Charlie64
AH enthusiast
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2025
- Messages
- 315
- Reaction score
- 977
- Location
- Europe & South Africa
- Media
- 27
- Member of
- LJV NRW Germany
- Hunted
- England, Ireland, Scotland & Wales, Austria, Czech, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Botswana, Mauritania, Namibia, RSA, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Krygyzstan, Turkey, New Zealand & USA
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Some folks like to try new things all the time. Me, if it works well, I like to stick to it and that includes hunting. Don't get me wrong, I do try new things, but there are a number of things that I am more than happy to 'do over' that work more than well for me and hunting / stalking muntjac, Chinese Water Deer and roe buck with Alex in Southern England is one of those `do over` things.
I have hunted with Alex for the past 6 or something years now. Mainly Chinese and muntjac early in the years in February or March, having taken some wonderful animals myself and with hunting friends that have joined me from Germany.
This time my wife joined me for the first time in Berkshire and we decided to try for some roe bucks in the rut at the peak of summer and we could not have timed it more perfectly!
Let me break this down into a few sections for the sake of simplicity and easy reading…..
Travel & Accommodations
It could hardly be easier. I book the same accommodations as in the past, The Five Bells in Wickham. A comfortable country pub / hotel with simple rooms yet very adequate for a hunting weekend, dog friendly and a nice country pub with good food and a great range of ales and beers to try.
An email to the manageress Kate or by phone and an email confirmation and we are good. Payment by card on arrival and we run a tab for food and drinks which we settle on the final morning.
Travel is by car from Germany, thru Holland, Belgium, France and then Le Shuttel to England. Door to door some 9 hours. If we wanted to fly Alex has a pick up cab service from all main airports. But I like to drive, plus we took our two English Springer bitches with us this time so it was easy with the car. And we can bring back the cleaned heads and some shopping in the car without any airport hassles.
Rifles
It being such a short trip - basically a long weekend - we opted to use Alex's rifles. He has great equipment ranging from a Blaser R8 in .308 to a Gunwerks in .22 Creedmoor and more, all with top quality scopes. A Swarovski spotting scope is also part of the kit, enabling him to zoom in on any deer that may be worth going after and a large drone for spotting deer and foxes from the air.
For this trip we shot his culling rifle, a heavy barrelled build in .243 with a Swarovski Z6i glass on top. Super easy to shoot, no recoil and pin point accurate. We were shooting 75 gr Hornady V Max factory loads and everything we shot were 1 shot kills that did not go far at all.
You may not like the .243, but there is not debating that on roe deer it does the job!
All we took in the way of hunting gear was a pair of Leica binocs and a thermal handheld (which I never took out of the case).
On the day of departure it was up early, a quick coffee, and then the drive through Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and into Northern France and Le Shuttel. Check in with the dogs was simple and with hardly any traffic we were on the train an hour ahead of schedule.
A two hour drive later and we were checking into our room at The Five Bells in Wickham and then enjoying a light lunch and a pint!
Calling roe bucks in the rut !
Alex picked us up at 18.00 and an hour later we had our first roe buck on the back of the Hilux.
We were driving some hedgerows bordering stubbles where Alex had spied some fallow deer from the road, when we saw a large bodied roe deer slip into the woods ahead of us. Alex stopped the Toyota, we got out, gun on the sticks and started calling.
After some minutes Alex whispered "don't move, slowly go to the right some 20 meters" and there on the edge of the wood in a small gap between the bushes and trees stood the buck, looking straight at us. Alex called again and whispered for me to shot him.
Red dot on the chest and squeeze the trigger and the buck dropped on the spot. A big bodied roe buck with an abnormal head ! A bonus for me ! I was super happy and we had our first roe buck at just an hour into the first outing !
We carried on and continued seeing bucks with does and young bucks looking for does. Later that evening we spied an old, old buck and Alex started calling. It could not have been a more perfect scene - the Toyota parked in the middle of a large stubble field, the sun setting, Anja on the sticks and Alex calling to an old, old roe buck in the woods. Perfect. He came in a bit to the call but the wind shifted and the buck pranced away barking his annoyance. We quickly changed positions to try from the other side.
Set up on another field of stubbles, Alex started calling again with Anja back on the sticks. A doe and fawn came out of the cover and came to within 20 meters, with the doe stretching her neck to see what we were! The old buck barked his annoyance but refused to come out and play.
(Photographed through the car and not from within the car.)
Alex then spotted another back on the other side of the stubbles and putting the Swarovski spotting scope on him, Alex decided we should try for him. An old, old buck with a very unusual head ! Game on !
We drove a big semi circle to get behind the buck and then - again with Anja on the sticks - Alex began calling. We got the buck's interest and as he came in to about 75 meters, Anja dropped him with a shot to the chest. A mature roe buck of some 5 years and a unique head with heavy yet stunted symmetrical antlers. A great head for the wall !
The following morning, I went out alone with Alex and we drove to an area that I have hunted with him before.
Pulling through an opening in a hedgerow onto some stubbles, he spotted a single buck feeding some 200 m away. We glassed him and the opinion was that he was a mature representative buck and was as big as he would ever get. A solid 6 pointer buck.
Now this is an interesting scenario. Here is a solid representative mature 6 point buck, nothing super special and he will not get any better over the next year or two. A number of clients may turn him down, the farmer is happy to see him gone due to the damage he does, big antlers neither here nor there. Me, I was happy to take him and as Alex said "shoot him " I sent the 75 gr Hornady on its way and dropped the buck with a solid shoulder shot.
Shortly after, Alex put up his drone and we saw a number of deer, does and bucks and lots of muntjac and a fox! A quick call with the Game Keeper and we spent the next 45 minutes trying to call in the fox - squeaking and using various distress calls. We managed to get the fox up and moving but he never ventured out of the woods to give us a shot opportunity. As the Keeper had just put down 14.000 pheasant for the coming season, that fox will need to go soon!
We drove on and driving through a hedgerow onto a field of pasture / grazing, I spied a buck, laying on the grass at the edge of the woods. To be fair at less than 40 m he would have been hard not to spot!
An old buck, fatigued from the rut and with a solid, abnormal head! Out of the car onto the sticks and at the shot the buck bolted some 10 m into the woods and dropped. A slightly high shot but the bullet still went through both lungs before exiting and did the job. A super buck to take! Pictures and a gralloch and then back to Wickham and The Five Bells.
The following morning we drove over to Wiltshire, passing Stonehenge, at which my dear wife commented "Is that it ?" and we pulled up onto some cut fields below Salisbury Plain.
We were spotting deer almost immediately - a doe and buck out on some stubbles a half mile to the left, another pair on some grazing to the left and then Alex spotted a very old buck with a solid set of antlers in a small valley to the right of us. Quickly, we stalked Indian file (can one still say that or is it now Native American file?) to the edge of some woods where Alex started calling. And over the next 20 minutes, he / we managed to call the buck to some 75 m but the clever beast was coming in carefully and keeping some thick gorse cover between himself and us.
The wind then swirled and the buck bolted! You cannot win them all!
We spied another buck and with Anja again on the sticks, Alex called the buck from some 600 m out to some 50 m. Calling, stopping, glassing, calling again. It was simply wonderful and exciting to see the buck come in to the call like you were pulling him in on a rope!
Anja shot him cleanly to the shoulder and after a short 20 m dash, the buck fell. A mature 5 point buck taken in the most wonderful setting with some 8 other roe deer in view!
Roe buck stalking / calling in the rut - it doesn't get much better than that!
We left it at that, super happy with 5 bucks over 3 outings, 3 abnormal mature heads and 2 solid mature bucks, all dropped cleanly with 1 shot.
That evening as a bonus and for 'shits and giggles' as one of our friends says, we went out shooting rabbits with a CZ .22 rifle as a favour to one of the farmers where Alex stalks, just to try and put a dent in the numbers and cut back on the damage that they do.
We managed a total of 25 rabbits plus a pigeon that Anja shot and 25 minutes working our young English Springers on retrieving the rabbits. Simple fun!
Newbury
We drove in to Newbury a couple of times for breakfasts and one evening to enjoy a wonderful curry at the Gurkha Chef, a very popular restaurant in town.
Plus we enjoyed a couple of beers at the Lock, Stock & Barrel pub, down on the canal in town. A super, typical British pub, something that I miss living in Germany.
We also went on some country walks with the dogs, once in a large park and once following Public Footpaths through fields and woodlands and the beautiful English countryside.
And how can you be in England and not enjoy 'fish and chips'! We had to eat it once.
On the Sunday morning, Alex weighed the cleaned and boiled heads and we settled up with him for the stalking and the bucks, before the drive back to Germany.
Again it was a wonderful short stalking trip to Berkshire, taking 5 good bucks with Alex, with beautiful late summer weather and simply an awesome time! I would not / could not fault any aspect of the trip, on the contrary, we would praise every aspect of it - plenty of roe deer at the height of the rut, super equipment, a great guide and good accommodations!
A big thank you to my wife for coming along plus a thank you to Alex (again) and thanks to all AH readers that came along too through this report. Appreciated.
.
Some folks like to try new things all the time. Me, if it works well, I like to stick to it and that includes hunting. Don't get me wrong, I do try new things, but there are a number of things that I am more than happy to 'do over' that work more than well for me and hunting / stalking muntjac, Chinese Water Deer and roe buck with Alex in Southern England is one of those `do over` things.
I have hunted with Alex for the past 6 or something years now. Mainly Chinese and muntjac early in the years in February or March, having taken some wonderful animals myself and with hunting friends that have joined me from Germany.
This time my wife joined me for the first time in Berkshire and we decided to try for some roe bucks in the rut at the peak of summer and we could not have timed it more perfectly!
Let me break this down into a few sections for the sake of simplicity and easy reading…..
Travel & Accommodations
It could hardly be easier. I book the same accommodations as in the past, The Five Bells in Wickham. A comfortable country pub / hotel with simple rooms yet very adequate for a hunting weekend, dog friendly and a nice country pub with good food and a great range of ales and beers to try.
An email to the manageress Kate or by phone and an email confirmation and we are good. Payment by card on arrival and we run a tab for food and drinks which we settle on the final morning.
Travel is by car from Germany, thru Holland, Belgium, France and then Le Shuttel to England. Door to door some 9 hours. If we wanted to fly Alex has a pick up cab service from all main airports. But I like to drive, plus we took our two English Springer bitches with us this time so it was easy with the car. And we can bring back the cleaned heads and some shopping in the car without any airport hassles.
Rifles
It being such a short trip - basically a long weekend - we opted to use Alex's rifles. He has great equipment ranging from a Blaser R8 in .308 to a Gunwerks in .22 Creedmoor and more, all with top quality scopes. A Swarovski spotting scope is also part of the kit, enabling him to zoom in on any deer that may be worth going after and a large drone for spotting deer and foxes from the air.
For this trip we shot his culling rifle, a heavy barrelled build in .243 with a Swarovski Z6i glass on top. Super easy to shoot, no recoil and pin point accurate. We were shooting 75 gr Hornady V Max factory loads and everything we shot were 1 shot kills that did not go far at all.
You may not like the .243, but there is not debating that on roe deer it does the job!
All we took in the way of hunting gear was a pair of Leica binocs and a thermal handheld (which I never took out of the case).
On the day of departure it was up early, a quick coffee, and then the drive through Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and into Northern France and Le Shuttel. Check in with the dogs was simple and with hardly any traffic we were on the train an hour ahead of schedule.
A two hour drive later and we were checking into our room at The Five Bells in Wickham and then enjoying a light lunch and a pint!
Calling roe bucks in the rut !
Alex picked us up at 18.00 and an hour later we had our first roe buck on the back of the Hilux.
We were driving some hedgerows bordering stubbles where Alex had spied some fallow deer from the road, when we saw a large bodied roe deer slip into the woods ahead of us. Alex stopped the Toyota, we got out, gun on the sticks and started calling.
After some minutes Alex whispered "don't move, slowly go to the right some 20 meters" and there on the edge of the wood in a small gap between the bushes and trees stood the buck, looking straight at us. Alex called again and whispered for me to shot him.
Red dot on the chest and squeeze the trigger and the buck dropped on the spot. A big bodied roe buck with an abnormal head ! A bonus for me ! I was super happy and we had our first roe buck at just an hour into the first outing !
We carried on and continued seeing bucks with does and young bucks looking for does. Later that evening we spied an old, old buck and Alex started calling. It could not have been a more perfect scene - the Toyota parked in the middle of a large stubble field, the sun setting, Anja on the sticks and Alex calling to an old, old roe buck in the woods. Perfect. He came in a bit to the call but the wind shifted and the buck pranced away barking his annoyance. We quickly changed positions to try from the other side.
Set up on another field of stubbles, Alex started calling again with Anja back on the sticks. A doe and fawn came out of the cover and came to within 20 meters, with the doe stretching her neck to see what we were! The old buck barked his annoyance but refused to come out and play.
(Photographed through the car and not from within the car.)
Alex then spotted another back on the other side of the stubbles and putting the Swarovski spotting scope on him, Alex decided we should try for him. An old, old buck with a very unusual head ! Game on !
We drove a big semi circle to get behind the buck and then - again with Anja on the sticks - Alex began calling. We got the buck's interest and as he came in to about 75 meters, Anja dropped him with a shot to the chest. A mature roe buck of some 5 years and a unique head with heavy yet stunted symmetrical antlers. A great head for the wall !
The following morning, I went out alone with Alex and we drove to an area that I have hunted with him before.
Pulling through an opening in a hedgerow onto some stubbles, he spotted a single buck feeding some 200 m away. We glassed him and the opinion was that he was a mature representative buck and was as big as he would ever get. A solid 6 pointer buck.
Now this is an interesting scenario. Here is a solid representative mature 6 point buck, nothing super special and he will not get any better over the next year or two. A number of clients may turn him down, the farmer is happy to see him gone due to the damage he does, big antlers neither here nor there. Me, I was happy to take him and as Alex said "shoot him " I sent the 75 gr Hornady on its way and dropped the buck with a solid shoulder shot.
Shortly after, Alex put up his drone and we saw a number of deer, does and bucks and lots of muntjac and a fox! A quick call with the Game Keeper and we spent the next 45 minutes trying to call in the fox - squeaking and using various distress calls. We managed to get the fox up and moving but he never ventured out of the woods to give us a shot opportunity. As the Keeper had just put down 14.000 pheasant for the coming season, that fox will need to go soon!
We drove on and driving through a hedgerow onto a field of pasture / grazing, I spied a buck, laying on the grass at the edge of the woods. To be fair at less than 40 m he would have been hard not to spot!
An old buck, fatigued from the rut and with a solid, abnormal head! Out of the car onto the sticks and at the shot the buck bolted some 10 m into the woods and dropped. A slightly high shot but the bullet still went through both lungs before exiting and did the job. A super buck to take! Pictures and a gralloch and then back to Wickham and The Five Bells.
The following morning we drove over to Wiltshire, passing Stonehenge, at which my dear wife commented "Is that it ?" and we pulled up onto some cut fields below Salisbury Plain.
We were spotting deer almost immediately - a doe and buck out on some stubbles a half mile to the left, another pair on some grazing to the left and then Alex spotted a very old buck with a solid set of antlers in a small valley to the right of us. Quickly, we stalked Indian file (can one still say that or is it now Native American file?) to the edge of some woods where Alex started calling. And over the next 20 minutes, he / we managed to call the buck to some 75 m but the clever beast was coming in carefully and keeping some thick gorse cover between himself and us.
The wind then swirled and the buck bolted! You cannot win them all!
We spied another buck and with Anja again on the sticks, Alex called the buck from some 600 m out to some 50 m. Calling, stopping, glassing, calling again. It was simply wonderful and exciting to see the buck come in to the call like you were pulling him in on a rope!
Anja shot him cleanly to the shoulder and after a short 20 m dash, the buck fell. A mature 5 point buck taken in the most wonderful setting with some 8 other roe deer in view!
Roe buck stalking / calling in the rut - it doesn't get much better than that!
We left it at that, super happy with 5 bucks over 3 outings, 3 abnormal mature heads and 2 solid mature bucks, all dropped cleanly with 1 shot.
That evening as a bonus and for 'shits and giggles' as one of our friends says, we went out shooting rabbits with a CZ .22 rifle as a favour to one of the farmers where Alex stalks, just to try and put a dent in the numbers and cut back on the damage that they do.
We managed a total of 25 rabbits plus a pigeon that Anja shot and 25 minutes working our young English Springers on retrieving the rabbits. Simple fun!
Newbury
We drove in to Newbury a couple of times for breakfasts and one evening to enjoy a wonderful curry at the Gurkha Chef, a very popular restaurant in town.
Plus we enjoyed a couple of beers at the Lock, Stock & Barrel pub, down on the canal in town. A super, typical British pub, something that I miss living in Germany.
We also went on some country walks with the dogs, once in a large park and once following Public Footpaths through fields and woodlands and the beautiful English countryside.
And how can you be in England and not enjoy 'fish and chips'! We had to eat it once.
On the Sunday morning, Alex weighed the cleaned and boiled heads and we settled up with him for the stalking and the bucks, before the drive back to Germany.
Again it was a wonderful short stalking trip to Berkshire, taking 5 good bucks with Alex, with beautiful late summer weather and simply an awesome time! I would not / could not fault any aspect of the trip, on the contrary, we would praise every aspect of it - plenty of roe deer at the height of the rut, super equipment, a great guide and good accommodations!
A big thank you to my wife for coming along plus a thank you to Alex (again) and thanks to all AH readers that came along too through this report. Appreciated.
.
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