Having a successful day of grouse shooting behind us, some of the guests were given the opportunity of trying for a stag again. I was teamed up with Mark and a young couple from London and after a brief turn at the shooting range to make sure the rifle was sighted in we headed off to Marks beat to see what the day would produce. On the way up the hillside in the Landrover we stopped at the stables so as to get our trusty steed Max saddled up and ready. Having been told about the abundant midges that are about in summer, I felt confident that a light coating of bug repellant would suffice to keep them at bay – after all, forewarned is forearmed. Well what I wasn’t told is that the first million midges eat the repellant, while they are followed by another couple of million that do their utmost to eat the wearer of the repellent! I’m pretty sure that had there been midges at Thermopylae, Leonides and his Spartans would not have held the pass for nearly as long as they did. Needless to say the midges in Scotland are something to behold – at least the mosquito’s back home a larger and make a noise enabling one to track them down and sort them out… Anyway, soon after leaving the stables the wind picked up and forced the little blood sucking beasts back into cover and so saved us from further harassment. 

With the wind came the rain, and it came in dreary swathes rolling across the landscape making sure that every living creature was drenched to the bone. Mist followed on rain and rain followed on mist and still Mark and Dan stalked their Stag. At last they were in a commanding position and Dan managed to bag the animal cleanly. It was then up to the three of us to drag the animal down to the nearest pony path - that was not actually that near – where the indomitable Gus and Max were waiting for us in the cold and bleary conditions. Having loaded the stag we began to wind our way through the mist and rain back towards the Landrover which was still a couple of hills distant. Eventually we arrived there safe and sound and cross loaded the stag from Max into the vehicle and proceeded on down to the larder where the stag was cleaned and hung.

A great end to a fantastic day and one well worth the ups and downs and the cold and wet!