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My red stag saga


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After 3 unsuccessful seasons, I managed to shoot my first rest stag male (a "selection" - a selection is an animal that is injured, sick or has the signs that will never produce a good quality trophy)

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...and, after some more work, a trophy

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I'm happy equally for both of them :D

I promise to also write the story for this hunt in the  next days (most probably after my vacation is over)

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In Romania, the wild animals are not the property of the land owner. The wild animals are the property of the state. The hunting associations will win the right to administer well delimited hunting areas (from min 3000 ha in the plain areas up to min 10.000 ha in the mountains). I'm a member in 2 different ones. This one has ~30 hunting areas with almost everything (from quail and ducks up to red stag, bears and chamois).

You could also "hunt" in a fenced area. The animals from there are not under the hunting law and they are the property of the land owner.

Both of them are wild animals, hunted in less populated areas. I will never hunt in a fenced area.

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10 hours ago, Yokel Matt said:

Well worth the wait by the look of him. No trip is ever a waste - always something to either learn or appreciate.

I subscribe to that. I learned alot while searching our mountains for this animal.

In the first year, I obtained the hunting permit too late (near the end of the rut season) due to the fact that we had many foreign turists and none was available. At the end of the rut season and after it, they are retreating to the high pastures in order to recover the lost fat. Due to that, the effort to track them is intense (but is somehow compensated by the view)

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I managed to see a stag but my lack of experience was decisive and I was unable to shot.

In the next year I had no luck. Is the only explanaition... The roaring was weak in that season and we had an intense rut only 2 days but we also had a tourist in that period and he was unable to shot despite the fact that he had great opportunities fort that (a great steag at ~80m).

The season was also ruined by warm weather, shepperds with no respect for the law and wolves. IMG-20170118-WA0000.jpg.d0406cb28c23175f04bc389c8085b50a.jpg

For this season I was more prepared (but is a a long writing and I'm not home yet, I hope to also hunt a wildboar :D)

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  • 3 weeks later...

My vacation is over - finally :D 

I managed to hunt a small wild boar on a driven hunt (and I also missed 2 foxes ?) and I was able to hunt my first fallow deer. The rut season is at his peak in Romania and a friend of mine just told me about this opportunity. After to splendid mornings of stalking, I finally had a chance to take a shot to this male.

It was a moving target and I had to shot trough a small window in the dense forest. The male was hit in the chest (close to the right leg) and I recovered the projectile from the skin, near the tail. Despite this, he managed to raise again when I was close to him so I decided to send him another bullet to end the suffering quickly (it was clear that we would not be able to run anyway). 

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Is an interesting species to hunt, I had a great time but, in my opinion, is not comparable with the emotions from a red stag hunt during the rut ...

Edited by biriuck
writing error
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These are very high quality trophies - very nice Carpathian red deer.

 

It is nice to hear about real wilderness hunting in Europe, not just fenced areas. Do you feed the stags in the winter? The fallow is also a beauty - much better than the bucks we see in the majority of England.


I hope you are offered better rates than the tourist hunters - hunting in Romania is very expensive by the looks of things!

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On 26/10/2018 at 17:46, Boghossian said:

These are very high quality trophies - very nice Carpathian red deer.

 

It is nice to hear about real wilderness hunting in Europe, not just fenced areas. Do you feed the stags in the winter? The fallow is also a beauty - much better than the bucks we see in the majority of England.


I hope you are offered better rates than the tourist hunters - hunting in Romania is very expensive by the looks of things!

Thank you :) 

Yes this is still possible in Romania mostly due to the fact that more than 1/3 of the country is in the mountain area and the intensive agriculture is hard to implement. Also we had a good policy for managing the big predator species (keeping them small but not eliminating them) and they helped us to maintain vigorous  populations of red  deer, roe deer, chamois and wild boars. Now this is in danger due to over protection (some "green" propaganda group managed to obtain this under the pretext of some stupid EU legislation created long time ago when EU had no country with big predators )  

Usually, we are not feeding them but when we have years with too much snow, we will send them some food. In most places, this is not really used by deers because they will prefer some young branches of blackberries or other trees. We are giving them salt.

The fallow buck was hunted in an area that is not so great for big trophies. In the west of the country we have better areas to hunt this kind of animal but was to far for me. (the best area for this seems to be Socodor)

Yes, the prices are much better for the members of the association (~800E the small one and ~1500E the second stag + fuel, food,accommodation, tips)

Edited by biriuck
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21 hours ago, Born Hunter said:

Have you (or can you) hunt wolves, biriuck?

Until a few years ago this was possible. Now is very hard to get a permit based only on damage done to the shepherds. Let's say that a small pack will kill 20-30 sheep in one attack, until you will obtain the permit to hunt them, they will be far away (they are traveling 30-50km in one night and are not staying too much in one area) .

A few years ago it was possible to shoot them at driven hunts (with a disciplined hunter and a big amount of luck) or  at bait (one of their kills or another animal - they like the dog meat :D

This is a wolf hunted 2 years ago by a friend of mine, a big male hunted at a driven hunt. The dog that is next to the wolf is a tall one, he has a name derived from that ("Calul", "the horse" in english)

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When taking hunting offers from countries with wolves, don't put too much hope and consider yourself very lucky if you will hunt one. If an outfitter is able to provide that then is mostly at bait. Hunting a wolf in a driven hunt or while stalking other species is a matter of luck because is a very cunning animal and is usually able to escape. The outfitters are usually mentioning wolves when speaking with the clients from western countries just to gain their interest about areas of true wilderness.  

Speaking of red stag hunting, in my area, wolves are one of the main reasons that are forcing the stags to not roar  while they are around. It is very frustrating to track a stag for 2 days and to decide to go after him in the next morning or evening and see that no stag is roaring in that area  anymore - a sudden silence.

 

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1 hour ago, biriuck said:

When taking hunting offers from countries with wolves, don't put too much hope and consider yourself very lucky if you will hunt one. If an outfitter is able to provide that then is mostly at bait. Hunting a wolf in a driven hunt or while stalking other species is a matter of luck because is a very cunning animal and is usually able to escape. The outfitters are usually mentioning wolves when speaking with the clients from western countries just to gain their interest about areas of true wilderness. 

A friend of mine enquired recently about a spot and stalk wolf hunt and was basically told "no chance, only hope is over bait".

I'm quite a fan of a chap in Montana called Sterling Extreme Outdoors who does a lot of wolf calling and spot and stalk wolf hunting. They look a fantastically challenging quarry and controlling them though hunting is very necessary part of their wildlife conservation strategy.

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