The Outdoor Gibbon
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The Outdoor Gibbon
31 The Chef's Hunt: José Suto on Deer Stalking and Game Cooking
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José Suto takes us on a captivating journey through his remarkable career as both a celebrated game chef and passionate deer stalker. Unlike the traditional path into fieldsports, José's story begins in the professional kitchens of the House of Commons, where a colleague introduced him to falconry – sparking a lifelong obsession that would eventually lead him to deer stalking.
What makes José's perspective so valuable is his ability to bridge two worlds. As a culinary educator with over 20 years of experience, he's trained thousands of chefs in the proper understanding, preparation, and appreciation of game meats. His field-to-fork philosophy has transformed how many professionals approach venison and other wild foods.
The conversation reveals fascinating insights about game preparation through history. José explains how modern refrigeration has changed our approach to game, contrasting traditional hanging practices with contemporary preferences for fresher, ethically-harvested meat. His passionate defense of British venison quality compared to continental European alternatives highlights the superior results of careful stalking practices.
Throughout our discussion, José shares practical knowledge about his preferred equipment – from his beloved Sako rifles to Steiner optics – while emphasizing that confidence in quality tools is essential for ethical hunting. His description of teaching butchery skills to culinary students demonstrates his commitment to maintaining traditional knowledge and passing it to future generations.
Don't miss José's exciting announcement about the upcoming venison butchery competition at the Stalking Show, offering participants the chance to demonstrate their skills following his technique and win premium prizes including professional-grade Flint and Flame knives.
Whether you're a seasoned stalker, a culinary professional, or simply curious about the journey of wild game from field to plate, José's passionate expertise offers valuable insights into this vital connection between hunting traditions and fine dining.
Introduction to José Suto
Speaker 2Hello and welcome to the Outdoor Gibbon episode 31. Jose Suto, who is a renowned chef of game and he's also a deer stalker. So in this podcast we talk to Jose about all matters of things, of how he got started in field sports stuff. He does, obviously, with game and deer stalking, some of the kit he uses, including looking at the competition that he's got running at the stalking show. If you haven't listened to it already, go and listen to the previous podcast where david freer tells us everything that's going to be happening at the stalking show, and hopefully you're listening to this one virtually just before going to the show. So remember that competition. You drop him an email and you can get involved and take part in that little butchery competition with the opportunity to win some absolutely fantastic prizes.
Speaker 2I won't ramble on for too long as Jose and I got a bit carried away and we ended up with an hour and a half long podcast. Anyway, listen, listen to this, get yourself entered in the competition that comes up at the end and we'll see you at the show. Hello and welcome to the Outdoor Gibbon podcast podcast. Today we are joined by jose. You may have seen him on instagram and facebook. He is a professional chef and produces some wonderful, wonderful dishes, mainly with venison. Another game hello how you doing.
Speaker 3Yeah, you're doing all right very good.
Speaker 2So, um, welcome along and let's uh, let's sort of. My usual question is obviously how did you get into the field sports and shooting and stuff like that?
Speaker 3um, well, not the traditional way. I mean, I'm I'm from a family that, um, if you like, on, there's two different styles of my family, so my parents are both spanish and, um, my father's side of my family, uh, were all farmers up in the northern part of spain. So we're talking, we're talking sort of like galicia, which is above portugal. You know, um, it's a sort of the sort of western, northwestern corner of spain and, um, they still basically live well, they've still got a farm up there, and basically it's. It's about, um, about an hour, hour and a half outside Santiago de Compostela, uh, which is basically where all the pilgrimage goes to, and it's, uh, a place that you know is still quite out in the middle of the wild. When I was a kid and we went there, it used to take us, I think, about two and a half, three hours. Now you can do it in about 45 minutes because there's roads that go straight across the mountain, whereas before you go backwards and forwards to get to the top of the mountain wind, you right down.
Speaker 3Yeah, so it's um, but I mean, yeah, it's one of the places that when I went there as a kid and you know I went there from the age of basically 11 till I was sort of 17, 18 every summer I would go out there and spend the whole of the summer sort of bumming around on the farm, you know, with my uncles. It's a place where still there's still wolves and there's still basically bears, although over the years that I went there I never saw a wolf and I never saw a bear. So I don't know how much of that was sort of like stories. And then, from the age of basically none of my uncles on that side hunted. So from the age of basically, um, none of my uncles on that side hunted, so all my uncles did that. So there were farmers and and, yeah, the most they hunted was things like wild mushrooms and truffles, basically during the season, basically because there was massive blocks of woodland out there, you know sort of like, and you're quite high up into the mountains. And then from the age of 17 till I was about I don't know, probably 21, and I every um summer was spent in the southern part of spain, which is the costal salt, so places that people will know, like marbella and basically pronto, venus and estepona, and all those sorts of places that were very, very well known on that side.
Speaker 3Uh, well, my family comes from that area, so from that sort of side of it, and so my uncles on that side, yeah, they were big hunters. My grandfather was a big hunter, um, on a small game and large game, and so I would spend my summers with them, you know, and going out with them. A lot of fishing, a lot of, basically, uh, um, shooting, uh, because it was the back, it was the beginning of the season when I would come home. So, basically, I always used to get out, a couple of times though.
Speaker 3So, so I learned about, if you like, the outside from both areas, but here in the UK, no, I mean here in the UK I lived in London, um and um, I had an interest, a real strong interest, about the countryside. I mean, I remember when my parents, we used to go out, um, like Blackberry picking, yeah, we picking, yeah, we'd go out basically to sort of like you know, big country parks and stuff like that, and for me that was the countryside you know you get really excited about going to the fences, but um, but it was very, very different to sort of like most concepts of what people have, of how they how they got into field sports and my first flurry into field sports was um was not shooting or stalking, it was fulcruming.
Speaker 3Um, and that's that's basically the been the love of my life ever since I basically started. Um, I had a. I was a chef at the house of commons at the time and one of one of the chefs that was there was a. He was a fulcrumer and so he he sort of tell me all about what he was doing. He was one of my senior chefs and he invited me out one weekend and from that day that I went out, I got hooked and hook line and sinker. I mean I was into it big time. I could not find enough books to read about it. Um, obviously there's no internet back then. Um, I just grabbed anything that had anything to do with basically with with falconry and I look like what? Um?
Speaker 2yeah, I was gonna say so, what was the first sort of bird that? Uh, you, you basically with fulcrum, and I learned a lot. Yeah, I was going to say so what was the first sort of bird that you? Obviously you went with.
Speaker 3Well, I had a, my friend, basically the chef that I was with, who became a very good friend. He had a. He normally flew goshawks and that was his thing buying goshawks. And then he had a k, a kestrel, which was um, was an injured bird and and he only had one eye and because it mostly hit a car and he rescued it and he basically brought it back to, you know, back to life, if you like, and he was trying and he couldn't, he couldn't release it back because it only had one eye. So he said to me that this is a great way of you learning and and really, with fore foresight, now it's not the way to do it.
Speaker 3You know, I had this guy that was my mentor and I was with him every single day while I had this bird. But it's not the way to do it. Kettle's are very, you know, finicky little birds. They're not good birds to learn with. But he gave it to me, I learned. I took this bird, I manned it, I got it flying to me and actually I actually got it loose and unfortunately, because it could it could only see out of one eye, it only flying circles around me one way, you know, so it never used to turn around because it kept trying, kept trying to keep me in in sight. Uh, yeah, but this is great little bird, yeah, and we never knew how old it was, because it was, you know, because we we got it in our, got in our plumage and I think I had it for about three or four years and then one day just just died, you know, just basically, it must have been old age or whatever, you know. And, um, and it was great.
Speaker 3And then, after I done that, I am, uh, my friend, um, I had a, I had a girlfriend at the time and basically, sort of like, things became sort of a bit a bit testing with the girlfriend and we broke up and I was a bit sort of heartbroken and didn't know what I was going to do and I was down in the dumps and I went to my friend's house and he had this red-tailed hawk that he had. Okay, yeah, this red-tailed bird from North America. He had it on a loan because he's always flown goshawks and he had this thing on a loan, while somebody else had one of his birds. And he said to me look, if you come out with me, I'll do the weight control so you can learn about it and you can hunt this bird, and this was the most cantankerous, bad tempered, horrible thing you've ever seen in your life. So it, and now I'm going to say that is the way to learn, you know so I was going to say normally it's the goshawks that are the cantankerous.
Speaker 2I want to kill everything, but I've. Yeah, red tails seem to be the the new thing, don't they?
Speaker 3yeah, the got the goshawk. The goshawk will be cantankerous because it basically just it sees you as a, uh, as a movable perch and it just wants to sit up in trees and you can throw half a dead cow underneath it. Don't want to come down, um, but this red tail wanted to kill everybody apart from including me, not game, just me. It was an imprint. So basically it's been hand-reared. So when they're hand-reared they think they're human. You know, they have no fear of anybody and so basically this thing was just, every time you tried to do anything with it, it wanted to latch on to you and just was really cantankerous.
Speaker 3Great bird to learn with, told you and taught you where not to put your hands and taught me. You know that one of the one of the things that basically we stand by in folkery now is that basically, if a bird grabs you, it's not the bird's fault, it's your fault. You know, because you didn't, but you weren't quick enough where you put your hands in the wrong place and and I had, I had that bird for a little while and then, um, uh, he had a. The bird went back to the guy that basically had his goswok and the goswok, his goswok came back and in one summer I was there and he said to me sort of like, I was at his house and picked up this female goswok that he had there and I had it on my fist while we were having a cup of tea and he put all the the boat perch and everything away and he'd, sort of like, after we had our cup of tea, I sort of said to him right, he said where do you want me to this bird? And he went I want you to take it home. He said it's yours. He said you, you fly this bird. He said and when you're ready, you can get back to me.
Speaker 3He said but you, you fly this bird now. He said um, you know, you need to get out there now and do it properly. And that's what I did. I. Unfortunately fortunately for me my parents had gone away on holiday. So I kicked my dad's car bird in the garage, um, for about two weeks training it, and then I gave it back and then I came, uh, my parents came back, they were back for about a week and then they went away for a weekend, a long weekend, and so during that long weekend I built an aviary in my garden and by the time my parents come back, the aviary was there and the bird was in it oh, fantastic, so that that kind of that.
José's Early Life and Falconry Journey
Speaker 2That was the get you hooked on hunting, because obviously working a bird over uh, over a dog is I've seen it done it's it's pretty impressive, like a rabbit will bolt and you put your bird up and off it goes and and things like that and um, it's not something that I've ever really I've. I've helped a friend with birds and stuff like that and but it's it's not something that gets me, but I know there is. It's almost as the same adrenaline rush as that of going out with a rifle or a shotgun and having a day shooting I think I liken it the.
Speaker 3The closest thing I can liken it to is basically, especially when you're flying um, things like gosselks and harris hawks is, uh, to rough shooting. Um, you never quite know what's going to get up in front of you and you never know how it's going to go and which way it's going to chase and how it's going to end. I mean, it's a really exciting adrenaline rush. All the time. You also you're walking around, trying not to make too much noise, the same as you are stalking and you're reading the land. You're looking at where animals are going to be. You're looking at where animals are going to be. You're looking at a habitat and trying to make a conscious thought of what's going to be here, how it's going to go If you're ferreting, or basically you're working rabbits. You're looking okay, right, if I'm ferreting these holes, which way is this rabbit going to go? You're trying to work it out and look at it, trying to be quiet. Yeah, it's all those things.
Speaker 2Yeah, and harvesting food, if you like, in a very primeval way of harvesting, absolutely, and the bird obviously, obviously gets a meal at the same time. Yeah, yeah, but but you, you've ended up with something, because the two, it's, it's that synergy of the two working together you, you and the bird are basically trying to to get you a, get you a meal yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3I mean there's no, yeah, there's a reason why the goshawk was. Basically it's called the goshawk. Yeah, it was, it was the cook's bird, you know, the bird that basically, uh, you know, put food on the table for people uh, for you it nails, it just nails everything.
Speaker 2It's a killer, isn't it really?
Speaker 3yeah, oh yeah there's not, there's no, no, two ways about goswoks when they're hunting like that. But but I had that bird. I mean, I had that bird for five or six years and then, um, what happened was she. She took an injury for so she, she hit a rabbit in a blackthorn bush, and a blackthorn went into her foot and then the tip of the blackthorn snapped and she ended up with an infection in the foot, which is a thing called bumblefoot, which is basically where they get an infection right in the foot. Now the problem is with birds of prey they have very poor circulation in their feet, so if they get an infection in their feet, it takes a heck of a long time to get rid of the infection and while that tends to fester. So she had to have quite a major operation on her feet and by the time we finished and she was out and she was okay again, she was fine. But the vets basically advised that she really shouldn't hunt again, because if you took a knock or something crazy it could flare up the infection. So she went in for a breeding project and I got left birdless and so then I went out and I at the time I couldn't afford, uh, I just bought a new house, a new flat, and I couldn't afford a goshawk, so I went for the next best thing, which was a female harris hawk. Um, and at the time and people really didn't understand female harris hawks, not the way we understand them today, and I took this bird on with all the knowledge that I had of the goshawk and I didn't try to fly her like a goshawk, but I I some of the stuff that I'd learned about goshawks and about how to keep goshawks basically on side and and entertain and stuff like that I used with her. And um, along came Ellie and Ellie was, I mean, down in in Hertfordshire sort of where I used to fly her. We I was chairman of the British Hawking Association down there and this bird was famous, you know, it was used as what they call a make hawk. So when other young Harris hawks were being flown, she would fly with them. She'd teach them to hunt because they hunt as packs. So basically you'd hunt them together. And in her lifetime I had her for just over 11 years and in 11 years she caught over 750 head a game, yeah, and I mean everything from pheasants off and partridges off the saw to eight and a half pound hares to 10 pound gray lag goose one day, um, and this bird weighed two pounds. You know, she was absolutely awesome. I mean incredible flying bird, yeah.
Speaker 3And then I moved up here and then where I live now in cambridgeshire and we live out on the fence in the middle of nowhere, right, my house is smack bang in the middle of the fence. It just feels all around me to the point where I am so isolated that my partridge pen is in my back paddock, you know, um, because there's nobody around it. You know, and I really just basically straight out the back paddock and they come backwards and forwards into the, into the, into the pennies as they please, um. And so when I moved up here, this isn't the ground really for for harris hawks, it's just, it's just not suitable for harris hawks. Yeah, okay, fen pheasants fly like exocet missiles, you know they. Just you just cannot get anywhere near them with a harrison. So I moved back to a.
Speaker 3I'm lucky that my wife um, charlotte, she, she basically runs cj's birds of prey.
Speaker 3So those of you that have been to the game fair will have seen her.
Speaker 3She runs the whole of the falconry area at the game fair and she basically um, does all the displays at the game fair. She's even been up to scotland, she's done scoom palace a few times, so she's quite well known in the display world, does a lot of educational stuff, tv work, all that sort of stuff, and we've got quite a large selection of birds. We've got these 60 birds here and wow, and she, she runs, she does all that sort of stuff. So I'm lucky in that I went back to a gosorg and in the gosorg basically she can keep a ticket over during the week while I'm not here and then basically when I um, when I come at the weekends, weekends, I normally hunt and obviously if I've got time off, basically during school holidays and stuff like that I take the bird out and basically fly school holidays. And I've also then gone on to fly peregrines here and ablamado falcons and other falcons as well. So normally I've got two birds on the go at any one time fantastic.
Speaker 2So now that we ask the question so how did that? Now? From that you're obviously birds of prey and hunting with those. What made you go into rifles and and that direction?
Speaker 3so um, again, being a chef, um, my sort of my start in life, if you like, as being a chef and and um being the catering college. So I went to the college that I am teach at. I was a student there, so I've come full circle, if you like. Back then and when I was at college, one of the things that really enthralled me was the use of unusual meats, and because one of the reasons was is because, basically, if you have a piece of beef and you have a piece of sirloin, let's say, and it's basically it doesn't matter what breed it comes from, it's still a piece of sirloin and you cook it in a conventional way and it's pretty much gonna be either juicier or less juicier, depending on the breed, but it's still a sirloin. Whereas with game there's the variation in basically different types of animals and the flavors and what they eat and their age and the. You know, the anomalies are so massive that as a chef, you have to be quite skilled to understand that and to and to and to do it. And or I at the time I was, that's what I thought. Okay, later on now in life, when I look back on it, it's, it's, it's not that difficult you just need to understand the parameters of the meat that you're using and how to use it. Um, in the's, it's not that difficult. You just need to understand the parameters of the meat that you're using and how to use it.
Speaker 3Um, in the same way that, as a chef, you understand which is a first class cut of meat and a second class cut of meat, in other words, a first class cut of meat being something that is pan fried, roasted, grilled it's really tender cuts whereas the second class cut is something that's chewy and basically needs a lot of cooking and slow cooking.
Speaker 3So that and that those are the rules that basically you live by, and so I I have an interest with it, and I remember in one lesson that one of my my lecturers came in and he brought in two pheasants and a hare and he put them onto the table and he then started to go through basically talking about them and he showed us how to pluck the pheasant and then he showed us how to gut the hair and prepare it for, basically, things like a? Um, a junk hair, um, and I I was enthralled by this because it's the first time I'd seen a whole animal taken right down to the point where basically it's a piece of meat. Yeah, where nowadays a lot of chefs don't get that. Yeah, well, they do where I am, because I make sure we do, but yeah, they don't get that. They get things in plastic bags.
Speaker 2Yeah, they order from the wholesaler and rocks up just a selection of meat and that's it, unless you've got somebody that's doing specialist stuff. Yeah, they're not going to see that sort of thing, are they?
Speaker 3And many of them are very far removed from basically the original product. So I am, yeah, I had that interest and the interest grew and grew as I as time went on. And obviously the falconry, I was harvesting stuff and I was using it and then, while I was at the House of Commons and I moved, I went up to basically a senior chef. One of the things that we had to do there is we had to teach our junior chefs all about a particular product or item or dish and we had to do a presentation. So I did this presentation on game and I took venison, all the game birds, everything. And from doing that that's how I got into the college, because college asked me to do the same presentation at the college.
Speaker 3And then I was offered a job, not after that, but then I had a friend. When I moved up here to Cambridgeshire I had a friend who doesn't live too far away from me who flies golden eagles and he does quite a lot of stalking and he introduced me to a guy who I think you might even know that julian stoyles the name rings a bell yes, julian is, julian is the god.
Speaker 3What julian does not know about deer is not worth writing. I mean, this guy basically he was, uh, head deer park manager at halton hall. He was head deer park manager at holcomb hall. He was number two at woburn. You know he's he's like julian is, he's an actual god on on any thing to do with deer or endangered species of deer. You know he's bred some really endangered species. He now is at our watatonga wildlife reserve basically, which is in norfolk and where they have lots of endangered species. He now is at our watatonga wildlife reserve basically, which is in norfolk and where they have lots of endangered species and he's doing loads of work on breeding that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3And I met julian and julian through this friend and julian was at holcomb at the time and I went over to holcomb and he took me out quite a few times. It's about that's the first times when we we were starting to work on the book, on the first book on on venison, and we went out quite a lot a few times. Steve and I, my photographer, we went together and Julian took us out a lot of times. I shot my first roe deer with him and then I was hooked again. You know, basically that whole hunter-gatherer type of thing, basically shooting it, and obviously I had all the other knowledge which, yeah, the preparation and all of the cooking side of it, which a lot of guys don't have.
Speaker 3You know, I know I just put the two and two together and it just came sort of naturally. It's sort of funny, peter, because over the years of doing this sort of stuff I didn't realize I had all the knowledge that I had to put those two together because I just thought that everybody knew that sort of stuff and I didn't realize when it's only when you start explaining to people stuff and people are sitting around you and you're talking about game, where you're talking about venison, and you're talking about how to prepare it and all that sort of stuff, and you've seen people's, you know, eyes light up and the wonder in their faces as you're telling them things, and you think, well, I thought everybody knew that. You know it's just yeah, and that's that's how it happened, that's how.
Transition from Falconry to Deer Stalking
Speaker 2But even just breaking down a joint. It doesn't matter whether it's venison, it could be anything. Most people nowadays have no connection to to actually seen it, even the butcher. You go to a butcher's and even a butcher doesn't? They used to do it big cutting block what do you want? And they'd cut your piece of meat off and that would be it. Nowadays you walk into butchers, it's all either laid out or it's ready to go, and and it's.
Speaker 3It's almost like that skill isn't shown to the general public anymore, and that's one of the reasons why, when I went to the college, um, one of my things at the college was to basically bring that back, and so we, I started doing things at college. I did I do these game seminars which basically, um, I know you might have seen alex basically from the gallery cooking. Basically he did a whole feature on it. He came and watched me and I did these game seminars. We'd be doing these game seminars. I've been to the college for 20 years now, yeah, and it frightens me every time I say that, but uh, but yeah, and over these years we've had all these chefs coming in and watching them, and all the teaching that I'm doing externally we do internally. So if you consider that, basically I have 90-odd chefs every year over 20 years basically, that have gone out into the industry and they've all had that training, and it's what led the college to basically purchase all of their skinny rig. That I've got. You know, I've got a skinny rig that any deer stalker would be proud of, you know, oh, yeah, that I've got. You know, I've got a skinny rig that any deer stalker would be proud of, you know, and oh, yeah, yeah, and I've got, I've got a. I've got a deer larder. You know basically where I can basically hang eight carcasses at a time inside. I mean I'm talking whole carcasses, heads on feet, on the lot. Um, I've got a proper deer larder at the college and and we we put about 15 to 20 animals basically through that deer larder a year. Um for the college and that's teaching kids.
Speaker 3My third years basically do a development lesson, um on a whole carcass. So I have this whole carcass come in. Uh, we've got a film which basically you can find on youtube, which is called basically feel to plate and it shows it's all. It's a story of basically me going out, stalking, explaining basically all of the field to table side and it, and when I did it with bask it was basically for people like these kids to understand a little bit more about the, the story in the field, before you start explaining everything about preparation the carcass, and then we'll take the carcass and I'll I'll then take them through.
Speaker 3It's like a mini dcs1, I mean I'll take them through basically bleeding, why we bleed, growlicking, fridge protocols, fridge temperatures, uh, skinning we, we take the head off, take the feet off, we skin it, we basically then once we skin it, we start breaking down the primals and then we work out cost implications of the primals and basically how much money we can make on a carcass. We do all that sort of stuff and every single one of those kids that come in has had that and we've had 45 people twice a year have had that. Yeah, and we. So we try to basically to explain. So we try, and normally the sort of looks you get with people is basically the beginning, when it's a whole carcass and, uh, you know, head on they're like oh god. And then afterwards, as soon as you take that skin off, it's weird how people's perception of it changes, because then they see it as a piece of meat it's a piece of meat.
Speaker 2At that point, isn't it? It's amazing, you, as soon as it, as soon as the skin's gone, all of a sudden, yeah, it's now just a piece of meat, and by the time it's broken down, yeah, yeah. But by the time it's broken down and laid as the primal's on the table, it's, then they don't even think it was a deer.
Speaker 3No, it's just, it's now a meat to process but that's like, that's like a yeah, it's like it's being far removed from the animal, you know, because once it gives you meat you're far removed from the animal, and what I wanted is I wanted to bring that back. So what I want I've always said this with the kids that I teach I, I run the butchery at the college, right, so I'm the senior lecturer in front and I have, I am in control of basically all the fish, meat, poultry and game that comes into the college, everything. And my thing when I got there was to ensure that all of our kids really understood the provenance, the ethical side of it and the preparation of all of the meat, fish, poultry and game that come in, and also the sustainability side of it, so that we I could, I can hand on my heart with any of the kids come in right, if they take me to task on any particular item that I have, I can tell them the full story about that item and why we use it, and I can give them a uh, I can tell, yeah, there's no way they can basically sort of like question me about, about the morals or something about stuff, because I know all the answers and that's because I see it as as a chef's uh responsibility to understand that and to be able to basically be conversant about the products that they use and also have a reason why that they're using it. So the last thing I want is basically one of my chefs going out on Saturday Kitchen and a guy from our college and using a product that is completely unsustainable and using it on national television, which then to make it even more unsustainable where people are going to want it. So I, you know, I'm very open about what we do and how we do it, and that's that's. That's why we do it like that.
Speaker 3We've also done the thing that we work with. We've worked very closely with with two game dealers, so basically Linker game and High game, yep, and we work very closely with both of them. Um, highland game in the last uh two years have allowed me to basically take venison and basically put it on all three years. So now we have our first years that learn that do a dish with venison and it was one of the synoptic tests and that they did a few years ago and then basically they'll use that throughout the year and they're learning about what a deer is in the first year, in the third, second year they they're breaking down carcasses and basically joints of venison with me in the tree, and in the third year they're having that whole field to table lesson.
Speaker 3So what we've done is we've situated venison is basically the fourth meat for these guys. So all these, as these guys go out, it's part of their repertoire, it's something not to be scared of, yeah, it's something they understand how to use and hopefully we'll we create a market for venison. I hope so, yeah, yeah. And with linkin to game, we've done the same sort of thing with game birds and before I was working with highland game, we did that with venison, with linkin to game as well. So those guys have, you know, they put money, they put effort into basically teaching the next, you know, chefs of tomorrow, if you like and continuing that. That thing that will go forward yeah.
Speaker 2No, I think that's great because, to be honest, I think game. Whenever you said game to somebody, people got very scared oh, it might have shot in it, it might be this you've got to cook it right and stuff like that. Well, actually, pheasant partridge, we use it as just like chicken in our house. It works perfectly. But I think there's still that stigmatism, the way that people think, oh, it was hung on the back of a door for three weeks, it's green and stuff. It doesn't. It's not and it's a soup of venison. It's. It's just saying to people you can use venison in exactly the same way that you would use beef, and it's actually a much nicer flavor. It is leaner. If you wanted to make burgers, you need to cut some fat in with it and that's it really, and it's brilliant.
Speaker 3Well, let me tell you a few things, a couple of things on that which you've hit on there. So firstly, basically, with the green birds, so the reason birds were hung, we need to understand why birds were hung right and nowadays we don't hang birds. Now, there's a couple of reasons why we don't hang them. One we don't like it anymore. Yeah, because basically our taste buds have changed. But the reason birds were hung before is because back in the day when birds were hung we're talking pre-Victorian times and even some of the Victorian times birds could be hung because temperatures were colder. Yeah, and if you're going to October, places like that, in October, november time, right, it was much, much colder, I mean, even in our lifetime. And I don't know how old you are I'm 53 now but basically I remember when I was a lot younger, it being a lot colder in the winters than it is nowadays, yeah, and basically going out hawking. You know, when I was sort of like 18, 19. You know, when I was sort of like 18, 19, and I remember the meat in my, my pocket of my bag getting frozen. I'd have to keep manipulating it and holding it to basically keep it, and that doesn't happen anymore. So even in that short period of time, we've seen a change now. So basically we don't hang them anymore because the temperature is different.
Speaker 3But then you've got to ask yourself why did people hang them back then? Well, the reason people hang them back then is that historically, things like salt, pepper, spices, all that sort of stuff was mega expensive. I mean, that was sort of like, yeah, the price of gold. And so what they did is back in those days, is the flavor came from the meat. Yeah, they wanted a stronger flavored meat. Yeah, and if you look at some of the farm animals back in those days, let's look at sheep so sheep, basically the wool on a sheep was worth more than the meat of the sheep, and that's why the Speaker of the House of Commons and even the Queen and King right used to sit on a sack full of wool to show how important they were. They could sit on a sack of wool because we didn't have any modern fibres. We had basically just wool to make clothes.
Speaker 3So back then, there's no way that you would kill a sheep before it had, basically, you know, some youngsters in it and it had a few years under its belt. It was just there's no way you'd have lamb and majority of all of our old recipes are from mutton. They're not, mom. Yeah, absolutely. We converted them to lamb as our taste changed. So that's why and we we liked the stronger flavor of the mutton pigs. There's no way you'd kill a pig until pig had piglets. So basically they were well over a year old now our pigs are lucky if they reach a year.
Speaker 3So again, we hung it to improve the flavor and strengthen the flavor of the food that we were eating, because we didn't have the spices. Now, as time's gone on, yeah, I think everything's changed. Our flavors have changed, our tastes have changed. Yeah, we eat differently. So now what we want is fresh, fresh. We want the flavor of the bird as opposed to basically the added flavor of basically what we're hanging. So that's why we don't hang them anymore. Yeah, we don't. We don't do any of that.
Speaker 3Now, when you're talking about venison, well, venison, basically back in the day, pre-queen victoria, you know, venison the only venison that was really basically eating a lot of was all trophy stuff. So basically the animals were shot in the rut. The poor old chef would get basically lumbered with all this meat that then he would have to look at how he got round this flavour that this meat had. And that's when red wine, citruses, basically cloves, all this sort of stuff was put into it to try and get rid of that flavor, to improve the flavor of a red stag that's just been rutting and it, that's it.
Speaker 2You. You smell it on the hill.
Speaker 3It's one of the strongest things and you would never want to eat it, and no, yeah and that's, that's why, and and so you know, when you start looking at this historically and understanding why, that's why nowadays we don't eat. I mean, nowadays, you know, game dealers basically are very strict about the way that, basically, birds are refrigerated and brought through, so you don't get that. You get the natural flavor of the bird, which is which is incredible, you know, and you don't have to do a lot of work to that of basically working that out. But it's a case of the, the history and the background and understanding why people used to eat stuff like that and why we don't really look at it now. You know, nowadays, basically, we get a fresh product that comes through.
Speaker 3Our venison in this country is some of the best venison in the world and I'll tell you that quite sincerely. I'm not saying that because I live here and because, basically, I promote venison. I'm telling you because if you go to spain, uh, to italy, to france, a place like that, or where or even portugal, where they have monterias and the animals are driven, yeah, and the animals are shot in the morning, they're left all day and then basically they're growl at in the afternoon. They're also full of adrenaline, uh, because the animals have been running and the meat is tough.
Speaker 3A lot of my friends who are chefs in spain they come here to the uk. They taste venison and they say, oh my god, what is that? And and you explain to them what it is and they said but when we have venison in spain, it's tough. We've got to put it in red wine and stuff. They said we don't need to because. And you start to explain about the way that the animals are harvested here in comparison to the way that there's a harvest and they even a loin of venison out there. They have to stew it. It's tough, as always. Yeah, it's terrible.
Speaker 2Yeah, so you say that exactly because I was chatting to a friend that runs a portuguese hunting outfit. And, yeah, you shoot the animals and they're literally just left for the day and growled in the evening and a big refrigerated van comes along and that's it all hauled off, whereas here, the first thing we do, you shoot it and as quick as possible you're getting the green out yeah, I mean you, I think here I mean our, our ways of basically preparing and basically the care that we take, especially when it comes to deer stalking.
Teaching Game Butchery to Culinary Students
Speaker 3I mean, we've done such a great job in here. A majority of deer stalkers are very careful about shot placement, about where they're shooting, and they get. They can also that, yeah, when you shoot an animal, you walk over to it and you have a look at where the shot went, where did the shot go in? Where did the shot come out? What have I damaged? You know that sort of stuff. And there's a real debate in it. If you ever see some of the forums, there's massive debates on on shot placement, whereas in america it's sort of like they point the gun at it and basically whatever way it's facing, right, that's it, it's going to hit it exactly, yeah, yeah. And and it's a very different mindset out there and if they blow half the front end of the animal off, though, well, it doesn't matter, they'll still get the back bits to be able to eat.
Speaker 3And I, as a chef, I always used to get in trouble with julian because julian had put me in. I hate high seats. I cannot stand high seats. Uh, you know, basically high towers, any other stuff I get bored. I get really bored. I don't fall asleep, like I've got a friend of mine that basically he sits in a high seat and within two minutes he's asleep. But I don't fall asleep, I just get bored and like, um, whenever I have sat on a high seat and I've shot an animal, I have to get down and bleed it. I, I cannot sit there and leave it lying there when I haven't bled it and I just feel compelled to go down and bleed it, and I have to, and then I end up basically obviously disturbing everything. Nothing has come past me, but I just feel compelled as a chef because I've harvested that piece of meat to ensure that it's in the best qualities possible.
Speaker 3So, uh, so yeah, I mean I and yeah, obviously, out there, culturally it's different. You know, culturally, in the way that they do things. We're not, you know, we're not here to say it's wrong or it's right, no, no, no tree, that's what they do, you know, and, and I'm sure it's very exciting for the people that go out there and do it I've had from friends of mine that have been out there not recently doing it, um, but it's a very different mindset to basically to the preparation of of what we do here in this country. We're basically stalking deer, you know, and we're very lucky that we can go out and stalk, and you know we can go out and basically shoot as many animals as we like and we can bring them home and we can basically prep them up and give them to friends, give them family, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think. I think that's the really bit, the bit we've said. I've said a few times we're incredibly, incredibly privileged in the uk that we have the ability just to be able to go out stalking. We don't have a tag system, we don't have a bag limit. If you've got the land and you can shoot and you manage it correctly, you could literally shoot deer all year long in the right places and be able to supply venison to people, whereas actually you talk about the in america. Well, you might get a tag to allow you to go out and take a particular buck, or you might get onto some some does or something like that. Um, in scandinavia or europe and places like that, if it's driven, it might be a case that you're sharing those animals with with the, the team that's out there, so you don't actually bring the whole thing home. Um, and yeah again, we're just incredibly lucky to have the ability to to go and do what we want to do when we want to do it I definitely 100.
Speaker 3And when I went out to america and they're explaining to me about the rules out in america and the fact that basically you can't sell venison and that you know any venison and any pheasant that you might find on a, on a, um, a menu out in america is all farmed. I mean, god, god, lo, behold the tide the day that that happens here in this country. I mean like yeah well, well, we do.
Speaker 2We do need to get this country. Actually we need to get. I see, you still see, in all the supermarkets and stuff like that, there's still a massive amount of obviously farm venison that comes in from new zealand, and what we need to do is we actually need to get these supermarkets to basically take the british venison that we've got and actually get it on on their shelves, rather than buying something in that's coming from traveling halfway around the world yeah, I, I there's.
Speaker 3There's a big uh conception that people have about new zealand venison, right, and the new zealand venison that gets used in this country, and and sometimes it there's been other podcasts which I've listened to, right, and I listen to people say that, yeah, we have to get our supermarkets to buy all our wild venison and and we need to do this and we need to get together to do it, and people seem to think that that's easy. Now, I've been involved in basically doing uh presentations to basically a lot of the big supermarkets in the uk I won't name who they are, but a lot of the big ones in the uk and I'm telling you now, right, they will never take wild venison. Yeah, um, and some of them do. Uh, the actual biggest user of wild venison in this uk who do you think is the biggest one of the supermarket, is the biggest user of wild venison in the uk? Who do you?
Speaker 2think it's probably going to be somebody like waitrose or something like that.
Speaker 3No, go on wait. Waitrose doesn't take any wild venison. The biggest user of wild venison in the UK is Aldi.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 3And a lot of people are gobsmacked by that.
Speaker 2Well, no because actually, they're pretty good, though, at trying to use things local, aren't they? That's been always one of their big things. They will try to use products that are actually local to the area that they're in.
Speaker 3So some of the other supermarkets there's a couple of others that basically use wild venison. Uh, there's other supermarkets that won't use any wild venison and they'll use farmed venison because they consider it to be more ethical. But now it makes me laugh as well, and I I am not against what? Uh, farm venison and I think that basically, as long as it's being sold as venison, what it does is it basically increases the market for people to be able to buy. Now, the the problem is, the reason why we have, um, new zealand venison in our supermarkets is because we have a lull in our in our time.
Speaker 3I know in scotland all the rules have changed now recently, yeah, yeah, but we have a lull in in our production of venison basically throughout the year. So what happens is that the the actual companies that are providing that venison to the supermarkets have a shelf and that product goes onto that shelf and it's basically being sold on that shelf. Yeah, they cannot have that shelf empty, right, and if, if they, if, during the lull, that and that and that shelf was to go empty, then what the supermarket does is it goes, you know what. Let's try and have this stuff over here and we'll put that instead there, instead of the venison, while it's the off season and all of a sudden that stuff that they put onto that shelf sells really, really well and they're thinking you know what that's selling really well, let's extend that and not put venison on there.
Speaker 3And you come into our season, right, and you're not buying the venison and it's still selling really well, and in that item let's just carry on selling that item and venison will lose its place on the actual supermarket shelf. And that's what happens. And that's the reason why at certain times of the year we have New Zealand venison on there is because, basically, to take up that lull when the season is off. But I'm telling you now, basically the, the stuff that you know highland games supply a lot to supermarkets and during the lull there will be some imported medicine that goes on there. But as soon as the season starts again, bang on, they're on it again yeah, but I suppose that's because what we've done is we've conditioned people.
Speaker 2We it's the same with vegetables and all those things we've conditioned them that you can have this all year round. And it used to be the case that carrots and veg and things like that had a season and they would come in and you'd have them for that particular season. But we've allowed people to have them all year round. And of course what that does is we've taken the seasons away and suddenly now things aren't special and you don't go on. Actually, we've got all the root vegetables in. We can make stews over the winter period. No, you can have a stew any time of the year you want, kind of thing.
Speaker 3But you see, people don't realize this and it makes me laugh, right, because I have it with the kids. I say to them do you know eggs are seasonal and they go? No, they're not. You get them all year round? No, you don't. If you, anybody that has chickens will know right that they'll.
Speaker 2Basically throughout the winter, chickens don't lay eggs. Might my chicken stop laying exactly?
Speaker 3yeah, no eggs and they don't realize that chicken, the eggs are seasonal because everybody thinks that chickens lay. No, they're fooled into thinking that basically the days have have been a long days and that there is basically they're laying eggs all year round, but then it's not in their sheds. Yep and a lot. But a lot of people are really gobsmacked. They don't understand that. And this is how far we've become removed from our food. You know, and you know when anybody's basically talking about food, they don't understand the background of their food and how her food is produced.
Speaker 3So, like you're saying, yeah, we've become a, an unseasonal. You know society, where everything is in. Yeah, you can get strawberries in the middle of winter, you know, because it's in season at some part of some parts of the world. But but yeah, I mean that's the reason, why is the venison in that? And obviously you know we want to maintain that place. We need to maintain that basically within supermarkets. We need to supply the supermarkets.
Speaker 3Yeah, there there's where people you know, 90 percent of people basically go to buy their food and we need to maintain a presence on there and large volumes of basically product going through, because we need to use up what we're, what we're shooting and we obviously we need to control deer in the uk. Yeah, there's um, you know, obviously there's a massive management problem right with the lots of animals at the moment. You know where I am at this year. I mean, like one of the estates that I'm on, I think I've I've shot myself 25, 30 deer, 30 fallow on basically one pass of the estates and I've got the three other stalkers there that shoot with me and, um, I know that they're large numbers this year, um, large numbers of the that we're looking at and in other places, basically it's been an explosion. I mean COVID, you know, didn't do us well. I mean, like you know, it allowed the deer to basically to breed uncontrollably, and I know actually, yeah exactly In Scotland.
Speaker 3I know in Scotland now you know, whether you love it or hate it all the rules have changed. I mean you're shooting roe bucks out of season, or what we consider out of season. You're shooting basically, I think uh, stags now can basically shot all year round any, any male species of deer now.
Speaker 2So that's uh, what's ever? What's up here? We've got the red row and obviously fallow, literally have no season. Now we're very we will not shoot, obviously certain stags and certain bucks, but at the end of the day, if you're, if you're doing deer management realistically and you can take numbers out, it's get. It gets shot. So, yeah, clear it, clear it out, kind of thing.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah no, and I and I can understand that because the numbers have basically gone unchecked that there's there's a need to do some of that sort of stuff. It it sort of pains me. I mean it pained me when they changed the deer seasons here in the uk when basically extended the deer, the doe seasons, you know, and a lot of people sort of you know, a lot of the slightly older stalkers will basically sort of happen. Don't like shooting them so late, but if you're controlling numbers and you're doing a dim, you know, management thing where you've got to basically control numbers, especially the areas where, where we are but it's not highly populated, yeah then it's a way of basically helping to control those numbers male.
Speaker 2Yeah, shooting male deer doesn't control numbers. It's shooting females that are going to have, going to have offspring is how you control deer and, unfortunately, I think that's why the deer population did actually flourish so well during covid and things like that is because a lot of the recreational stalkers that would go out and shoot the occasional buck and maybe, maybe a doe or something like that well, they stopped. Um, I was still. I was still allowed to go out and shoot for the whole of covid because obviously, deer management or forestry and things like that had to protect trees. I was flat out knocking deer over, but everybody around you that was recreational, they weren't allowed out. So, of course, suddenly the deer numbers were going up. It was um, and I think that went up and down all over the country.
Speaker 3Really, yeah, yeah, the only, the only. I mean I have nothing against that as long as we're basically using the products and we basically put the products in, you know, and using what I have. I mean I did hear some stories of places up in scotland where they were shooting them, leaving them on the hill. Um you, that really, for me, that goes against the grain of what I do as a chef.
Speaker 2It's still a hot topic. I think it's the John Muir Trust is the biggest problem. And yeah, they're saying that the extraction of the deer is too expensive, so they shoot them and leave them. But again, it's not a good publicity for anything. They shoot them and leave them, but again that's it's. It's not a good publicity for anything. To be honest, the extremes of the hill we've got sometimes it's just it's either your life or the or getting that deer off, and it's sometimes it's too much of a risk so we do end up leaving something on the hill, but 90 at the time. I think tom and I this year have pretty much extracted everything, and some of that's from some pretty sketchy places.
Speaker 3Yeah, like I imagine, yeah, yeah, but yeah, I mean, yeah, all we do by basically not not doing the job properly is basically we add emphasis to the people that want to release wolves and and you know, uh, was it links and all that sort of stuff. I mean, I've had, yeah, I've had, I've had some conversations on there on the radio about this and basically you know that think this is the be-all and end-all to basically everything we do and flatly against it, because we have a massively growing population in the UK, there's no way that these animals wouldn't come into conflict with us and with everything else, with livestock or everything else. They've been out of our system for too long. Yes, to basically be put back into our system. Um, you know, to a lesser extent, I mean, some of the birds of prey that have been released, yeah, and I'm a falconer, I love birds of prey.
Speaker 3You know, go back sort of like 10 years ago. Um, you were seeing a buzzard every now and again here where I am, uh, and which was nice to see. Um, and now we're seeing more of them, which is fine. But red kites oh my god, red have like exploded down here like you wouldn't believe, and you have to ask yourself what they're eating. And there's a lot of places where basically, they're encouraging them by basically feeding them, which is creating unnatural numbers of red kites, and it's just gonna it's gonna end in tears. I mean, these birds are gonna end up starving. If they stop those sorts of people basically feeding them, um, they're just gonna it's gonna population dive. And then what happens? Also, we've got unnatural high numbers of these predators that are basically they're taking, uh, their toll on other birds.
Traditional Game Hanging vs Modern Methods
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And it was quite interesting. I had a conversation with a swedish huntress uh, exactly this topic and she was telling me about the wolves and things like that. And yeah, they have big problems. Now the wolves actually have trained themselves to go after domestic dogs, so when they're out with the hunting dogs, the the wolf knows that actually it's an easy meal. When you've got the dog running around the forest barking at um, barking at some prey to bring it in, well, I'll just go and take the dog because I don't have to worry. It's simple, it doesn't, it's not going to defend itself, I'll take it away. And it goes the same in this country. We'll release wolves and and suddenly the farm will be moaning that all the sheep are disappearing or it's coming down into the village and it's stealing the domestic cats and dogs. It won't be chasing the deer which can outrun it.
Speaker 3No, I mean, I've often said I've had an argument with people before about, you know, especially people who are against basic shooting or deer control or any of that sort of stuff, and one of the conversations you have with them is about predator control and especially when it comes to predators such as corvids and foxes and stuff like that. Um, and one of the things that basically I remember years ago and I've written about this in in I think it was in the first book that I wrote or the second book um, and there was a story where basically I I used to live in london, I used to used to live in North West London and there was a park near me which was basically what they call the country park and it was just massive open meadows where they used to harvest the hay, there was some woodland and it was a lovely park to go on, and the rangers that were in this park I asked permission to basically to just to exercise my birds in the park. There was no game there, so just exercising the birds in the park. There's no game there, so just exercising the birds in the park. And they said to me yeah, this, this, that should be fine. He said then, as long as basically we have like a group that meets and they're volunteers that help us with the park, and can you come and answer some questions about your birds? I said, yeah, of course I can.
Speaker 3So I went to this meeting and, um, there's all these people in there and I sort of like brought some of the birds with me and I showed them the birds and talked about what I was going to do and how it was going to work. And I remember seeing two people at the back of the the hall, when they're sitting there and they're sort of like you know, arms folded, like you know, you're not very defensive, you're not going to basically teach me anything or you're not going to tell me anything. And I was watching these guys at the back and and afterwards I sort of opened that up for questions and these guys, one of the guys put his hands up. He went look, we don't want birds of prey here. He said all the birds of prey. He said the sparrowhawks that we have here have decimated our lark population. Um, on the on the fields, we have used to have larks on the open fields here and have decimated them.
Speaker 3And I said to him I said well, actually, I said, um, skylark is not a prey that a sparrowhawk would choose to hunt. You know, you have, like within the gardens of the areas of this park, he said, and in the scrubland you have blackbirds, you have, you know, big fat wood pigeons, all that sort of stuff right, and feral pigeons right there sparrowhawk would much easier take than to try to hunt a skylark on the open ground of the field. And he said well, we, the Sparrowhawks, have done it. They've killed them all. He said there's nothing else that would have killed them. I said well, actually there is.
Speaker 3I said, because when I have gone out with the rangers to show them the birds and fly them, he said the first thing that happens is you have this descendant of black fowl, of like birds that come in having to go everything crows, you know, um, jackdaws and rooks, basically having to go at any bird of prey that's up in the air, right, and they're, they're relentless. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know what happens here is is that we've created this problem. We've created as a society. It basically produces lots of rubbish. All of these corvids are basically, they're very intelligent and they learn that basically, where humans are, there's food and they go and feed that, eat that food and because they're eating so well, they then start to produce unnatural numbers of, basically, youngsters, and those unnatural numbers of youngsters will go and eat more rubbish and also they'll predate on the birds. So, straight away, these skylarks are looking at this stuff and they're going. I'm out of here. There's no way I'm staying here or I'm gonna nest ground, nesting bird on the open field, right and so therefore, basically there, there is a massive problem in there.
Speaker 3I said on on top of that, I said not only with the, with those that you've got in there. I said within the woodland. I said you've got big problems. There's no problems in the woodland. I went well, you have. I said because you've got so many gray squirrels in here that your grey squirrels are decimating your songbird population. No, they don't. We put up these bird boxes and the bird boxes basically the squirrels can't get into them. I said listen. I said unfortunately. He said those bird boxes that you're putting up, they're like a vending machine to a squirrel.
Speaker 3I said a squirrel learns that when the bird is going to lay the eggs, it knows when the full clutch is in there, it goes and eats them all and it knows that the bird will probably lay a second clutch of eggs to be able to eat. That I said so they never get a chance to breed or if they do get a chance, to basically produce chicks, the squirrels are going to eat the chicks. So, he said to me. These guys said to me well, what, what do you propose to do then? And I said well, listen, this is what I would, I would propose to do. They said, and they already do it at Epping Forest. He said in parts of Epping Forest they cordon off areas of the woodland once a year. He said they stop everybody going through and all the keepers basically the keepers, the rangers, go through with shotguns and they shoot every squirrel, every rook, every crow, everything they could have, to basically give the all of the songbirds a chance to come back because there are unnatural populations in here. Well, you, you would have thought I'd set off a bomb in the middle of the thing.
Speaker 3Everyone went mad and they all went mad at me and basically, and I and I and they said, oh, how can you do that as cruel? As I said, listen, listen. Well, guys, I went. It's not a case of basically that we're talking of other people responsible for this. I said or everybody here is as responsible for this as anyone else. I said we've all done it, it's our fault or it's our ancestors fault. He says and, and, and you know, even to the point of now, I said all of you guys here, he said, have killed more foxes than any hunt in this country. So not, I'm a lover of fox hunting, he said, but any hunt in this country. And I go what do you mean? And it was just about the time that wheelie bins came in and I said to them like all of you.
Speaker 3He said, used to put your rubbish out every night. He said, and basically the foxes would come out. He said they'd tear the bags open, wouldn't they? Yeah, yeah, they would. They'd tear the bags open, the bags would be all over it. I said right, okay. He says, overnight we've introduced wheelie bins. He says, overnight we've cut away the food supply of all those foxes. He said so, all those foxes now starving? He said because you guys have basically cut off their food supply. They said and all of us have created this problem. We're, and it's as much our ancestors fault and our fault as everybody else. Now, what I'm saying is that we need to take responsibility, to try to bait this, to bring an equilibrium to basically what kind of? I'm not saying we have to destroy everything, but we have to now basically manage it, because it's not yeah, no, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2But they don't want to hear that.
Speaker 3It's one of the arguments I use.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, but people, people don't want to say yeah but it's the same as, like the RSPB, they don't ever tell anybody in their newsletter that there's a boy going into it, all those reserves and nailing all the foxes that are in those reserves every night so that the ground nesting birds that are in there actually stand a chance of actually being there, because that would that wouldn't go down well for membership, would it well, the rspb will tell you that, basically, the peregrine falcon is an endangered species and it's not.
Speaker 3Yeah, there are more peregrine falcons basically flying around this countryside than you know. I beg to differ on that and I know a lot about. You know, I love birds of prey. I'm not saying that we should be shooting any birds of prey. I love birds of prey, but there are ways of twisting information that basically sits on the best side of people.
Speaker 2And yeah, they're not very full-coming with some of that. Absolutely well, we we had two, two peregrines actually flying over us while I had some guests at stalking. It was fantastic to watch them go up. I'm like there might be a duck come up in a minute or something like that. We'll get to see this actually in action. But uh, unfortunately they just kind of soared around for a bit and disappeared. But it's one of those things. But yeah, yeah, I think, think, I think the there's a. There's a definitely a massive disconnect that we speak about and people don't want to believe what, they don't want to hear it, but they'll listen to us, the, the guys that go out in the field and do it, because we're basically cold-hearted killers that don't care about anything and if anybody knows anything about that, it's us.
Speaker 3If anybody knows about really what what's going on, it's us that are out in the countryside and watching it and seeing what it is. And we're not cold-hearted killers because basically we go out, we select, we look at what it is, we take what Mother Nature would have taken and we're looking at basically the animals out there. And it's not for us, it's for welfare, yeah, for welfare, and it's for us to basically have deer populations that are manageable and basically within the ground that we've got. I mean I try to explain to this to people that that are manageable and basically within the ground that we've got. I mean I try to explain to this to people that, yeah, we have six deer species which only have two. Yeah, and those six deer species take their toll.
Speaker 3If you go down to epping forest, epping forest is basically and this is one of the things that mike collins, one of the um, the deer park managers down there, taught me years and years ago he said if you go into our native woodlands in epping forest, he said, normally the woodlands would be open. He said, and if you look at the woodland now, he says it's been encroached by, basically by bramble, massively amounts of bramble, and that's because of the munjack, because the munjack prune the bramble. He said, because they prune the bramble is that they sent out more and more traces which said encroach on the forest where you would have had these sort of areas of the forest, that these little groves where you would have had orchids and all that sort of stuff. It just chokes the whole of it because you have a browser deer in an area where traditionally there wouldn't be a browser deer yeah, which wouldn't, basically, and and it meant that, yeah, okay, the brown bull have grown, but in no way would have grown to the extent that it's growing. That you know nowadays. That is because of the amount of munchak they've got. So all of these things need to be understood and that's one of the reasons that you know we wrote, when we wrote venison, that the the game love of the book.
Speaker 3Um, we tried, steve and I really tried hard to present the book in a way that was open to everybody. It was a book that deer stalkers would love to buy because it's got all of the information about what they do and what they can do with the carcass and explains everything about, basically, you know all the stalking side of it. It's a book that foodies would love because basically it gives them their provenance side of everything or the food that they've gotten some lovely recipes in it. And it's also a book that what we the way we will try to write it was write it in a way that if you are somebody that knew nothing about deer stalking, you would open this book and you start to read it and it would not put you off. It would basically be opening the door very slowly into a world that you didn't really understand, but it would not put you off. It would basically be opening the door very slowly into a world that you didn't really understand, but it would give you the full facts and at the end of the books it explains the full facts as to basically what would happen if we didn't do this talk.
Speaker 3I mean, I try, I I'm a lover of basically stories, of making, because when you tell a story to somebody and it's an interesting story people remember that story. Yeah, people remember that story. Yeah, they might, and they remember the facts because the story you've told and and so I, one of the stories that I tell in there is basically you know, and it's just trying to simplify it for people and saying that look, if you had a herd of fallow or heard of deer in one place, that's not cool species. Let's say, I heard a deer in one place and you have a hundred acres of woodland and then you've got the farmer that plants all these fields around the woodland and that that those deer feed really really well off the fields and off the woodland, but they don't really eat a lot of the wood and they're eating off the fields because the farmer has basically produced a food that is unnatural. It's there a nice salad for them, really, yeah, so these deer produce really well that year.
Speaker 3And then what happens is that basically then the farmer comes along, he does the harvest. There's no more food in the, in the, in the fields, but they've all reproduced and they've got a lot of more deer than basically would normally be able to be handled. So then now what happens is the deer revert back to basically eating their natural food, which are the beach mast and everything that's basically within the woodland, and so they start to eat all that sort of stuff and because there's so many of them, the actual acreage of woodland can't sustain that amount of deer. So what they then start doing is they start damaging the trees, so they start killing the trees. Now the trees are producing the food for them, but now they're killing them, and so then the following year what happens is that basically, again there's this harvest. They basically eat really well out of the harvest. They produce all these more youngsters, there's even a bigger population of deer, and then the farmer comes along, takes his harvest and then they go into the woodland and half the trees are dead, so there's no food in the woodland for them.
Speaker 3Yeah, so then what starts to happen is that some of the deer will basically abort. They won't breed that year. The other, the animals, basically the older animals, will become weak. They don't have food, yeah, and they start to die out. The younger animals won't make it through the winter, so they start to die out. So you start to explain to people. This is what happens with mother nature, now traditionally mother in nature. What would happen is that a predator would take all of the younger ones out so they would always keep chomping at the edges of them, right, and to keep them in a manageable number. And that's that's what we did, that's what we are doing by doing that and you're trying to explain that people, when you explain it to people like that, they go cool. That makes sense and with venison we did that. We explained that.
Speaker 3But what we also did in venison is we tried to um, we try not to use loads of pictures of dead deer, because what we wanted to do is it's very easy to write a cookery book on game but loads of pictures of dead birds. It take you five minutes to just go game dealer, get them and take picture of them. But we wanted to take pictures of stuff out in the wild and steve is an outstanding photographer, you know. I mean he is like brilliant and he, you know you can see in the book the way that he the photography that he does. He's just so clever about how he does it. He's very unintrusive and he's not wildlife photography by any means, he's a food photographer. But he's very clever about the way he put together some of Some of the photographs that he got there. Some of the ducks rising with the water coming off and all stuff like that is incredible.
Speaker 3But we wanted to tell that in pictures in live animals, right? So then, basically the end of it, we can explain all this sort of stuff and I have had people that are vegetarians that are taking the book up and the first thing I said to everybody when they buy the books I went not a cookery book. You go, yes, it is, it's got. No, it's not a cookery book, it's a story book that you read from cover to cover and then you use it as a cookery book, he said, because then you'll know the background of the product but that's, that's what it should be, and I think it allows people to go on that journey, doesn't it?
Speaker 2and I think? I think people are slowly not. Not, it's not going to be a quick thing, but I think people are slowly realizing that they actually want accountability for the meat they eat. Now, if we get maybe one or two and every stalker gets one or two people interested, that's one or two more people that can go and sit in the pub and actually have that conversation and say I stalked and shot a deer and it and it doesn't have to be. Why did you do that? Do that? Well, I'll explain why. Because as long as the guys that are taking them out explain to them the reason for it, suddenly it can be they can give that same story back to the people they're trying to explain it to as well, and it, it's a, it's the education thing. Really, I think we had a bit of a lull where this didn't happen.
British Venison Quality and Supermarkets
Speaker 3Well, we didn't need to, we didn't need to explain to anybody anything. And then all of a sudden, now everybody's being questioned about everything. I mean, you tell me, I went to a show once because I do lots of demonstrations at shows and stuff my wife, obviously, she's at lots of shows, so I go with her and we went to a demonstration once and there was a guy had a board out and it said, um, organic, wild venison. Now that that's impossible, you can't have that. Yeah, exactly yeah. So I walked up to him and I said to him you're venison. He said it says organic, wild. And he went yeah, it is yeah. And I went where did it come from? And he said, well, he said it's shot on such. I said, well, it's not organic. And he and he went yes, it is. And I went no, it's not. They said you can't say it's organic. I said if it is organic, then it's farmed, it's not wild. Exactly. I said so, yeah, it's either one thing or the other, you can't have the two and it. But it's a. It's again. It's a thing that these people were basically selling this and they need me to understand it.
Speaker 3What they're talking about and for a long time, wild venison was basically put down as organic, but it's not. It's actually. It's better than organic because it has the best husbandry, because it's an animal that lives in its own environment. It's shot with no stress. Do you know that animals, basically? Well, so in spain, uh, they opened the first wild, uh, the first deer farm in spain, which is basically in the southern part of spain, in cadiz. I went out to do some work with the guys, okay, and they were telling me that, um, from loading the animals on the that they, they were loading the animals and taking to an abattoir right, these are red deer and they said that, basically, when they were loading the animals onto the trucks and taking to the abattoir, between leaving the site and going to the abattoir, which was about 45 minutes away, so it wasn't a trip, some animals lost up to three kilos in weight. Stress, yeah, stress, no, they weren't having a pee and a poo and everything else. It was stress of the animals.
Speaker 2So, basically, animals that are shot in the field don't have any of that stress well, no, exactly the head down grazing away and the next thing bob's falling over, kind of thing. It's like, oh, what happened there?
Speaker 3that's it, yeah, done and that's it it's a very natural way of predation and, if anything, if you watch, if we were to be able to basically watch a herd of deer, that basically once and one animals be shot and run off, they'd run for a certain, a certain period and then they'd stop and they'll carry on grazing again and they go.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly, we see on the hill all the time you you'll get in, you'll shoot something. They might run maybe two, three hundred yards, but normally they'll. They'll pull up again and as long as there's nothing to spook them and you don't jump up and wave your arms around, you just lay there, they'll just slow down. They'll wonder what's happened, go back to grazing and that's it.
Speaker 3Yeah, they carry on, you know I am, yeah, I mean I'm, you know, I'm a great one for for that sort of stuff. I mean, like you know, whenever I, whenever I go out stalking and basically you know, we try to do to the best of our ability with, with good equipment, you know, stuff that's going to knock the animal down and basically it'd be efficient in what we're doing. Um, you know, and it's uh, yeah, I mean it's the most ethical piece of meat that you could possibly. I mean, I love it when we have people here at home and we have dinner parties and I can sell something. Yeah, I shot that that came from such and such and that's where it came from. And, and as chefs, we shouldn't be afraid to do that. We should basically be able to give the provenance of our product basically straight on the menu and explain it to our customers basically, especially where it came from I think that that I think that's the most important part and I think I think I think that's starting to to happen.
Speaker 2People, as I say, I was seeing it more on social media now people want to know, or people want to get involved and they want to, they want to get a bit of a bit of something for themselves, like we've had guys up that have have seen videos that alex has produced or my posts. They've come up, they've come out, they've taken something and and that's that's really good. Um, so actually that carries me on quite nicely, because you just mentioned there, you started talking about equipment and kit. Let's just, let's dig into the stalker, because you are, you've obviously right, you've come, you've come from birds of prey and there's, there's a wealth of kit there. But let's go into your stalking kit. So talk about what sort of rifle, for example, what are you using there? I am all the way through to the bonus I go. You're a proper and I was a seiko user, so I I was gonna get a seiko but ended up with a tika, but I do actually have a seiko 75 that that's what I've got.
Speaker 3Yeah, oh god, that that. Listen, that's's gotta be one of the most iconic rifles, right? And anybody that basically has anything to do with Seiko's or Tika's, um, we'll tell you that the well, the Seiko 75 is considered one of their, their best rifles ever.
Speaker 2There was so much action, it was fantastic.
Speaker 3It's just yeah it one my rifle must be. It must be 25, 30 years old and the one that I've got. I've got seiko 243. Um, it's uh, it basically had a few little bits in here. It's got a trimly trigger on it, so basically very light trigger, and and I've got a ta moderator on it which is the old ta moderator. So I think the old, the old ta moderators were about like three foot long, and then the new t8 model is only about a foot long, you know. So, even nowadays they're massive, yeah, but you've got this T8 moderator and it's still working, still working fine.
Speaker 3Um, I love this rifle to death. Um, I, I, I've used it pretty much all of my stalking life. I use Seiko's. Before I had a Seiko Finlay, uh, before, when I used to go out with Julian. That's where I got my love for, for psychos. Right, abilities of them is incredible. They are this very, very reliable rifle. I mean even when I've been up on the hill and basically dropped it and did whatever it is and then basically shot something with it. I mean it's just spot on, you know, and the action on them and everything is great. Um, obviously, with the, with the moving over from lead now to basically non-toxics. Um, I found that the 70, my 75 doesn't particularly like non-toxic. Um, it will take non-toxic for and and the bullets are good for up to about 100 yards and then, after 100 yards, have become a bit unstable. Um, and I'm still in the. I'm still in the throes of looking for a bullet that will suit it. I've spent about 300 quid on bullets at basically trying to find out that they're not.
Speaker 2They're just not doing the job so that's mainly because I think the the the 243 it was, it was never a particularly good caliber for firing a 100 grain bullet. It was a 95 grain bullet was the best out of a 243 I always found I, I see I've always used 100 grain.
Speaker 3I used to use uh a 95 grain bullets, basically um, and then I, when I got no sorry, I used to use uh 95 grain bullets, basically um. And then I, when I got no sorry, I used to use 75 grain bullets and then I swapped to not to 100 grain when I went up to scotland, because they insisted on 100 grand bullets.
Speaker 3Yes, yeah, yeah and then I got tired of going backwards and forwards and having to put the rifle on. So in the end I stuck with 100 grain and for me the 100 grain bullets worked perfectly with everything I just had to do. The shot placement on a smaller animals would just have to be a bit more careful, um, but apart from that it did work. It suited my rifle. You know I I was using normas, um, the 243, normas 100 grains and and they work perfectly well, um, but the twist rates in the um, in the 243, the 75s, is just not. At the moment I haven't found a bullet that suits it that's what people have said yeah, yeah, there are going to be.
Speaker 3I've no, I've no doubt that there will be innovation that will basically bring a bullet like that. I mean otherwise, I mean I might even change the barrel out on it to basically get a more modern twist right on the barrel, because I just love the rifle and last year my son shot his first two deer with it and so therefore I will never get rid of it well, that that's the thing.
Speaker 2That was the reason that my I've obviously my, my 308 that's used on the hill is, uh, is, is that old tika m65 when, when tika was still owned, but was was tika and they were made in finland and hence the reason it was rebarreled, because the action was great, I decided to have a new barrel put on it because, at the end of the day, it's done everything for me. So it's a 1979 rifle, but maybe before I was born, but it's still, it's still working. It still works. So so why would you change it? Yeah?
Speaker 3yeah, well, I, I. So basically I met, um. I met carl from uh, jim k uh, about a year and a half ago and carl and I hit it off as friends and sort of like that, and I was explaining to him about the 75 that I had and he said to me that you know, hosey, it's about time you traded it in. And yeah, I was. I had a ticket for a 308 um because we were with we're next now into the phase of basically doing the next book, which the last book that we're going to do, which is basically on wild boar and and um and rabbit and hare, and so for the wild boar, I needed to go up a caliber. So I got my ticket for 308 or variation for 308 um, and carl said to me you know, you just trade it in. I went, I don't want to get rid of it.
Speaker 3I really love this gun and now that my son shot with it yeah, and he shot well with it I mean he's, he's good, he's a very, he shoots really well and he shot well with it.
Speaker 3I mean he is good, he's a very, he shoots really well and he shot a lovely road buck and a lovely road um uh, munchak buck with it, yeah, right, and so, um, so he said, right, he said we're going to get you something else. He said, uh, something a bit special. So they gave me a. Uh, he said to me when he gave it to me, uh, simon, who was a gmk sort of, said to me well, if you love your 75, you're going to love this even more, he said, because it's got all the attributes of the 75. He said, but it's a more modern rifle, it's lighter, um, there's a trigger adjustment which you can basically adjust as you like, which I haven't touched because I I'm quite happy with the way the trigger set up with it. Uh, it's got a standard moderator on it, which is basically lovely. It's light, you know again, nothing like my old t8 and, um, I've used this rifle since september and, uh, I'm getting to the point where I'm lovely, more than 75.
Speaker 2But the question, the question okay, so the set you're 75, is that the because my, my set, my 75, it is. Is that the dual stack magazine, or is that a five shot or a three shot?
Speaker 3no, it's a five shot, yeah it's a five shot and it's a, it's a five-stop hunter. So it's basically wood, yeah, yeah, and and the seiko that I've got is uh, is a hunter as well. So basically it's all wood. Um, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not into plastic stocks. I always it, always. This, this is, this is I makes me laugh. Right, because people that have shotguns right will go out to the peg in. The shotguns are in the thing. They take them out very carefully, they shoot with them, don't want to get them muddy. They put them back into the thing. They take them back right and at the end of the thing, everybody cleans them and polishes them all up and puts them all away. And it's not a precision tool, it's no way no, no, no, no.
Wildlife Management and Conservation Challenges
Speaker 3Stalkers, take this absolutely pristine precision tool. They cover it in mud, in water, they have everything. Take it home, put it in the corner, dry it off. You put it into the thing upstairs without cleaning it for like months on end and they're thinking hold on a minute, yeah, yeah. And then they say, oh no, you can't have wood because it swells with water and it basically and you know it doesn't, it doesn't keep as well as the plastic.
Speaker 2But hold on, it's a precision piece of equipment, you know, look after it yeah, um, I'd rather have a piece of wood on my rifle than than a plastic stock. I I have a plastic stock on a couple of them. My, my 17 hmr has a plastic stock, but that is just. It's a tool for just going out and pest control, but all my my hunting rifles are are wooden stock.
Speaker 3Yeah yeah, but my, my this 75, the sorry, the 8, the 90 that I've got, um, I I really like it. I mean, I've shot. Um, I was up with david freer up in um, uh, our goal shoot with him, and I shot two, two hinds with him actually, no, I shot four hinds with him, um with it, and yeah, I was shooting at basically sort of distances of basically 210 meters, 220 meters uphill, and you know, knocked them all over, no problem, right, and the shot placement was great. Um, I went out with alex, I did a video with alex that wild on a fallow and, if anything, we were over 200, it was just over 200 meters, but it's 200 yards, so probably about 200 meters. Odd, on the other side of a wood, through woodland. Um, and I took a shot and I said to alex at the time I aimed a little bit higher. But then I've got my, I've got my 243 head on where I'm aiming a little bit higher and I aimed higher. No, there's no need to aim higher because basically where I put the shot, that's where it went and it dropped it straight away a big, big fallow, yielding fallow.
Speaker 3Um, yeah, it's a lovely rifle, it shoots beautifully. Um, uh, I mean david freer shot it when he was down here and he was very impressed with it. I think the 90s are are really nice. I had an 85 and the 85 that I had had a uh vehement barrel on it and I didn't like it as much, okay, and I found it a bit heavy and I I just didn't, didn't get on with it. Um, but this 90 is, yeah, I mean paul childly's uh, he was using it before I was and he's got, I mean he's got some, he's got some composite stock ones and I think he's even got a um, uh, what they call it, um a carbon fiber one okay yeah, yeah, and he and yeah, he loves it.
Speaker 3He loves it to bits, um, and I have fallen in love with it as well. It's a really great rifle. Yeah, very really. I think about psychos is they're very reliable. Yeah, they're a great, reliable rifle. Yeah, they're not a mickey mouse toy, they're, they're, they're chunky, they're, you know, they they shoot well, it doesn't matter what you do with them, why they seem to basis their of them. So I've got, I've got a 90 at the moment I've got a 75 um, which I've also got, which I pursued, both of those um I also. Then I've got um, uh, a range of four um moderate, a range of four uh optics on my 75 I was gonna say you're a steiner man, aren't you?
Speaker 2yeah?
Speaker 3yeah, I, I discovered steiner, so I went through, uh, leop, great, you know, optics on that Really nice, basically for the money, great, you know, really really good. And then I went from there I went to Schmidt Bender and I had that, and the amount of money that I spent on my first optics in comparison to the amount of money I spent on my actual Schmidt Bender the Schmidt Bender was more basic than the original one that had, I mean, my original one basically would have illuminated reticle, it had basically a zoom on it. It was great, you know, guns blazing. And then when I went to the, to smith and bender because I went to smith and bender or you know shirofsky, I was going to go to next, um, for the money, I, I just had a basic scope, you know know, and I didn't like it as much. And then from that I chopped it in and I went for the Steiner and the.
Speaker 3I've got the 8x56, I think it is, or 8x52, I can't remember, and it's again got a zoom, it's got a illuminated reticle inside. And I got the Ranger 4, which is what I've got on the 75 and that's beautiful, I love it, and I haven't moved from Steiner since. And then on the new 90, I've got a Ranger 8, which is a little bit bigger, and that's again that perfect. Yeah, the glass on it is really lovely. Very clear, low-level light. It's brilliant as well. That's a lot of light in. Yeah, they're great.
Speaker 2And then I think steiner really are a very good optics. I've. I think we've got the same binoculars. I think you've got the the range of binoculars as well. Yeah, and I'm right, I can't fault them. They're, they're fantastic, absolutely brilliant again in low light, they're great.
Speaker 3I do a lot of woodland stalking and and recently only recently, within the last year or so I started using thermals for woodland stalking, because a lot of the woodland I do is basically there's quite a lot of like probably you have a lot of alpine trees, so basically when they're in the shadows of the alpine tree, you just can't see them, you're not doing them. So basically I've also got a Steiner thermal which I've got and it's a new thermal they've got and I had that this year to play around with and I found that fantastic. I mean, it's got a setting on it which is called Detect and you click it on and if there's no heat source in front of you, it's just pitch black. And then, as you're coming around, any heat source it's like someone's turned the light on it just glows, yeah, so you can't see any. You can't see any outlines of trees or anything like you would in a normal, normal thermal. Yeah, yeah, like a normal thermal, you just basically see, you can pinpoint the, the thermal, you know the, the image, that's basically all there, or the heat source on that, and it's very, very good for that, um and and I tend to use the binoculars a lot, uh, rather than thermals, I'll use the thermal scanning around every now and then, but I'll use the, you know, and those, those binoculars are, they're great, they can take, they can take some punishment.
Speaker 3I mean, I really can. Yeah, I've just come back from um, czech republic, and we were out in czech republic and for three or four days it was pissing it down with rain and we were lying in mud and everything right. And you know both those items the, the actual thermal and the uh, the binoculars basically handled it extremely well. You know the third, the, the binoculars. Basically you've got them back, you wiped them off and, boom, they're ready to go again. You know they're great, whereas other other binoculars I found before, yeah, if you get a lot of water in there at some point, it's going to seep into the, the optic and and you're going to end up with basically a foggy lens or something. And these are, these are great, they're really good.
Speaker 2No, they seem to have it. I think the they're rubber coated. They're well armored. The only thing I had this year was the. The rain was that bad on them that I ended up losing the. Um, the rubber cap that's on the adjuster in the middle, so that's gone. And I've had to re-glue on my two lens um, uh, sort of eye reliefs because they came off because it was just so wet so they need to go back at some point. But I can't let my binoculars go because I don't have a spare pair. And then they keep saying, oh, you've got to send them back to the factory.
Speaker 3It's like, no, I'll just get some rubber glue out for now if you get, if you're going to stalking show, get them to, maybe might be able to bring you some for the stalking show. I mean, the gmk are going to be there at the stalking show so I will.
Speaker 2We'll have to have a chat with him, but uh, yeah, exactly, but what, what? What are the piece of kit? I'm assuming you've? You've got sticks, because I think you're a primos man, aren't you? Yeah?
Speaker 3yeah, I do. Um, I like primos because, um, I know that lots of people basically go started to using the quad sticks and stuff like that. I just don't get on with the quad sticks. Um, I didn't get on with the primos. I had a. I had basically an old set of like crossings, you know, single sticks, um before. And then I bought these primos and in a friend of mine, basically I had them with just a single yoke and a friend of mine said, oh, you want to try the double yokes on them because it does hold the rifle a lot steadier. You know, everyone's got a quad sticks and these will hold it as steady as a quad stick. So I thought, all right, I'll give it a go. So I bought these double yoke, which goes, it fits on the top of it. You just unclip it back on top. And then at first I found them really cumbersome. You know they're just still getting in the way everywhere. But then I got used to them and now they're great. I mean, uh, and, and I had.
Speaker 3So I had an incident last year and I was out in Czech Republic with them and I was, there was a side of the hill and what happened? I'd had this really long stalk on a, on a, some Mouflon Rams, and as I was coming into them I basically had to go right out onto open ground up the side of a hill, to get on top of a hill, to be above them to look down on them. And it was a long stalk. I got to the top. In the end. I end up thinking, well, I'm going to go to the top of the hill and I'm going to take a shot off the top of the hill. So I dropped my sticks, dropped my thermal, dropped everything right and just took the rifle to the top of this hill.
Speaker 3Got to the top of the hill, I've picked up my thermal and my binoculars, climbed back up to the top of the hill, looked with the thermal binoculars looking, and I could see these three little dots off in the distance and I'm thinking that must be them. So I sat there for a while watching. All of a sudden these three rodeo came out. I thought, bloody hell, it's not them. So then I thought, okay, well, they're gone. You know, somehow they've just, you know, they've done the normal trick for all of our stalkers, basically, where they just disappear into the. You're thinking how the hell did they get out of there? And I climbed to the bottom of the hill, got all my kit together and as I walked around the hill, these things appeared in front of me and they're about 90 yards away from me.
Speaker 3So I backed back to the hill and then I've just dropped the primo sticks and of course the hill was like this and two legs just went up on the side of the hill. The other one went down. It was rock steady, you know, ready to go, and I couldn't have done that with any other stick. You know, I just couldn't have done that and I I shot a really nice ram, you know, with it. And other times when I've been in woodland where there's uneven ground they're just fantastic on uneven ground. When you're deploying them, yeah, I normally get out the car, I set them to the height and I want them, and then I just fold them up, walk with them and when I go I just basically drop them and basically put the gun onto them and normally I've always got time to basically take a shot with them yeah, this was the big debate I had, because obviously everybody around me went to quad sticks and I used to.
Speaker 2I have a lot of shooting on clear film and when you're moving across that, my, my argument, especially talking to klaus, was about what his quad sticks was. They won't work on clear film. And he's like, oh, they will, they will. I'm like no, because if you deploy those sticks and the ground you might be standing on a tractor rut. You need legs that are going to go, two that may be a foot higher and one that goes right down, which is exactly what you speak about. So I I use, I alternate between the two. If it's flat ground, stalking, it'll be the quad sticks, but if I'm out on the clear fell, it's normally the primos. Um, I've got one of those, um, these mounts. You talk about the yokes that go on it, but my rifle's, so heavy, even sat on that it ends up just being sort of this very big, unstable mass and it's like, no, I won't use that now I, I, I I've got so used to them now that I I find it difficult to go out without them.
Speaker 3Um, you know, I I've been out a couple of times when you know like I've done the normal stalkers thing, you get up late in the morning, you rush in to get out, forgot the sticks and basically then got there and I feel like, you know, I feel like I've left the rifle up, just like shit. What do I do now? I've got to lean on a tree, but they are. I think, yeah, the whole thing about stalking is confidence, yes, confidence in the kit that you've got and majority of us, basically I would say a lot of stalkers in the uk.
Speaker 3But it's not part confidence and it's part also trusting in your kit that it's going to do the job properly and you're going to knock that animal down, you're not going to injure it, and so we're all very, very conscious of the fact that, basically, our rifles are bang on and that when you take that shot, that it's going to knock wherever it is. Now, as soon as you lose confidence in one of those bits of equipment, then you're just basically you're backtracking yeah, oh god, where did it go? What did it hit. How did it hit it? And, yeah, it's a dangerous piece of equipment on top of that. But you know, fundamentally, yeah, when you've got a rifle, that is that you're shooting on target, shooting well with it, you know, and all your, all your other kit is falling into place with it.
Speaker 2Yeah then, and great, you know that's, that's where it goes I find with novices what's really interesting is if you take them out and you put them on quad sticks or primos. I find teaching them on quad sticks is so much easier because you only get one, one position of movement, which is the vertical. That's it straight away. You you've taken out the horizontal. When you give them a, for example, the primos, just a single yoke that you've got it resting on the front of the gun. There's too much movement. They move their body so much that there's there's all this movement going on. So it's easier to teach somebody on on the quad sticks and then eventually, as they get confidence, you can move them over. But yeah, that's just the way I find it yeah, no, I, yeah, I, I yeah.
Speaker 3I mean, yeah, I wouldn't be without them. I mean I've got. I know a load of people have basically sort of argued about the fact that they go wrong, that the legs go wrong with them. Well, I've had my pair now I must have had them for about eight years and mine I mean, yeah, they've had plenty of evenings where I've left them out.
José's Preferred Stalking Equipment
Speaker 2They got rained on and everything else and it's still okay as long as you dry them and you do look after them. I think it's like anything. If you, if you maintain and look after your kit, it's fine. If you're the type of person that's soaking wet, you chuck it in the back of the cupboard, throw a wet coat over the top of it, it's bound to go wrong, it's bound to give up. Uh, if you cover it in grit and leave it, it's gonna give up. To be honest, you honest, you can strip these Primo sticks down. They're pretty easy and, yeah, they clean up nicely.
Speaker 3Yeah, I'm not having a problem. My only other piece of kit that I've got, that knife-wise knife-wise I use. I've got two knives that I use for Grollicking. I've got one. I've got a. It's an old, well, it's an old, it's basically a. It's a swedish filleting knife, really right, which has got a gut hook on it, um, okay, and it's it's ones that they swivel around. I don't know if you've seen, yeah, you press a button type of thing. Yeah, you press a button on it and it comes out and there's a knife on one end which is like a little filleting knife, yeah, and then you switch it the other way and the knife tucks in and then the hook, the, the gut hook, comes out on the other side and they're, they've got an aluminous handle. Um, I've forgotten the name of them now begins with l, lack, lack, sund, or something like that. And uh, I've got those which I use. I use that as my grolic knife and and then basically for um, all the other bits, I've got my flint and flame bony knife which I basically take out of me. I normally take that that. I use that for bleeding and because it's quite a long knife, it's got a nice tip on it, um, and that's the pro series knife. So, basically, feeling flame, do the classic series and then they do a pro series and a pro series basically has got a, um, a game larder collection set which is basically has all the knives that you need for the game larder, but they're all now with these sort of rubberized handles, so they're more of a larder knife that you would use. Basically, they've got black handles on them there and they're really good. I mean, I'm not saying that just because I use them, but they sent me the boning knives a long, long time before anybody else had them and I had five of them and I gave some of my stalking friends around me one each and I said abuse them, just take them out and abuse them and use them. And although they're no good for growlicking because they have got a tip, it's a slightly rounded tip like a filleting tip on them. Yeah, yeah, um. So basically, but the, the actual base of the knife is slightly broader for boning, so it's quite sturdy, um, so you can bone a whole deer with it. You know, you can do the whole thing. I use it for, for, for, um, bleeding. Uh, I use that for bleeding and then I can use the the other stick for the other knife of us. Just opening up the deer, I put a little slit at the top, open it up and I'll use the boning knife for everything else.
Speaker 3The boning knife is fantastic for skinning because it's got that curved blade. Yeah, I tend to use a knife, um flat when I'm skinning as opposed to cutting, so I just use, I just tend to shave, and because it's got that curved blade, it gets. It tucks in behind the animal as you're cutting and pulling it away fantastic. And then, and it does leave. I mean I I hate carcasses, that where the, the fingers have been pulled off, you know, and the carcasses basically.
Speaker 3So you get this carcass with no fingers on the back. When I say fingers, you know what I mean by the muscles. You mean like bacon strips, yeah, yeah, yeah, the stripes that come on it. I don't like carcasses when they've not, they haven't got that on, they've got it on. I mean, I watch these videos of basically the americans when they're tanning hides and one of the things they do is they say, oh, you gotta get all the meat off the hide. I went, well, I haven't got any meat on the hide. Why? Why do I need to get the meat off because my hides are clean, you know when I'm doing that sort of stuff, but, um, but yeah, I try to get everything off. I'm a very frugal chef, so then I can use it. Yeah, um, but yeah, I mean, that's that's. The other thing, is that that knife? Um, I don't think there's anything else in there.
Speaker 3I've got a blood torch which I carry with me, okay, um, and my little blood torch, basically, that's just in case. Basically I need to to follow a blood trail. Um, I mean, I did. I've only ever used it once and actually I shot a wild boar in um czech republic and, uh, it's quite a funny story.
Speaker 3Actually, I was out with a guy and we were tracking wild boar in the woodland and he said to me I took a shot of this wild boar. There was a load of wild boar under these trees and when I was watching them, I see under these trees, and he pointed out which one for me to take and it was during the day, so he pointed out I could see four of them and, um, he said, take that one. So I shot it and I took a chest, shot right and it ran and as I hit it, there was an explosion of wild boar, and it must be about 25 wild boar, because they're all hiding under the trees. I couldn't see them and they all ran towards us and I jumped up and down and screamed like a girl right as I'm passing, because I was trying to dodge these wild boars. They ran past me and anyway they, after everything, calmed down. We followed the one that I'd shot and abroad they're really really, quite rightly so, very anal about mostly tracking. They'll have to do their exams about tracking.
Speaker 3So he would take me out to a point where the blood trail was and he'd stop me and then he'd got, he'd say, stay there, and then they'd go off and find the trail again and then he'd start me moving and he stopped there and then we lost the trail and I had this blood torture me. I just turned it on and I showed him the blood torch and he'd never seen one before and we tracked it to where this, this ball was and it wasn't particularly big ball. But when he got there, this ball was sort of like lying down like this with his head down, and um, I thought, oh no, there it is and I went to walk to it. He grabbed hold of me, pulled me back and he went no, no, no, no. And he I didn't speak Czech and he didn't speak English. So what we were doing, we were working on Google Translate, right.
Speaker 3So he was writing in Czech and translating into English and handing me his phone and I was doing the same with my phone and he said to me shoot it again. And he said in the head. So I shot it in the head and it keeled over and then he typed furiously and he gave me the phone and he explained that when they are injured, he said they'll basically just lie down and they'll just wait for you to come in. And they're just lying there waiting for you to come in. He said and if you, if they've got their eyes closed and they're down like that, they're not dead. And when this thing keeled over, his eyes opened and he was lying there with his eyes open and he said to me he said the only time you go anywhere near them is if they're on their side with their eyes open. He said that's when you'll go near them. He said otherwise than that. He said don't go anywhere near them. He said they're really, really dangerous.
Speaker 3Uh, but yeah, that's the blood. I've got blood torture. Obviously I've got a torch in my little head, torch which I've got to carry in there, um, and that's about it. Really I don't really carry. I don't even carry all that kit with me. I tend to leave it in the car and basically I'm lucky enough that where I go stalking, um, I can park the car in a central place and wherever I go, I'm not too far away and also I can get off road and to where carcasses are, to basically, you know, extract carcasses. Unlike you guys, I basically have to drag them across the hills well, again, no, but even even there, the chances are.
Speaker 2If you, if you actually ask me what's in the kit, normally I've got a rucksack on because you're carrying a bit of lunch, but we've only got a drag strap and a knife with us. That's it. So, yeah, I think, I think you don't need to take a lot stalking if you take two, if, when you're lowland stalking, I was always taught if it doesn't fit in your pocket, then you've got too much kit. And if, up on the hills, the only reason we've got a rucksack is to carry a bit of water, a bit of food, and actually mainly it's because we put our rifles in these vaughan rucksacks just to take the weight off your shoulders. But you don't need to take out a huge bag full of groceries and all the rest of it up the hill with you. It's um and and that's how I was always taught it's if you, if you're out stalking on the lowlands, you jump out the car and you're gone. That's it.
Speaker 3You're ready to go yeah, no, well, quite rightly so. Yeah, and you're not. You're never too far away from the car anyway without you and normally for extraction and stuff, right, you can. Where I am, I know I can get the car up to, basically I can drag it to a point and I can get the car to the point. I mean the other thing I've got in the car which is basically I've got one of these um, uh, these uh winches that basically go onto the back of your tow bar, uh, clip on top of the bow bar and you can mince it up so I growlick everything, basically suspended growlicks, which is cleaner. I never used to, but since I got this piece of kit, it's great. I mean it'll even take a big fallow deer basically up onto the top of it and I'll suspend growlick everything on there.
Speaker 2There's something nice about doing a suspended growlick. I know some people go, oh it's quicker, just do it on the floor. But actually, once it's dead, it doesn't matter how long it takes you to do a growlick, and the beauty of it is you can bring it literally from the back end to the front end and everything comes out as a one-off.
Speaker 3Yeah, it's all clean, brilliant, yeah yeah lovely it's a not yeah, and it's a nice. It's a nice bit of kit to do it. Okay, it takes a couple minutes to basically put together, but I bought it and you know it's the best thing I bought. I mean, I'm about to change my car because I've got a pathfinder which basically I use the back of it for that. But I'm going to get a double cab pickup and the double cab pickup will probably have a winch in the back of it. Now, because I'm getting older, basically, lugging deer into the back of the rally car all the time is basically a pain in the ass, but um, but yeah, I mean taking all the effort out of it.
Speaker 2That's what I'm trying to do but that's why we have all this kit and there's no point in breaking your back. I was trying to explain the other day to somebody. It's like if you can use machinery now, we might as well use the machine instead of trying to break our backs doing it. Because at the end of the day, if you can use a bit of technology, like you say, a winch in the back, you've got your, your gambrel and things like that set up to to growl at your deer and then you can winch your tray into the back of it, drive home. That's it. Job done, isn't it?
Speaker 3it's, um, you take away the hard work well, the important bit for me as well is obviously, again, I'm very focused on the fact that it's food and so, because I'm very focused on the fact that it's food is, basically I want that carcass as clean as possible. Suspended garlic also allows me to basically take the offal nice and cleanly out, um, so that I can basically get that off. I always take the offal with me, um, and I I'll use the offal here or I'll even basically sort of sometimes I'll give it to the dogs. I mean normally I mean I'll cook the offal.
Speaker 3I mean you know the heart venison heart is delicious if you braise it. You know, basically the stuffing inside is absolutely delicious and the liver is as well when it's nice and fresh. And so, yeah, I mean yeah, for me those are the sort of the essential bits of kit, but I mean like, yeah, rifle wise psycho, definitely 100. I mean I know loads of people are going to argue with me basically about blasters and they're all going to tell you it's a blaza they need exactly.
Speaker 2Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah so the last bit is you're going to be, I believe, at the stalking show and you're going to be doing your live demonstrations and stuff like that. Is there anything else that's going on that people would be keen to hear about?
Speaker 3yeah, well, well, at the stalking show, rachel and I will be doing all the, basically like we did last year. So we've got the wild boar, we've got the whole carcasses to do. I think we're doing one each day. Okay, all that, we are one of the exciting things which will basically and this will be the first time I basically mentioned it and it will be coming out, hopefully in the next week or so Basically, something will come out, but there's going to be a competition, basically a new competition at the show, and that is for breaking down a haunch of venison.
Stalking Show Competition Announcement
Speaker 3So there's a video that's going to come out on social media and on the stalking show site and it'll be sort of put out there for everybody, and the video shows basically exactly how to break the muscles down in a haunch and, and then what you'll have to do is you have to basically come in, you register by sending an email through to the stalking show and once you've registered, uh, you say what day you want to come. So basically, there'll be five slots in the morning or five heats in the morning. Um, on the uh, I think it's around, I think it was, I think it's 10 o'clock, uh, so it'll be five places at 10 o'clock and five places at, basically, uh, two o'clock, and you'll be able to you register on to do one of those places. When you get there, there'll be a flint and flame filleting knife, a flint and flame uh, boning knife, which is what you need to do it, and there'll be some saws and you have to break down the haunch in the same way that I do in the video and then put your name on it. The name will be there and everything right, and then we will come and judge those and then there'll'll be the next heat in the afternoon. We'll do exactly the same. And then on the Sunday we're going to do exactly the same two heats on Sunday, and then there's going to be a winner.
Speaker 3There's going to be some great prizes and first, second and third prize. There's going to be five sets of prizes at the first, so the finity knife and the bony knife that you're using to break down the Five people will get a set of those, yeah, uh, basically each take to have as a prize. And then there'll be first, second and third prize as well, which have yet to be basically announced, um, but we're hoping, I mean, it's not something that, yeah, we're not going to put people on stage or any of that. You just turn up, you give your name over to the lady. It's going to be there. They're basically taking your names.
Speaker 3You get onto your your haunch and you do it. And then, once you've done your haunch, you just leave your name there and we'll judge it afterwards. But we'll come over and judge it and you leave your knives and everything there and we'll judge it. So you don't even have to bring anything to do it. The haunch will be supplied, the knives will be supplied, everything there. But it's a because we want to carry this on for next year and it's going to be a different set of butcheries and we'll be announcing that on the show oh, sounds good.
Speaker 3Yeah, and then obviously, alex is going to be there. Uh, the guys from deer cast are going to be there. You're going to be there, I'll take it, I'm going to be there, yeah, yeah. So you know, everybody's going to be there. Everybody has anything or anything to do with stalking. I mean I and if you haven't been to the stalking show, you should go, because I mean, it's the place to go and see stuff's great, friendly show. Loads of people to give you loads of advice on basically what, what sake a rifle to buy? Uh, yeah, loads of stuff like that. There's some great, you know great shooting celebrities that are going to be there. So, yeah, I mean, and loads of people that have loads of time for anyone that's getting into stalking to be able to basically dispel myths and also basically to guide you in the right way yeah, I think, I think that's the main thing about it.
Speaker 2The show is it, it's it's the only show that I've been to. That's purely 100 dedicated really to, to stalking, and if you've got a question, everybody seems to be really friendly, all the stallholders that were there. You can stand and have a chat and I think this year it's bigger, it's three, I think. Yeah, david was saying it's three, three, um three halls. So, yeah, it should be. It should be good. Yep, I'll look forward to it absolutely. Well, I think. I think.
Speaker 2I think everybody's, as you say, everybody's going to be there. So this time and people get to, uh, to come along, I think I'm helping alex out, so the two of us will be, uh, be there, and we'll be there for questions and hopefully we'll be trying to grab a few interviews with people. Well, I'll try and grab a few interviews with people and sort of record something on the day, but you can't really do a live podcast, so it's going to kind of be snippets of of what the best bits are and stuff like that, and we'll take it from there yeah, well, I think, I think I think alex has put me down for an interview on one of those in between me cooking or something, or we'll get over to him and basically have a bit of a chat with him.
Speaker 3Um, yeah, that's what we do, they're good, super well.
Speaker 2I think that kind of brings us to a quite a nice conclusion. To be honest, it's a quite a high point to end on. There's a good competition, so I think we'll we'll draw it to a close there. But thank you ever so much for your time.
Speaker 3It's been fantastic thank you for having me no worries at all, we'll uh.
Speaker 2Well, we'll see you. Well, it's uh, what is it? A couple of months now before, uh, the stalking show, so we'll catch up then. Thanks a lot definitely see you there.
Speaker 2Bye hope you enjoyed that. It was certainly fun making it. Do apologize for a few of the bits of audio in there that are a bit glitchy, but unfortunately that's the downside sometimes of doing these remote podcasts. Hopefully we will see you all at the show. Get yourself entered into that competition. If you come in, as I say, it's uh, the prizes are well worth, uh, worth a go. And also, don't forget the outdoor gibbon podcast prize draw that we mentioned in the previous one. Come along, find me at the show, get your name, address, email address and phone number entered with the chance of winning those five prizes. Obviously, prize number one is that stag stalking. Prize number two, those knives by richie, richie nanks knives. Prize number three is the deer central sling by ben at deer central, katie hargreaves, giving us that fantastic book of the species of deer in the uk. And at number five, the most sought after prize, which is one of the outdoor good beanies. Anyway, we'll see you soon. Thanks very much for listening.