by Simon Lusk
Out of season I keep my freezer full of venison. Deer hunting is not a passion, as I am colour blind and cannot see deer in the bush, but I love eating venison and enjoy butchery.
A spiker taken with my 7mm08. Lucy likes deer hunting as she doesn’t get called a princess for not going into the thick stuff.
My dogs don’t really like deer shooting much either. Mabo believes that if I have a gun in my hand his role is to be fifteen yards ahead going from side to side looking for something to flush. He refuses to heel, and no amount of persuading gets him to understand we are not hunting properly. He is the same with stalking ponds, so he usually gets left behind.
Bruce is quite keen on deer shooting, and very committed, but he doesn’t like sitting and watching deer at a distance for more than about 10 minutes. He watches animals at 400 yards, but if they don’t get shot he decides to go and sort them out himself. He is a cracker of a finder, and very committed to nailing any deer that thinks it is going to run away. As a seven month old pup he attached himself to the neck of a deer that went down hard and had been bled but kept jumping up and running.