One Heck Of A Ride

148 distances. This leg of our two-country hunt was well organized, and both Norm and I took gold-medal Scottish Red Deer. Pictured with David Jackson and Author stags, wrapping up another good adventure. When I got home, Marty and I talked about traveling to Scotland the very next year to renew our marriage vows at a little stone church I had admired on this trip. While arranging the wedding by phone and fax from Lompoc we were told that Scottish law would not allow the ceremony in the church because Marty had been married previously and although we had been separated for a while our divorce had not been finalized. A justice of the peace would have to perform the ceremony. We were accompanied on this trip by Bud and Carole Dyer and their daughter Sally, and met Gus Voegler, a client, in Scotland. While the women arranged for the wedding and party, Bud, Gus and I left for the Highlands to hunt for a couple of days. Our hunt began with Bud, Gus and me, along with our stalker, David Jackson, taking a boat across a lake and spending the night in a cabin. The next morning, we left at first light and started climbing a steep, treeless mountain. When Gus stopped about halfway up and said he could go no farther and was returning to the cabin, Bud, David and I went over the top and found a group of eight stags on a side hill, and two stags on another hill above the next valley. Both Bud and I could have shot our stags at 300 yards or so, but David wanted us to get closer. When we did, both Bud and I took hill stags in the highlands. After photographing our deer, we followed European tradition and gave them their last meals and placed blood-dipped leaves on our hats. The bodies of both stags were about the same size as an average-size “eastern” whitetail or a small but mature Rocky Mountain mule deer. These were true Scottish stags with small and spindly antlers. Their genes had not been mixed with those from larger European red deer some outfitters were releasing. We had a great meal after we returned to the cabin, and Gus was rested and ready to go the next morning. Bud and I accompanied him and David on the hunt, and Gus shot his stag, topping off another great day in Scotland. The next morning, we all got up early and went after a roebuck David said he had been seeing at a certain spot. These little deer typically travel the same route each day, and that day was no exception. The roebuck was where the stalker expected to find the deer, and Gus shot it. While we were hunting, the girls had gone out into the fields around the lodge and picked This cabin was “base camp” for author’s 1989 red deer hunt in the Scottish Highlands Trouble In England