Stalking Diary

There are some beasts that you simply cannot walk past and a redletter day on the hill with a former mentor ends with a perfect stalk

- Davy Thomas

The rut has broken in the glen and it is truly one of the highlights of every hill stalker’s year. To take a particular animal, and to be able to stalk past healthier beasts in order to do so, is not something that is learned overnight. Having the right mentor early on in a stalker’s career is crucial to learning such skills.

Those of you who know Loch Shiel may have seen a lonely cottage, only accessible by boat, that sits high above the far bank. It is a place that the writer Mike Tomkies christened ‘Wildernesse’ in his book A Last Wild Place.

I had been there on an estate for some months as a trainee when an older stalker moved on to the beat. He instantly took me under his wing. One particular day, we had spotted a group of hinds high out, given the time of year, and it was beautifully clear and frosty. The seven beasts we eventually took made us suffer, with the most grueling of drags in which we had to relay them downhill. It was well after dark by the time we retrieved the final hind.