Deer stalking is a British English|British term for the stealthy pursuit of deer for sporting purposes, typically with a high powered rifle fitted with a powerful telescopic sight in order to hunt or shoot them.
While the expression "deer stalking" is widely used among British and Irish sportsmen to signify almost all forms of sporting deer shooting, the term is replaced in North American sporting usage by "deer hunting, a term that in Britain and Ireland has historically been reserved exclusively for the sporting pursuit of deer with scent hounds, with unarmed followers typically on horseback.
Earlier in the 20th century there were several packs of staghounds hunting "carted deer" in England and Ireland. Carted deer were red deer kept in captivity for the sole purpose of being hunted and recaptured without harm. Carted deer that escaped recapture sometimes became the source of wild populations, for example the red deer of Thetford Chase originated from deer left out by the Norwich Staghounds.
The way in which the red deer were hunted was for a character called the "harbourer" to follow the intended quarry to the wood where it lay up for the night. In the morning before the meet the harbourer would carefully examine the perimeter of the wood to ensure that the stag had not left. He then reported to the Master and the Huntsman would take about six hounds called the "tufters" into the wood and rouse the intended quarry and start it running, separating it from any other deer that might be in the wood.
