Thread: What would you do ?

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

Better in the velvet,my dogs wont eat antler.

You feed your dogs velvet?

I would shoot. They are pregnant for up to 245 days any way

Originally Posted by Spook

You feed your dogs velvet?

Yep

Depends if the freezer is full or not. Straight after the roar its likely to be pregnant, then its going to have its fawn feeding from it, then it be pregnant again not long after. Dont really see the problem, if you want some venison and are short im happy to shoot whatever. Apart from when a hind has a fawn to young to fend for itself i wont shoot a hind. Its just cruel on the fawn to stave to death. Otherwise whats the difference between shooting a hind a week pregnant or about to get pregnant, or about to drop, fu k all. If you going to control numbers to a certain degree thats just a fact of life. Normally they in good condiation , fat as and are darn fine eating. In saying all this if i had a choice i leave the pregnant hind and shoot the young stag etc but if thats all around and i need some venison its coming home

sometimes its a case of if i dont shoot it the next person will, in that case i would shoot. if i knew she had a good chance of not being shot by the next person that comes along i will leave her and search for a yearling/young stag/spiker.

Originally Posted by veitnamcam

Better in the velvet,my dogs wont eat antler.

My dogs have always chewed antler like they do an old bone.

I don't really see the difference between shooting a pregnant hind just after the roar or just before they drop their young - they're pregnant all the same. You could maybe argue a hind in May has a lot longer to miscarry than one in November if you were really grasping at straws. But after they drop I won't shoot hinds until mid Feb.

Yea, because we all know 1080 is not eaten by pregnant hinds right.


on a different subject, about to be dropped fawns make for damn tasty tucker. A friend shot one like that but I wasn't going to let it go to waste.Not that I ever told the missus or anything.

A couple of years ago I had a shooting companion lining up a shot on Hind from about 200 yds when she lent around and started to lick her arse. He was about to pull the trigger when Bubs popped out. He got another one later that day but bloody funny.

Pregnant or not , they're still made out of meat and so are stags without antlers

Tricky one which I always have difficulty coming to terms with as at this time of year it doesn't leave much to point the gun at except for yearlings. Think i've shot one which was in the early stages of pregnancy, but I have to say the venison was fantastic. I've shot a Sika hind last march with a fawn near by which I assumed belonged to her and not the other hind squeaking up the hill? This made me feel real guilty. Going by your guys accounts it should have survived on its own I hope.

Then last week I was 12m away (paced it) from a very nice Fallow Buck, but no timber on its head so it lived for another day. End result is I have had no venison for 3 months

Originally Posted by Rusky

Then last week I was 12m away (paced it) from a very nice Fallow Buck, but no timber on its head so it lived for another day. End result is I have had no venison for 3 months

On occassions like that you simply need to ask yourself what you are hunting for. If the answer is meat then ...........

Originally Posted by Rushy

On occassions like that you simply need to ask yourself what you are hunting for. If the answer is meat then ...........

Nah I lie. I actually saw the big buck, swung around, bolt closed, crosshairs on the neck about to squeeze one off and it moves in a blink of an eye into the dense bush. Then I told myself it would be better off left for the roar!

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.

I hunt in a similar fashion josh, I am out to enjoy my time away. A good trip isnt marked by the need to kill something.

It is a bummer when you head out and dont see a thing lol