Thread: VIDEO: Long Range Red Deer Meat Hunt

Nice video in a very nice area, only real way to avoid shooting a hind with a fawn is not to shoot hinds at all at this time of year. Unfortunately we do make the odd mistake.
With deer numbers increasing hinds do need thinning out a bit to keep the populations at acceptable levels. I think most hunters would have shot hinds with fawns at foot during there time hunting.

Thanks for posting this up.
Straight up and honest "this is what we do" stuff.

Regrets come after the event, and we have all had them. Quite different in the moment.

Lou must be handy with the tools to make something like that. Handy friend.

Few yrs ago HC and i were out spotting roos,HC thort he spotted a set of cats eyes about a 100yds away in the long grass.After he pulled the trigger,fk that was no cat, it was a small fawn.We thort well it didnt suffer.Took half each home,had some for xmas,it was bloody buitifull.Not something we like doing tho,picking on the youngns.

Originally Posted by Trout

Few yrs ago HC and i were out spotting roos,HC thort he spotted a set of cats eyes about a 100yds away.After he pulled the trigger,fk that was no cat, it was a small fawn.We thort well it didnt suffer.Took half each home,had some for xmas,it was bloody buitifull.Not something we like doing tho,picking on the youngns.

My first trip to Stewy a couple of the guys ended up shooting whitetail fawns, towards the end of the trip and hadnt seen deer then then they see a deers head pop out of the crown fern and they got it, they didnt realise they were fawns until they went over to get them.

After the rest of us gave them both arseholes we ended up butterfling one of them and cooked it whole over an open fire over looking the bay in front of Nth Tikotitahi hut, it ended up being a major highlight of the trip other than me shooting a couple of whitetail yearlings.

That wouldv taste nice washed down with a cold beer.

I dont shoot adult hinds at this time of year simply because I dont want to leave a fawn to die slowly over days. That is my ethic. It is not illegal to shoot a hind with a dependent and I admit I have done it once by mistake when I was 19.
For anyone who shares the same ethic but is not sure how to judge if the deer is an adult or yearling there are points I look at. A yearling is much narrower across the back, pins ( hips ) and is shallower in proportion to her length than an adult. She will have a finer head but so will a two year old hind that has her first fawn. The udder is a certain giveaway
I went for a drive to the hills tonight and in fading light it took 20 minutes glassing from 400 mtrs starting at 9pm to establish that one animal was a yearling hind and the other a 2nd calver (fawner) from last year.

Originally Posted by Trout

That wouldv taste nice washed down with a cold beer.

Yup, we had one or two of those as we were cooking it, in fact i think we had quite a few, hence the not waiting until the fire burned down to coals before we threw the baby whitetail over it.

https://youtu.be/b-iS3jfSmRs

Cool video and some choice shooting. No stress on the hind, although the idea of a calf being present is never nice, good has been done for the wider herd and environment in her removal. A beautiful looking velvet stag churns me up just the same but thankfully the individual decision is ours to make. There are few perfectly accepted options at this time of the year really. Deer numbers in so many places are right up there at over populated numbers for a number of reasons. Absolutely understand the ethical dilemma at this time of the year but come autumn and winter I guarantee many hunters will pass up the shot at a hind in hope of some antler so it’s a funny old dilemma in making sure we play our part isn’t it. No other predator follows such guidelines when maintaining the balance of life.

My key point being there’s no need to defend yourself. Enjoyed the video

Originally Posted by stagstalker

Cool video and some choice shooting. No stress on the hind, although the idea of a calf being present is never nice, good has been done for the wider herd and environment in her removal. A beautiful looking velvet stag churns me up just the same but thankfully the individual decision is ours to make. There are few perfectly accepted options at this time of the year really. Deer numbers in so many places are right up there at over populated numbers for a number of reasons. Absolutely understand the ethical dilemma at this time of the year but come autumn and winter I guarantee many hunters will pass up the shot at a hind in hope of some antler so it’s a funny old dilemma in making sure we play our part isn’t it.

My key point being there’s no need to defend yourself. Enjoyed the video

And we are only inclined to voice our own "ethical concerns" to those who have the honesty and courage to reveal what they do, their own dilemmas and the way they do things.

Their honesty and revealing should be honoured, and the rest of us should shut the f....k up about what we think is right or wrong and suspend our own egos. By upgrading our own ethics though what we say demeans the other. We have no right to do that.

Originally Posted by stagstalker

Cool video and some choice shooting. No stress on the hind, although the idea of a calf being present is never nice, good has been done for the wider herd and environment in her removal. A beautiful looking velvet stag churns me up just the same but thankfully the individual decision is ours to make. There are few perfectly accepted options at this time of the year really. Deer numbers in so many places are right up there at over populated numbers for a number of reasons. Absolutely understand the ethical dilemma at this time of the year but come autumn and winter I guarantee many hunters will pass up the shot at a hind in hope of some antler so it’s a funny old dilemma in making sure we play our part isn’t it. No other predator follows such guidelines when maintaining the balance of life.

My key point being there’s no need to defend yourself. Enjoyed the video

You always make some well considered comments mate, I do agree with them all.

I gave up caring what other people think of me years ago, whats others think of me is none of my business.

Originally Posted by Tahr

And we are only inclined to voice our own "ethical concerns" to those who have the honesty and courage to reveal what they do, their own dilemmas and the way they do things.

Their honesty and revealing should be honoured, and the rest of us should shut the f....k up about what we think is right or wrong and suspend our own egos. By upgrading our own ethics though what we say demeans the other. We have no right to do that.

As Aldo Leopold, the “father of wildlife management,” once said, “Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching—even when doing the wrong thing is legal.” The ethical code hunters use today has been developed by sportsmen over time. (quote)

Most of us wish to act with respect to the animals we hunt, but sometimes as in the case of hinds it is not easy to pick the differences between yearlings and two year old or older hinds with fawns. Is it wrong, unethical even, to have some discussion about how to make those ethical decisions ?
Is it not part of good safety to 'Positively identify' ?
We could even have a discussion about how to tell which spikers will grow into great stags and should be left and which ones should be shot

This evening I went glassing with two other forum members. We saw 18 deer. 3 Stags, 1 spiker, 3 yearling hinds, 11 hinds. Two of the yearlings were separated from the hind groups and one was with its mother. Those two will rejoin their mothers in the hind group once this years fawn is mobile. The spikers will not