Part two is the daylight. Because it is bright light at 5.30ish I cannot sleep past that. There is nothing for it but to get up and go out studying Rona’s Red Deer. Part of the job I really love. If you are going to manage deer you need to get to know them, get to know their places, their habits and who is who. A very small part of it is shooting the deer, the rest is fieldwork and the aftermath, that is when the real work starts. With the rut getting underway soon (Possibly sooner with this strange weather) it is in every deer managers interest to find out where their stags are. We have a strange situation here where when the stags mature they head off to Raasay, but they come back for the rut, stay a while then return to Raassay (maybe). Are they our stags or theirs? Who knows. But in the meantime there are many young stags on Rona and with our venison business they fit the bill.

Sorry about the pictures of the dead stags but that is the reality. This was an exciting two or three mornings, two with the rifle one with the ‘good’ camera, although I have to say the light was weird.

Down South I was struggling to find a candidate for venison, but spied a group of stags from where I had come from. They had been feeding obviously down on the coast and were making their way back to the tops to get some sun and to lie up away from the flies.

After a pretty long detour I stalked into where I thought the group were and when I popped my head up to the edge of the wee hill that I had come to there they were.

I selected this one and came forward, the shot was clean and out of the corner of my eye a Sea Eagle, barely 20 metres away took off. Quite a shock that not only had I stalked the stags, I had stalked the Sea Eagle too.

That was perhaps the easy bit and the hard work had just begun, I took off back to the bike and then had to find a route into the stag. The ground is so rough the only way out was to drag it, then lift it onto the bike. I thought my days of this were coming to a close but not so. Here I am 69 next month doing it all again, but you know what, I love it!!!!

Back to the larder, an hours skinning then feet up. A well earned breakfast was followed by (See Part one).

That evening the home deer were just outside the balcony on a beautiful summer’s evening, lovely to see. How can I shoot them when I love to see them, a difficult question, but it is on my shoulders to manage the herd on Rona and I try to do that well. That means culling and they provide the organic venison we need as protein and to sell.

The next morning I took the camera and found the three stags at Dry Harbour I had been looking for for a few weeks. Nice to see and to add to the numbers already counted to totals. It should be a good rut this September.

Here is the route last Saturday 6.7 km but the Red Line is the ATV retrieving the deer. A 2.23 hr stalk, possibly the red line was 20 minutes, not a long day but with lots more going on, long enough. Started at 6.41 from the bike.

More coming soon.