The Outdoor Gibbon
Join me on my journey through stories and interviews talking to like-minded individuals. It doesn’t matter who you are this podcast will hopefully educate and guide you through the world deerstalking, shooting and the outdoor world.
The information in these podcasts is for you to enjoy and develop you own opinions, if you take everyday as a school day you will see the bigger picture.
Thanks for listening and sharing in the journey
The Outdoor Gibbon
10. Scottish Hill Stag Stalking 2022 Rut
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
***Remastered this is fresh update to the Outdoor Gibbon Podcast ***
Slipping through the Scottish Highlands in search of a red stag is a primal experience that tests both hunter and quarry. When an unexpected opportunity arose to stalk in Pitlochery, Perthshire, I jumped at the chance—with barely a week's notice and a 2.5-hour drive ahead.
The morning began with meeting Ben the keeper and his ghillie Gary, before loading into an Argo to navigate the rugged terrain. Typical Scottish weather accompanied us—one minute relatively clear, the next "chucking it down" with sideways rain that stung exposed skin. As we climbed higher through forestry tracks into open moorland, the distinctive roar of stags echoed across the valleys, signaling the rut was underway.
What followed was an exhilarating dance across multiple hills, constantly adjusting our route based on wind direction and deer movement. The terrain demanded respect—thick heather concealing peaty holes and boggy patches that required careful navigation. We observed fascinating social dynamics among the red deer, with mature stags behaving unusually, grazing together rather than fighting for territory as expected during the rut.
The moment of truth came after hours of patient stalking. As we crawled through heather to within shooting range, I experienced something remarkable—instead of the typical adrenaline rush, an unusual calm descended as the 13-point stag presented a perfect broadside shot. The 308 rifle performed flawlessly, and the magnificent animal, later weighing in at 113kg, traveled barely 10 yards after the shot.
What makes Scottish stalking special isn't just the harvest but the entire immersive journey—the challenging terrain, the unpredictable weather, the traditions of Highland stalking, and those rare moments when everything aligns perfectly in the field. Join us for more adventures and enter our upcoming social media competition for a chance to experience a Scottish roe deer hunt yourself!
Welcome to Scottish Red Stag
Speaker 2Welcome to the Outdoor Gibbon, episode 10. Scottish Red Stag. So this is a bit of a story about a recent stag stalk that I was given down in Pit Lockery and it basically just covers the day and chasing these stags well, the kings of the hill around and being in their environment and having to see what they do obviously typical scottish weather. One minute, quite nice. The weather forecast says it's going to be bright. Next thing it's absolutely chucking it down and then, as soon as you've done the finish the stalk, the sun comes out and it becomes a bit of a glorious day. But anyway, I won't waffle on too much now. Get straight into the, into the story. Hopefully you enjoy it and we'll see how it goes from there.
Speaker 2So let's talk about this red stag that we went and shot recently. How did it all come about? Well, I was randomly talking to one of my customers and asked him whether or not he knew anywhere that I could go to get a stag. He basically came back to me and said hold, that thought I'll ask a few questions. Now this was back in 2021 and we got closer and closer to the end of the season and he basically said I'm afraid I've not been able to sort anything for you. That's that. So that was it. It kind of happened and went away. Now, 2022 came along, hadn't thought any more about it and I got a sort of a message out of the blue oh, I've got a stag organized for you oh right okay, cool.
Speaker 2The next thing was I got a whatsapp message that basically said you need to be at the pin location I'm about to send you at 9 30 on the 5th of October for, uh, for your stag. So I was like right, looked at the pin location two and a half hours away so it was a bit of a right, better get myself organized. And uh, that was sort of a a week or a week before the 5th of October. So drove down to Pitlockery, which is obviously in Perthshire, middle of Scotland type of thing, and we arrived. I was supposed to get there at 9.30, I think I arrived slightly earlier, probably about 9.15. Drove up the track to be greeted by Ben, the keeper, and his ghillie was there.
Speaker 2At Gary, there was an Argo parked up at a fairly nice little place outside the game larder and morning normal greetings and sort of passed the time of day, found out what we were going to do, said what was the plan? We were going to leave from there, drive up in the Argo up onto the hill and go out and see if we could see if we could get this this stag organized. So got all our kit together, searching through everything, realized that I hadn't packed the bipod. He said you will need a bipod. I'm like, well, we can shoot off a bag. He's like, no, no, no bipod would be best. So rummage my truck normally there's a bipod in there but no, I couldn't find anything. So he nips back to his house, comes out with a a bipod in there, but no, I couldn't find anything. So he nips back to his house, comes out with a Harris bipod, harris swivel bipod. Stick that on the front of the rifle. Put the rifle back in the bag. Think I'll take the bag with me. Then look at the space in the Argo and go do you know what? Forget it. We'll just stick the rifle between my legs and we will head off up the hill.
Speaker 2So we're all loaded up into the Argo by this point and I think it's getting on for just about quarter to ten and we set off. We drive up past these pheasant pens. Everything's looking good. They are discussing pheasants and he's hand feeding these pheasants and, yeah, everything's going well. He's got others at other places and they're doing good. We carry on up other places and they're doing good.
Speaker 2We carry on up and we arrive at the first gate. He hops out and he goes oh look, my neighbor's just dragging a highland cow that's died in the ditch out with the manitou. So down in the valley there's a boy with a highland cow attached to the end of a end of a manitou being lifted out of a out of a ditch. Through the first gate it starts to get quite steep as we're driving up through these sort of forestry tracks, heading up, because there's one gate we've got to go through which is locked, and then now then we're out onto the moor. So we come up to a big deer fence. Gary jumps out, unlocks the gate. We drive through, gate gets locked again and now we're literally out on the hillside heather all around us.
Speaker 2We carry on following the this Argo track that they've obviously got there, and trekking on and trekking on up and down, a bit bumpy, through a few little rivers, and we rise up onto sort of a bit of a viewpoint that they've obviously got. He stops the Argo there and says, right, we're going to get out. So we all hop out and have a look round. You can hear some roaring in the distance. So obviously a few stags are having a bit of roar, but nothing major, not for this time of the year.
Speaker 2The rut has kicked off. In many places it's in full swing, but it's been a bit quiet here. So what's the plan of action? He goes right, we're're gonna head off over that hill, go up that one, probably drop down the valley the other side, head up the next one, have a look, see what's going on. We'll carry on and then it does start to level out a bit and we'll be able to see a bit more as we get further on. So, rifles on the back, stick in hand, we start heading out nothing visible at the moment. Uh, we probably get just halfway to the rise of the, the first sort of summit, and he's like there's look, there's three, three young stags there walking up the gully and, yeah, three spikers heading off, just hoping they just disappear at the top. No problem, they're not going to cause us any bother.
Speaker 2We carry on, we climb the steepest part, we summit. We have a look around down to our right, which now heads that sort of heads back down to the water, the river. At the bottom we can see a stag, a small stag again. He's just moving off with us in the into the wind, nothing major, we haven't disturbed him. He goes up and disappears over the crest of the next hill. We descend and we walk along the bottom of this across a bit of a river. Um, it's pretty wet, the ground is. It obviously has rained probably a few days before. It's been fairly miserable, actually yesterday. Um, so the the going is where everything's pretty soaking good kit, uh, good boots, gaiters, uh, just to basically try and stay as dry as you can.
Speaker 2So now we we're approaching the next hill. It's fairly steep and off we go up it. Obviously these keepers are a bit like mountain goats and they just bob their way up to the top. Take a bit of time I've got a rifle on my back and gradually get up to the summit of that one Not too bad, not huffing and puffing too much, and we're having a good look, and we can't see that stag that we just moved over the summit, so he's probably just tucked in below us or something like that. But in the distance we can see another six young stags all balled up together on a bit of a hillside and we can still hear the roaring going off to our left. So he's like, right, that's where we're heading, we're heading over that direction.
Ascending the Hills
Speaker 2So again, we descend, descend and descend. Haven't disturbed anything. Haven't seen anything really apart from sort of young, spiker looking stags and things like that and and immature, immature animals. We're now trundling across quite an open sort of bowl with another rise, probably about two or three hundred meters in front of us, and we can still hear something roaring. So we start to ascend the next sort of high point and just then we can hear a roaring up the hill to our left and a roaring directly in front of us. So obviously there's two stags having a bit of a call off.
Speaker 2So we get a bit more height and we see this fella as he's working his way up. He's just come off a bit of a grassy plain Well, I'd say grassy plain, but almost like thinner grassy, heathery area and he's now working his way up the hill to our left where we can hear on the top or the other side of that hill something else calling. And then we spot down to our right again that group of six young, immature stags now the one that's working his way up the hill keeps looking back at them but then carries on a bit more looks back. So we kind of we'll wait here for a minute and see what happens. So we sort of settle down, keep an eye on it as he goes out of sight. It's like a big decision. It's like, well, we really do need to go that way, but we obviously don't want to disturb him. So ben's like, well, we really do need to go that way, but we obviously don't want to disturb him. So ben's like what we'll do is we'll cross here, we'll work our way up, we'll try and stay behind and probably follow his direction. The wind's in our favor. So as long as that's good, we're all okay.
Speaker 2So we drop down again across this big open plain and start to ascend on the right hand side up another steep embankment. Obviously, while we're walking across the plains we're just randomly talking about all sorts of stuff. There's a good strong wind, so our sound is not going to carry forward. We can just talk about the day-to-day things, keeping an eye, obviously on the right, to the six immatures that the sap. They're probably a good sort of six, seven hundred yards away, but they're milling about and obviously we don't want to disturb them, just in case they run into the wind and cause any problems. So we start to to climb up now on on this hill on the right and we're going up and we can still hear the roaring and we're following a track up. We haven't seen anything.
Speaker 2We climb a bit more and then we look out into sort of over the ridge and looking directly ahead of us, it's like, oh look, there's a load over there. There's a group of three immatures, there's a big fella in the middle and then there's about seven or eight other young stags and then another big fella. It's like, okay, right, have a look at those. They're probably the best part of eight, nine hundred yards away. But we can still hear the one to our right roaring. So where's he going?
Speaker 2So we descend back a bit, skirt around the bottom of this hill and climb again to another viewpoint. Look out, they're still there. We're not really gaining any distance on them yet, but we're keeping an eye on it. All of a sudden, the one we've heard roaring is obviously he's working the same route we are and he descends into this group of stags and we think, oh, it's going to really kick it all off and it's going to make a right mix-up and they'll have a bit of a fight. But no, he just walks into the middle two big other stags and just joins them and it's like, well, that's bizarre. Obviously the rut's not really kicking off and they're not fighting for territory and they're all milling about and just start grazing.
Speaker 2So ben says we're gonna have to back off and we're gonna have to follow the route that the big guy's taken to actually get ourselves onto a hill above them where we could be in a shootable position. So back down again, skirting round, and it's you are literally skirting round hills. So we're working with the wind. It's blowing, it's not raining just yet, but it feels like it's starting to spit. We descend a bit more, we get ourselves some height, we start to climb back up again to another, another sort of viewpoint. Have a look now, at this point we can see across to them.
Speaker 2But these, that group of stags, some things, something's unsettled them and they're starting to move away. And he goes there's nothing out there for them. If they go over that ridge, they're literally really exposed. They're going to be in the cold, in the horrid weather that's coming, because you can see in the distance, we can see the rain coming in, and he doesn't. He's not sure why. They're going to sort of move and take themselves over that ridge.
Speaker 2So now we're sort of watching things unfold and we're watching and watching and they're still milling back and moving, and then they stop again and we're standing there. He's like, well, we can either carry on round and try and get above them, but I don't think that's going to benefit us in it, he says, because all of a sudden they just there's two more appear from two immatures, appear from the right, they cut across and they go and stand on the ridge, and this other group of stags that are there, including the three big mature ones, they start to move and drift to the ridge as well. He's like, well, well, it's not us and it, no, it can't be us. They can't see us. We're tucked right in the wind. Is it's blowing? And I mean it's really blowing at us. It's, it's a strong old wind.
Speaker 2But all of a sudden we hear down to our right, quite a long way away, another animal starts to roar. Quickly, get the binos out, have a look. There is a. There's a big stag down there, we think, and he's definitely got hinds with him, because we haven't seen any hinds all morning. And it's like, yeah, he's holding, hang on, let's have a look. He's got about six hinds, maybe two calves. Okay, right, that could be what's pushing them on. But we're still unsure.
Speaker 2So at this point Ben says what we're going to do is we are just well, we'll radio Gary so tell Gary that they've moved. He can start moving the Argo round from where we left him, because he was still sat back with the Argo where we'd hopped out and we were obviously three or four hills away. So he gets a radio call through to Gary. Gary's going to set off, travel up a mine road that there is and can then come in above us. So still out of sight. But he's getting a bit closer now. Instead of walking back around the next hill, ben's like, look, they're going, we'll just we'll make a beeline across to where they were and we can then assess the situation. We can see over that ridge and see what's going on.
Speaker 2So again, by this time it's now chucking it down. I mean it's literally the rain's coming in sideways. It's big, fat, wet rain, pretty uncomfortable. But we start to move, keep moving. So we're heading in the direction of where the weather's coming from and where the animals are headed off over the ridge and it's a big, flat, open area. You can see all the way down to the right, right down to the river open area. You can see all the way down to the right, right down to the river um. We've got our stag and his hinds, probably the best part of I don't know 1500, 2000 meters away, and he sat on a bit of a plateau in an area that's quite sheltered. They're not moving anywhere, they're just sat there and we are now heading across to where we saw all our stags go over the ridge.
Speaker 2So, working away through the rain, picking along, and we get to sort of where they were, which was quite sheltered, and we start to wedge up onto the ridge slowly can't see anything at the moment and, as ben said, it is pretty exposed. It drops away and it's a big, flat, open side of the hillside. There's no shelter there, there's nothing that's going to give them any warmth from this weather and it was just bizarre that they'd headed over. But maybe the big fella down the bottom had just been roaring enough that they decided to edge over and get out of his, his line of sight. So we start to descend along this ridge keeping our eyes open to the left, glassing quite a lot, seeing what's going on, and all of a sudden we pick up movement and there's a couple of the young stags are kicking about. Then we see a bit more and we can see a load of sat down. Can't see the three big fellas that were there. We spy one of them. He's kind of sat, sat right in the middle.
Speaker 2So we descend a bit more but we back off slightly to get out of eyesight, skirt around the bottom of the the bridge, come back up to have a look, look in and um, I'm like I wish I brought my rangefinder beds. I've got one, it's all right, pulls it out. I'm like they've got to be about 300 yards, range finds 320, and I'm like not shootable. But what we? We can, we can move around and I'm like, well, if we drop a bit more maybe we can get in on them. So again, pull back a bit more walking. The rain and the wind is now really cold. It's almost like it's turned winter. Everything's starting to sting bare hands. It's, um, yeah, it's not not pleasant.
Spotting and Tracking
Speaker 2So we descend down into a wet sort of boggy bit, trek around a bit more and we're working our way along this bottom of this gully just trying to get ourselves into a possible shooting position. By the time we spy them again, we've dropped the distance to about 300 yards and it's like there's no real way we're going to get any closer. We've looked at everything and all the options are we either get too exposed, they're going to see us, but if they do see us and they run, at least they're going to run away and not near the big stag, but it's still a long shot and he's like, nah, I don't think there's anything now. Well, okay, fair enough. So we draw back off them because we've now got eyes there's two of them, you can see them and they're watching us. So we sort of drop low, sneak back in, work our way back round out of the wind, slightly around the corner of this, this hillside radio up to gary explaining that we'd seen this load of immature stags, where we are and what our next plan of action is. So at this point we sort of we're thinking about what we're going to do. We get ourselves to a, an elevation point where we can still have a look down on the big fella that was holding Heinz. He's still there, but he's starting to move and there's, there's a, there's a fence lying down there and he's sort of he's going backwards and forwards and all of a sudden he starts heading up the fence and it's like he's, uh, he's on his way. What we're gonna do now? Um, he stops and the hinds are still there. It's like maybe he's just trying to hold hold these hinds together and keep them in. So the plan of action is now to pull right over to the right to get on the low ground, skirt round below him, then come up onto these two like rocky outcrops where, if we're above, we should open ourselves up and potentially be able to get a shot. So the winds eased off a bit and so is the weather uh, just slightly and we start to descend.
Speaker 2Now, walking around on on this moor you've got to watch out for, obviously. One, you've got lots of heather. Two, you've got peaty bits with holes in it. Three, there's boggy bits. So you're walking along poking away with your stick, trying to follow the mountain goat in front of you who bounces along. Next thing he's put this banana out of his pocket. He's eating his lunch. I'm like you want, do you want to stop? Get your lunch? He's like no, no, if I don't eat it now, I'm going to squash my banana. Next thing he's got he's like it looks like a greg's pasty out and he's chomping away through that. I'm like, fair enough. He was explaining how when he used to start, when he first started, he either forgot to eat or he'd eat everything in the first five minutes and then be starving for the rest of the day. So he's learned to pace himself slightly.
Speaker 2So we're carrying on and we start to rise up again now. So the stag now realistically should be over on our left with his hinds and we're rising up to the first outcrop. As we rise I'm like I'll hold back you spy. If there is anything I can move up. So that's easy enough. So he gets up there and the stag's not there. He's like we'll move on to the next one, just in case he's tucked himself in a bit because of the weather. So a lot can happen While you're working around the back of one hill. These animals, they will move and and they can disappear like ghosts. So we carry on and we get to the next sort of slightly higher outcrop. He has a look over and there's nothing there. The the stag has has just vanished and so have all the hinds. It's like, where have they gone? So you can, you, you look at that, that stalker's face and, having taken people out, stalking you and you know, with just one look it's just like, oh, what am I going to do now?
Speaker 2and you can just see is is sort of I'm not sure, we're gonna have to keep trekking on and hopefully he'll be there. And then, as if on key, the stag just roars. He's like but he's down there so quickly. We start sneaking around a bit further, getting around the back of this hill again, and he goes well, we don't want to approach there because it's really boggy. What we'll do is move on a bit more and it's like there's his antlers and you literally can see just on over the hillside, nothing else, just this great rack. And it's like okay. So we move in a bit further on and ben's like right, we're going to crawl in from here, because we're going to get to that little rock and hopefully he'll still be there. So jams his stick in the floor, drops his telescope I leave my stick there. He goes right, give me your rifle, I'll take it in, I'll get it set up, look through it, make sure it's ready, and then you can come in behind next to me and when you're ready you can take the shot. Fine, so give him the rifle. He's like okay, cool, he dries off the scope, we're ready to go.
The Perfect Shot
Speaker 2He gets down and he starts to crawl. I'm literally crawling behind him. My nose is touching his boots, crawling in, crawling in, crawling in. He gets to the rock, gets the rifle out. You can see him just checking the bipods tight, opens the leg, sets it up, gets me crawl, gets me to come forward. He goes there, he is. He sat down at the moment. So you've got in the scope. I can see the stag sat looking directly up at us, so his body is obviously facing downhill to his right. You've got all the hinds standing up grazing quite happily. So I've moved into position. Ben's like are you comfortable? Is that clear in the heather? So I reach forward slightly, adjust one of the legs on the bipod. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm comfortable with that.
Speaker 2Obviously I know my rifle, everything's good and we're waiting. It's like it's a cracking neck shot. He goes, you can take it if you want. I'm like, nope, we'll wait for him to stand up. Obviously big risk because he could stand up, just turn and walk off down the hill and we're lying there, probably a good sort of five minutes studying and watching him keep checking through the scope, thinking he's going to move. The hinds are sort of grazing away slightly so at any point he could stand up and that's when it kind of happens. He literally stands, turns to the right, absolute, perfect presentation, cross hairs, bang on, reckon he's about 120 yards, 308, set for about an inch high at 100. So come up center of his chest, squeeze the trigger, boom.
Speaker 2All happens fairly quickly, fantastic reaction. He jumps up, reload the rifle keeping an eye on him and he just disappears. The hinds run and he follows them just out of sight, but just probably turns and runs and that's it keeping, keeping everything still pointing down the hill. Just wait, pop the safety back on, turn to ben. He's like, oh, that was fantastic. I don't think that. I don't. That was a cracking shot.
Speaker 2He was off the ground with that shot. I'm like, well, we'll wait and see, and I've got the. Still got one up the spout. He goes, I don't think you'll need it. I'm like, well, well, we'll wait and see, and I've still got one up the spout. He goes oh, I don't think you'll need it. I'm like, well, let's approach and if we do, we've got it, if we don't, we'll unload it.
Speaker 2So we just lie, get ourselves organized for a minute, stand up, walk back over, gather up all our walking sticks and put his telescope on his back and, for the first time having that big stag in my eyesight, in the scope. I have never felt calmer. There was just. There was no adrenaline rush, there was nothing. It was just absolute sort of um serenity. It was, it was perfect. It was one of those things that everybody talks about like their buck fever and all the rest of it, but I I can say for the first time ever that this was the calmest I've ever been. Just lying there, everything was just still. Even the weather had slowed down. As soon as I'd pulled the trigger, the rain stopped and it hadn't started to brighten up, but it was definitely better conditions, let's just say that.
Speaker 2So we gathered everything up and we started to descend to where he was. We got to where the shot, where he'd been sitting you could see that quite clearly in the heather and carried on down the hill probably about another 10 yards, had a look and there he was. You could just see his antlers. So, uh, yeah, got down to this, this fella, and yeah, he was a. He was a big lad, 13 points, lovely, big brow, tines. Um, hadn't gone far at all. So, yeah, happy, happy, happy. Obviously a lot of people have seen the photos that I've posted up.
Speaker 2Um, we dragged him about two yards just to get him onto some flatter ground to get a few photos and did a bit of an inspection of him. He was absolutely riddled with ticks and I mean there's ticks everywhere between his legs, back of his head, over his entire body, just these big grape-like looking ticks. And Ben's like yeah, our hillside's really quite dirty. It's probably the dirtiest in the area. It just seems to have a lot of ticks. But what was really interesting was he was saying that it didn't feel like this was a true hill stag. He thought more that this was a, a forestry stag that had come up from the lower land and was obviously dominating the side of the hill, had got the hinds and the other guys that were. If you looked at the hill stage that we were looking at earlier, they were much sort of thinner antlers, whereas this boy had some meat on him and and the antlers had a lot more thickness to them. So that was it.
Reflections and Gratitude
Speaker 2Ben was gonna get on and get the growlick out and it was like he's like are you happy? I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm really happy. It's like it's nice to watch somebody else do it. So we got talking while he was. Just he opened the neck up, took out the esophagus and um basically tied that off and then small incision around the stomach to pull all the guts out. Um took it all out and it was like so, do you inspect the glands and stuff like that? And he's like, no, not really, but I can do that back at the larder. So it was interesting because obviously seeing how these hill stalkers do it compared to sort of how we've all been trained to do it, it's just one of those things.
Speaker 2Then we found it was like, oh, there's the entry. And then the bullet was on. You could feel a lump just under his skin. So as we dug out, we actually dug out the 150 grain soft point that I'd shot him with. And yeah, it had mushroomed beautifully but it hadn't fully penetrated. So it made it through the shoulder but it just got stuck under the skin. So we got the bullet out. That's always something to keep as a souvenir.
Speaker 2Stuck that in my pocket radio. Well, it was actually a phone call up to to gary, because obviously there was no signal on the radios, but first time I was stalking in an area where you've actually got perfect phone signal, especially on the hillside. So I phoned him up and we had to wait just for the argo to come in, so sat down, had some lunch, a bit more of a chat about the stag, um yeah, and, and the weather had actually cleared up completely. So the Argo pulls in, um, we load the stag on, get him ready to winch him on, pop him in the back. They even pick up the grollock off the site so that goes into a bucket. I'm like what do you take that back for? He goes look above you and there was a couple of ravens. He goes. If I feed the ravens back at home. They don't follow us out when we're out stalking. So that was quite interesting. Keeps them away from him while he's out on the hillside, otherwise he's got ravens making a noise and potentially alerting the deer that there's stalkers out there because they seem to follow people.
Speaker 2And then came the bumpiest ride of your life, driving an hour ago off the hill, three guys and a hundred kilos stag in the back of it and literally going up all the terrain we'd walked over to get to a track right on the far side of the hill. So on their, on their estate, they've got a bit of a mine, some description, can't remember what they said. They were mining, but they'd um, they've got 25 years of mining there. It's a very small operation but they've built this huge great mine road in. So you, you bounce along all the the peat bogs and and all the rest of it and then all of a sudden, in the middle of nowhere, there's this absolutely perfectly flat mine road with with snow pylons either side of it to tell you the snow depth, and we started trundling down that. We probably did a couple of mile and a bit down this, this road, before all of a sudden a sharp turn and you're back off again and we're heading back down to where we had actually come in.
Speaker 2But the Argo tracks were were fairly wet and worn. We were getting, we were getting there back down to the, the deer gate, through the deer gate again, back down through the woodland sun's come out by this point all the way back to the larder. We're standing around outside. Now we've, we've got back and it's a bit of a. What do you reckon the weight is? And I'm like it's got to be 100 kilos. Ben's, like I reckon, 92, gary's 98. So get him in the larder, get it on, get it on the scales and uh, it comes in at 113 kilos, 13 pointer, 113 kilos. He's like that's a good size animal. Then again, lay him, they lay, they lay him into like a cradle and just watching him butcher and take the legs off and finish the growlick.
Speaker 2Absolutely lovely, lovely to see somebody else do it, and it just makes a huge difference. So lots of questions, lots of chatting, hanging back up again, whip the head off and that pretty much ended my, my stalk. It's a very memorable stalk. It's a fantastic trip. Out, loaded everything back into the truck and took a two and a half hour drive home to back up to Aberdeenshire and you can't really day 5am in the morning to sort of just after 4 in the afternoon. I was incredibly lucky to be sort of given this opportunity as a bit of a thank you by the customer and sending me down and organising it and getting this stag. So yeah, it certainly makes it one of those ones you'll always remember and you can't really thank people enough. But obviously that's that's somebody that uh knows, knows what I like doing and their way of saying thanks was to to get that organized.
Speaker 2So yeah we'll end this podcast here, but hopefully you've all enjoyed listening to uh, to the story of uh, of that latest red stag. That brings another episode to a close. Thank you for listening and thank you for being an audience this far. So, going forward, we've got another load of guests lined up gradually trying to build a good list of people to, to get podcasts with. It's just again it's time and getting everything arranged, sometimes people trying to come up.
Speaker 2We're doing a lot remotely just because I'm in the back end of nowhere being aberdeenshire. I'll probably try and run another competition at some point on the social media site, similar to last time. It'll be a like, follow and share type of thing. Uh, possibly with more stalking, and uh might try and get a few more things out of some suppliers. So some stuff that's relevant to stalking and stuff like that. A bit of a giveaway, just a bit of fun for everybody. A random number generation at the end of it and somebody will win and potentially come and shoot a Scottish Roe. Anyway, we'll leave it there for now and check back again soon for another podcast.