Louise Roddon, Evening Standard, 5 November 2001
"NAY – that's the bolt. This one's the trigger." There was just a hint in Kenny the stalker's twinkly blue eyes of what he was doubtlessly thinking – something probably along the lines of We've got a right one here – and then he laughed uproariously. The game was up. The only woman in this assembled stalking party. I was also a novice. I didn't own so much as a deerstalker, let alone Madonna-style tailored plus-fours.
Wham! The air-splintered and the force of the ammunition threw me against a hummock in the bog.
"Hmm, you've hit it," announced Kenny. "Not bad for a beginner."
This was target practice, an essential prelude to stalking, as much for the deer's sake as the stalkers'. We were shooting the hell out of a cardboard box above Lady's Loch on the Isle of Harris.
Our party was from Amhuinnsuidhe (Aven-suey) Castle, the home of the snazzily tweeded Sebastian Bulmer, the third member of our shooting party, and his father Jonathan, heir to the cider company.
The castle's chef, rosemary Shrager, had commanded me to bring back a good beastie, skinned and ready for the kitchen. To my horror, a hind and yearling that looked horribly like Bambi skittered gracefully across the track but, muttered Kenny: "They're no good to us, it's the old stags we need."
The Isle of Harris is awash with red deer. It's a wilderness of mountain and glen, peppered with ancient crystalline rocks and cratered with small lochs, where you're likely to see an abandoned whaling station as a crofter's cottage; Gaelic is the favoured lingo and Sabbatarianism strictly adhered to. Not long ago, a local bobby confronted some disconsolate youths kicking a ball down the lane. "I'll have to take that, I'm afraid. It is the Sabbath, you know."
Culling, except of course on Sundays, is certainly not frowned upon.
This season, the Red Deer Commission has ordered 45 from this particular estate to be shot. Old stags are culled in October, then the hinds throughout November.
Kenny, a double for Harold Wilson in sage plus-fours, led us along Loch Ulladail, over glistening slabs of rocks, through rain-soaked bracken and mud that sucked at our boots, and peers gloomily at the roll of grey mist topping the Stone Ulladale mountains.
The walk resembled a complicated version of In Grandmother's footsteps, with Kenny frequently crouching while we copied. Time after time, our stalker folded his body against a rock and out came the spyglasses. It reminded me of chess. You move in, and then a hare bolts. Off shoots the deer and it's back to square one. Even the mocking shriek of a golden eagle can alert your pray. There's no talking. And you might have to lie flat in a puddle for half an hour.
The Bertie Wooster look is not just to appease the foppish exhibitionists. Harris tweed, I learned, is resilient to a good soaking. The colours can help you blend in with the hills, too.
Rain frequently messes up proceedings. Sensible stags retreat under cover, so it's not uncommon to get only one day's stalking, but then this is the beauty of Amhuinnsuidhe. You can relax by the drawing room fire, play billiards, take Sebastian's spirited spaniels for a walk, even join Rosemary's cookery school.
Students – house-party members who have not opted for the outdoors – help prepare meals. The standard is more haute than house party, and because it was prepared by fellow guests, dinner would soon degenerate into playful backchat as we tried to guess which chef was responsible (helped along by quantities of Margaux, Pomerol and Chablis)
Amhuinnsuidhe was built in 1868 as a wedding present for the Countess of Dunmore. In my room, restrained chintz and Scottish watercolours, I was lulled to sleep by the howling wind and roar of surf, waking to moody skies hovering over the silhouette of Taransay. "No stalking today I'm afraid," would come the message from the downstairs. I was beginning not to care.
On that one day deemed fit for stalking, we did spot a couple of stags, antlers waving behind giant boulders like branches. Other guests on the far side of the loch had better luck. "I got one from about 100 yards," one told us over dinner. "Right in the neck." He savoured a morsel of venison thoughtfully.
Maybe our stags sensed amateurism. "Blast! They've got wind of us," Kenny has cursed, unloading his rifle. Secretly, I was rather relieved.
