How wild are the animals you stalk?

[John Gryphon]

I wondered that too but thought yup, even if that’s the case, its an interesting question. For me it comes back to canned hunts and estate culls masquerading as stalking. Some of the stuff guys get up to claiming to be hunting is no harder than fishing in a trout farm.

Ah Watervalley in Sth Oz is the trout farm of deer in Australia dodgy. The pleurisy plains of which are readily identifiable in the photos of the lepers that shoot there.

They had a lot of trouble in the early days with 'clients' shooting stags from the car window and then going and finding a bigger one.Tough stuff.

 

[mchughcb]

I wondered that too but thought yup, even if that’s the case, its an interesting question. For me it comes back to canned hunts and estate culls masquerading as stalking. Some of the stuff guys get up to claiming to be hunting is no harder than fishing in a trout farm.

I have seen chinese tourists fail to catch trout at a trout farm. So i guess anything is possible.

 

[mudman]

Norway, huge country with the same population as Scotland. It is possible to park up and just dissappear into wilderness for days at a time (on 'free' public land), which is often how the Norwegians like to hunt, back pack, tent and rifle, make a camp and live with nature for a number of days. I would guess this is what the OP meant by primitive? I would assume there are large parts of Norway where the deer have not seen a human.

Some of our deer here in the UK are incredibly tame because they are used to seeing people, although their attitude generally changes once they are actively hunted. I have heard the argument that it is more productive to walk around with a rifle, as opposed to stalking, and just shoot the deer we see. Such a technique can certainly be productive with Roe in the right kind of habitat.

 

[nelsons_column]

Thanks for all of your answers, I have a much better overview of the situation now. I see you have places where wild animals (roe, fallow) are farm animals, but generally speaking this is not the case. In Norway this is very rare, if not non-existing. And yes, I would definetly be interested in trying some stalking in UK because your hunting season is much longer than ours.

Some have asked about what I meant by "primitive approach" and let me explain a bit. In Norway, usually you buy a hunting license, which gives you permission for instance to down one roe, then you go to the forest (alone) and if you see a roe, generally you shoot it and bring it home for food. We only differentiate by gender and age. In the UK, the deer population is from what I can see, much better managed. It's about making sure the deer population is optimal for the given area. So when you stalk, you (or your guide) carefully selects the individual animal you want to take out, and this decision is for the good of the other deers. Very sensible.

Here it's the poor people that hunt, the rich go on vacation to London.

 

[John Gryphon]

the rich go on vacation to London.

Yes to go deer hunting