Blustery windy day this morning. Got up in the dark, went over and had a cup of tea and at a Duke's house and then went out hunting with Chris and Mike McCrave. We went to an area where we thought there was a chance of both Reeve's muntjac and red deer. Saw a few muntjac, nothing big, couple red deer ... then all of a sudden came down a trail through the deep forest and then in front of us about 220 yards was a huge beautiful red stag with 8 points on one side and broken off, seven on the other, two of his main points were broken off, we didn't know that at the time. We sneaked to within 160 yards and got up on the sticks made a perfect shot got him. He ran about 50 yards tipped over, great footage ... beautiful curled dark walnuty looking antlers except two of the main points—the second and third point up the main beam—were broken off, but he's beautiful crowned on the top and we were really happy and excited to get him. Then we hunted the rest of the day for muntjac, and I'm finding my shot yesterday that I missed is probably going to be a pretty important shot because they are tough to even get close to or to see. Today we never saw a big-enough one at all, and even the ones we did see ... tough to get a shot at. We have tomorrow and then the next morning and that's it for this area for the muntjac, so we have our fingers crossed. They're the second smallest deer in the world tiny, tiny little deer, beautiful little animals. We're trying. To Matt's grandma, Matt's doing wonderful. He's performing fantastically and he's such a talented cameraman and everybody loves him and he's just a really cool guy and thank you for sharing him with us. I hope that balances out what I said the other day about Matt finally not puking all over himself about the whitetail!

The Previous Day ...

Yesterday evening we went out after we had flown for 24 hours to get to England and cleared through customs. No problem, one of the simplest, easiest places to get through with firearms, no problem at all. Drove about four hours very near to the town of Great Livermere and Ampton from London. Louise and I made it, we're staying at a beautiful little 200-year-old sort of restaurant/English pub. Louise went to visit Cambridge University today with a tour guide that works with our outfitter Mike McCrave, and Matt and I and Mike went out hunting yesterday with Chris, the professional stalker guide, a great young man 30 years old fantastic, good hunter. We set Mike up on one place to watch to see what he saw we went to another place. We didn't see hardly anything; Mike had six different stags come up to him, so this morning we went out looking for Reeve's muntjac ... it's a tiny litle deer with 4-inch long antlers and fangs. Imported 100 years ago. Now they're everywhere, like tiny little duikers, tiny like just bigger than a bread box. We hunted this morning finally sneaked up on one and I missed it at 100 yards, I shot over it . I don't know what happened, I just shot over it and then we sat this evening and we had three stags come out one too far away, two that were close enough, but too late for good filming light; we could still shoot, but we decided to call it off. I met a real lord official aristocracy yesterday, he'll be a duke some day. They have fantastic ale's here that are made locally, but they serve it at room temperature and flat no bubbles.