Thread: My first red deer stag shot

After 25 years and a fair amount of deer shot, this is the first time I ever shot a red stag. Just never developed any interest for it and have since long just left bucks and stags for other people to enjoy.

Anyway, here's the film. A little different and a fair bit softer than your typical SI tops.

https://youtu.be/a-GNe7Th0sU

Nicely done. Great video. Thanks for putting it together.

Nice one

Good stalk,nice open country.

First impression is "easy terrain to take and animal"
But I imagine that open like yours is most likely the opposite - very difficult to get in close to access and then shoot
Similar looking country to Scotland

On ya mate

Thanks Norway, good to see your posting as always.

Originally Posted by Trout

Good stalk,nice open country.

It's great! You get really long animal contacts and you feel like the hunt is "on" for a very long time. It creates a nice tension when you're on the final approach and you realize how much work you've put into it before the last few meters.

Originally Posted by Sarvo

First impression is "easy terrain to take and animal"
But I imagine that open like yours is most likely the opposite - very difficult to get in close to access and then shoot
Similar looking country to Scotland

This IS Scotland. I'm in the Highlands. It's easy for seeing, and if the winds/ terrain fall in your favour it is also fairly easy stalking, but most of the time there's some obstacle and too many eyes watching which can force you down to a fair bit of low crawling. They pick you up easy and can get restless at 5-600 meters, you'll see the ears and heads picking up before more and more animals rise from their beds. When the winds and terrain is wrong, they are for all practical purposes lying in fortressess with all access watches by smaller deer groups.

This is where a skilled stalker that really knows the lay of the land comes in, I have seen Andrew (the guy I'm with ) crawl past hundreds of deer tailing clients in order to get to the right deer. (At that stage, I just sat back so there would be one less person that could spook the deer). I have done similar approaches myself, failed and successful, and it everything just gets wet, sweaty and very heavy as soon your nose is rubbing the ground.

Originally Posted by Sako851

On ya mate

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Mathias

Thanks Norway, good to see your posting as always.

Thanks for that, good to finally be able to do some hunting films again. The shooting films are good practice, but it's not the same as hunting.

Originally Posted by 300wsm for life

Nicely done. Great video. Thanks for putting it together.

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!

Originally Posted by outdoorlad

Nice one

Thanks for that, hope you're still getting out yourself! Another visit + chamois/tahr is very high on my list, but family life puts an effective stop to it.

Nice shot. Where spending hours shooting long range gongs pay off
Thought you would have got a Red on one of your trips here

Yes on my first trip I went out with two hunters, Jansen and Clayton for reds. If I remember correctly we saw some 20-30 deer, amongst them several good stags, but I shot the smallest deer we could find and had that for BBQ.

I do a lot of target shooting, but it is mainly because I can't go hunting. But it is gratifying to see the payoff in putting the animal down without any uneccessary suffering.

... and plenty pf reds shot, just never a stag. I leave them for people who appreciate a trophy more than I do. Not that I in any way disrespect hunters going for trophies, I have shot record type animals as well, it's just that it doesn't add anything to the experience for me. With roe bucks, the antlers have mainly been a mean to identify the induvidual buck that holds the territory or intrudes.

Excellent video, certainly is a challenge to get past all those eyes and ears in that open country.

Awesome. Expert tips are bang on haha

Originally Posted by stagstalker

Awesome. Expert tips are bang on haha

Yeah, the guides are sometimes amazed at how many clients hasn't figured that one out.