You need your wits and all the right kit

I shot my first roe when I was 13 or 14. The ground at home in Dumfries and Galloway is pretty wild, and as I set off initially strolling, and then creeping behind our keeper, Derek, who carried the rifle for me, I was practically vibrating with teenage excitement. From living on the estate and exploring it extensively with my brother, I already had an instinctive idea of the times of day that the roe would emerge from the ranging natural woodland.

Despite my lack of experience, my eyes were reflexively drawn to the corners of plantations, corries and hollows on the open hill where I had seen the deer graze. After an hour or so of roaming, we lined up on a rickety old buck in the summer evening sunshine. Ensconced in the bracken on Kirkconnel Moor, a few hundred metres north of the Martyr’s Monument, erected in memory of the covenanters who were killed there 300 years ago; I fired once and down went the buck.

I grinned mawkishly as I was blooded, and so began my lifelong passion for stalking. I didn’t shoot a red deer until just after I had left school when I was 18, on a trip with my family to Ardnamurchan on the Scottish west coast. Heading out amongst the heather and the exposed granite along the fringes of the extinct volcano Ben Hiant, I came to grips with a more intense and visceral form of stalking.

The much celebrated stalker Niall Rowantree was our guide and he was a font of information, recounting stories as we traipsed behind him that had us chuckling and gasping in equal measure. I became obsessed, and each year I wanted a new bit of stalking gear to improve the experience. For a long time I did perhaps conform to the “all the gear no idea” cliché but it came from a deep love of the holistic experience of the stalk.

One year my mother shot a gargantuan stag on the patch the other side of Loch Ailort. We had motored across the sea loch in a small rib which in itself was thrilling, and once the beast had been shot, Niall was keen to get after another for my stepfather. In what now seems a little like a rite of passage; Niall’s young apprentice, Grant, and I, were charged with dragging this twenty something stone animal back to the shore and the boat.

The distance to the rib was probably less than a mile but other than the Sandhurst log race and a few hideous military jaunts in the Brecon Beacons, it was the most exhausting experience of my life. We started on the high tops and had to negotiate several banks and monstrous peat hags before reaching the slippery safety of a gully that funnelled us down to the shore. Each time we tried to maintain our altitude to save us heaving the animal over another bump, we would fail as the massive limp beast succumbed to gravity and we were forced into bracing ourself in order to moderate its decent.

Grant and I held a strap apiece, knotted round the pearling at the base of each wrist-thick antler. We had been reminded in no uncertain terms not to loop our hands through the straps in case we lost control of the carcass and it slithered over some precipice with us attached. As we hauled, we tried to keep the antlers off the ground, but each time we lost our footing the many tines of the head buried themselves in the soft earth, thwarting our attempts at collective locomotion.

After expending almost all of our might over a drag that was probably no more than an hour and a half, we sat panting and dripping with sweat just above the tide line. Our hamstrings and quads were brimming with lactic acid but we were both beaming. Soon after, a fretful mist blew in and we began to shiver in the early autumn chill. These adventures and many subsequent outings have taught me that on the hill you must augment your wits with equipment that will keep you warm and your ankles unrolled. A reliable knife, a robust rifle and a decent scoping glass also grease the wheels for a successful excursion.

Price £309

Contact www.brandecosse.com

If you’re out all day on the hill a poor boot is undoubtedly the item that can cause you most distress if poorly selected. No hill stalk I have ever indulged in has afforded smooth level terrain and therefore when you invest in a stalking boot it should represent the last word in comfort, durability and support. We can safely say that the new Tasso from Brandecosse does just that.

These boots are designed in the heart of Galloways Southern Uplands and built in Italy with spades of European flare.They have a single piece leather upper that reduces the number of stitched seams, thus minimising the number of potential fault lines and enhancing longevity. The rubber foxing goes all around the boot protecting the nubuck leather from rocky terrain or heavy undergrowth. At 9-inches this boot does not go so high up the calf as to be restrictive, but still offers superb support and is waterproof to within an inch of the top. Tasso means badger in Italian and like its name sake, this boot loves dirt and can’t wait to go to ground.

Sasta Evo Jacket

Price £441.40

Contact www.sasta.com

Pursuing deer in the uplands or in an exposed environment you need your jacket to be quite clever. Unless you are very lucky or it isn’t proper hill stalking you are going to be yomping a fair distance, carrying a rifle and some other essential bits and bobs. If you are covering ground encumbered by any weight at all you are going start warming up. This means a jacket with quilting, or made of wool like a tweed shooting jacket is not the one. You’ll sweat far too much and you probably need more mobility than they will offer anyway.

I have generally been against the overly technical approach to stalking jackets but the Evo offering from this veteran Finish outdoor clothing company is an exception. Sasta are a phenomenal brand with a great history and give off vibes a lot like a Finnish Patagonia. The Evo has all the usual waterproof breathable technology including a Gore-Tex lining, and enough zip pockets to hide an advents worth of chocolates. Despite having an outer layer made from polyester the jacket makes no audible swiping noise as the arms brush the body during movement. Adjustable hem and cuffs mean you can keep the weather out and a hood completes your imperviousness to the elements. If you are the rufty tufty sort you can even get it in camo.

Casström Lars Fält Knife

Price £166.00

Contact www.casstrom.co.uk

A good knife is central to a productive pursuit on the hill. A solid ergonomic blade will allow you to gralloch your quarry faster and get back out there for another, or allow you to get your beast down and out of the wind for full processing in more of a hurry. All Casström knives are made in Lapland in northern Sweden to the highest quality. The Lars Fält knife has a 4.5-inch/115mm blade that is 4mm thick on the spine. This blade is long enough to be useful in skinning but it is also robust enough to cut through bone and split wood.

The Lars Fält has a tang that runs the full length of the beautiful, hand finished Scandinavian curly birch handle which means even if the handle breaks in extremis the knife can still be used. All Casström blades are made from Sleipner carbon steel and cryo-quenched to hold an edge for longer and they all come with an outrageous 25 year guarantee. They come with left or right handed sheaths and you can add a fire striker at additional cost.

Tikka T3X CTR in 308 Winchester

Price £1300

Contact www.gmk.co.uk

If your rifle isn’t up to scratch then the whole process is a washout. Tikka T3 variants are probably the best-selling stalking rifles in the UK today. They have earned a reputation for being dependable and capable and the CTR is no different. It’s at the lighter end for rifles of this calibre at just 7.5llbs which makes a huge difference when lugging it about all day. The CTR has a 10-round magazine which holds its rounds in two columns, thus remaining compact in size. The cold hammer forged barrel has shown consistent performance and Tikka guarantee a three shot MOA straight out of the box.

I love the look of a wooden stock and forend on a hunting rifle but the terror of bumping an exhibition grade bit walnut impacts the way I use it and the freedom with which I move around. Stalking with your gun in a slip is impractical so the desperately rugged polypropylene synthetic body of the CTR put my mind at ease. The CTR has a crisp trigger and action that will outlast you and several sets of barrels and because of the rifles popularity there are an almost endless list of accessories with which to customise it.

If the Tikka doesn’t take your fancy, we had selected a range of other rifles perfectly suited to the hill on page 42.

Hornady 308 ECX

Price £78.50 for box of 20

Contact www.hornady.com 

The Hornady 308 ECX bullet is a monolithic bullet made of a one-piece copper alloy that’s designed for accuracy and performance across a variety of chamber designs and twist rates. The ECX stands for Extreme Copper alloy eXpanding. The bullet has a flat polymer tip that helps initiate expansion by driving back into a hollow cavity at the front of the bullet, creating uniform expansion. The bullet is designed to deliver deep penetration, 95% weight retention, and devastating terminal performance. The 125g bullets have fairly ordinary ballistic coefficients but produce field rivalling accuracy below 200m.

Leica Trinovid 10×42 HD

Price £1090

Contact www.leicaca-camera.com

The world of optics grows ever more complicated and with good reason. The improvements in technology and ballistic calculation make shots more accurate and pick out animals on the hill with greater clarity, lessening the chance of a blank outing. Today with the pressures produced by the deer population this is a good thing. However. Every now and again I find a wonderful simplicity in pitting your wits against a beast and trusting your own senses and alertness to come out on top. The Leica Trinovid 10×42 HD’s are a terrific set of binoculars. Excellent clarity, with wonderful light gathering properties. You don’t’ need to worry about charging them or damaging the sensor, they are waterproof to four metres and deliciously ruggedised. Good, solid, analogue kit at a far more sensible price than some of the big names in the industry.