Thread: Alpine Helicopters culling tahr

Originally Posted by mikee

I would not know where to start assessing a potential trophy but then I am not trophy hunter. I have no issue with trophy hunting as if if that floats your boat go for it, its just not my thing.
Eating .............now thats my thing so I have no issue myself tipping over pretty much anything using any method (excepting hinds when they have fawns at foot) solely based on how much meat I can recover.
For example if I could either
a) shoot a hind/yearling a long way from my transport and only recover 1/2 the usable meat and leave the rest on the hill
or
b) a stag (a goodie or otherwise) even in velvet where the whole animal could be recovered and utilised with no waste
then for me its a no brainer the stag would be all over rover.
I have let animals go as I simply don't think I can recover enough meat from where they are at
Thermal, Spotlights etc all have their uses too.

Left over dog bones
Attachment 158242

For those that say its not sporting I would say a sport is a contest between 2 equal parties or teams with same equipment used by both sides.

Sacrilege mikee, you cut the meat off the neck instead of cutting bone in neck chops !!
As far as assessing and leaving potential trophy animals in velvet, there are so few animals that would make good trophies it should be easy to leave the good ones.
For spikers, they need to have good thick spikes with thickness carrying up the spike. If they have little brow tines as well all the better. A bit of width and a big pedicle is also an indication of potential. A good big well grown animal will on average have a better head than a smaller deer.
Two year and over stags need to have good lower tines and a good Trey. If there is a good Brow, Bey, Trey on each side with good length going into the tops, chances are that the stag will make a trophy. Spread and good Treys frame the head, narrow heads with missing or low Treys never look good.