Fallow Deer Stalking in England

Fallow Deer Buck Stalking Season in England

England	Date From	Date To
Fallow Buck	1st August	30th April

 

Those dates are not ours to set. They come from Schedule 1 of the Deer Act 1991, as amended by the Regulatory Reform (Deer) (England and Wales) Order 2007, which makes it an offence to take a fallow buck in England between 1 May and 31 July. Scotland sits under different law altogether, the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996, and its dates are not the same. If you are weighing one country against the other, read fallow deer stalking in Scotland alongside this page.

Our English fallow ground is woodland and parkland on estates we know personally, and days are arranged one at a time for sporting clients rather than sold as a fixed package. That suits the beast. Fallow are a herd deer and they hold to cover through the middle of the day, so a buck is usually taken on a slow, quiet stalk into the wind at first or last light, or from a high seat on enclosed ground. Your stalker chooses the approach on the morning, on what the wind is doing and where the herd has been feeding.

 

Fallow Deer Doe Stalking Season in England

England	Date From	Date To
Fallow Doe	1st November	31st March

 

The doe close season in England runs from 1 April to 31 October, so doe stalking is a winter business. It is also the management end of the season: the estate has a cull to take off the ground before spring, and that plan is agreed with the keeper before you arrive rather than decided on the day. Bare woodland and frost make for easier seeing and harder moving, and does are alert in a way the bucks are not.

 

What the Law Asks of Your Rifle in England

England and Wales set a legal minimum for the rifle and the bullet, and it is not the same minimum as Scotland's. For fallow, Schedule 2 of the Deer Act 1991 requires a rifle of a calibre not less than .240 inches, developing a muzzle energy of not less than 1,700 foot pounds, firing a soft-nosed or hollow-nosed bullet, in other words an expanding one. Scotland works instead from a minimum bullet weight and velocity, with no calibre floor at all, so a light rifle that is perfectly lawful for deer north of the border is not necessarily lawful for fallow here.

That is why we suggest .270 or above. It clears the English minimum with room to spare for a beast the size of a mature buck, and it is what our stalkers carry. If you would rather not travel with a rifle at all, we provide one.

 

Daylight Only, and Why

Deer may not be shot at night in England. The Deer Act 1991 makes it an offence to take deer between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise, and the narrow exceptions that exist are for an occupier preventing serious damage to his own crops, not for sport. Every fallow day we arrange is therefore a daylight day, which in practice means the two ends of it.

 

Bringing Your Own Rifle from Abroad

A visitor living outside Great Britain needs a visitor's firearm permit, issued under section 17 of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988. You cannot apply for it yourself. A Great Britain resident sponsors you and applies to their own police firearms licensing department, and the permit can be granted for up to a year, which covers repeat visits inside one season. Allow at least six weeks before you travel. We arrange the permits at the time of booking, and the same permit serves whether you are stalking in England or in Scotland.

 

Fallow carry the broad palmated antler that no other British deer has, and their coats vary more than any other, from common through menil to melanistic and leucistic. There is more on the beast itself, and on all three countries in which we arrange fallow, on the fallow deer stalking page. For everything else we run in this country, see hunting in England.