UNITED KINGDOM: Reeves Muntjac & More In The Shire Counties England

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I guess this is a bit like the movie 'Groundhog Day' in that this is a trip / hunt that I have been doing every year March for the past five years since just after Covid - muntjac, Chinese Water deer & more in the Shire counties in England with Alex. Yet each & every trip has been very different in that I have taken hunting friends from Germany, where I am based, with me every year & introduced them to stalking & hunting in the UK along with English breakfasts, warm beer & driving on the other side of the road!

Jesting aside, every year we have had wonderful stalking & hunting with Alex & been very successful in what we have shot & until this year it was always sunshine & blue skies! This year we had some light rain & cooler weather but nothing to discourage from being in England & stalking muntjac, fallow deer & roe.

A very good hunting friend, Kris, came with me this year. He joined me last year & took a great Chinese Water deer & a trophy muntjac. This year he was after a representative fallow & whatever else the woods & hedgerows would offer up. Myself, I have shot quite a few muntjac & Chinese over the years, so I just told Alex that I wanted to have fun & see what we would come across.

For those that are not so familiar with muntjac, their official name is Muntiacus reevesi & they are also know as the 'barking deer' or 'striped deer' from their barking & the striped on their faces. They are native to Asia, originally China & Taiwan & were introduced into the United Kingdom in the last century & are believed to have broken out of enclosures in Woburn at the start of World War II. They are no prolific in the Shire counties to the South West of London, breeding two to three times a year! With a shoulder height of about 50 cms & a weight of 10 kgs plus, they are a very small deer with the bucks sporting antlers & canines. Does are typically a bit lighter in the body & often have bony lumps on their foreheads where the bucks have antlers. They are fierce browsers eating blossoms, fruit, nuts, fungi & more. Plus they make great table fare!

Rather than days & times, let me break this report into a few pages of what, where, who & how, but first I need to take the dogs out for a run so I will pick this back up this afternoon....

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Travel

Travel is super easy - a three to four hour road trip from Germany through The Netherlands, Belgium & into France, where we boarded Le Shuttel in Calais for the 40 minute crossing to Folkestone UK. And then it was a two hour drive up towards London & then across towards Basingstoke to Newbury & The Five Bells pub / hotel where we would be staying the few days.

Kris was taking his long haired German Weimaraner 11 month dog with us, so we had to go thru Pet Reception in France & show the dog's papers & chip details. As Crufts dog show was on that week in London, there were dozens of dogs at the Pet Reception counter - bull terriers, Jack Russells, groomed & plumber poodles, Salukis & more. It took some 30 minutes & then we were thru with time for a coffee & some Duty Free shopping before boarding the train & heading for England!

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Our Stalking guide, Alex



As mentioned, I have been stalking with Alex, a professional deer manager, for some five years now. He does not have a web site, does not do Instagram or Facebook & is pretty booked out every year for muntjac, Chinese Water deer & roe bucks. Plus he himself shoots & culls some 500 plus fallow deer every year, along with dozens or roe & muntjac. Alex has lots of ground that he works on & he knows his deer like the back of his hand.

With Alex it is a couple of phone calls, a Whatapp text & we fix the dates & are good to go. He is great fun to hunt & stalk with & he has always delivered over & beyond what I wanted! He has one or two agents that send him some clients but the majority are repeat clients year in year out, like myself I guess.


Rifles

I / we have always used Alex's rifles. It is pretty easy to get a UK Visitor's Permit, it just takes some paperwork & a few months advanced planning. But for the four days that we travel to England & 6 to 7 shots each it is not really worth it in my opinion to take my own rifle with me. Plus Alex has excellent equipment - this time we shot with a Blaser R8 chambered in .308 & topped with a Thermion Pulsar scope as well as a Gunwerks rifle in .22 CRM also topped with a Pulsar Thermion scope. Alex loads for both calibers & both rifles performed flawlessly!

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Accommodation

We stayed at The Five Bells, a traditional English pub just outside of Wickham. The Five Bells has 5 bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms & tea / coffee machines. The food is super & the pub, being a Free House as opposed to a tied pub, has a great variety of ales, bitters & lagers! Plus it adds to the charm to stay in a traditional country pub as opposed to a modern city hotel & they are dog friendly!

I have stayed there a number of times over the years & will use them again in the future!

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looks amazing
if u need another partner for next March, pls keep me updated, i may want to join you

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Fallow deer



We shot a few fallow over the three days. Kris was after a representative fallow buck & after glassing a number of bucks in various woodlands & open fields, Alex was able to get Kris on to a mature, black fallow buck in a herd of some twenty plus fallow deer. There was a second buck in the group about the same size but Kris opted to shoot the black buck. At the shot (.308) it ran some 20 meters & folded. Waidmannsheil Kris! A nice mature black fallow buck for the wall!

Kris shot a couple more fallow deer, being head shot culls. A young fallow buck in a field of rape seed at last light & a young female in a small woodland coppice. Kris let his dogs work both scent / blood trails for some extra training & he did very well! Alex also shot a very heavy fallow hind late one afternoon as we were driving back to the hotel. He spotted the herd from the car, did a quick U turn, parked up in a country lane, did a quick stalk & dropped the deer cleanly with a head shot at 130 m or thereabouts.






Roe deer

We saw a lot of roe deer - bucks & does. Most of the bucks were still in velvet & some showed a lot of promise! England has some very big roe buck.

I finished off the weekends hunting shooting a doe on our last afternoon stalk. Bucks run from 1st April to 31st October with does 1st November to 31st March. Again a cull animal dropped with a head shot.

All the venison goes into the 'food chain' thru a local game dealer / butcher & if any animal is shot in the body the regional veterinarian needs to needs to be called to come & inspect the carcass & certify it fit for consumption. The vet costs outweigh the price that the game dealer pays for the meat hence head shots & the head is removed, along with the legs, when the animals are gralloched.


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Muntjac




I really enjoy stalking muntjac. To me they are just a kind of magical forest animal with their long, almost pointed heads, their short, curved antlers & their canine fang like teeth! Over the years hunting with Alex, we have shot quite a few, so I am no longer interested in chasing Gold Medal bucks but much rather prefer stalking old, old bucks or abnormal bucks. Kris was happy stalking mature bucks as well rather than medal bucks.

We stalked various woodlands & a number of hedgerows throughout the three days & we took four good bucks between us.

I shot my first buck in a woodland plantation that we have hunted in past years. Alex spotted a number of muntjac in his thermal handheld & we slowly walked & glassed the area, stopping to call & squeak every few minutes. We spotted the buck browsing upwind & I dropped him with a chest shot from the Gunwerks .22 CRM. Alex saw that the buck had a bad leg & called it before the shot, a broken off hoof on his front left leg. A good buck to take off.










The following early morning, Kris took a good buck, stalking across an open field behind Alex to within 75 meters of a pair of feeding muntjac. He dropped the larger of the two with one shot & the buck dropped on the spot.

Shortly thereafter Alex spotted a pair of muntjacs feeding their way thru the edge of the woods. With me on the sticks tracking the two antelope in the thermal, Alex barked as the buck cleared some trees & I dropped the buck with a chest shot.

Two solid muntjac bucks within 45 minutes of pulling up the car!
















Kris shot the last buck on the last morning. We were working thru some heavy woodland when Alex picked up a buck in his thermal not some 10 meters from the woodland path that we were on. We picked up the buck in our binos & saw him to be an old & somewhat abnormal buck. with an odd shaped right antler. Kris dropped the buck with one shot at some 7 meters & the buck never moved!









Muntjac - a load of fun to stalk!


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Countryside




England has some beautiful countrywide & it was kind of special to be able to walk & stalk the hedges & woodlands freely with Alex. We encountered a number of dog walkers & cyclists whilst we were out stalking & they were all friendly & even inquisitive asking whether we had shot anything.

We saw lots of game from fallow, roe, muntjac to hares, pheasant, partridge & ducks & foxes. The number of roadkill animals alone bears testament to the high numbers of game animals in the countryside!







Just remember to leave the gates how you find them !




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Town

We went in to Newbury a couple of times during the days in between morning & late afternoon stalking. We enjoyed a full English breakfast in a great restaurant in town the one morning, they even had a dog menu featuring dog treats & snacks! When in Rome ....




The final evening we enjoyed a great curry at the 'Ghurkha Chef' in Newbury. We have eaten there in the past & the food plus service is simply super (assuming you like curry, which I do!).




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Wrap up

Kris & I had an awesome time with Alex. Over the five outings we shot 3 fallow deer, 1 roe deer & 4 muntjac between us - all one shot kills & nothing wounded or lost. Alex culled a big fallow hind. The stalking / hunting was great, the accommodation, food & drinks were super & all in all it was yet another wonderful few days stalking in the Shire counties of Berkshire & Hampshire in the UK.

We drove back to Germany on the Sunday morning after settling up our accounts with Alex & asking if he will have me back again next year. He said yes, so we must be doing something right!

A big thanks to Kris for coming along on this trip & also providing the transport, his VW Amarok truck, plus a big thanks to Alex for looking after us so well & getting us on the animals that we wanted & more!

Plus a big thanks to all AH readers that have taken the time to read this report & look at the pictures.

Cheers,

Charlie

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Landrovers





PS. This old Series was parked up in a village nearby where we were staying! I am a Landy fan & was sorely tempted to ring the doorbell & enquire! Maybe next year ...



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Always enjoy your reports my friend. Well done. I truly enjoy hunting Europe with its different species and unique hunting culture! The UK is a particular favorite... glad to take a walk down memory lane.

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Thank you Russell, appreciate the positive comments. Was a fun short break. In fact I am going back with Anja to try for some May roe bucks. Also planning a sika trip in October to Dorset, again a long weekend. Can I tempt you to join for sika?

Best, Charlie

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That sounds like a really fun trip. Thanks for sharing.

Great report.
Thanks for sharing your adventure.

Charlie64 said:

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Thank you Russell, appreciate the positive comments. Was a fun short break. In fact I am going back with Anja to try for some May roe bucks. Also planning a sika trip in October to Dorset, again a long weekend. Can I tempt you to join for sika?

Best, Charlie

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Click to expand...

I am actually hunting Sika in Slovakia in October with some friends otherwise I would take you up on the offer. Hopefully one day we can meet up and do some stalking together! I know I would enjoy that...

Excellent hunt @Charlie64, Waidmannsheil!
I too have had the pleasure to hunt with Alex about a year ago. We took in total 1:1, 1 CWD, 1 fallow buck and 5 Muntjac (mostly culls)
I really need to get back there for a big muntjac and some roe.

Waidmannsheil ! and thanks for sharing

What a cool hunt. Thank you for sharing

Thank you for sharing Charlie.

Quite a deal to have 30,000 Euros worth of rifles like that as loaners.