Or the debris that mounds up in corners from evergreens battered by winds. But Jemima had confirmed that she is a star in the making, and between us we had moved one notch nearer to our elusive target.. I was not in a pretty state: hands and jacket covered with blood and mud, torso soaked with sweat, boots full of water, feet like ice. Scanning with binoculars, I picked up a smooth, rounded hump, like the back of a hippo.There was the doe, dead in the stream. To extract it, I too had to go in, nearly waist-deep, wrestle the body ashore, then drag it 250 yards up a one-in-three slope rendered greasy as butter by weeks of rain.So our operation concluded at 8.30am.

After a while I followed - and when she came back, three or four minutes later, she was soaked to the skin.Obviously she'd been in the river at the bottom. Surely she wouldn't have gone swimming on such a cold day unless drawn by some special lure? I went on down until water was showing through the trees. Jemima, let go, put her nose to the ground and began working methodically in the opposite direction, right-handed down the slope Soon she disappeared into the valley, way below me. Jemima was heaving mightily on her lead, but there was still no blood, and I assumed that in her inexperience she was scenting the whole bunch, rather than a wounded animal.Back to the impact point for a more thorough search. Had I missed? For 100 yards we followed the tracks of the group, angling downhill through ash and hazel.

I searched for pins (bristles of hair cut by the bullet) and spots of blood Nothing. I put Jemima on a lead and came down to the place where they'd been standing No body. But deer often run after a heart-shot, and on that steep slope a stricken beast could have travelled a long way. I held the cross of the telescopic sight steady on her heart and squeezed the trigger.At the shot the whole group wheeled, fled and vanished downhill to my left. The sole occupant was a big dog fox, mousing.On, then, beside the wall separating field on my right from wood on my left Suddenly in the trees a stick cracked We'd been spotted I looked over the wall Six does and fawns were charging downhill through the trees A hundred yards off, they stopped to look back By then I was kneeling, rifle levelled over the wall One doe was standing clear Background safe? Yes or no? Yes. Back on the ground, I hustled towards another promising field and came cautiously up behind a stone wall to scan the grass meadow. If only they'd turn towards the wood and head my way! But no; without any inkling of danger, they carried steadily on, and disappeared into safety over the curve of the hill.Under the clear sky, the light was strengthening by the minute.

The beasts were on the skyline: a bullet would probably go straight through any one of them and on across country.The deer were grazing towards my right, moving on a few steps at a time. By now last year's fawns have stopped feeding from their mothers, and are easily mature enough to survive on their own So - three perfect targets Immediate action!Not so fast. By the time I'd sneaked up the ladder to the platform, the horizon was flaring deep orange, and I didn't need binoculars to pick out the five black shapes silhouetted against the blaze of dawn, barely 90 yards out in front of me Three does and two fawns. Jemima, though still not a year old, has learnt the form brilliantly, and followed silently at heel, sitting down whenever I stopped, lying flat if I crouched.We approached the high seat warily, on a path that winds uphill through fir trees. Two minutes later I stopped in a gateway under some trees, got out, loaded five rounds into the .243, and set off for a high seat on the upper edge of a steeply wooded bank, looking out over fields.Rain had fallen earlier in the night, but frost had come down in the small hours, and the grass of the woodland ride crunched slightly underfoot. Then it was into the Jeep and away for the 25-minute drive to the estate on which I cull.Half a mile short, I stopped on a stretch of open lane to test the wind. A cold breeze was blowing from the north - ideal for my purposes Away to my right the horizon had already started to lighten No time to lose.