The call of the stags

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19 October 2009

Dee Ward fulfilled a lifelong ambition by selling his water business in Hertfordshire and moving with his family to Scotland in 2004. He settled in the beautiful Angus Glens where he bought an 8,000 acre Highland estate. In his blog, Dee shares the challenges of running his estate which offers red and roe deer stalking, grouse and partridge shooting and salmon and trout fishing as well as holiday cottages, a sheep farm and a hydro-electric scheme.

“The last week has seen a big turn in the leaves. All the birch and rowan are turning yellow and red respectively. Though the weather has remained good we have started getting the odd frost in the morning, and the nights seem to be drawing in quicker and quicker. It’s now dark at about 6.30pm in the evening.

Our stalking has been going well and our guests have managed to kill three stags all of over 15 stone in weight. Every evening one can hear the sound of roaring stags echoing around the glen. The “Rut” is now in full swing with each stag attempting to attract and then keep a group of hinds in an area, and their roars aim to ward off unwanted interest from other stags who are attempting to attract some of the hinds away.

Inevitably this ends in a fight between the two stags but normally this ends without any serious injury. One of the things we attempt to do is to shoot the stags with narrow set antlers with few points. This is for two reasons; normally the stags with antlers like this are poor looking beasts, but the main reason is that when they fight with other stags their antlers do not interlock with the other stag’s antlers but penetrate between the antlers into the neck of the other stag, often killing it. Hence the well grown stag with a superior head can be killed by the inferior stag because his antlers are unnaturally deformed.

Peter (my shepherd/farm manger) had a successful couple of days at the Stirling sheep sales. He came back with three tups (rams) and nearly 150 sheep. That will form the core of our new sheep flock. We will now produce lambs, and buy in a few more to build up the flock to about 500 ewes over the next two to three years. We have potentially big local demand for lamb to eat from friends and acquaintances, so I am now looking into how to best supply this local market, and all the legal requirements. I am convinced that selling locally and direct on a small scale is the most profitable and sustainable way to proceed.

I am pleased to announce that I have at long last managed to catch a salmon! It is the first of the season for me, and I caught it on Wednesday evening. We had a small amount of rain on Tuesday evening and the river looked in good condition, plus I’d had a stressful day so I thought I’d go down and have a cast to relax. I was trying a bit of the river I hadn’t fished in a while but it was looking good and sure enough I caught one. Rivers take a bit of getting acquainted with and I am just beginning to get to know my bit of river. It’s very satisfying when ones theory of what fly to use and where to fish proves successful. It was only a small male salmon of about four or five pounds who was well coloured (having been in the river a while and getting his mating colours) but satisfying none the less. I returned him to the river once I’d taken a photo to prove my catch to my sceptical family and gamekeepers.”