In Norfolk, the property Mc-Crave has gained access to has good-quality Chinese water deer and muntjac, which are completely free-ranging. In Berkshire and Hampshire, which are just west of London, McCrave has picked up some properties that are completely new to hunting and hold good quality free-range roe deer. These places were so new that he had not yet hunted them and was just developing his hunt program there when we spoke.
On the estate properties he now has in East and West Sussex (on the coast of southern England), he says he can offer trophy Pere David and red deer, as well as Manchurian and Japanese Sika deer. In fact, quality is so good he says he may have the new number one SCI Japanese Sika and a possible new number two SCI Manchurian Sika waiting for official scoring. While these are estate hunts, McCrave says none of them are easy. All are conducted on foot on properties averaging about 1,000 acres of rolling countryside with a smattering of forests.
The most unusual of McCrave's new hunts is in East Sussex, where he has picked up a dandy of an estate for barasinga. He says the place not only has a good population of these Indian deer, but it also offers some excellent trophies. He only recently took his first client, a South African who killed a 35-inch stag that McCrave anticipates will make Rowland Ward. McCrave will only harvest about two barasinga a year from this property. Unfortunately, he says Americans cannot import this species into the US.
McCrave charges a daily fee of $550 ($900 for two hunters). Trophy fees........(continued)
