Peter S Jones hunts a huge Gold Medal Roebuck in the height of the rut.
We are proud here at County Deer stalking & the Capreolus Club to offer superb Roebuck stalking in the south of England just an hour from London, and most years we’ll shoot a good number of representative heads, however, just every now and then we get on something really special.
This year’s Roe rut has offered up one such example. Shot in the early part of the rut, its time again I find the biggest bucks in the most undisturbed areas, leading me to the firm conclusion that lack of stalking pressure, has a big influence on antler size, or at any rate, the quietest and least stalked areas attract the cleverest bucks, or put more simply, they don’t get old through being stupid.
Initially, it was a tricky to gauge the size of this one, over his ears in length, fair enough, but no guarantee of size. Six points, again, fair enough but symmetry is no guide. At 173 yards that was all I could gauge in the minute or two before we decided that it was worth taking the shot.
On walking up to the shot deer which Capreolus Club member Josh did a superb job of dropping with a solid heart/lung shot, things became much more apparent.
What a monster, beautiful pearling and colour? Yes, but it was the weight and volume in the beams and coronets that was superb, and this after all, is where it counts when measuring Roe.
How big will he be, we’ll have to wait the required 90 day drying time to find out, but whilst Roebuck are measured across nine categories. 1) Length 2) Weight 3) Volume 4) Inside Span 5) Colour 6) Pearling 7) Coronets 8) Tine Ends and 9) Regularity, I have been in this game long enough to recognise a gold medal when I see one.
Huge congratulations to Josh on this superb beast.
Medal class or not, all deer shot by County Deer Stalking & the Capreolus Club are consumed as part of a sustainable, wild, free-range, non-intensively farmed diet.
If you’d like to read about what makes a medal class Roebuck follow this link: how-to-measure-a-trophy
If you’d like to stalk Roe with County Deer Stalking contact us on: 0203 981 0159 or email us:
Since writing this piece, I am delighted to report that Capreolus Club member Matthew Curran has successfully stalked another superb Roebuck during the 2021 Roe rut at our new PLUS scheme grounds near Edenbridge, Kent.
(Left: An epic Roebuck shot by M.Curran on the Capreolus Club Plus scheme)
We fully anticipate that this beast will also acheive a Gold Medal, something that goes a long way to demonstrate the quality of stalking available on the Capreolus Club PLUS Scheme deer stalking syndicate.
Huge congratulations to Matthew on this superb animal!
If you'd like to find out more about the Capreolus Club's deer stalking syndicate you can do so here: plus-scheme
