MY DEER DIARY

By ALEX MILLER

Deer stalking is hundreds of years old. Its practitioners say that it’s all about paying the deer, and your food, some respect. Rather than keeping the deer in a cage and feeding them the jelly from their relative’s bones through a leather mask then shooting them when you’re ready to eat, stalking turns the killing into an ordeal for the hungry.  

While I lived among the highlanders, eating black pudding for breakfast, haggis for lunch, and haggis for dinner, I learned that traditional stalking involves climbing enormous, ice-cold mountains on your belly, tip-toeing over slick precipices, and changing direction every time the wind does so the herd doesn’t smell you.
Writing this now reminds me of my first shot at a deer. I was lying prostrate on the mountain wilds, body freezing in an icy puddle, my stomach churning from drinking malt whiskey the night before to dull my nerves.

My finger grasped the trigger and my stalking instructor, Niall, whispered to me in his thick Lochaber brogue: “Now is the time…”

Watch the video to find out how it turned out.

Oh, and for more pictures from our doe-slaying adventure, please check out Hoots Mon! It’s Haggis Time! from the April issue of Vice.

By ALEX MILLER 2 years ago

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