Bog Myrtle & Peat

With the roe buck season now upon us, my venison larder is starting to look decidedly bare. As far as I am concerned, the finest meal available to man is roe fillet marinaded in red wine and served with potatoes dauphinoise, and having access to stalking across the county, it has often been my particular pleasure to dine out on world class meat which cost only as much as the bullet it took to drop it. I had been eyeing up a couple of does when they went out of season, and now I have to turn my attention instead to the bucks.

I know of three nice bucks on the Chayne, but they are all still in thick velvet. I have never shot a decent buck before, and I have an idea that it would be good to stick my first horns up on the wall in the porch so that I can hang my bonnet on them. Velvety horns would look terrible but it would have no effect on the quality of the meat, so it was with mixed emotions that I drove up to the Chayne at the crack of dawn this morning, uncertain of what I might find.

Snipe squeaked overhead as I pulled up the car and set off on the three mile walk over the hill to where the deer like to spend time. The number of curlews is now almost beyond a joke. Every rough tussock of grass seems haunted with them, and they hover overhead with wings trembling. It snowed last night, but it was turning into slush as I walked, soaking into my boots and freezing my shoelaces together. The last three hundred yards of my walk were obscured by a thick screen of rolling mist. It swirled enigmatically over the heather as I crept up beside the dyke and peered over the tough moorland with my binoculars. It was hopeless. Visibility was down to thirty yards, and I was on the verge of walking back off the hill when the mist swept aside like a curtain to reveal a fine roe buck standing broadside at three hundred yards. He sniffed the air, turned his head and began to walk towards the woods to my left. His horns were thick and swollen, like a pair of fleece gloves, and as he disappeared into a dip, I felt my heart racing. I wanted fillet…

I dashed along the dyke foot to intercept him and the mist came swooping in again. Breathlessly, I crouched and waited. If he kept walking in a straight line, he would pass within a few feet of me and the fog would mean that it was going to be a close encounter. Skylarks trilled overhead and a rough burn trickled down over my toes. I gave him ten minutes, then twenty.

After half an hour, the mist cleared again and the moor was empty. I have no idea what became of him, but without knowing it, he had given me some fantastic moments of excitement. I will make a point of taking him later in the season when his horns are hard and at their best. I’ll have something to hang my bonnet on as well as a story to go with it.