ABOUT THE SCHEME
The training takes place within Swinley Forest, which is a 3,000 acre woodland area managed by Crown Estate, Windsor or at a location near Heacham, West Norfolk, it is a 4,000 acre estate that stretches from the from the sea through coastal scrub.
The Society has been running deer-related training courses for many years, with the Deer Stalking Certificate 1 course being our most popular. In recent years however, the student profile has undergone some subtle changes, with younger and less experienced students taking their first steps into the stalking world.
It is now usual for the majority of students on a DSC1 course to have little or no experience of stalking or indeed not to have their own Firearm Certificate. At the end of a DSC1 course, it is part of the BDS course curriculum to inform students of DSC2, explaining briefly what is involved but with a forewarning not to consider enrolling for the award until such time as they have gained sufficient skill and experience to be able to achieve the requirements of the DSC2. In practice, this is an easy statement to make but it is perhaps not so easy for an inexperienced person to get reliable hands-on training.
Recognising this, the Society has taken out two leases to manage deer within Swinley Forest, which is a 3,000-acre woodland area managed by Crown Estate, Windsor or at a location near Heacham, West Norfolk, it is a 4,000-acre estate that stretches from the sea through coastal scrub, freshwater marshes, heathland, wood pasture to arable farmland.
In partnership with the Crown Estate and our new location in West Norfolk, the Society is able to offer BDS members one-to-one individual training in all aspects of stalking and shooting deer, gralloching, transportation and larder operations leading toward a carcass hanging in chilled storage ready to enter the food chain.
For a fee of £300.00, a participant will have two outings with a professional BDS training instructor who will guide them through all aspects of stalking and dealing with a carcass after the shot. Participants will be shown how to deal with specific procedures which they will be encouraged to attempt themselves. For those without their own rifles, one may be borrowed from the instructor under the terms of Section 11A of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988.
