The fantastic four

Four gold heads from the same estate that yielded three in 2018 were highlights of the 2019 Scottish roe review, says Iain Watson

- Iain Watson

In 2018 a Swedish hunter called Jimmy Olsson took three gold-medal roe during his visit. In 2019 on the same estate he and his friend, Manollo Rodriguez, grassed four gold-medal heads between 30 April and 1 May, which scored 174.53, 173.95, 135.68, and 134.1. The largest of the heads was scored at CIC headquarters in Budapest, where it was awarded an international gold medal.

These great triumphs demonstrate what can be achieved by careful management, offering hard-pressed estates a revenue stream while affording roe the status that, as a native species, it deserves.

Calum Campbell, the keeper on the Esslemont estate in Aberdeenshire where the deer were hunted, offered some insight into his management methods. Esslemont is a 4,500-acre estate, of which 750 acres are wooded. The county is renowned for quality roe, helped by good mineral retention in the clay soil and good genetics. Calum arrived in 2003, inheriting a very low stock density of roe, the previous policy being to shoot on sight.

Seasonal gold

Alongside his main role as a pheasant keeper, he decided to let the roe population build-up, setting himself a goal to harvest one gold-medal head per season.

In 2006, the estate got its first gold medal and since then has achieved two or three golds per season, culminating in the four from last year. Esslemont had the top-scoring buck from Scotland in 2010 and the top UK animal in 2016. Calum does not shoot young bucks, pointing out that these can and do change, so what might appear as a poor prospect in year one or two might not be so in year three. By year three or four a buck’s potential should be clear.