Late evening stinky

Late in the roar this year I had the rare chance to get out for a hunt.

A pig hunter friend had mentioned he'd run across sign of a stag on a ridge not too far from my in-laws place on public beech forest.

So late in the day I whipped up the ridge to see if I could find it. Had to move slow to avoid too much noise in the dry so was running out of light when I came over a little rise and peered around the corner to see a head with sticks on it looking back at me from just over the top of the next rise, maybe 50m?

Lucky he was curious and slow as I fumbled around with the rifle and raised up to take an awkward standing shot.

Wasn't sure if I hit him as he disappeared instantly and I ran up to the next rise.

Sure enough, he was down and out. Immediately noticed the uneven head but wasn't worried about that as I needed meat more than anything. He stunk pretty bad so wasn't optimistic about the meat but cut out the heart, backsteaks and hindquarters to take back. No pack so had to wrap everything up. By this time it was dark so had to look forward to a steep drop down an unfamiliar ridge in the dark with half a stag on the back....and I'm not exactly the fittest or strongest :(

I was getting pretty stuffed when I ended up losing my way a bit and came off the side of the ridge too far. I wasn't sure how far down I came and there's a lot of bluffs there you don't want to bowl over with a weight on your back. So decided to just drop it and come back the next day. I just brought out the back straps and heart that night and went back the next day for the rest of it, which was fine. It was cool enough that the wasps hadn't woken up early and attacked it.

We ended up eating it fairly quickly as it was very tasty, not strong at all but I guess that's because it was a young stag?

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Well done getting out there and shooting one!

Nice one. Enjoy the venison

Well done getting yr stag,good effort.Nothing wrong with leaving meat out in the night,its not going any where.