more calls with it because it's forced? Probably not. Okay. In all honesty, I think the way we also stalk, we're very much. We're not driven orientated over here as in the driven game sort of stuff Doesn't happen as much. So you know, as long as people keep it within their capabilities, you know it's a very viable shot placement. I'm not going to go against best practice and say it's not because I do it myself and lots of us will do it.
Speaker 2:Oh, 100%. It's a fantastic shot placement, minimal meat damage and things like that. But if somebody was wanting to be selling a new incoming stalker with potentially sort of that slightly less experience with firearms, if somebody was wanting to be selling a new incoming stalker with potentially sort of that light slightly less experience with firearms, and they're suddenly they want to sell deer to the game dealer because they've shot one for the freezer themselves. But they want to. They want to make a bit of money back to pay for the bullets and all of a sudden they're taking these slightly riskier shots. It it suddenly asked. The question is like well, maybe go away and practice a bit more before you start trying to go for that highly mobile point yeah, and again, you know it's, whether people call us or not, are those?
Speaker 3:you know I've gone out to potentially what's called. You know, you recall it in rtr, whatever, the, whatever the buzzwords are here because somebody found a deer. You know, in the. I've actually I've actually recovered it and there's a jaw hanging off. It's never, yeah, yeah, yeah, the dog's brought to bay. It's yeah, it's never an art. Yeah, it's never been in a road. Yeah, it doesn't hang.
Speaker 2:It's you just clearly it's clearly jaw shot, but this goes back again to people not not not taking, either, not knowing that they've done the shot wrong or not taking that ownership and going well, actually.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I should really follow this up and again that you know whether it's right or wrong, is trying to get rid of that stigma of like you know it does go wrong. Yes, yeah, yeah, you know, de-risk it, I'm just a hit the camera. Yeah, I'm not going to tell people how to do it or want to do it. But if you're going to take a headshot, don't do it side on, do it back, back or front. No, 100, 100 it de-risks it more, more it takes. You know you either miss or you don't miss. Um, you know, if you do it that way, you do it side on, the head moves, you take a jaw off, then the chances of recovering a deer go down drastically with a hedgehog deer because you've got four, four good working legs yeah, exactly, that animal can can cover a lot and and, to be honest, as we we discussed with that that I've seen them.
Speaker 2:Well, the one that I've shot and and lost, it's still got three, three fairly functional legs and it's still incredibly mobile. So, at the end of the day, that's the problem.
Speaker 3:Again, as good as on three legs as it is on four yep, ultimately I've had, you know, and dave are, you know, our mutual friend. We like discussing how we come. At the beginning of this he came to me to sort one out which wasn't a track. It was a track but it was reported, as you know, can can you go and dispatch it? And we got close to it and I'll really hear they throw we bumped out of the the outdoor gibbon podcast is proudly sponsored by the shooting and hunting academy.
Speaker 2:Through the academy, shooters, hunters and those involved in the use of firearms can gain an in-depth and unique level of training that enables them to shoot better, behave more effectively in the field, up their strike rates, as well as learning new skills, crucially those new to deer stalking. The Academy also offers the Proficient Deer Stalker Certificate Level 1, the PDS1, a deer management certificate that is nationally recognised and accredited both by Lantra and UK Rural Skills. Visit the Shooting and Hunting Academy to find out more. Let's get back to the show.
Speaker 3:And this whole I think it was your rear right leg was it obviously been caught in a fence and it was almost dead. It was a robot, yep, that had been like it for a while getting ready for a shot on it and it jumped a five bar fence in front of us on three legs. Yeah, yeah, totally. And you're like. And then I was still like I've still got shot over the fence and then flipping somebody walking their dogs where the brown lab came running in, chased it up and you're like I did go back and get it with a shotgun a couple of days later, but they're still. You know, three legs is as good as four as far as the deer is concerned.
Speaker 2:They're a prey animal. They're designed to keep mobile, they'll take a hell of a lot and they're hardy things, I think that that's what people don't realize they're.
Speaker 3:They're still a hardy animal that will keep moving. Yeah and yeah it's, it's, and I guess what's what's with you know it leads probably quite nicely to some of the discussion like that's why we say leave a deer. You know, if you shoot a deer and it's still you take a leg is similar in what you've done. And I know that whole incident when ben came out and supported it a couple of albums, I think it was 36 hours later before they. He never found it, but quite rightly so. You know, initially you don't want to follow up on that, you want to leave it. You know you've shot it in the leg because you've seen the deer's reactions run off, with the legs running potentially. And exactly that's what he told me you did when he got. He'd gone to the strike site and he found long cylindrical bone indicating that it's a lake, brilliant, cool.
Speaker 3:Now that deer is only going to probably 100, 150, 200 meters and then it's going to go and find the way things. It's probably the most thickest, horriblest piece of land it was. It absolutely was yep, and that's where it's going to stay as long as it's left undisturbed. If you go and look for it within an hour, two hours. It's still full of adrenaline, it's still on alert. It hears that brat snap or that twig snap. It's going to get up and lift. You need to let that adrenaline, whatever's soaring through his brains and let all that disappear, dissipate. I guess before you go and look for it, you know the deer's done that. You know you found there's a lead shot. Let's not go and push this deer anymore because right now it's gone 150 metres. It'll be 150, 200 metres from the strike, but it'll still be on high alert and as soon as it hears something that it doesn't like, it's like I'm out of dodge.
Speaker 3:But the next time it's out of dodge isn't a hundred it's not there anymore, um, which is probably where you know it didn't quite work in it was 20, 20, literally 12 hours later, and I know exactly that.
Speaker 2:I thought I was in the thick stuff tracking, found the blood, followed it up, came eye to eye with it. It got up, it moved and I think that's when probably moved it on through through all the thick gauze and it had that bit. It was stiff but it would have gone and I think that's where it goes wrong for us and that's legs and that's how you know.
Speaker 3:Three, let you four. Three legs is as good as four legs with a deer, back or front. Yeah, most, mostly injuries are front, um, so it's very hard to go. What's right or wrong and how long you need to leave it, but the longer you leave, but there's also that fine line of probably 12 hours.
Speaker 3:I remember one of our day I'd gone out for a guy down here, guide here, but down down South cracking Roebuck, without a good track, but because I'd gone later to it, not because I was late, he had a dental appointment, had a good track, but because I'd gone later to it, not because I was late, he had dental appointment, you know, with his kids taking his kids in the morning, met him and we went and looked for it. We found where it bedded down overnight, 200 meters from where it was. I put it on our whatsapp group, the danish lads getting back and said you need to be on it at first line. Yeah, because once it's gone beyond that it's going to move and that that was exactly probably what. Yeah, the you know went back and shot it 10 days later, but still just feeding as normal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. So there's a fine line between leaving it and not getting in. I think sometimes, when you've got a deal like that, you need also potentially you've got that, you've got to be capable of catching your dog or getting to your dog relatively quickly, yes, and dealing with the situation which is unfolding. You can't flap about it or do it um, but it's a very fine line to judge. But you know, if you follow up on that type of deer very quickly, you know, you know there is, the results are pretty good normally yeah, um, so yeah, and there's always a final.
Speaker 3:I talk about that risk, you know, and I think a lot of deer, we try and track them. We don't find it. Clearly we eventually found, or I found, a strike. The stalker might not always be right with the deer's reaction and I don't blame the stalker for that, but, um, and you find where the you know, but they've clearly gone, looking instantly from it, glando, with the fence open, the gate, done whatever they've done, and the deer is gone. But that's abnormal. Again, um, I'm moving, yeah, I'm, I'm moving, you know, or they'll put their own bob on it, you know, let the dog go out and have a, have a sniff for it and the deer's, you know, you'll never see. Nine times out of ten, you'll never see the deer lose. The dog will never see it. You might find where it's bedded, but the deer has gone way before you've found. Yeah, yeah, 100.
Speaker 2:So so, basically, the main, main things are if you've shot it and you think it's gone wrong, don't go running after it. Try and assess everything. Mark all the points. Don't go running after it.
Speaker 3:Try and assess everything, mark all the points you know and everything like that, and and and basically get get in touch with somebody from the ukdtr yeah, and it'll either set yourself up for you know, for you to recover the deer yourself or set the conditions for us to use you know you use a dog, um, and they give us the best opportunity and best chance to recover the deer, or you're in the use a dog and they give us the best opportunity and best chance to recover the deer for you and the outcome for everybody involved, for the deers. If it does need dispatching, for the deer to be dispatched, for the stalker to have closure, some, dare I say it, don't really care A little bit. Oh, it's gone, potentially, if it's all right. Others are absolutely distraught that they haven't found their deer and they're particularly deer and a majority are like that. Yeah, most are absolutely devastated that potentially they've lost the deer.
Speaker 3:I did one not so long back and he was. He couldn't believe it that he'd lost his first deer, not an. It must have been stalking for a long time. But eventually, you know, we bumped the deer out the uh, his bed and it got up and ran. Yeah, and I knew we were getting close to the deer because the dogs, dogs, started like going you could tell by the way she's reacting and I was literally going. The deer. The deer here is somewhere within 50, 60 meters of us because she's getting all excited, it's all getting that way and I'm literally I'm unslinging the rifle, I'm putting a round into it because you know how the dog's reacting and speaking and I'm about to unclip her to let her free track and go in somewhere. The deer gets up within front of us. I hadn't unclipped it yet. The deer stood and looked at us, looked absolutely fine you know, there was quite a lot of blood at the strike as well Looked at us like there was nothing wrong with it. You could see a strike on the back of his neck, you know, and it ran so hard that it was like a normal deer running away from us.
Speaker 3:I left her on the line, stood on the line and I was like she's like, oh, I'm about to go. And I was like, right, we can go after that deer, but that deer doesn't look like it needs, yeah, and it's running potentially somewhere towards the road and my dog isn't going to come necessarily be. And I said are you happy? Now? I said I'm actually continuing. We went to the strike. You find the blood in the studio, in in the bed. Sorry, are you happy that that deer is all right. I said I'm good I have the dog, will love to continue tracking. I would love to continue tracking, but the chances now we've bumped it. We've seen it run.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of it's fine, it's not going to be.
Speaker 3:It's going to have a bit of a sore neck and a bit of a for a period to continue, but it was like kind of winterish it. It's not going to get fly bit and it's not going to really, or we can. Now the deer's bonked up, well aware that we're following up on it. Is it worth the deer's advantage? Get it. There shouldn't be a differentiation between it. But the deer, the way the deer's reacting, the way the deer's seen us, my chances of Mel diminished with the dog. Actually, if it was on the chase she's a 12 um but and he's like no, I'm content, the deer's fine yeah, and I think that's the most important part, isn't it?
Speaker 2:but it provides that closure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we can go out with you know, I don't know if the deer's missed yeah, I haven't hit it or not, and the dog will indicate whether it's been. You know whether it's been hit or not because you or any of our dogs okay, yeah, no cool, we're on a track, or or not? So yeah, it provides you know, it allows to provide some form of closure yeah, yeah, no, no, 100, and I think, I think that's all it does.
Speaker 2:It just gives the stalker that sort of peace of mind that, um, everything is, yeah, that deer is absolutely fine. I think I've I've I've had one in the neck exactly like that before and you think everything's good. You get over there, it gets up, it legs it, there's a tiny brown speck of blood on the floor and you're like that deer is absolutely fine and it will be. I've hit it all in the soft tissue and it's away. Um, that leads us probably on to another interesting topic now. Obviously, uh, is the the choice of lead and copper is there. Are you seeing any differences between the two? They're obviously both capable of doing things. Is, is that making a difference for, for deer tracking?
Speaker 3:it's very hard from my point of view to differentiate between injured deer or not by the time we get calls. I don't think we're getting any more calls because copper's becoming, or having to become, more prevalent or more people are switching to it. But I think what needs to be understood is that, potentially, deer react differently to copper. Yes, sometimes the strikes are what you would. You could have a very the most extremely well-placed fart and let's call it a shot, not fart, but the most extremely well-placed shot through the heart. Engine room is destroyed essentially, or the bullet hasn't worked as you would traditionally expect from a lead bullet, but it's still done its job and the deer will still react very differently. It might even just stand there. It's penciled through it but it's a big. So the deer reacts very differently. So the stalker might think or it's penciled on and did run on a bit and it's understanding. I think the biggest thing is you know, for the dog it makes no difference because you know, whilst they're microbladed, or it's the interdigital which we're tracking as well. It's the deer's reaction, which the stalker might go. The deer's reaction is different. I've missed it, you know, and I've seen it myself when I was and trying different bullets. You know I could shoot a deer and I go I missed it. I'll have missed that Because the deer is not, it's not jumped, it's not, you know, as you would for a traditional heart shot.
Speaker 3:It's not reacted in that whole kick out phase and I'm like I'm reloading another bullet going. I shouldn't miss that. You know, 120 meters, some have got on to it. If I'm going to have another crack because it's still stood there, sort of going, something's happened. But I'm there, I'm going, well, something's happened and the deer's run off and then it runs 20, 30 meters and falls over dead, you know, completely dead. So I think sometimes, especially in the early days of this transition into the copper, you know it, it was trying to understand how the deer reacted to it.
Speaker 2:And I think that was the thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I think some of the now some of the you know whether I'm not going to go out and go some of the bullets I'm using now I think it's absolutely brilliant. But you tree riches in his bullets. Yeah, I think react very much very similar to lead in how they they might eat some anomalies to go around that, but generally when they shop with them, React is the same way as you would expect. There's other companies out there which I've not tried yet. So Wopty and all these others which are out there.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying they're any better, but they're performing more as we would expect from a traditional lead bullet in the copper I think so, and I think I've just seen from some, some manufacturers now they were they've offered we were just looking at it for for the new I'm getting a 270 and they do a range of bullets that go with that for the good, out to 150, 200. And then they've got another range if you're going to push the 200 to 300 meters. So, dependent on your type of shooting, there's a selection of bullets that will have a different speed and a different frangibility at the end of the day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know, and so they're trying to kick foot. Yeah, and you know, and so they're trying to kick. But yeah, I've got, I've, you know, I've done the whole traditional, whatever we might think, here again, I'm not overreacting rich to new trees. I found a boy which worked for me. That's, that's yes, exactly yeah, yes, and that, you know, I'm a reloader, I'm a bit that's what rich does, is I'm a bit like that works for me.
Speaker 3:I don't want to go and try anybody else's because I don't want to go through that rig of all the reloading and trying to find, find the data itself. But essentially for us, no, you know, and again, it's what is reported, what is rang into us. You know, we can all sit on social media and you know from my experience my first, you know, non-led bullies I was trying and speaking to other people weren't working as and people said try this, try, try this, try these, try these, do this. I've settled where I've settled. They could work for me. Somebody else might not. They might not work for them or they go like hell. Yeah, I think in that respect.
Speaker 3:But essentially, as far as tracking goes, you know, you've probably seen it on some of my Instagram. I'm not massive on it. You've probably seen it on some of my Instagram. I'm not massive, but every time I've done a recovery and somebody will come up and go, was it lead or was it copper? And it sort of necessarily breaks me a little bit. I don't really care, as long as the deer is recovered. Yeah, exactly. Yes, it's nice to know, but again, it's nice for us to know what. What you're shooting it with, what type of bullet? How is it being reacted? What you found on the strike site.
Speaker 2:That provides the evidence and basis of to me of how we should deal and approach we approach the track it was interesting because obviously there was a, a chat that uh came up at the stalking show actually, and it was um, it was something to do with training and talking about the group size. Obviously, a lot of the the training targets are, you've got a four inch circle and a five inch circle and and a professional deer stalker raised the target and said, well, yeah, but actually if you've got a four inch circle and you're shooting at a set distance, that's up to eight inches, where he sees that the target should be, if you should be sticking them all in an inch ball kind of thing, and then you know that if you're going to go for a neck or a headshot every time, so it's. It's putting people back to the range and getting more practice was that was the key yeah, there's a lot of business again.
Speaker 3:I think, yeah, that's right, you know, it's very good as I've got that stuff where you know, I'll go out every day and I don't mind. I don't mind shooting the range too much because it's costly, but there's a degree. But I'll always spend some period of time in the summer come back to where I come from with a friend of mine, but we'd set targets out at different ranges and we'd go you know, I'll set a beer target out 150 meters, one at 200 and one at 300 type of stuff, and we'd be doing stalking, all pretend stories with things, the dogs at heel doing whatever, and you go right, target one, position three, whatever. So I'm moving to whatever, shoot off the stick, shoot and you go, target two, which was the next one which I had to follow up on. Nobody practices that real world experience. I don't think.
Speaker 3:And it's just quite cool because I can, you know, I can wrap the bullet, you know, get them shooting right, and we used to do it to each, you know, to each other just go, just go around and have it's good fun. It beats just laying on a mat punching, punching holes in a target, shed it, you know. Um, I think yeah, again, what're moving away from it? How many people actually going and can shoot off a wall will shoot off their backpack or shoot off a gate or or do that? It all has to be. Well, I've shot some sticks, that's all I can shoot, or I can only shoot off a bipod. And how many mixed opportunities do they miss because they can't shoot that there? Or how many because they're now forced into or potentially go out or shoot in a position which I'm not able to shoot?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, and I think that's where I again I hark on about europeans. But the europeans, before they go out for the driven season or even the shooting season, kind of have to go through um, a bit of a shooting skills a test, basically to to show that they're still capable of shooting the driven bore or can you still shoot the target at free hand at 100 meters, kind of thing. And it was a big learning curve because obviously we were over in lithuania with pulsar and um, they, they put us on a competition. Here you go, here's the rifles, and yeah, there there's two or few of us from the uk shooting freehand a 308, which was awful and a 17 hmr not something we do as a, as a standard, but we held our own and it's. It just goes to show, obviously, the more you shoot, the ability you have to do that. But phenomenal, how many people couldn't shoot those two, two disciplines?
Speaker 3:but yeah, and again, that's not half old to try and destroy it, the deer. You know the shoot, those two disciplines. But yeah, and again, that's not half-hearted to try and destroy the deer. You know the stalking community itself. But it's just understanding, as I keep going back to it, it's understanding the risk that you know it's too far. So you know, just say I'll come back tomorrow, I'll come back at the weekend when I'm free again and hopefully I can get into a better position. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:To do it anyway.
Speaker 3:It's not, you know, because ultimately I think the standard of shooting in the UK is very high, yeah, compared to maybe some some places that we can see, or it's very different to where you know you go to Luxembourg or whatever you know friends out there who are, you know, got very competent trackers and they come over here and shoot.
Speaker 3:But it's not, you know, whilst it's trying to raise that awareness of just practice and you know the risk of doing that, it's trying about understanding the set. You know, setting the condition to provide whether you're going to put follow-up on foot or whether you're going to call, you know, a dog in or use your own dog potentially is setting those conditions and understanding the risks of how you approach that and, if you approach it in a certain manner, that you are decreasing risk or increasing the chances of. I think it is the big which I don't want to knock as, again, not the whole community or anybody around it, it's just something we don't want to knock as, again, not the whole community or anybody around it, it's just something we don't concentrate on too much.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, I think it's yeah, we, we people go away, they get the ticket or they've, they've got the rifle and they go and shoot a paper target and they go out, they, they shoot a few deer. But I think it's that little bit of just having that bit of background knowledge that says what happens when or I'm shooting from a position that I don't normally shoot from, I'm using a branch of a tree, a stone wall or something like that. I think that's, that's the key. It's it's putting yourself in that slightly more awkward position and maybe doing a few, a few rounds, occasionally a different target, just to sort of be able to develop those skills yeah, um, and only a lot of us in the year.
Speaker 3:We're not the same as what we're possibly. We got a little position yeah, our permissions especially where I live, you know, it's all small farms. You've only got a certain you know, do a certain amount on certain places or you have to get creative. But it's about risking the whole situation for us, um, for us, you know, and then also setting the conditions to allow us the best chance to recover a deer, whether you're going to do it on foot, by yourself, or you're going to give us call, which is which is the missing link, I think here.
Speaker 2:I, I think that's. I think I think it's getting people that awareness that you guys are out there and you offer a fantastic service. But people just have to kind of go. Yeah, I will give them a call. I'm, I'm, I've, I've missed the deer, or I'm not sure. I'll just phone and ask. Actually, because you speak to somebody and it could be a simple case of just talking it through and the guy goes back out, retraces his steps, gets on the track, finds his deer deer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know, and a hundred percent, and it happens a lot. I'm going to say it didn't happen in your case when you get in that case, but we've also at the same time, I think I've missed. But can you come out and have a look Exactly, and I almost guarantee one in 25 tracks, oh, not one in 20, find a deer. Yeah, yeah, you go, I'm 100. I think I've missed. But can you just come out confirm, absolutely, it's a freak. I'll straight away my boss and I'll come out and support, support you, because there's a day off by them. Sign in front of the computer and doing crap, meetings. It means I have to work late that evening, but yeah, and then you find a deer 100, I thought I'd miss yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah and that's the most important part.
Speaker 2:It's clear. It's clearing that conscience for the stalker and, as I said, you can call, I think, yeah, they can just go on the ukdtr website and phone in on there yeah and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And sometimes you know especially I'm very busy with work at the moment, but I will try and find somebody else to go and support it and then some of you struggling, and then like three people pop up, we go oh, I've got it, yeah, I've done this, I can do it, you know so if you don't call, you won't, you don't know, we can't. You, we are volunteers and we can't and we are lacking in places in the uk. If you don't give us a call and you don't get the advice and don't try, we can't, we can't help. And sometimes you know you go 100, I've missed that day and we go out we find a deer. They're like what you found a deer for us? Yeah, I understand the thought, but it clears their consciousness but at the same time that that deer has been found stone dead 30, 40 meters away. Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 2:Throw this one at you now, obviously, with the the advancement of technology and things like drones and we know that we've got dogs who've got absolutely fantastic noses that's all they do. But now you've got more tech, it is are you seeing a bit of a change? Somebody turns up because I've got a thermal drone. I don't need to worry, I'll just put that up and I'll find a deer well, we're not.
Speaker 3:I'm saying that's not necessarily affecting this, but it's coming up as questions. I think, yeah, um, it's quite hard, you know. To that Number one a thermal drone is the best. We've got a couple of lads who are doing a business doing it. But number one, from my background, before I become doing what I've done, I have quite a lot of experience in working with thermal drones, more on a military scale, but always the issue with it is especially in a commercial sense.
Speaker 3:Here there's a lot of restrictions around flying drones in the UK. Firstly, you know 500 metres from the point of, but you've also got to understand whether it's a thermal drone or not. But let's just talk about thermal. They only fly for a certain period of time. So even if you put your drone up straight away, you've got somebody there within 10 bits. Or you had a thermal drone yourself, put it up. But 100%, all those deer that are injured, that still got stuff about them, will go to cover. Yeah, and whether that's in the winter or the summer, all deer, if they're injured and they've still got something about them, will go to the thickest cover they can find. A thermal drone a thermal doesn't penetrate thick cover in in the first instance. The second one, I'll go with it, not all, but say 30 percent of stalkers don't even know which direction the deer is running. So you put a drone up and you could be looking at. Yeah, the deer's facing left, so they've struck straight when they shot it. When it's facing left apparently to them, it's run left, but the deer's facing left, so they've shot it. When it's facing left Apparently to them, it's run left, but the deer's gone right, it could be flying elsewhere. Also, you need a heat signature. Is that the right here? You've actually picked up in your heat signature. If it is out, oh yeah, yeah, when somebody's shot and dies, it loses that thermal signature, or you get a thermal crossover between air temperature and ground temperature and it disappears.
Speaker 3:And whilst I'm not saying it's not impossible to use a drone for it, you know it can only fly for 20, 30 minutes at a time. You have to take it off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, potentially, if you've spotted it, replace the battery, pull it back out. I view 100% first deer you're looking at or is that the right deer? And where the dog will follow that if you found the strike site, it will follow through. Whatever sign you found the dog will go. It's gone through whatever sign you found the dogs will go. Next, for that, come through the herd. It's peered off, left out, 40 deer. You know it's gone and it's found the right gear. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I think what I'm saying is not you know, again, advancement technology, drones are brilliant. You know whether it's going to locate a deer and you're able to, instead of walking around your ground for like five, ten, you know whatever three hours trying to find, locate deer, put your drone up, find deer, go and stalk the deer, use it for a deer count, or I guess it's calling that layer, having that layer effect to use a dog. Use a drone, yes, yes, um, you know, potentially, potentially, that's the way to go with it, but people can't, generally, most deer stalkers can't afford. Yeah, a five round is the best of again, the cheapest dog yeah, yeah no hundred percent.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um. So yeah, if you know it's advancements in technology and you might get drones which could do it, but a dog will absolutely I was gonna say you can't stop the dog.
Speaker 2:The dog has a nose that once it's locked on, that's it. It's going and it doesn't need its batteries changing. Well, it might do after. After a certain number of hours it might need a feed and a drink.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you can swap out a dog. You know it's often down here. You know there's a couple. I've come so far. My dog's absolutely trashed. I'm going to pull her out. Can you come in and take over and you put gober and put the dog back on the same track? Are you able 100 to confirm that's the right deer? You've spotted a thermal signature. You've turned to day camera as a deer. Are you able to but 100 of the top gear, almost every everything I've ever been involved in. That's it. But yeah, it's been a well shot deer and it's just run and it's died across the field.
Speaker 3:That deer is going to thick cover. It's going to where it feels safe. Yeah, you know, and it's almost like yeah, and I can understand, I can guarantee not 100 that that would be. I'm doing a track, I've gone down rides, I've done this. I've gone through the woods and as soon as I start hitting an understory or thick cover, my wife was getting unslumped. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you know that's the first piece of cover the deer has gone into that and it's the thickest piece you'll ever find in that. You know wherever for the last 10 miles the deer is in that somewhere the rifle is unsung, the drone won't. The drone won't put you. Every deer I've ever found in that sort of way died or expired or bumped out of it. The drone won't penetrate it. Not a commercial drone and not even a military style drone, it's that sort of thing. So I'm not saying they're bad at all. Yeah, it's another tool we can use in the deer stalking world. But is it? Is that your first port of call?
Speaker 2:but I suppose that actually goes as well. We've covered thermal drones there, but that just actually goes to thermal handhelds. You can be standing three meters, four meters away from a deer that's fallen in the drainage ditch and the thermal doesn't help you find it yeah, no, and I'm sure you know people go.
Speaker 3:Well, I can follow the blood trail with my thermal. Yeah, we get that a lot, you know. You see it on social media not so much, but you were seeing it a bit. I can guarantee you I can take a boiling cup of water, throw it on the floor and within 20 minutes it's depressed exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not following a flat trail you're no longer following, you know?
Speaker 3:and that's a cup of water versus specks of blood?
Speaker 2:yes, 100, I know totally. So I've got one final question actually that we, uh we had sent in um do different deer species require different methods of tracking?
Speaker 3:you could get really intricate over this and potentially say yes, yep, yeah, because some deer are harder species than others. But I think we, you know, we try and strip it back. A deer is a deer. Yeah, essentially, I think I think there's things you've got to consider with the type of deer you're going against my potentially. You know, if I had a muntjac or a Chinese, I'll explain chinese incident I did on those a couple years ago now. But different deer behave differently and and pose different threats to your dog. Yes, I would say, obviously, the first one we're going to go at is a seeker, is a harder deer. Every, everybody, I think, understands that. The fat layering or cover covers that and generally they are very capable of running a little bit further than most. I'm saying less, I'm saying it's open for debate, but generally what we'd say is a deer is a heart, you know does.
Speaker 2:There are hard. That's certainly a hardy thing, or it's what it looks at you.
Speaker 3:You know it's a hard deer anyway yeah, you know they, they raise their eyebrows and they've got those eyebrows and and they just look a little bit harder than everything else out of it. But for that aside, there might be the consideration that they're probably run potentially, if you're going after one, it's going to be a little bit of a harder track. It's not going to be within that 200, 300 meters of everything's done by the book. I didn't ask one. These aren't even working. It's one to consider. I wouldn't say we'd treat it any differently.
Speaker 3:What I would say is sometimes, you know, for a Chinese or Munchak I'm putting her in Kevlar. Okay, the biggest species I'm not too bothered about. And I say that you know you see some of the wounds and we don't always you. You might not see a public or put it on it. The deer which is going to cause the most damage to your dog is those little sharp teeth or those little sharp, yeah, spiky things.
Speaker 3:And there's the other people out there who are a testament to it and the dog gets a little bit knackered up and they've had a hefty vet bill. And then all of a sudden asking where, where we buy kevlar from, because it's not readily available in in in the uk. So that's what I would say, is I would go if I'm tracking a smaller deer species, those you know because because they look, you know they seem a little bit more mobile and a little bit more agile because they're smaller, the dog potentially struggles with that sort of like right, okay, uh, smaller, nippy, smaller, spiky, sharper sort of antlers. You know my dog, especially when it comes to if it came to a big red or a fallow nose it's got. You know, she's had, she's had a few clouds in the trading from them. I've given her a good whack with it and forced it upon her a little bit that she's very wary of the bigger stuff.
Speaker 3:The smaller stuff she's still very keen on, but the smaller stuff is much more aggressive. She's very from row down. She will be very aggressive towards when it comes to that point in it.
Speaker 2:But no dear, not so much the row she absolutely loves tracking bro, but the smaller stuff is potentially causes that much as, but I suppose that's one thing we don't probably track as much in this country is obviously we're talking about deer here, but europe it's tracking the ball, and I think that's that's where the, the sort of that, that is the the real nasty stuff, because yeah, and I've done a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately I've never recovered one um on the ball. I've done two or three now. So I'm not too far away from some bore areas and I'm always like, ready for please, please, give me a ring. But firstly, speaking of the smallest stuff, we'll talk back to going to somebody. I did a chinese for he said it was shot four hours ago. I've got gut content on the floor, strike site, yeah, and I'm putting her in Kevlar Cause you won't need it, it'll be dead.
Speaker 3:Now it's four hours on and I'm like she's going in Kevlar. Yeah, you've told us a trophy buck. I said I don't care truck it wasn't, it wasn't a big truck by any means of the thing. And then she wanted to go in this big patch of briars. So the brambles, which was a big patch of briars, and I'm like the only way I'm getting in that is letting her off in there. So she goes in and then she starts barking. So she brought the deer to bay. The deer hasn't really moved too far because his guts are missing, but she's bringing this deer to bay and I'm like and they're going. I'm going, there's your deer. And they're like what? And I said also, it's still alive. She'll bark at a live deer. She's gone into that bay, yeah, yeah, and they're like no, it's got to be dead. Both the stalker, both the guard. Like no, it's dead, she's just barking at the deer and then she, she, she's got around it and she grabbed hold of it. Yeah, it's one of the worst times I've ever. She grabbed hold of a few deer and I, like chinese, makes a really horrible noise when it's grabbed. It's like right, very different from everybody else, and they're like freaking out still alive.
Speaker 3:That's the time, yeah, and that was four or five hours after the incident. Yeah, yeah, it happened. And when I climb here then I'm climbing through it getting to the deer. Still had some poke about it, you know, and she's she's got a hole in her bit and it's still having a, you know, trying to have a pop back. And yeah, she's dressed in Kevlar, so I'm not necessarily too worried, but you think I don't know where she's been. You know, has the deer tried to whack her with her teeth? The deer tried to whack her with her teeth, I don't know, because it's such such a cluster and we, we end the deer, you know, we end the situation as quickly and as humanely as possible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, um, going on to the boar, let me see if I'd said don't have a huge amount of experience, I want to get more with it, but it is very exciting during the boar and I've had a couple of incidents.
Speaker 3:I've never recovered one, but I've had some monstrous tracks. The one I I even missed it was it was a good track and we went into really I think it's on my instagram as well parts of it a little bit of a real doing the gopro with it got to this really. I mean super thick cover and I have a really really driven dog who would on a deer, would be like see a layer I'm off and we're going through the thickest brown we could possibly imagine the rifles I'm slung. It's worse than like going through, you know, a maze field in Afghanistan knowing that there's Taliban 20 meters away from you because there's. You know, looking at the, you know the footage which has been downloaded from the camera, it's a big old pig and you sort of like go right and you can start hearing this thing grunting in front of you, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you're like, holy shit now. Now I've overstepped, like you know my, my own sort of like capabilities, and what's going to happen to me or the dog if this decides to turn around me?
Speaker 3:it was going forward, we were pushing it on, but it wasn't too it broke the river, you went into a stream and have your side and I had a shot and I'm, you know I did miss it, but it was running hard. I don't do much driven shooting, so there's my. You know then the the. There's my excuse. It was shot a week later, yeah, and it weighed I think it was 150 kilograms on the scale.
Speaker 2:Yeah, with with a hole through his neck. Hardly, hardly, but again to shoot them in the neck. They've got that really thick neck and the spine is actually. It gets people because it's not where you think it is on a boar.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you know you speak to it. You think, well, I'm glad that never actually turned around, decided to come, come the other way and I've done a little bit of luck. I've done some tracks over here for a couple of lives from Luxembourg and I was working in Luxembourg and I went out and had a shoot with them one day and I was lucky enough to meet not going to call him a hero of mine, but we've become quite good friends and we speak a little bit. I was like hosted, like I was, it was like a king, it was brilliant, um, but we sat there having beers in in their little shoot hut and he's, he's got, you know, joseph Arthur, um, joe Arthur, posters, names, stuff.
Speaker 3:He does a lot of stuff on on YouTube with some of his tracks and he doesn't speak great English but he starts, he starts opening up. He looks, yeah, he looks absolutely like he should be in the SAS. He looks like this, like steely eyed killer, fit as um. And he starts then like dropping his trousers and showing scars of where the pigs come round. Yeah, and and and and and. Turned on him, um, yeah, and he's like this is look at the scar on my dog and get his dog out the car. Look at this, look at you know, and you think, freaking hell, yeah, and he, but he does 300, yeah, most of his tracks every year, like 300 odd tracks a year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I speak to those guys and I go and they, you know they're 100, you know they're syndicate or they're allowing to shoot thousands of hectares. They're like you don't shoot a pig anywhere else but in the engine room. Yeah, I go. Well, a lot of the lads over here and I'm not, yeah, the lads I know which are shooting them in the head and getting stuff, he's like why would you do it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's like, he's absolutely. He goes. Look at my legs, look at my body, look at my dogs, yeah, and the dogs he's lost in his again scrolling through his phone, having best dog I've ever had got to, four years old, been absolutely nailed um, and he's like why would you do it? Why would you purposely do that?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, and that's it I would absolutely say I am not tracking, you know and I've done. You know I will have to go after it goes. If somebody says I think the ball's been shot in the head, he goes I'm not following it.
Speaker 2:He says absolutely I'm not going and looking for this deer or this or this pig yeah, no, yeah, you can understand and at the end of the day, I know we're talking about, we've covered it all the way through the the riskier head and neck shots. But in the grand scheme of things, if you're going to shoot a row, if you shoot it in the engine room, you don't lose a lot of meat. You've lost two shoulders. There's not a lot on there, it's a bag of mince. At the end of the day, just put the shot in that you feel comfortable with, drop the deer, go home happy, you don't need to get a tracker out and everybody uh, everybody can have a laugh about it down the pub yeah, yeah, I know exactly that.
Speaker 3:You know, I know we probably didn't cover the whole. I think you actually got head and neck shooting absolutely fine. You know you'll see it a lot. You'll get a call out. Especially during the rut, when the big stuck comes out, we might have a spike in the number of call outs because everybody wants to recover yes, I'd say right or wrong. And you go where's the shot placement? And we talk about hardy deer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the ckr shot it in the neck. And you're like yeah, why? Yeah, I was over in ireland a couple of years ago. I'm speaking. Yeah, it's quite a cool story. When you speak about it, you know, and ask exactly the same question. I'm like your head neck I don't really have a problem with as long as it's done within your and is the I'm gonna say young girl? She's his old bird. Was like yeah, we laddie you know I can't even do an irish accent was like I shoot all my deer in the neck. Yeah, she shoots them out of her bedroom window yep, yeah, yeah, yeah had this whole debate with me like why next year?
Speaker 3:and I'm like, I'm just trying to explain to you if you're shooting a deer in the neck during the rut, the next becomes so big or whatever. But you know, just girl, woman, 70 years old, was as frail as you, you know as our grandmothers or whatever as I go, actually what we do in the neck, what's the problem with it. I'm good, I'm just trying to explain to you. There's a risk in your rut that if you're going to do this because you want to, you know, actually probably the deer is no good to anybody, bar dog food potentially and you want it to go on your wall, whether you're a tropiante or not, you know, but it's part of deer management and absolutely it should be is. I'm not trying to have a debate, you know. I'm just saying this is where, yeah, and this last girl.
Speaker 3:They still have a laugh about it now when I you know, when I speak to them, um how she gave me such a hard time over neck cue and I'm like nobody in uk detail saying don't do this, don't do that just be very sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's to your capabilities there, isn't it? I think we've said that, yeah and it's again.
Speaker 3:But you know, none of us are going to say don't head shoot, neck shoot or engine room shoot, because most of our stuff does probably come from the engine room shooting. I think that's where the majority of people are shooting, regardless of whatever you're seeing on social media. That's where people want that deer on the deck ultimately. Yeah, honey, I don't want to put the freezer or one back in the head, you do. You do get the influence of it, but for most of the stuff we do, it does happen, you know I. But I will pick up the dog and go.
Speaker 3:It's been headshot, the jaws come off. You know the found teeth. This is going to be a nightmare for me. Yeah, yeah, um. So nobody's saying don't do it. We're not telling you. We're not here to influence policy. Let's, we'd like to influence parts of legislation, obviously, but, um, we're not here to influence how people want to go about the business. Or we're not going to criticize how people go about the business. Personally, some of us might have their own views on different shop placements, but we're not going to criticize you because that's what we've done. We've called it, which is the best thing you can do, and we'll do the best to support that caller.
Speaker 2:No, I think that's the most important part People Pete, you're not going to be judged if you make that phone call. Actually, the chances are. By making that phone call, you're doing the right thing for the, for the animal's welfare at the end of the day yeah, and that's where a lot of effort at the moment is.
Speaker 3:We've gone away from like trying to do we are training dogs and you want to go. It's trying to influence and understand and get that out to the stalking community around, marking your shop site or where you took the shop from, marking a reference point behind it so you, if you haven't got an accurate range, we can follow up, walk that bullet flight path effectively. If you hit it and you're confident you hit it, the dog will mark that and that's where your track goes from. If you can find it and you've got a deer's reaction, you've got a deer's reaction. It's kicked out or it's like a gut shot. It crunches over out or it's, you know, like a gut shot, it crunches over.
Speaker 3:He told us that it's walked off rather than run off. He found that green on the strike side. You know it all. It all adds to a picture and it all indicates of how we're going to approach, approach it. We're not going to judge, you know. We're not going to judge you to um say, oh, you shouldn't know because it goes wrong. We've all experienced it. I think anybody's talked.
Speaker 2:Enough is experienced yeah, 100 and, and that's the thing, it's not to scare off the, the new shooter that's taken a shot. They've been out, they've shot a few deer, they've gone out this time and it's gone wrong. At that point, get on the phone, make that phone call and and and seek the professional advice.
Speaker 3:Really, yeah, and I'm saying professional is quite good. It means we get paid for it. We don't um but it's but seek that advice or that experience. I think it is the key and we don't always have to come out. I think professional yeah, I always look at professional is like we get paid for it. We don't get paid for it. We are completely voluntary. We're non-judgmental, non-critical. We won't criticize what, what you know, what the stalker has done. All you want to do is do the best for the stalker, for the best outcome for the stalker and the deer yeah that's 100% we're.
Speaker 3:You know I'm not going to judge you, whether you, you know it's gone wrong when it's ended up at the back end of the deer. You know, I don't know what's happened in the situation, I don't know your. You know, in the situation, I don't know your, as best I would say to you is be honest with the whole, whole, whole approach. Yeah, but at the same time, at the same time I guess I talked about my military sort of career a little bit here. We used to do, when those who served in the military have served in northern ireland and all those places, we used to do a thing called judgmental training, right, and you'd get put yeah, it's a big, it's almost like a cinema type effect, and you go through these. You know, you go through a scenario, um, the trainer, and you get an incident which happens and then you shoot the terrorist type type stuff and one might be very you know whatever color caps or balacar was, and you go, you go through the whole scenario before you get split up and then you get grilled in front of everybody by by the police, the army of all military police or special investigation bureau, and I'll go to go.
Speaker 3:So the guy you shot. What color hat was he wearing? For example? And I'll go, he was wearing a blue hat and every staff laughing behind you and you're like what do you mean? He's wearing blue hat, but there was something in the scene. You know the car, you know I goes blue blue hat. Actually he's wearing a red hat, but the car was blue. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, I'm not saying this is how people get out of jail and do this. The police know you're absolutely lying if everybody's got the same story but it. But I, you know, I could have convinced that we and I've been through it several times and I, you know you want to stick up there and do it better. In in my military career is that's generally what I believe, you know, because the deer was facing right, left.
Speaker 3:It's absolutely run right or left, you know, run right yeah, yeah, yeah and you know we get that from the stalker because it absolutely ran this way, yeah, and the dogs ran this way, yeah, and the dog's going left and he could know it ran that way. And you're like the dog's saying different. And then you find a deer and he's like, so this, this, like what's it going to be? You know, a six point bronze, fricking gold, whatever silver medals, is not yours. Then Uh, uh and and and you know, you see, like, trust your dog a little bit, but he's not lying. The stalker is not lying to you at all. Anyway, he's just missed the reaction the deer, the way the deer run, and he generally believes stalker generally believes he, she, sorry Ladies Is the way. That is generally what has happened, so we're not on judgment over that. I have been called To choice names Because I'm going the wrong way In the past, because he generally believes the deer's done one thing and the dog's doing another. But he's not wrong, stalker's not wrong.
Speaker 2:It's just what he actually believes is is is going on yeah, no, and I think that's what all it boils down to. So I think I think what we've, we've covered quite a lot there actually and I think, um, I don't want to hold you for too long because I think you've got your dinner to go to, uh, so it's probably cold now, but sorry about that. But thank you very much for coming on and sharing those thoughts and experiences and hopefully it will give people something to think about. And if they do have a problem, yeah, they can get in touch with the UK DTR.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm sure. As I said, mate, and to anybody out there, you know we are here to help. You know whether we actually come out or you just want advice on how to follow up with deer. Um, please, please, give us a ring. We don't always have to come support with a dog. It's all about understanding the risks and the conditions you set for us to give us the best chances for the best outcome for both the deer and and stalking fantastic so yeah, please give me a ring or ukdtr.
Speaker 3:We're on the website, find the tracker. Give us a call brilliant.
Speaker 2:I will put a link to that uh at the uh in in the description. Thanks very much, legend, cool. Hopefully some really useful tips there about if it does go wrong for you and it does go wrong for everybody. If it hasn't gone wrong yet, it will do if you shoot enough deer. There is nobody that doesn't miss or have a problem at some point in their life.
Speaker 2:That's just deer stalking. You cannot guarantee that that animal won't move. It wasn't quite where you thought it was, it wasn't quite in the angle. It was. All sorts of things can happen. But don't be afraid to call out somebody like the UKDTR. Get them there. They have such well-trained dogs that they will hopefully either be able to track or find your deer and get it dispatched, or at least you've put the maximum amount of effort in to try and find that deer. I think that's the most important part is actually just putting the effort in to actually go and look for it and not just go yeah, I shot it, I can't find it, I'm just going to leave it but actually to actually spend that little bit of extra time and go. It's only right as the hunter that we do that. So anyway, we'll leave it there and if you've got any questions, obviously ping them over and I can always push, push them on to the guys at the uk dtr or get in touch with them directly. We'll catch you on the next one.