Paul Childerley heads to Wiltshire to help with with a stalk of his favoured roebucks
Many people ask what species makes for a really enjoyable hunt. There are so many that could top the list but one of the best has to be hunting roebucks in the spring and early summer. It’s the time of the year when every part of the countryside is full of life and it’s a pleasure being out there and among it all. The reason why relates to when I was a young lad, first heading out with my father for roebucks in the spring, which is where my deer stalking passion began.
Being invited back to Wiltshire with my good friend Mark Bellamy and his son, to try for the old buck that had been seen the previous year, there was no hesitation; it was roebucks and it was early May, which ticks all my boxes.
Having met Mark and Della and their son Ross, we sat and had a cup of tea in the forestry barn and made a plan for that afternoon. It was a fantastic sunny day and the rape was in full bloom, but unfortunately for us the crop rotation wasn’t in our favour. Where the old buck had been seen through the winter months was now a mass of yellow rape at least five-feet high.
We decided to head out to the other ground to catch a young buck on the grass set-aside fields to start. We toured round the top of the valley and glassed all adjacent banks to see if we could spot a brown dot. After a couple of hours we were yet to see a single roe, but to our surprise we suddenly had a fox a few hundred yards below us, basking in the early afternoon sun.
There is always excitement when a fox is spotted. We soon went from calm and collected into a manic frenzy, even though we probably had a good hour. He was clearly not going anywhere. We grabbed the sticks and the rifle and headed out at an angle to get a clear shot. As soon as we could see him clearly over the ridge, the rifle was on the sticks and ready to go. Mark gave a couple of squeaks and the fox slowly stood up, turned and met his maker. The 6.5 Creedmoor 120-grain Powerhead II bullet is reliable on all quarries I’ve been after.
After a fantastic start, we headed back to the old buck territory to see if we could catch him out on one of the fields adjacent to the yellow mass, or possibly surprise a young four-pointer on the peripherals of the big valley bowl, where Mark had seen several does and young bucks earlier in the season.
We headed up to the valley bowl, stalked round the top, looking down to see if we could catch one of the young bucks out in the afternoon sun. We saw several does and a young six-pointer, which Mark decided would be a fantas
