The deer hunters

By law, wild deer can be shot only seasonally. I went out in April at the end of the last hunting season but wild venison is now back on the menu again as August marks the beginning of a new season.

Back on that cold April morning: as I wait in the deserted car park of the local pub to be picked up in Kieron’s 4x4, the dawn chorus is surprisingly loud, my breath frosts in the air and I’m considering the ethics of what I’m about to take part in. I’m going out to hunt down and deliberately take the life of a wild animal. Or rather Kieron is: I don’t have a rifle or the licence to use one.

My inner caveman is thrilled by the prospect of the hunt and the atavistic masculine pleasure of a kill. In an increasingly feminised, touchy-feely society, it feels refreshingly macho.

I take the line that killing an animal is acceptable only if you intend to eat it and if it is done with minimum pain. Even though I’m a confirmed carnivore, I’m not a fan of modern animal farming and in supermarkets shy away from the blanched carcasses of battery chickens. I prefer, if possible, to eat meat bought locally from farmers’ markets or from friends who have small meat businesses. But eating a wild animal whose death I have witnessed feels right, at one with nature, as if I’m fulfilling an ancient and noble role. And compared with buying a supermarket’s plastic-wrapped bundle of processed flesh, cut from an animal raised in captivity and stuffed with chemicals, getting out in the fresh air and killing a deer with one clean shot seems the more wholesome option.

I’d never eaten deer meat before but I’d been told that it is particularly good for you. “Venison is considered the healthiest of the red meats because it is low in fat and high in iron and protein,” says Liz Stretton, of the Food Standards Agency. “It is also high in essential omega-3 fatty acids.” The food facts on venison are impressive: a 4oz (110g) cut of venison is packed with B vitamins and contains 20 per cent of the daily requirement of selenium and zinc; and venison contains only about 6 per cent saturated fat, compared with 13 per cent in lean beef and 27 per cent in streaky bacon. Venison is also a good source of iron, important for pregnant and menstruating women, and growing children.

But bringing home the meat is not as easy as it might seem: deer have fine-tuned instincts and the smallest sound or movement can spook a herd and set it careering across country. Kieron, Paul and I drive to various likely spots where deer have been seen — and more crucially where they can safely be shot — with rising ground behind them or a thick wood so that the bullet, if it misses, can be stopped harmlessly. We have no luck. The deer either are not where we had hoped they might be or they are spooked before Paul or Kieron can take a shot. Sometimes only female deer can be seen: at this time of year, only the bucks can be shot as the does are pregnant; they give birth in June. So we drive to a wood, owned by a local landowner, where deer have been spotted the day before.

We divide our forces: Kieron will circle round to the top of the wood and will wait there; Paul and I will stalk round the bottom of the wood. If we can’t get a shot at the deer, we may drive them on to Kieron’s gun. Stalking is surprisingly fun: you place each foot carefully in the leaf litter of the wood, careful not to stand on a twig that might snap, alarming the quarry. It’s a bit like doing t’ai chi: you take a careful step forward, placing the ball of your foot with extreme delicacy on the ground. Then you transfer your weight on to it and swing your back foot forward slowly. Step, step, step. Then you stop and scan the surrounding woodland with binoculars. The grey and brown fur of the deer blends in with the trees with almost perfect camouflage. But today we are looking for a herd of white deer. My heart is thumping and I’m concentrating hard on making no sound. Paul points out deer tracks, explaining in a murmur how old the animal is, how fast it was going.

Suddenly I see a white object moving through the trees up near the edge of the wood by a field. I tug at Paul’s sleeve, I’m almost hopping with excitement: there is our quarry. Take it, take it. Paul starts laughing: he leans forward and whispers into my ear: “It’s a sheep.” And because he’s a very kind man he doesn’t add: “You townie prat.”

We have no luck that day. Nevertheless, I enjoy the adventure, the exercise and the anticipation. I am begining to worry, though, that I will never witness a kill. Over the next two weeks we drive the wood several times; we cruise the hedgerows looking for the grey silhouettes in the dawn; we spend a freezing hour crouched behind hay bales put out for us by a farmer in the middle of his bean field as Siberian winds cut through our clothes. And still no kill. And then one morning, at about 6.30, as we drive down a narrow lane, a herd of nine deer jump out right in front of us and crash through the trees on the other side of the road. Kieron accelerates and the herd separates: three young deer are left on one side of the lane in a big field; their fellows have disappeared. Quickly and smoothly, Kieron is out of the car with his rifle: a 0.308 (7.62mm) magazine-loaded gun with a long black silencer. He takes a few seconds to aim, and, crack: 180 yards away a young male deer — a yearling prickett, in hunting lingo — falls dead, shot through the brain.

I feel a burst of intoxicating adrenalin at the kill. I find myself thumping a surprised Kieron on the shoulder and shouting at him: “Well done, mate, well done!” Kieron, who trained as a butcher, grallochs (disembowels) the deer quickly: the head and hooves are cut off; the animal is slit from groin to chest; and the insides are pulled out and thrown away. I feel a little sadness as well as a glow of joy at the animal’s death and, as I’m staring at its unfocused brown eyes, Kieron says: “Remember, it’s not Bambi, it’s breakfast.”

It’s also worth money to Kieron. He gives a portion to the landowner and he’s generous with meat to his friends, but a small deer such as the one we have just killed is worth about £70 to him in saleable meat. He sells the venison through Haywards, a butcher in nearby Tonbridge, and cuts of meat at local pubs and markets, along with rabbits and pigeons.

After hanging the venison for a week to give it more flavour, Kieron drops by my house with a bag of bloody flesh. He suggests just frying it for a few minutes and eating it rare, but I fancy myself as a bit of a chef so I concoct a dish with onions and garlic, wine and cranberry sauce. As I sit down to taste the meat of an animal whose life I have claimed, I make a toast to the Great Deer Spirit in the sky, thanking him for giving me the flesh of his brother to nourish me.

Despite my prayer, the meat is tough: I’ve overcooked it, and it has a strong, gamey flavour that I don’t particularly enjoy.

I might make a countryman one day, when I learn to tell the difference between a sheep and a deer, but as a cook I’m a catastrophe.

Kieron is available as a deer-hunting guide for £70 per half day. Venison shot by him is available from Haywards, 6 Shipbourne Rd, Tonbridge, Kent (01732 355611), and from other local venues. Call him on 07811182435.

Low-fat venison burgers

Here is a healthy, easy-to-make recipe from Nutrition for Life (Dorling Kindersley, £16.99), by Lisa Hark and Darwin Dean. Each serving has only 180 calories and contains only 1.1g of saturated fat. The burgers are also a good source of vitamins A, C and K.

Serves 4

1 onion

1 small carrot

350g (12oz) minced venison

50g bulgar wheat, soaked for 30 minutes and drained

4 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley

1 egg white

Freshly ground black pepper

Sunflower oil

Chop the onion and grate the carrot. Mix all the ingredients, except the oil, in a large bowl. Cover and refrigerate for one hour.

Form the mixture into four burgers each 2.5cm (1in) thick. Heat the grill. Brush each burger with oil, then grill for 5 to 8 minutes on each side until browned.