I'm standing in the middle of an unspecified bit of field in West Lothian trying to kill something. On a scale of one-to-lost the plot, how does that read to you?

If there are bells clanging at the higher end of the spectrum then allow an intervention: this is a perfectly normal experience. I'm here to shadow someone who manages the environment rather than adds to any crime statistics. Or if he does then I'm none the wiser about it.

Paul Mottram, head keeper and stalker at Home Beat on Hopetoun Estate knows his way round a powerful gun worth thousands of pounds. He knows how to kill each real-life member of the Sylvanian Family, albeit in the most humane way. But he also knows the flight paths of curlews and how their numbers are decreasing thanks to increasingly restrictive rural legislation. He knows how to use a dog as a tool, and how to read any animal's tracks in mud, all because his job pertains to management and perception, not blood-thirst. And also because he cares about what lives and dies, and how each process is inextricably linked to the other.

I am here to deer-stalk; that is, to pursue a fallow or roe deer on Hopetoun Estate with the intention of killing whatever we find. In the day's instructions it is stated that dull-coloured clothing must be worn. But arriving to meet Chris Staples, Hopetoun deer manager, and Paul, it becomes clear that denims and a black Peter Storm are not dull-coloured garments here. I have failed to follow the brief, so I am instructed to shrug on Paul's camouflage jacket. Blending in has different definitions in the city and the country, it seems. We drive to Craigton Quarry, an abandoned spot nearby to make sure that this rookie journalist is able to fire a gun. Turns out she can, and she's not a bad shot. If we see a deer on our travels today - and we will, I hear, from both - it will be up to me to end its life.  

Back on the estate, Paul and I begin to cruise round the usual places where he knows deer like to graze. We stop in at lay-bys, small nicks in the road where it's possible to pull up, hop out (closing the vehicle doors gingerly) and just watch. For the experienced there are clues to be examined, hotspots to check through binoculars. For the non-experienced, who spend more time in the glass confines of an office than in the fresh air, there is much to be enjoyed by just being outside.  

We discuss the role of ceremony in killing animals, the act of respecting each life before it's over.

"That's part of the tradition of wearing tweed to shoots," says Paul. "Every year me and my friends will save up and go on a shooting drive, and it's on a day-trip like that where it really becomes about the tradition of a formal event.

"I'm not a toff but I'll wear tweed. Not because I'm posh but because it's a necessary uniform. It stays warm and dry, and it's silent when you walk. It's the ideal fabric for shooting. And it looks damn smart.

"The idea of dressing up, of taking our tea and our lunch and making it into an occasion shows that it's something that is taken seriously.

"Even on the job you can't help but respect these lives. Take the grey squirrel. They're legends. They're amazing. I kill them, but I respect them."

Managing the estate of vermin - the crows that eat the eggs of ground-laying birds struggling to grow their numbers; the foxes that take out anything on the floor level of a forest if not controlled; the squirrels - is done using a variety of mediums. There are traps and stringed-devices that contain each caught creature before the game-keepers make their daily visits. Deer shot on Hopetoun Estate by the stalkers is different. After being shot it is prepared in the field for the Swinburn game larder to be sold through the Farm Shop. Lord Hoptoun also enjoy the experience occasionally with friends. This, Paul tells me, is all part of the cycle. His salary is paid by by the Estate Lord Hopetoun owns. The deer carcasses that arrive in the farm shop are the equivalent to dozens of cuts. Earlier in the day I asked the butcher on shift what sales of this native Scottish beast were like. He told me they currently matched lamb.

At one horseshoe-shaped field we stop and get out of the Jeep and make our way through a copse to stake out. Looking in to the trees, everything becomes a potential deer. You become hyper-vigilant of your own shadow, convinced that the rustle of your own kagoule must be the decimation of leaves under deer feet. In fact, there is nothing here, but it is illuminating to learn what exactly to watch out for.

"It's the horizontal shapes that are the deer," Paul explains. "Tree trunks and deer coats are the same colour, but look for an area with lines that run across the way. Then wait for those lines to move."

Paul has a mantra, which he tells me is vital for deer-stalking: walk little, talk little, look lots. In some ways it's the same as being a journalist - or at least it should be if we're doing it right. The story is in front of us if we look hard and listen out for it, if we're experienced and knowledgeable enough to know how best to get it. But in this field, with no sign of any deer, it feels like the story is miles away.

*** 

There comes a point where you are dressed in the wrong clothes, and you are damp because of being dressed in the wrong clothes, and you are exhausted from pretending that walking up large hills isn't tiring, which is in itself exhausting with all that over-compensatory talking, and you reach a tipping point. You realise that this might be as good as it's going to get. That you might not be able to test your nerve by shooting anything at all because the opportunity isn't going to arise. That potentially, the day might be in vain because nothing is going to happen.

You start thinking very carefully about the pork pie you have in the back of the car, the one with the slice of glazed orange on the top perfectly crystallized in solid sugar. You begin to consider all the work you should be doing right now, the messages you should be running at home, but most of all you think: what am I going to write about if I don't manage to actually shoot something?

And then, at exactly the point where it couldn't be anything other than cliché, two deer appear. They are about 60 feet away with their bodies turned towards us in the classic side-on position. They are textbook targets. We can shoot from here to end this cleanly and instantly. So we begin: firstly scaling a ten foot dyke with all tiredness forgotten, and then crawling on our bellies with mud under our fingernails and jeans irrevocably ruined in that barely-there brown light. I am handed the gun with conditions primed perfectly for this shot, this time, right now. And then. And then I forget where the trigger lies. I forget how to scope the beast out in the sight.  I need assistance, the first time I have needed help all day, and in all the shuffling and scrabbling, they disappear.

Fear presents itself in strange ways. We joke later, incredulously, looking at each other and consoling (me) that the deer's escape was down to external factors like some noise that must have scared them. But the reality is that it was 'buck fear' manifesting itself in someone who ordinarily prides themselves on being unshakeable. It is a shock for someone who uses courage as their calling card, whether volunteering to cook a pig's head or always ordering the things on the menu no-one else would want. Of course, this kind of fear is different. It is more subtle: a shake of confidence; just the slightest doubt.

This is not using a swear word on a news site without approval. It is not something a normal person would experience in their everyday life. It is taking something's life, and it means something. It is important to do it properly. Being fast and fearless are not the main concerns if a shooter's inexperience means the end is undignified. And so, holistically speaking, is it important we didn't find something and kill it? To me, no. Because blood-thirst was never the aim, but also because even in the most unexpected scenarios it is possible to learn lessons not just about the way our landscape is managed and the people knowledgeable enough to do so, but about ourselves too.

Hopetoun Estate venison is sold seasonally through the Hopetoun Farm Shop. To find out more visit www.hopetoun.co.uk