Episode 92 The Gibbon and the Gaels , hunting in Scotland with Peter Gibbon

This week we welcome Peter Gibbon from The outdoor gibbon podcast into the studio. Pete now living in Scotland discusses the issues facing hunters in Scotland and in particular the Highland red deer . He chats through how from an anti hunting household he became an accomplished deer stalker and game hunter. From those first steps crow shooting with an air rifle to one of the most successful hunting podcasts in the UK , we discuss his wonderful journey and his plans for the future . Fantastic guy with a fantastic story. 

Transcript

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The Outdoor Gibbon: There we go!

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Anthony Grogan: Peace. How are you, my man? Welcome to the Irish hunting Podcast?

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Thank you very much for having me.

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Anthony Grogan: It's a pleasure man. We're big fans of what you do. I know you've quite a substantial following over this part of the

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Anthony Grogan: of the the water, or this side of the water.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah, I'm not sure why. But when I look at the stats there's a lot of guys over there that seem to listen to me. So yeah, it's good.

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Anthony Grogan: Brilliant stuff. Come here to me, take us back, I suppose.

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Anthony Grogan: Go right the way back.

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Anthony Grogan: How did you get into country sports?

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Well, I suppose it probably started right back. When I was about 10 we started at school. We actually had access to a rifle range. So I got to shoot 2 twos literally

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The Outdoor Gibbon: go to the safe in the school, take those out, put them in the back of the teacher's car, you drive into the village and you go shooting.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And then, after that, it was sort of I actually wasn't really into hunting as a kid. I think I went, probably 12 or 13, went and watched a guy doing some Ferritin, and it was. It was curious, and I enjoyed it, but when it came to the gutting and things like that. Oh, no, that wasn't for me. I couldn't deal with it. The smell. I hated biology classes to be honest, when you had to dissect anything, it always sort of turned you off. And then.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I suppose, I got into air guns and enjoyed shooting, but having parents that were fairly anti shooting, and anything like that. It was something that was never really pushed towards. At the end of the day I was allowed to go shoot targets. But yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: it kind of changed a bit when we had a crow problem in our house, and we had 2 lads rock up with these high powered Pcp. State of the art kind of air rifles, and it was like, Oh, they're pretty cool! And then, while my mum was at work, they would let me shoot in the wall garden of a hotel, and

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and it was like, this is pretty cool. So I started to really pick up on air rifles, and from there that passion came, and I went off to university, did the university thing and had a bit of spare money, bought an air rifle blinked with that.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and then after that, it kind of just grew that

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I kind of ended my degree, and I wanted to get into it. So I got talking to people bought air guns. Then we put in for a shotgun ticket.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: enjoyed shooting clays and things like that, and got invited to a pheasant shoot got my gun dogs. They weren't really gun dogs. They were just 2 pets that I tried to pretend were gun dogs.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and it picked up from there. And the next thing it's oh, okay, I can put in for an fac, and I can get a rifle. So I put in for a 2, 2, Rimfire, a 1, 7 and a 2, 4, 3.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And I met these lads that used to shoot on the airgun Forum. There used to be the obviously like the airgun bbs and stuff like that before Facebook and all the rest of it. And you'd spend time just sitting on there, people asking questions about changing. How do you do this to a rapid 7? Or what would you do with that? And how can you tweak that? And you can't, because it's against the law kind of thing. But everybody was telling everybody all the things you could do with them.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and I got an invite out one night to some lads that said, Oh, you can come rabbiting with us. So we used to like, Go rabbit shooting. And

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and after that I started asking questions, and I managed to negotiate my own bit of land, and

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The Outdoor Gibbon: one thing led to another, and all of a sudden you've got land. You've got 2 2 rimfires, and you're going out shooting rabbits. And it then kind of developed on. From that I wanted to get into deer stalking, and the other boys were like, no, we're going to stick with our air guns and our 2 twos, and just shoot rabbits. So I booked myself on to the deerstalking certificate level one course which was at Donington Deer management in Derbyshire.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: just around the corner from where I lived at the time. The book who David Stretton wrote the book, and he was he was going to teach it. So went there, sat down with some lads from there. And yeah, did that that deer course, and basically that that just opened all the doors. And next thing I'm shooting in Ireland, shooting seeker deer out in County Wicklow. Yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And it just grew and grew, if you know what I mean. So and now where am I? North east of Scotland? Thousands of acres of land to shoot over, teach people how to shoot and enjoy just taking it from there.

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Anthony Grogan: We were just actually saying what we offer. Like the

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Anthony Grogan: the, the podcast, similar to yourself, we were.

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Anthony Grogan: it's a kind of a labor of love. It's it's something that you do not for definitely, not for any any gain. You get a lot of a lot of the other stuff on the other side. But

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Anthony Grogan: it's it's it's a it's a passion. But what it does is, I suppose it puts you in contact with like-minded people all over the world, you know, and

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Anthony Grogan: what we we think is a is a relatively small community. You start to see. It's it's not so small. And and we were saying, it's fantastic, you can. You know we've been over to the Uk a couple of times and Hungary, and so so it opens doors that you you know that you didn't think was was there, you know, because the possibilities.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah, it really does kind of show you. Well, as you say, it's not a small place, but it is. It's a really small community as well as you were saying, I've got listeners in Ireland. You guys have got listeners in the Uk or all over the world. If you look at your analytics at the end of the day, and it's crazy who who listens. It's like I find people I've got. Listen in Singapore. I'm like, who do I know in Singapore that's listening to me. But obviously somebody's decided that that's the podcast they want to listen to and away they go.

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Anthony Grogan: The way to go. Yeah, yeah. And I think there's there's a there's a whole world out there who

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Anthony Grogan: probably, if you take your story. For example.

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Anthony Grogan: you started, you know, with probably not. You said it yourself. Maybe an anti-hunting household, and how perception changed over time with knowledge. And maybe obviously, when a problem becomes into the equation, then doors, you know. And from that, and I think podcasts can can do that

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Anthony Grogan: and can play that role as well, you know.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I agree with you there, because I've had people that have listened and said that they were completely anti hunting. They suddenly listened to a podcast that I had one of my German guests on. And they went through that.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And she turned around to me. And she said, I listened to that podcast and I really didn't realize how everything worked in the hunting world. It's so interesting. I'm actually going to use that podcast in a lecture at university for my students. And you're just like, Wow, that's just me having a random chat with somebody. And and all of a sudden it's it's useful information for somebody else.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's I think this man here probably got me into

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Anthony Grogan: the the deer is talking many years ago, and he's a.

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Anthony Grogan: We talked about mentorship, and

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Anthony Grogan: we're having another guest on hopefully next couple of weeks. That's trying to set up a mentorship program here in Ireland, you know, to encourage young people and give them the pathway, you know, because it's daunting, like what you said.

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Anthony Grogan: Not very many people grow up with.

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Anthony Grogan: you know exposure to growlick, and a deer, or, you know, go to a rabbit, or you know what I'm saying. These are all kind of we take that for granted sometimes, you know, and I think there has to be a pathway where somebody can shadow another hunter, or go out a couple of times and and see, as I did many times with this man, and

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Anthony Grogan: and see how the how it works, how it all comes together. You know.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I think as soon as you mentioned deer normally, you actually get it's really weird. But a lot of hunters sort of the green eyed monster comes out and they don't want to share because they're worried about.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: They're worried about you stealing the land, or they're worried about. You're going to go and get more land or steal that prize trophy deer that goes on there. And it's it's really difficult, because yeah, it's either that or they run a business, and all they actually want to do is get people out just to pay money, and they're not going to teach them. You're going to shoot the deer, pull the trigger.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and we're going to put that in the back of the car, and that's it. Thanks very much. When you actually open up and start sharing that experience with people. It's so much more fulfilling.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, I thought that was just here. But obviously, that's everywhere.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Oh, no, that's everywhere. Yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah. And you're right. I think it is very fulfilling when you

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Anthony Grogan: you get to teach. Not even he's been. He's been too generous here. He's showing me stuff now, but when you get to teach something like I'm teaching my son at the moment.

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Anthony Grogan: and it's it's very fulfilling watching him grow and teaching him the ethics. And yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah. And again, you've over in Ireland there's been massive struggles with deer management and qualifications and everything that goes with it. And it's been an absolute minefield. Because obviously, when we came over that when I came over and started, we used to shoot Forestry Commission land. So you obviously had. Suddenly they turned around and went. Well, they wanted a qualification, but they wouldn't.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: They would take Dsc. One, but they thought, Well, we'll have the. I think you had the Irish one come up, which was the H cap. Yeah. So I remember sitting in the pub doing that because that was the only place to do it and arguing because we'd just finished our level one and going, these questions are wrong

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and like, you can't shoot a deer there. And we did all the testing. We went to the Midlands to the shooting range to have to do it all. And it was just like, this is just somebody jumping on to to create a course. Why not just stick with the the Dsc. One? It worked at the time. That was it.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, yeah, I think in fairness to them, they've come on in the last couple of years of their teaching, and they've grown.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: But it was funny doing the 1st ever one, because we were obviously desperate to get it sorted. I was just looking now. I've pulled out some certificates for someone else. It's like, Oh, there's my hcap certificate.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Wants to get it. Yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: Well, you actually have more than I have. I started hunting before. Obviously that was in. But I still want to do it because I want to. I can't comment one way or the other

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Anthony Grogan: on the course at the minute, because I haven't done it, but I want to just do it for educational purposes myself.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: 100%.

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Anthony Grogan: Because, no matter, look, we'll be. We'll be chatting, I'm sure, if we went out hunting with you. You will know more than we're talking off air about podcasts, you know, and we're exchanging with more. You given some tips to us here. But

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Anthony Grogan: you you pick up.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Every day is a school day, and.

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Anthony Grogan: Nobody.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Know if any hunter says they're never going to learn anything that means. They're just closed to it, and we see it on social media. Now, there are the guys out there that sit behind a screen and a keyboard that literally go. I know everything there is to know about hunting. It's like it doesn't matter who you are, even if you're in your seventies. I remember an old boy in his eighties, and I showed him a trick, and he was like, Oh, I've learned something new today.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And you're just like that, that's all it takes because everybody will have a different experience and a different different skill set and come at. Come at what's the word I'm looking for? Come at that project from a different angle, so it could be the way you grow like a deer or something like that, and it may be just one simple cut, and all of a sudden somebody's like I never thought of doing it that way. That's completely different.

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Anthony Grogan: I've experienced that my father-in-law he's in his eighties.

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Anthony Grogan: and I made a mistake one day.

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Anthony Grogan: and he was quick enough to go. Sorry. Just show me that again. That was a mistake on my behalf, and he goes. Oh, I could learn. You can learn from anyone. Yeah. So.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah. And I think that's the key. If we're all open, that's the biggest problem I feel we've got with the sort of the whole hunting and shooting community at the minute is we're very split. We've got people that want to learn and want education, which was a big topic at the stalking show this year.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and then you've got sort of another generation that, like, we don't need education. It's all about making money. But actually, you can't hunt anywhere in Europe or the rest of the world without having a basic qualification. First.st

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And so there's a fine balance to say, well, a little bit of education. Knowledge is power at the end of the day. So yeah, it's all well and good learning, the old fashioned ways and sort of the grandfather rights. But sometimes you just need to have a little bit of background and a bit more knowledge. Just to give you that fundamentals. I think.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah. And I think we've gone to Hungary. Last year we were saying it off air where you learn

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Anthony Grogan: you learn something like we went over there and shot placement and stuff which is huge. You put that question up on social media. You'll get 4 different answers, and each one will 100% maintain it. That is the only place you put that bullet. So if you're a new stalker or a new hunter who wants to get into deer stalking, and you look at that.

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Anthony Grogan: Your mind would be well, like some lads will

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Anthony Grogan: swear by head, neck, heart, and lung, and they'll so if you're a news talker. That's a minefield. Yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: 100%.

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Anthony Grogan: And the real, I suppose proof, or how you really get to the bottom, is to shadow a couple of hunters or go over.

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Anthony Grogan: We were looking up for Yanji. He's what is in his eighties, and tell you why you don't neck shoot in a rut, you know why you go heart and lung these.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: You know. So. But if you went on to a forum, why are you hurt and lung? That's poor shop placement you're teaching.

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Anthony Grogan: You're wasting meat. You're exactly, exactly.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Always the case.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah. So there's a reason why to do that. Because.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I, yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: Generations of of experience have taught them that you know.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: But again, it's 1 of those things. It's yeah. As you say, there's a lot of people. I only head and neck shoot. And it's like, Well, okay, right? Great. How many times have you missed, or how I don't miss?

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Don't miss any time

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The Outdoor Gibbon: you don't shoot enough deer. Then, because when you shoot enough deer things go wrong, and it doesn't matter how good you are. Stuff happens and you go. Oh, crap! I've screwed that one up, but I get it sorted and get another round in it. Kind of thing.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: But it's how you deal with that situation. But yeah, it's when you get people. That exact comment which we just said is how I never miss. It's like, Well, you're obviously not shooting enough, because when you shoot enough and you speak to the boys, the forestry contractors that shoot a lot of deer. And it's like, Yeah, things go wrong. You just can't help it. It's it's wildlife at the end of the day, and

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The Outdoor Gibbon: something moves. The stick moves, you move, it moves, things, things go wrong.

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Anthony Grogan: I was talking about your journey and learning you said you started with a 2, 4, 3 for large game for dude. Have you stuck with that caliber, or

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Anthony Grogan: James.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Well, I had it, and I still use it. It's my guest rifle for roe deer and stuff like that. Luckily, in Scotland we're allowed to use for the row. We're allowed to use a 2, 2, 3,

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The Outdoor Gibbon: so we can take it down a smaller caliber.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: But I do love. I have a big passion for 308,

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and that was my once I'd shot over in Ireland with a 308. Yeah, that was straight away back in variation. I want a 308 caliber.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And yeah went from there. And so I pick and choose like some days. At the moment my 2, 2, 3 set up for full night vision. Thermal stuff for thermal work foxing. Obviously we've got night licenses for deer, so I use it for that.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: But then the 243 at the moment is running factory ammunition, and it's used. Take the guests out with it because it's a nice light rifle. It doesn't have a massive kick back on it. It's great. But then, when I take guests out on the hill, one of the 308 comes out, and I'm just about to get myself a 270. So a little laser pointer for shooting things at longer ranges.

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Anthony Grogan: The 308 is a brilliant road, and it's well capable of taking everything.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yes, 100%.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And the range of bullets you can have with it as well. Obviously, I do a bit of home loading. So yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, that's actually, that's a skill set we don't have, because we're not allowed. As you probably know, we're not allowed.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah. Well, you're allowed to do it. Only if you go to the Midlands Range, though.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, that's the only place. Yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Under under watchful supervision, which was like absolute craziness. Really, it's just like what what's going on here. Why.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah. And is there much of a difference in price between factory ammunition and doing your own? Or is it more the accuracy, the having everything consistent.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I think it's more the accuracy. I've tailored rounds that work really well in the 308 in the 243. So my 243 went through a phase of running like 55 grain bullets that they're doing 3.5,000 foot per second at the end of the barrel, so rockets but flat to 300 metres.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and then all of a sudden, it'd be like, Oh, I'll change it back to 100 grain, so I could have a random selection of things loaded, and I'm not going. Oh, I've only got 20 rounds left. I've got to go to the shops. It's like, Oh.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I can load 100 rounds now, and we know they're going to work and do that. And that was the same with the 308. It's like I could chop and change between lighter, faster bullets like 120 grains, and I could take it up to like 180. So there's always something loaded in the cupboard with the load data and what you've got to adjust the scope to to make it work.

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Anthony Grogan: I suppose I was to put you on the spot if you have to pick one one weight grain and one projectile

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Anthony Grogan: for the 3 0. 8. What would be your

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Anthony Grogan: 150 grain? Soft point? That's it. Straight away.

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Anthony Grogan: Any particular type.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Well, I've always shot with Hornaday soft points. They just seem to do exactly what it says on the Tim.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, yeah, that's why I used to shoot a trio 8, 1, 55 as well, yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: They're pretty good. They do get some some drop off. I think. My Pb. So far with the 308 was, I think there was a photo posted on my social media. Probably about 2 years ago, a 345 meter hind, after crawling up a drainage ditch in the snow.

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Anthony Grogan: Well.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And that's pushing the 308 pretty much to the end of its limit. It was dial it in. I had a meoptoscope on there. Big Christmas tree reticle dialed right in, and it was just like, Send it.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and you wait and you wait and thump. It's like, got it.

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Anthony Grogan: You knew instantly. Once you heard that.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: She heard that thump, yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: The suction of the shot.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah. But it was just, of course, at that range you're watching it, and they do move. They do run on a bit. But yeah, it went down what we were trying to do at that point. We were trying to push push the hinds up and down the hill, so I'd come up from the bottom of the hill, crawling up the ditch to get to a point where we could get in on them, because they decided to sit themselves on probably the worst place possible, a big, flat, open face.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and to come in from the top, you were about going to be 6 700 meters away, and to come in from the bottom you could probably get to about 350, and they just sat there. So I thought if we shoot, if I shoot from the bottom it'll push them up the hill, and then the other lad, Tom at the top, can have a shot. Well, it never really worked. They kind.

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Anthony Grogan: Sure.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Moved about 50 meters up, and it's like right, and he's going. Hurry up and shoot. My fingers are freezing. So he had to come down the hill. But yeah, it was a good day. We shot 13.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Wow, wow!

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, never shoot 13 on a winter's day, because you're getting off the hill in darkness. Yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: I can just. And reds.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Add reds.

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Anthony Grogan: You must have quads.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: We had a 6 wheel buggy, which was about an hour's walk away.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: So shot all these hinds. I was like, right. You go and get the buggy, so I trekked off across the hill to go and get that drove back out just as the light was fading. We had one that was still, we didn't know it was still wounded, so I parked the buggy up, and this red hind kind of hops across in front of me. So you've got to jump out the buggy and throw a shot in the back of its head, and then proceed to load up in the dark and garlic them all on the hill, at the same time.

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Anthony Grogan: You remind me of a certain person I hunt with. I just can't put my name finger on. His name just tends to, you know we'll go up here and take one. Yeah, yeah, just nice and handy. We'll go for a nice easy shot. Yeah. And then you'll find yourself dragging a deer.

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Anthony Grogan: Midnight, 3 kilometres down off a mountain.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Well, my 1st ever deer in Ireland was shot right at the bottom of 2 hills. It was like we'd crawled in. We were sat there it was pissing it down with rain. And literally.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I think Andy was sitting next to me. He's like you're going to shoot that hind when she comes across the track, and all of a sudden he's telling me. No, no, no, no! Shoot the stag! Shoot the stag! What stag to the right, and I've moved the rifle slightly, and it was a 308 tika. No sound moderator on it, and I've not. I shot it once before with earplugs in, and I'm lying there on this fence post, and it's

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The Outdoor Gibbon: boom! All I hear is the boom. My ears start ringing, the rifles jumped all over the place he goes. You hit it, and it's like, what do we do now? He's like, we'll go find it. And then he just says, I'll go back to the car, and I'll go to tell the boys in the van to meet us. I'm like you're not going to help me drag it. He's like you shot it. You learn you drag it.

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Anthony Grogan: I have to.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: 2 hills. Away he goes. You'll make your peace with it. I'm like I curse that deer all the way back to that truck.

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Anthony Grogan: That's an Irish rule. Yeah, you shoot it. You pull it. Yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: That's it. Yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, I think in terms of species. There, we're just talking about reds. Obviously, there's a lot of traction in the papers now about the Reds.

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Anthony Grogan: What's your what's your take on that piece.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: The Reds are just being persecuted. The problem you have is they?

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The Outdoor Gibbon: There's a lot of deer fencing going around this around Scotland at the end of the day, because there's a lot of forestry, and a lot of estates are being the word. Rewilded is the term. So if you're trying to rewild. People want to push the reds out.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Problem you get then, is, instead of the Reds being in their small sort of

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The Outdoor Gibbon: pockets, which they normally are. They're all coming together because they're being shot on one estate and driven together. So somebody somebody flies over and does a helicopter count, and instead of seeing like 5 hinds here and 10 hinds there you're seeing like herds of 100 200 300 hinds.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And of course that just puts panic up. Oh, there's so many deer, it's out of control, but it's like, when you actually do the numbers and you work at how many hinds there are per square kilometer. The numbers are actually relatively low.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: But what what it's doing is it's just made press and Scottish government are like, well, we'll take the season away, so you can shoot male deer all male deer in Scotland 3, 65 days a year, because that's going to reduce the numbers. It's like. Well, I always thought that biology it was the females that breed, and you only need one male to impregnate quite a lot of females.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: You're not really going to do much population control at that point.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, I think that's yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: It's probably similar to here. Peter, in that

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Anthony Grogan: hysteria creates a problem that need then needs to be fixed, you know, and then

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Anthony Grogan: we've mentioned the evil that is money, you know, once that becomes involved in it.

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Anthony Grogan: Control or management are the terms that were used for hunters like yourself, and what we like to call ourselves. You know where you went up. A farmer was having a problem. You control it. You. You took a couple of deer out, and that, you know, they went away a little bit, you know. They pushed them out of that area for a while, and and everyone was happy, you know. So you're you're managing it that way without obliterating and getting rid of

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Anthony Grogan: what? What is essentially our our way of life. You know.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah, yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I think the big thing I remember that was one of the nicest bits I remember about being over there. The guy we used to stay with. It's like we needed some land, so we'll go for a drive up here. Knock on the door. Can we shoot some deer? Yeah, crack on. And it was just like that. It was a gentleman's agreement. Just go and shoot a few deer. Yeah, now.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I've spoken to guys over there and woo. It's it's summed up. It's like money's changing hands. Farmers are like going. Oh, I want I want money now for the deer and this and that and it. Yeah, it's just changed.

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Anthony Grogan: And that obviously, then, creates its own problems. Because when money's involved, then

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Anthony Grogan: and then say, people are bringing over

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Anthony Grogan: for guiding purposes sort of keeping huge swathes of land. And then obviously, then.

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Anthony Grogan: hinds aren't being shot because they keep the stags. And and so you get this vicious circle that oh, there's a problem.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, but I'll bring in.

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Anthony Grogan: You know. The money becomes involved in it. And look, I'm not saying we have the answers, but I just think hysteria is not. There is definitely not the answer to it. Anyway, you know.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: No, and I think previously, with your forestry. And well, you guys had massive issues back, probably what? 15 years ago, with poaching? That was the biggest thing. When when you could literally go out, fill a van. A boy could go out with a 2 2, fill a van at night and go to the game dealer and earn 3 grand kind of thing. That's when it started to get bad, and I don't think your numbers

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The Outdoor Gibbon: were always being passed around right? If you know what I mean. You look at what the forestry wanted. They wanted to know that things were being shot. So, guys on syndicates that you're only coming once a year. How could they shoot that many deer now, all of a sudden, that made the deer population look massive, and you're just like, well, what's going on there? Kind of thing. So.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, the returns. The bag returns, we call them, or the day returns.

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Anthony Grogan: They're either inflated or deflated. The guys that you said there, that were out poaching. They were returning nothing because they had no license. And then the guys that were say managing forestry or something when they were doing the returns. Oh, well, yeah, we shot 100, and they might have shot 5, you know. So.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Exactly.

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Anthony Grogan: It's just you don't get the true picture, because it's kind of like. It's the secret world that we call it, like the you know the nasty cousin that's like the hunter, you know, and we call him when we have a problem.

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Anthony Grogan: And but we don't really want to talk to them, you know, in company, you know that way. So it's it's kind of like this secret where I think we

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Anthony Grogan: we have a job as the podcasts to get this out in the open and to hear what's really going on in the ground, because we're the people who see it.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: 100%, and we're very lucky in Scotland that every anybody that's got a license, or an out of season, or anything we have to give a bag return, and all the estates the Highland estates normally will feed back to.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: They'll feed back their returns every year, anyway, so there's always. There's always good numbers, and you can always keep an eye on. For example, the Highland Reds. It doesn't work so well with the Lowland deer like the roe and stuff like that, because you're not feeding that much information back. But at least you can get a feel for what's going on. But then you go down into England, and this came up as a topic the other day the fallow deer, which are

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The Outdoor Gibbon: well out of control. The numbers are crazy like these super herds and stuff like that. It's a totally different world down there, because you could have a thousand acres, one farm who wants them shot, but he's surrounded by

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The Outdoor Gibbon: 3 more farms or 4 more farms of 600 acres apiece. That don't want any deer management, because they like to see the deer, and all of a sudden it's like, Well, the deer. No, that's like a safe haven, and the numbers are out of control, or you've got the guy that only shoots trophy bucks, and that's his business. Well, he isn't going to go and shoot his DOE population, because at the end of the day they're going to produce more bucks throughout the year.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, literally, yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Exactly. So. Deer management's crazy. Really.

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Anthony Grogan: We actually seen on the way back. Remember, from Norfolk we've seen a fallow herd on the way back to the airport, the N. 11, going back to Stansted.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yep.

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Anthony Grogan: You've seen a decent sized fellow herd, and we couldn't get over either side of the road. The amount of Chinese and Munchak.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah, yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: yeah, it's just it's crazy because the numbers are are huge. But if guys are making a job of it, and that's that's what their living is.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: You're gonna you're gonna want just to shoot the things that make the biggest amount of money, isn't it? At the end of the day.

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Anthony Grogan: And absolutely, I think. Look, we've got to experience it because there's people like that that can bring us, you know, on guided hunts, and so on.

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Anthony Grogan: And I think there is a place for that. But there's also a place, for you know there has to be. What would you say? Everything in moderation. Yeah, you know there has to be a balance there where

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Anthony Grogan: ordinary hunters cannot be pushed out. You know you have to, because I see the same in house building. You know, you have big developers, and you've small builders like myself, and small builders are the lifeblood of small communities.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: Know, and when you get big developers, what you do is you essentially swallow all the small ones, and then we have a housing crisis. Then, because infill sites that are too small for the big guys where the lifeblood of communities aren't being built because it's too costly for the small, they're being pushed out. So it's the same in deer management or in shooting, in hunting. If you have

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Anthony Grogan: large swathes of huge states being swallowed up by.

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Anthony Grogan: you know, one or maybe 2 guides. And that's just been for then you are going to create a problem there. You know, it's inevitable.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: 100%. And I think my one comment that I always throw out there is, if every deerstalker took one person that wanted to get into it out stalking. Do you know what that would be? A lot of people that get to get to experience deerstalking? And it doesn't cost. It doesn't cost anything to take somebody out to show them the ropes.

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Anthony Grogan: Now.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And most people aren't going to jump and try and steal your land, because if you've got a good relationship with your landowner it doesn't matter. You're not going to lose it.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah. Yeah. And look, this man has brought more more people out, me included.

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Anthony Grogan: And I think it's funny enough. When I got to fall in on one of the hunts where we brought yours out.

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Anthony Grogan: and we were. We were looking at us, and Rob actually took out a deer. He wanted to experience what what actually happens, you know, when a deer is knocked, what do you do? And we met him actually drag it down off the hill. It was the one time where he didn't shoot it, and he had to drag it. We didn't explain the rule to him, but we gave him the full experience, apart from pulling the trigger, but like and he couldn't believe the you know the he was kind of in awe of it, wasn't it? You know. Yeah, I suppose it's strange, for

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Anthony Grogan: that particular fellow was from Dublin, from the city.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yep.

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Anthony Grogan: He would never have seen animals being killed or growlocked. He didn't actually see the butchering, but that was enough for him. He didn't want to growlock at himself.

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Anthony Grogan: but he wanted to see it.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And I think that that's absolutely great. My wife was a was a prime example. We sat there one evening and said, Do you want to come out and see what I do.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and she's not. She's always said that if she hadn't married me she'd probably be a vegetarian, and that's fair play, because she's not keen on buying meat, and she doesn't like factory farm meat. Her sister's a vegetarian because of it.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: So we went out. We went stalking, and we were 30, 40 yards away from a small buck. And she's like, why have we got the rifle? It's like we're just. I thought we were just out to look at them. I'm like, well, if we see something that we need to take, or a fox, or something like that, we'll shoot it. So we're standing there watching this buck, and she turns around to me. She goes.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: why don't you shoot it? I'm like, well, I don't have to, because we're out. Just have a nice evening, because we've got your parents up looking after the kids, and that's it. And she was insistent. So I shot it, and she came over. She stood there, held the leg up, growlicked it, watched all of that, got back to the car, and I said to her, said, You want to do that again, or do you want to have a go yourself? And she went. Nope, I've seen the process. That's it for me done, and it was like brilliant, happy days.

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Anthony Grogan: Fair enough. She was open-minded enough to go and see it and see exactly what you're doing. Yeah. So now

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Anthony Grogan: and now I have to still butcher everything. I didn't win that

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Anthony Grogan: sorry sorry, Pete, for cutting across the.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: No, it's all right. I didn't win there. You were going to say.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, yeah, to jump back to. You, said Red. There are being unfairly prosecuted.

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Anthony Grogan: Are they? The biggest problem in terms of there? Or I know you have Sika there as well. Don't you.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah. So further north, over towards the west coast and stuff like that, there's a population of seeker, and there is a there's a drive to to keep their numbers reduced, because they obviously don't want the hybridization of the seeker with the reds.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: same as you guys have got in the old up near the military area on the Wicklow Range, obviously the seeker and hybridising with the Reds that are up there. So that's that's the big thing on the west coast, really up towards Inverness, across to the west, where the seeker are. I think there's seeker further down as well towards the borders. There's nothing with us in Aberdeenshire or Angus. There's no seeker seeker this far over.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: but the Reds seem to just have this target painted on their backs purely because

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I think, just because they appear and they appear as herds, obviously seeker, are fairly solitary apart from in the summer, when they'll gather up and they'll move around together, but you always you've got like one stag that's moving by himself, maybe a couple of 3 stags with the seeker, but with Reds you could end up with a herd of 600 stags moving, and people see that. And

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The Outdoor Gibbon: during the summer they come down to the lowlands. They start to come off the hill a bit, they'll come down to the pastures. They'll come into the crops. At which point the farmer goes absolutely wild that there's a basically a herd of cows going through his rape field, and he wants them all shot.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, and the likes of Monk Jack and Row. There are much smaller. They don't consume as much.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Well, we've got no muntjac north of the border yet.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: So.

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Anthony Grogan: A role, don't you.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: We've got a lot of roe. And actually, the biggest population of deer in Scotland is the roe deer. But it's not heavily publicized, because nobody, if you look at the counts and you look at all the rest of it. The roe deer outnumber the red deer massively.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: But because there's so much more lower ground and stuff like that and the size of the pop, and they don't get into the big herds again. People just don't see it, but you'll drive along one of the main roads, and I think I counted 17 the other morning in about sort of 7 or 8 miles.

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Anthony Grogan: And of course you see that the Reds are ultra visible. You know they're a big, impressive, imposing animal, the row probably similar to the seaca, the seaca, the ghost ear, you know. If you see, people say we don't often hear. I've seen

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Anthony Grogan: you know I've seen one deer out. If you've seen one seeker. There's probably

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Anthony Grogan: 20 there, you know what I mean.

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Anthony Grogan: Oh, you know, they're just standing 50 metres into the trees.

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Anthony Grogan: exactly, you know. But yeah. And because the reds are kind of you know, they're ultra imposing and impressive. Then they're more visible. And, as you say, then we'd often oh, there's there's a herd here of

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Anthony Grogan: 50 deer, you know, but you could go up, and there might be 6, you know, because they're moving. And and as they're moving. It's like a as you said, a herd of wild cattle coming through, you know, breaking bush and stuff, and it seems like they're they're and it would be an ultra shame if my God! Scotland's similar to the grouse. I suppose you know it's kind of synonymous with with the Highland, the red deer. It's kind of like the the it's the king of our jungle, isn't it? You know.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah, yeah, it's well, it's look at it every biscuit tin, every bottle of Glen Fiddit. Whiskey's got a stag on it at the end of the day. I don't think they're going to drive them to the point where they want them eradicated, but I think there's a thing that

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The Outdoor Gibbon: they're just. They want to see the numbers reduced, but the numbers are being reduced massively every year.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Estates take a good number. Luckily most of the estates went to the point of going. Well, we'll kind of stick with the traditional seasons. Thank you very much, and we'll stop selling stags when the rut finishes and give them a chance. Now, there are some guys out there that are about making money, so you can shoot stags all year round, but it's really difficult. We've shot stags

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The Outdoor Gibbon: at different times of the year, purely because

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The Outdoor Gibbon: that might be all that's on the hill, and you get into them, and you look at it, and you go. Well, actually, there's a few in there that would have needed clearing up. We don't need a license now. So yeah, we can take those out with a guest. Kind of thing.

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Anthony Grogan: Okay? And would you trophy hunt yourself at times, or is it predominantly for meat.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: No, so for me. It's just well for most of, my dear, for when I'm out stalking it's a job to do. I've been told to go clear forestry blocks, or I've got a lot of new forestry that's replanted or regeneration sites. So it doesn't matter what walks out. It just gets shot. Obviously I stopped taking. I tried to stop taking guests out on the road for who just wanted trophies, because at the end of the day the pressure is so high. I remember

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The Outdoor Gibbon: with one French client. We went round and we looked at a buck there, and it was a good buck, and he went Nope too small, and we moved on, and we saw a small buck, and at the end of the stalk he's like we go back for the 1st buck. I'm like the 1st buck was an hour ago that 1st buck's gone.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And that's the problem that was all about. I want the biggest. And it wasn't about that. Hence the reason I started taking a lot of

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The Outdoor Gibbon: new stalkers novices out, because if you put the crosshairs up and it was a

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The Outdoor Gibbon: a small spiker, or a 4 pointer, or even a bronze medal. It didn't matter to them. It was the the whole excitement of being able to shoot a deer, and that's been great. Now, when we're out on the hill, because we know we've got a good population of stags, you'll always try to get the guest something that's a good memory.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: but if something presents itself, say, a weak or injured animal well, that gets taken. So I just going back. Last week I had some Swedish clients out, and the 1st one we got was a really nice buck, but the second one I was watching it, and there was something not right with it, and it had a obviously it had shoulder damage, and its front leg was sort of

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The Outdoor Gibbon: almost half bent permanently, and I said to her, look, there could be a big buck around the corner. But this is a welfare issue. We're going after that one, and that was the rest of the evening we followed that chased that across the field. She got an absolute cracking shot 150 yards on it, and I said to her, I'm sorry that it's a small buck she goes. No, no, this is amazing. The stalk was great, and I can understand exactly why you've done it. You're looking after your deer population.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: I think we'd be kind of when we say when I say trophies if you looked around my wall, there's no medals on my wall. But when I say trophy it's a each one same as yours. They're synonymous with a with a stock, a certain time in a certain place, with a certain person. Or do you know what I'm saying?

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah. So I hang them up on the wall for that, like the one that we were talking that earlier conversation about my wife coming out. I cleaned the head up on that. And it's really funny, because right between the coronets there's a Tyne jammed in.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and so that deer had obviously been fighting with another deer. At some point the Tyne had gone in there. It snapped off. So that's up on the wall, even though it's not metal. I've been very fortunate that just by sheer mistake that I've pulled the trigger, and and a metal deer falls over. So it's like, Oh, shot 4 bronze medals, I think 2 silver and a gold, but that was purely because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you just pull the trigger.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: And and do you, do you look at certain areas? Obviously, you have to. You're you're in in.

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Anthony Grogan: in, in control or deer management mode. And then there's other areas. Do you? Do you go out and do you? Do you look at

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Anthony Grogan: like what we're talking about there about, you know.

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Anthony Grogan: help, you know. In other words, if there's a stag coming with poor tyings and stuff like that, would you look at?

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Anthony Grogan: And what would you say to try and bring on the the genetics.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah, we're out on the hill. It's always a case of probably Tom does it more than I do, because that's where he basically, he's always there full time, but again it's he will always look for

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The Outdoor Gibbon: managing his population. So if he's got old stags, and I mean really, old stags, he'll try and get the guests onto those. If we've got something that's looking poor that gets taken, the switchy stuff will get taken out. A stalk may stop. If you've the problem we've got as well is round where we stalk. We've obviously got forestry contractors that are banging deer left, right and center.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and we've probably seen more wounded deer wandering about the place than anything so suddenly in the middle of a stalk. If something is not looking right like the last guest I had out. When I was down on the hill

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The Outdoor Gibbon: we had this thing slink underneath us up the gully. We were coming into a whole herd of stags.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And this thing came up the gully and I went. We're going after that. That's that's

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The Outdoor Gibbon: that's wounded. And yeah, it had a bullet hole right through the back of its neck that had gone sort of manky and septic, and it was like, we've just got to get that animal down. Couldn't see it until we got it. But that was that was the stalk. It was like, I'm sorry it's not a trophy, but it. We're out here to to basically animal welfare comes in.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, if I had to say to you this minute, right? Throw the rifle on your back.

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Anthony Grogan: and you could go anywhere in the world here, anywhere in the Uk Europe to stalk a deer.

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Anthony Grogan: What would you choose right now? What would you.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I think the one for me really has to be going after a moose. There's something about them. They're big, they're elusive. They're a strange creature, and I think that's the biggest draw that or a reindeer. I think I know that's going to really upset some people that I want to go after Rudolph. But.

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Anthony Grogan: Upsetting people.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah, having having friends out in Norway that do this professionally, and the reindeer herds are, they have to be managed same as any deer herd they just seem to be. It's almost the equivalent of stalking the Reds. Just the terrain just looks more unforgiving, and you will put yourself through hell to go and get that deer.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, I like to. I like to talk to that a little bit of torture. Yeah, to get.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Well, I think if you're going to hunt it, if it was that easy and you could just get out the car, pull the trigger.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: You're not really hunting, are you? You're shooting. When you've actually got to put the effort in like any any guest that comes to us. They will get a good walk, and they will. They will remember everything about it. It's yeah. Sometimes when I'm out

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The Outdoor Gibbon: at night. It's a completely different story. But and I don't try to shoot that many deer at night on my night license. I'd rather take them during the day, but sometimes it's 1 of those things. But yeah, when you shoot things at night, it's like shooting rabbits. It's they don't know you're there, and it

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The Outdoor Gibbon: it has no pleasure. It's not deer stalking. You are there doing a job to actually stalk them and get in close and personal. And I think with row, it's always dropping that distance to sort of the sub. If you can get it under 100 metres, or I think the last 3 guests have all shot at about 40 to 50 metres of roe deer.

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Anthony Grogan: Very good a role like Chinese. Do they give you a bit of time.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: they not necessarily. But if you use your topography of your land correctly, and and you've got your wind right, and all the rest of it. You can get in there. If you stick your head up above the ground they're gone. But yeah, Chinese were a weird one, because they really do sort of. They'll stand there and watch you.

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Anthony Grogan: Resent. Yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: They kind of come out on the clock. It's like, what time do they come out? Oh, quarter past 6! They'll just walk out that hedgerow, and I was like never quarter past 6. Walked out the hedgerow. That's wrong.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, yeah, they're an interesting animal, I mean, for for you know, the litter size and and how they go about it. And

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Anthony Grogan: and they're an interesting animal stock. I'm glad we did it, and

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Anthony Grogan: the Muntjac are far more similar to to a small Sika. I think you know, in their nature, you know.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Oh, they're clever little things where they hug around the tree line, and they're not. They're very, very.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: You disturb them, and they go.

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Anthony Grogan: Just.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Pay ya.

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Anthony Grogan: They're like they're like, I don't know they have Adhd or something they can't stand still, for you know they're like inquisitive or.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Forever twitching, ever twitch.

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Anthony Grogan: You know they'll never like, even, you know, even the seeker will present a little bit, you know. It'll give you that that second to take your shot. But

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Anthony Grogan: the Munchak, I think, are just, you know, forever looking. The head is moving their nose, and they're moving after something. They're.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I just suppose it's probably the landscape they were brought up in, that the things that were chasing them were going to be big tigers and stuff like that at the end of the day, I think, same as Chinese water deer they had. What is it? It's like tigers and leopards chasing them around the place, so their life is is, go, go, go, go, change postcode.

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Anthony Grogan: And when one of them Chinese gets up and starts running by God, can they like, when they do decide to go.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: It does look like somebody wearing a hula skirt, though it's the whole shimmy of the fur going as they go.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah, yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: It's like, what's that gone 3 fields like like that? You know. It's it's unbelievable.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah. So do you pheasants shoot at all, or.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah, so for my for my sins, I I help with a friend's rearing field up here. I

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I got when I moved up to Scotland. I wanted to get into the community and shooting, so I met one of the keepers and asked if I could help do some feeding, because I thought that was a great way to get myself known and get onto land. And next thing, it's like, Oh, have you ever reared pheasants or helped bit pheasants. So I ended up sitting in a shed with some guys that I'd met on the pheasant shoot. And the next thing that's it, 12 years on, and we're still. We now do about 140,000 birds through the field.

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Anthony Grogan: Why?

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I look after all the incubators. So I set the incubators up at the beginning of the year. Make sure they're all working. Get the hatches going. I put the gas on the field, so I've just recommissioned all the gas lines for them now, and the 1st hatch came off yesterday, I think.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: and that's it. The season goes. So we all get involved in catching pheasants and putting them out to where they need to go throughout the season, and from that we get a bit of a discount on buying some birds, and then we've got I've got.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: We're just about to start a syndicate again this year.

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Anthony Grogan: That's.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: 10 or 12 guys, and we'll put maybe 500 birds down, and we'll have a bit of a laugh and and a walkabout, and for us it's not about a driven day. I don't mind doing a driven day, but it's having a walk and a rake about, and if you shoot 5 birds. You've had a good laugh, that's that's what it's down to.

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Anthony Grogan: Pete, are you walking with dogs? And if so, what spaniels.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah. So for my sins, I've got 3 Springer spaniels, mum, and her 2 daughters. And yeah, it's we. Normally everybody takes a dog out. But every the problem with our syndicate is everybody's dog has become old and slower.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: So yeah, it's my 3 dogs seem to do most of the running about, but that's what it's all about going out with the dog going for a walk, even if it. You only get 2 guys come out on a day. It's just having that walk with the dog with a gun. If something flies, get a shot, if you put one in the bag and can take it home for the pot. Happy days! Everything we shoot goes in the goes in the freezer, and gets used.

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Anthony Grogan: Coordinates. Are you training those dogs, or

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Anthony Grogan: do you get someone to train them for you or.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I loosely the loose word train. Yeah, I've I've done quite a bit of training with one of them, and the second one got a bit less training. And then Covid kind of came in, and the 3rd one trained herself. And she's pretty good, actually. Well, she turned out to

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The Outdoor Gibbon: turned out to be an absolutely fantastic grouse dog, very little work for me, but took her up on the grouse moors this year, and was absolutely spot on just quartered beautifully, and I couldn't take any credit for it at all. So I just had that dog trained itself.

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Anthony Grogan: Brilliant. That's 1 thing you were saying. There we we

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Anthony Grogan: don't get to do much driven over here, you know, because there's only

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Anthony Grogan: small States. You know what I mean. It's kind of a

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Anthony Grogan: Now. We'd actually we got invited down to one this year, and but my father-in-law got ill the night before I was due to go, and so we hope to get out next year. But we hope to get back over to the Uk. To just to experience it, you know.

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Anthony Grogan: but similar to what your story there, I think the rough shooting, you know, the kind of the unexpected nature of it. It's as real as hunting as you can get, isn't it? You don't know where one is going to lift when one does, the heart gets up. You know the dog is after doing. It's everything coming together, isn't it? You know, and there's nothing like it.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Well, it reminds me where we used to stay when we were over there, stalking over an island stalking. The guy's father used to rock up in the morning, get out the car with his spaniel, and he'd go for a walk, and he would. He'd come back because we'd been out in early hours back in having tea and like breakfast, and he was out until lunchtime, and it's like he'd walk miles. You'd watch him just going up and down the ditches and all the rest of it, and he went. I've put one pheasant up.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: missed it, but I've had a great day, and that was it? And it was just. It was so fantastic to chat with him, because, as far as he was concerned, he was out walking along with his dog, and if he got somebody got some. When he came back with the bird in the bag he was over the moon.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And if I can do that, when I'm that old I'll be as happy as anything.

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Anthony Grogan: Absolutely. That's all of our aim, isn't it? You know, is to get to that stage where I think you're content, and like that, I think there's no if you're having a bad day, you throw the shotgun over the shoulder, head out with the dog, and, as you say, even if you, miss, and I've missed a considerable amount of times last season, anyway, especially last season especially.

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Anthony Grogan: I think you come home. You dissect it. You know you have a chat about it, or what can I give it? Too much leaders way behind it? And even that, you know, as you can see, puts a smile on your face. You're anxious to get back out again.

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Anthony Grogan: and I don't think there's anything like it, I think, for people who haven't experienced it. We get a lot of hate, probably similar to yourself. You know what we do.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Well, I was going to say, you guys seem to. You seem to have all the hatred. I'm very lucky. They don't seem to have found me, or attack me. That much.

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Anthony Grogan: Will. Now, in terms of what on online or online.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah. I'm very, very lucky.

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Anthony Grogan: He? He does the asking for it. He does the arguing with them.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Oh, fair enough! There we go!

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Anthony Grogan: I tend. So the Golden Rule is not to reply to them. Of course nobody told me about the Golden Rule, so I went knees deep in, and now there's no retreat, so I tend to now I do like. I don't apply to them all, but some of them I kind of give a little bit of, you know, if I have a

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Anthony Grogan: quick witted, what I think is a quick witted response to some of them, I'll give it, and other times I do be messing. I think some of them to be, I said, oh, this guy must be joking or something, and and.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Right.

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Anthony Grogan: So I do, and then I find out. Oh, no, he's actually completely. He wants to see me burn in hell. He doesn't like me doesn't like my family. He doesn't like the generations for 5 after me. So yeah, look, I don't understand that whole thing. I don't understand why somebody would hate somebody that much, not knowing them.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Isn't it crazy, though, that those are the people that want to save the planet save everything save all the animals? Yet the things they suggest that they're going to do to you another human being. It's pretty pretty sick, really.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, it's it's to have your mind go that way, you know, to consider. You know that you want to see somebody

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Anthony Grogan: burning. And our hope.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, like the things that say to you that you hope you see your head on the end of a shotgun or something like that, you know, and some of that sort of stuff, and you find this. You get removed posts get removed, for you know, sometimes, as you know, and Tiktok, or whatever, for you know. Shoot out shooting crows, you know, and or showing the butchering of something, or you know what I mean might be temporary removed because of. And you're looking at, saying

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Anthony Grogan: there's somebody here suggesting that they want to see me die, and, as you say, they're inverted commas. They love

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Anthony Grogan: animals.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah, yeah, or that you just hit the nail on the head that you've done a butchery video or breaking down a carcass or something like that that'll be removed. But yet some.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Let's not tar the brush here, but there's some bad video from some part of the Middle East where somebody's losing their head. Oh, that's no problem at all. That goes viral and gets a million 1 million views.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah. It's I checked the other day on Tiktok, right? Because we were doing a bit of high shooting, and we're having a bit of a laugh, you know.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah, yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: It was kind of bloopers and stuff, you know, so I was putting up some, but I remember

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Anthony Grogan: there's 1 where we were laughing, and the shotgun was in the video, you know, and I said, Oh, I remember one removed because of a gun in the thing. So I just checked it entered in shotgun, and

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Anthony Grogan: loads of videos come up with shotguns of of you know.

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Anthony Grogan: who are shooting, shall we say? Right? So I said there wasn't even a shot in this one, and that'll be fine. I put it up 5 seconds later. This post removed, you know, so I can't make.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I just think I think there's a thing that I don't know whether it's just social media in general or the world in general, that nobody wants to know. Nobody wants that connection, and I think we've chatted about this many times. Nobody wants that connection with where their food comes from. They're all happy to go go to Mcdonald's and buy that unhappy meal.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: because there's no regret you don't see. You don't see the little pig or the cow that went into it. You just get there, and you've got your salty chips and your little burger, and away you go, whereas actually

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I know exactly what my meal looked like. It was walking around a field 2 weeks ago, and it hung in the fridge. But I

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The Outdoor Gibbon: can live with that. So tonight we've had venison and pork burgers literally on the barbecue. Kids have eaten them no problem at all, but I know exactly where that deer came from, what time it was shot. What day it was shot when it was shot. I know what it looked like. I know what its skin and its fur was like, and I can quite honestly hold my hands up and go. I've got no problems with that. I've taken responsibility for it.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, you can see the condition of the animal. It wasn't mistreated. No antibiotics.

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Anthony Grogan: Your children are being fed. The best of the best meat.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And the beauty of it is, it's until that moment that that shot went off.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: It was just chewing grass, living its best life, whereas you look at some of this processed meat that's coming out of.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: we're not so bad. And I think a lot of the antis throw up a lot of rubbish videos about farming standards. But the Uk, Ireland, Europe. We're pretty good, and our farming standards are very high and our animal welfare is amazingly high. Okay, there's going to be one or 2 that are out there that probably

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The Outdoor Gibbon: come under par. But a lot of this stuff that you see, the videos that you've got these groups putting up. It's stuff from parts of the world where they don't care about animal husbandry. It's all about throughput of meat and how much money they can make.

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Anthony Grogan: That's very cool. We're focusing on the wrong things. I think. I think there was a trainer, a famous Irish trainer last year, a horse trainer.

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Anthony Grogan: A horse died, and it was being removed in a trailer, and because he didn't cover the dead horse, I think he lost his license or something, you know. Yep. And

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Anthony Grogan: so you have that going on. So there's animal rights are focusing on as this as an animal rights issue, you know, and the horse is dead, and yet you have.

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Anthony Grogan: You know we've all

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Anthony Grogan: Uk. We've been over there. You've huge swathes of of monocrop, you know what I mean with huge and similar to here. Now.

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Anthony Grogan: you know, combines. Come in to to cultivate vegetables and crops for consumption by vegans and vegetarians, and

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Anthony Grogan: you have displacement. You have rabbits, you have foxes, you have cubs, you have pheasants all

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Anthony Grogan: the the combine doesn't mind, you know.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Oh, it doesn't! It doesn't. It doesn't care what goes through.

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Anthony Grogan: You don't just.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Go straight through, and if they knew how much blood was on their on their cereal crops it would be. Yeah, they wouldn't eat it.

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Anthony Grogan: That's the thing. And I think it's because, as you mentioned there, it's the disconnection between where your food is actually comes from. I think that's the we would probably have got a bit of kickback at the start, because people would have been saying, Oh, you're highlighting, you're telling. You're giving the aunties. You're feeding them, you know, with information and stuff.

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Anthony Grogan: But I think

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Anthony Grogan: you're not going to, nor we do. We want to change. I don't want to force anyone to do anything they don't want to do. But I also feel that we've responsibility, I suppose, to teach like what you said. You know your wife, and that would you shouldn't experience where the food comes from. There's hundreds of thousands of people like that who are not object to eating meat, or

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Anthony Grogan: but they don't know where the food comes from.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And I think, yeah, you hit the nail on the head there. It's people

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The Outdoor Gibbon: don't have the idea and don't have the knowledge. And unfortunately, most of the knowledge they get fed from social media. The mainstream press and all the rest of it is

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The Outdoor Gibbon: is tailored and incorrect. Well, not incorrect, but it's tailored in such a way that it makes the shooting community look really bad, or the farming community look really bad, whereas actually, when you get somebody that's never done it come out and go through the process, and they turn around at the end of it. And they went. Wow! I never knew. That's that's so respectful and so nicely done, and and the way you've treated it.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I completely changed my attitude towards it. It's like happy days. Win win situation at that point. Take that back to London. Pub. Sit there, tell the 10 people.

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Anthony Grogan: And they're friends.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Tell your friends about it, because that's the way we get the word out there. Follow me on social media. Follow some of the people on social media look at the way it's done, and hopefully, and we can educate from a different angle.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: It's why I do so much work with our scout group, and they venison, and they deal with pheasants. Okay, I'm very lucky. The northeast of Scotland's not. It's still there's still a rural farming community up here, but if I was further south I would love to have got into like a London scout group and said, Right, we're going to butcher a deer, or we're going to do this because, God! The complaints you get from mummy and Daddy, you can't do that.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think we we've both got a form. Our son's kind of

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Anthony Grogan: wider circle of of friends and stuff. There, there.

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Anthony Grogan: ironically. We are now the outliers, you know, which, you know. You go back 50

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Anthony Grogan: less. Probably that was the common. You would go by a butcher's, and there'd be a couple of pheasants or rabbits hanging up outside it, you know. And now that can't be done, because it's for the optics, and you know, because meat comes in a pack. Now, you know, in a in a vacuum seal, you know, if they brought

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Anthony Grogan: secondary schools are the equivalent over in the Uk to a slaughterhouse and show them how their packed food is produced.

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Anthony Grogan: They'd have a different outlook on how ethical we are and how respectful.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And that's the thing. But again it goes to that point. Well, schools won't even teach it, will they? I think I've got a friend. That's a teacher who was down South, and she did a class talking about something like pheasants or something along those lines, and it was told, you can't teach that. You can't tell them where things come from, and it's just what it's like that's the world gone stupid. It's like if you take them to the petty. You can't tell them that's a beef burger. It's

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The Outdoor Gibbon: no like

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The Outdoor Gibbon: that's a cow. It stands there, and it does nothing, and it's like, now we'll go and have burgers at Mcdonald's or other other fast food chains, or even that can't find the chicken restaurant. And you're just like Wow. Well, that's it. I do a lot of work for

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The Outdoor Gibbon: the big chicken houses up here, because obviously with the the work I do, which is the biomass boilers and all the rest of it. They heat these chicken sheds. Well, the chickens come in, and they don't even really see they never see daylight, and they're not even, I think, 8 to 12 weeks old before they're back out again on some restaurant

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The Outdoor Gibbon: somewhere.

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Anthony Grogan: Yes.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Super fast growth. Make them as quick as big as possible. They can't even support their own weight and whoop! They're away again.

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Anthony Grogan: And they're not doing that. Naturally.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: No, no! Whereas you get your pheasant, and we all get slated for it. Well, what is it? 12 weeks old? You put it out into the real world. You keep feeding it. It grows by itself. If it doesn't get eaten by something, and it it makes it to the point. When you can connect with it with a shotgun. It's had a pretty good life to be honest, hasn't it?

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, yeah, we got a little bit of kick back during the week. Obviously, because we're obviously in pheasant rearing season and some of the stuff, you know. You get it back. You probably get the same. Maybe I am. You know, pheasants they're not native, even though they've been. I think they've been here since the 15 or 16 hundreds.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, probably before that, over your neck of the woods.

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Anthony Grogan: And

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Anthony Grogan: obviously there's a million of them in the wild here, but you know they're trying every kind of angle to come at it. You know that the ticks now is the new thing. I don't know where you heard of that. They've tried to connect ticks and pheasants being released with boreolo and stuff like that.

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Anthony Grogan: Really, yeah. Good grief.

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Anthony Grogan: Sort of trying every kind of angle to.

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Anthony Grogan: and yet you'd ask yourself, well.

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Anthony Grogan: you know, especially ground nesting birds. What do they eat? You know they eat insects, and you know, so I'm I'm pretty sure that they'd eat a lot more than than you know, and then

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Anthony Grogan: or they're doing damage on the ecosystem. So they're coming at it kind of every every angle, and and our retort to that. I don't know where you're meeting that over in the Uk. Much.

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Anthony Grogan: but is is.

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Anthony Grogan: if you didn't do that. You take all this away. You're taking industry and community. You take Scotland, probably similar to where we live. Here.

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Anthony Grogan: Parts of it are isolated small communities, rural. A lot of older men like you said with the Springer spaniel. That's their way of life. That's their lifeblood, you know. If he can't get out for a shot on a Sunday morning.

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Anthony Grogan: Where does he go? You know there's no, there's no community center from him.

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Anthony Grogan: Do you experience much of that, Pete?

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I think it's starting to come out. And it's 1 of those things that's probably

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The Outdoor Gibbon: you've got the glens and things like that, and their whole lifestyle was. You worked on the sport in the State, and the community was up there.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: It is getting less around us now. There are no commercial shoots. They've all closed. They've all gone away. So that's made a big difference. There's no groups of beaters anymore, and things like that. There may be one or 2 shoots still kicking about. But when I moved up here 10 years ago, there was at least

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The Outdoor Gibbon: 3 commercial shoots around us. So you had community. You had lots of people had something to do on every other Saturday come the season. There were people coming in, and you'd meet people, and you go between the shoots, and you'd see all these different people. It brought more business to the local shop, and so on and so forth. But yeah, those things are disappearing, and I think it's

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The Outdoor Gibbon: it's just the way the whole society's going. And deerstalking is definitely on a big up, though Scotland's got more and more people wanting to come stalking definitely.

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Anthony Grogan: The age group. Are you talking, Pete?

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The Outdoor Gibbon: We're starting to see the Younger Age group coming through for that sort of what is it? It's sort of that sort of 20 thirties that have got a bit of money. They might not. They want to. They want to learn where their meat comes from. They want to come out and harvest something to take it home with them.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: That's definitely on the up. Obviously, you've still got your foreign clients coming in of the older age group which have got the money. They've retired, and they're still wanting to spend money. But it's nice to see a younger generation, and I'm seeing it through social media as well.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: There's obviously more interest and development of people asking questions and wanting to do stuff. So that's always a good sign.

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Anthony Grogan: Good stuff. It means your your work is paying off up there. Keep at it.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Trying.

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Anthony Grogan: The last one of the last couple of questions, I suppose, is is duck and geese shooting.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, did Scotland for? Well for us was always, I remember, uncles of mine used to their trip every year, was to over to Scotland on the boat on the ferry, and they'd

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Anthony Grogan: to do a lot of geese shooting, but I think it was more a lot of drinking and a little bit of geese shooting, but you know that type of way.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Well, it's got to be, because come on, you're goose shooting in the worst part of the year. It's miserable. It's generally raining and wet.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yeah.

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Anthony Grogan: By 3 o'clock in the afternoon. So you're up at the not even the crack of dawn. You're sort of up at 7 out for a bit, sitting in a muddy, wet field, waiting for some pink feet to come over. Shoot those back home, have some food back out about 3 o'clock. You're in by 4. There's nothing else to do but drink

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Anthony Grogan: exactly exactly.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: The goose shooting is still, it's it's changed a lot over the last few years. Up here there's a lot more guides trying to do it. The geese have definitely become more

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The Outdoor Gibbon: what decoy aware? Let's just say that. And they go to different places that they wouldn't normally go to. I always have good intentions to go out and shoot geese, and they do come to one of my farms. And they were I probably had.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I've got video of about 2 or 3,000 of them. Did I actually get out? No, wow.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: but yeah, they just kept streaming in onto onto one of the one of the stubble parks and in, and it would have been phenomenal if I'd actually pulled my finger out and got myself out there, and I've got some good goose shooting.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, and grouse.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Arouse we.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: So down on the hill. Tom does do a bit of grouse. He he backed off. He doesn't do any driven grouse. He does a bit of walked up grouse that seems to work. And yeah, the the numbers aren't there anymore. They're just. I don't know. Grouse just don't seem to don't seem to be thriving. It might be different story this year. The weather is, has been fantastic.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Yes.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: certainly not. Had the cold last year we had really heavy bouts of rain, and I think that just the 1st clutch came off, but the second clutch literally would have been nailed by heavy rain. It'll be interesting to see the grass counts this year and see how well things have done.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah, we'll definitely keep a look at that with keen eyes. It's something that we. It's very small pockets over here, and it relies heavily on

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Anthony Grogan: on management, you know, but.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Exactly this whole thing where you get a lot of people going. Oh, well, look at the fires that are occurring all over the country at the moment, and people going. We've got fires everywhere. Why are these fires? It's because nobody's doing anything. It's like, because you've told the grouse keepers not to be there. And those guys are the guys that used to basically have terraformed the land

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The Outdoor Gibbon: for hundreds of years. They've.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: And land has been managed and burnt. The landscape doesn't look the way it looks because of its natural. It's because man has interfered with it, and if you don't keep interfering with it, we don't have the ability to

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The Outdoor Gibbon: to stop the fires. You've got to do the burns and take the the fuel load out of it.

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Anthony Grogan: Yeah. Simple as we can't reverse, we can't not be here. We're here now, so we have to. Our job now is as gamekeepers of the countryside is to create habitat, safe habitat for animals that are under pressure manage the ones that are thriving or overthriving, shall we say?

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Anthony Grogan: And that's our job because we're here. We can't reverse. We can't go out and mass like some of the dimensions. We can't go out and kill people. So we're here to stay. We have to manage it, you know.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: Well as the antis. All seem to say, it's like, Oh, well, we'll just. We'll just let it all go back to the wild. It's like, Okay, and

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The Outdoor Gibbon: what's going to happen when it all goes back to the one at some point? If it all went back to the wild. Yes, there will be balance, but it'll take a long time, and potentially there'll be a lot of things that disappear, and this whole idea of introduction of lynxes, wolves and everything like that. It's like, Yeah, they're not really going to go after the wild animals, are they? They're going to pop down to the village where your cat is, or your dog is because it's easier.

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Anthony Grogan: Exactly exactly as we just explained in terms of food, people going to supermarkets, because it's just easier than going out and hunting. So it's the same thing, only different.

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Anthony Grogan: Pete. It was an absolute pleasure we're honored to have you on. I've been meaning to to reach out to you a couple of times, and I'm delighted. You agreed to come on and continue success with with the podcast and if you're ever over in Ireland, knock us up, we'll have a pint in a chat definitely

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Anthony Grogan: and continued success to you and

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Anthony Grogan: and and what you're what you're doing there.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: I thank you very much again for reaching out and getting me on your show. It's always nice to share a similar experience with. As I said, there's plenty of space for plenty of podcasts. So yeah, keep up the good work boys.

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Anthony Grogan: Thanks a million times. Pete.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: No overnight cheers.

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Anthony Grogan: Talk to you soon, Pete.

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Anthony Grogan: I think that went well. He's a nice chap.

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The Outdoor Gibbon: That all good.

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Anthony Grogan: That's it. We stopped. I thought you were gone, Pete.