Thread: What would you do ?

Depends where I'm hunting, but in general I don't shoot hinds at all. I definitely don't shoot deer just for the sake of it, I'm very happy going out and watching them, stalking them and returning home empty handed...I'm lucky if I shoot 1% of the deer I see. I always encourage new hunters (and some experienced) to avoid the "need to kill" ego hunter image and "I have to go home with something" attitude. Appreciate being in the hills just seeing animals.

Venison is not high on the menu list for me, so most deer I/we shoot I give to the person I take hunting, or I put it in my freezer and it's raided by friends and family. I prefer fresh blue cod, salmon, scotch fillet beef, pork chops and belly, lamb chops and mutton roasts to eat anyway.

If I'm hunting on public land I'm usually in an area where I'm chasing either chamois, tahr or looking for that special stag. I prefer not to shoot meat animals in these areas, it disturbs my hunting area and I hate dragging meat out of a mountain valley. On land/blocks I am trying to look after the herd, I will be very selective with what I shoot and I generally won't shoot hinds there either unless the numbers of deer need culled, ie pest control or herd management. I'll never shoot hinds between mid-October and March if I can avoid it.

I grew up on a farm that when my parents bought it in the mid 80's had bugger all deer on it...seeing one was a real treat. The area got hunted and poached and flogged by every local that had a rifle and spotlight.

Dad moved in and locked it up, much to many locals disgust. He really looked after what was there and taught us to be very selective with what we chose to shoot, i.e. not shooting breeding stock...hinds. Every hind is capable of producing another animal, a stag is not. But you need a stag to mate a hind, so you can't bomb up all the stags either, BUT one stag can service many hinds, so in the early days spikers/stags were always selected over a hind as a meat animal. Basically though, shooting a deer in the 90's on the farm was a privilege.

Once the herd numbers began to rise, we started to target specific animals, i.e. 2nd cycle fawns (generally smaller or runty), spikers with small spikes, old hinds, cull stags etc. Many times I would go hunting and return empty handed because I didn't see the right animal to shoot. But by doing this we have slowly seen the quality of heads coming out of the near vicinity improve, and more frequently we run into nice young stags showing good potential. Last year we shot one of the nicest stags we have ever seen in the area, a good 13 pointer.

It took 15+ years to build the herds numbers enough, or to levels that 9 times out of 10, if you go for a proper hunt you will see a deer. The way to do so was by not shooting hinds. It's taken another 10-15 years to manage the herd into producing good sized, healthy animals, and the odd stag that is "better than average". Don't get me wrong, there are still stags with shit heads running around, but the overall trend of stag antler quality is improving.

Our farm is bounded by public land, and 2-3 medium sized neighbours farms where we have no control over what is killed by hunters or 1080 (Dad's found several poisoned carcasses following the latest drop). There are no deer farms nearby so no outside blood influence or numbers building from escapees. By us leaving the deer alone for a few years and being really selective our neighbours have seen the results and mostly adopt the same strategies. They now have better hunting too.

It's a real treat to be able to hunt/or work on your own property, or around it and see deer regularly. If you hunt an area with low numbers, be it public or private you can treat it the same way. Its quite possible to build the herd and have better hunting experiences all round.

If you only get out a couple of times a year and "need" the meat, then I totally understand the desire to shoot a deer regardless of what it is to put a bit of venison in the freezer.