Stalking on your doorstep

There is no need to head to Scotland to enjoy the thrill of the stalk. Pursuing lowland deer is not only exciting and surprisingly accessible but essential to the health of the British countryside writes Graham Downing

In the autumn of 1971 my father leased 1,000 acres of forestry shooting near Thetford in Norfolk for what even in the immediate aftermath of decimalisation was the remarkably modest price of five pence an acre. As well as a decent population of wild pheasants, there were vague and unsubstantiated but nonetheless exciting rumours that the woods harboured lowland deer, roe deer, so I called in at our local gunshop, Darlows of Norwich, bought a bag of SG shot and loaded up a dozen cartridges.

For the next few seasons, as my father and I walked the rides and hunted out the bracken and brambles between the blocks of dark, brooding pines, I kept No 6 shot in the right chamber of my shotgun and SG in the left, in the hope of bagging a buck. However, although we retained the shooting for a few years thereafter, there was never so much as a sniff of a lowland deer. How different it is in those woods half a century later.

A surfeit of deer

Thetford is today renowned for its roe, its muntjac and of course its splendid multi-pointed red stags but right across East Anglia, and indeed throughout most of lowland England, there are deer just about everywhere. After having been hunted virtually to extinction by the middle of the 18th century, wild deer populations have burgeoned. I know of ancient oakwoods where the gnarled and venerable trees had not seen deer beneath their branches since the days, 400 years or more ago, when they were mere saplings but which now do so again. Here on my own small farm in east Suffolk I can open the window on a quiet October evening and hear the thrilling roar of the red stags as they challenge for supremacy during the rut. That would have been unthinkable only a couple of decades ago.

Indeed those red deer, along with the muntjac, roe and Chinese water deer, that thrive here do so largely because of the new woodlands, hedgerows and other habitats that we farmers have created under the various agri-environment schemes. I have personally planted nearly 2,000 trees and a kilometre of new hedgerows on the farm in recent years, not to mention numerous cover crops and rough, grassy field margins, and I am by no means alone around these parts in having done so. The deer love it, and why should they not? There is no reliable estimate of deer numbers but the relentless increase in the range of all six British species as charted by the British Deer Society’s quinquennial survey is plain enough to see, and it translates into a wealth of new sporting opportunity that is not confined exclusively to large sporting estates but available on farms and in small woodlands across the country.

Deer distribution

One or more of our deer species may be found almost anywhere in England, with the delightful roe deer being the most widely distributed. Indeed, roe are almost everywhere in Great Britain aside from parts of west Wales and east Kent. There are strongholds of the native red deer across the south-west, in East Anglia, Cumbria and Yorkshire while fallow may be found, sometimes in unbelievably large numbers, anywhere south of a line from Whitby to the Wirral. The three more recently introduced species are less widely distributed, although sika occur in Dorset, the New Forest and the north-west.

Muntjac live as far north as Yorkshire, and Chinese water deer are spreading at a prodigious rate from their core range in East Anglia and the East Midlands.

Thirty years ago, mention of deerstalking in Britain was associated almost exclusively with the pursuit of red deer in Scotland. If you wanted to go stalking, then you travelled to the Highlands in September or early October for the stags. A few more hardy souls with the right connections continued to head for the hills throughout the winter for the hind stalking. That, however, is no longer necessary, for wherever you may be, almost anywhere in rural England stalking is available on your doorstep.

Of course, nobody can deny the magic that is Scottish hill stalking but the opportunity to pit your wits against wary fallow or muntjac on the fringes of farmland or around small copses and lowland spinneys, or to stalk huge stags in lowland forests, is both truly exciting and amazingly accessible. And it is a genuine hunting activity.  Guided stalking is there to be found, although it is not nearly as widely available or well organised as it is north of the border. That said, with suitable experience and access to land that holds a lowland deer population there is nothing to prevent you from stalking on your own.

Lowland deer stalking

Once initiated and capable of stalking solo, you will not be behind a guide to steer you into the shot. There will be nobody to make useful suggestions or offer local knowledge, and nobody to blame when things go wrong. Every decision that you take will be yours and yours alone, and when a successful shot is made and you can look down at the beast that you have just taken with a mixture of awe, respect and satisfaction at a job well done, then you can count yourself a true hunter.

Inevitably a degree of training and education is required. You can perhaps accompany an experienced stalker until both you and he or she are confident that you have learned the ropes, but by far the best way of setting out on a stalking career is by attaining the award of Deer Stalking Certificate Level 1 (DSC1). This involves demonstrating an understanding of basic deer biology and recognition, rifles and ammunition, game-meat hygiene, the law related to deer and deerstalking, along with safety in the field. You will then be expected to go out on to the range and place two shots into the chest area of a deer target at 100 metres prone, and at 70 metres standing, sitting or kneeling. (Read: Things to take to the hill when stalking.)

It is possible to undertake the learning element (although not, of course, the shooting test) online but there is absolutely nothing like joining a group of enthusiastic would-be deerstalkers in a classroom for four days, sharing their experiences and aspirations and listening to the lectures being delivered by a first-rate instructor. I guarantee that even the most hardened stalker will learn something new by attending a DSC1 course. Furthermore, demonstrating that you have attained this will leave your police firearms enquiry officer in no doubt that you have sufficient experience with firearms to be authorised to possess a stalking rifle.

The fact that 33,000 people have achieved the DSC1 qualification is a measure of just how popular deerstalking now is. Indeed, there can be little doubt that it is the fastest-growing sector of shooting sports in Britain today. The recent Value of Shooting survey established that some 120,000 people are involved in deer management in the UK, together culling around 681,000 deer. While a small proportion of these are professionals, the overwhelming majority are recreational stalkers hunting for the sheer pleasure and challenge of what is an exacting, exciting and all-absorbing sport, and they are prepared to invest handsomely in their chosen pastime.

Agile and adaptable

For a relatively recent fieldsport that has only fully emerged on to the scene in the past three or four decades, lowland stalking has proved remarkably agile, adaptable and willing to embrace new equipment and techniques. It long ago ceased to wear faded tweeds and cast-off military tunics: today’s stalker can choose from a huge range of stalking jackets, trousers and boots designed specifically for the sport by brands such as Härkila and Deerhunter. He has at his fingertips a wealth of modern rifles with weather-resistant ABS stocks, sound moderators and topquality optics along with every manner of purpose-designed accessory, from stalking sticks to calls, high seats, extraction and gralloching aids, and knives of every description and price.

Lowland stalking is quick to recognise the latest technology, as witness the widespread adoption of thermal imaging for locating deer. While it is of course possible to spot deer with a pair of ordinary binoculars or indeed the mark-one eyeball, it is many times easier and much more efficient to use a thermal device, upon the screen of which any warmblooded creature in the landscape pings out like a beacon. The advent of thermal imaging has made spotting deer so much easier and has thus dramatically increased the number of deer culled in Britain every year.

The willingness of stalkers to innovate has not been lost on the gun trade and its support industries, from manufacturers of firearms, ammunition, clothing and accessories through to those producing equipment for extracting carcasses from the woods, for storing them in suitably chilled environments or for skinning and butchering them down into that most exquisite food, home-produced venison. Deerstalking now even has its own specialist Stalking Show at the Staffordshire Agricultural Society showground at which all these products may be seen, handled and purchased. In its first year, attendance at the show was promising but after two successful years the word has clearly got around and the 2024 event saw 13,500 visitors over two days. The queues to get through the door said it all.

More significantly, perhaps, deer management is generally recognised to be essential to the proper maintenance of the countryside. Conservation bodies from the RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts to the Government’s statutory nature conservation adviser Natural England recognise that if woodlands are to flourish and national tree-planting targets are to be met, then deer must be controlled. There is even public money available for deer control and management where deer have been identified as a threat to semi-natural woodland, woodland regeneration or where deer browsing impacts negatively upon woodland features or ground flora.

Governments of all colours actually want us to shoot more lowland deer, so there is no need for stalking to have to look over its shoulder at potential opponents, nor does it find itself on the back foot. Quite the opposite: the only discussion with the Government is around how we can get more stalkers on the ground. Deerstalking is officially on the side of the angels.

To find out more about Deer Management Qualifications and to access the Deer Stalking Certificate Level 1 and other courses, visit Deer Management Qualifications.