Thread: What constitutes a trophy???

Originally Posted by Ranger 888

I 've never understood why a stag with huge antlers is more attractive to some hunters than one with mediocre ones..can somebody explain that to me? Is it an ego thing? I look back on 57 years of deerstalking and remember fondly deer I took which required huge physical effort, or one I shot 2 minutes after leaving the car, or shooting one 5 minutes before the ballot period closed, or the first deer taken after a very long spell out of the bush due to a chronic illness, but never for the size of the antlers. I realise we are all motivated by different values, but I just don't get the "trophy" thing..just saying.

The antler are one of the few things that shine back to the traditional releases ie within reason each areas animals antlers once they mature typically follow a style of the place they came from. Ie the rakaia, pukter otago, wairapa etc so wanting a mature representative not only means it's survived lots of hunters but is a visual link back to the original history of the releases that brought them here. Also you will find it is changing from desire for juts bug antlers to mature animals. You won't find many guys here that want a high fence monster. They want the real cunning old stag from the back blocks. It creates a challenge to aim for that involves hard work and eventually the trophy represents not only that hunts but in some cases years of hunting and learning and trying new techniques to find that big cunning old boys that no one else could get.