Hi
When i read trough all these treads, it seems to me that many British hunters do not really know how diverse driven hunts can be.
No wonder as you dont have a tradition of driven hunting the same way as europeans. But then again, the European ways can be very diffent, depending on where in Europe the hunt is taking place.
I will try to write a little about my experience from different places here.
As i am Danish, my first experinece with driven hunts was of course when my fathere started taking me along on driven hunts as a 10-11 year old boy.
The main target was roe deer, and the weapons shotguns.
Here in Denmark the tradition is 2-6 beaters (beaters are also armed with shotguns, and take shots of opportuety, when the chance comes), using 2-4 dogs, driving towards 2-30 standing guns.
One drive is typically over 5-30 hektars (12-75 acres), and takes 20-60 minutes.
Shooters normally placed in line or L shape, drivers always try to keep in line, so we know the direction of the drivers.
Normally there will be 2-5 drives pr day.
Dogs are typical German pointers, spaniels, or labradors.
The target ant legal animal from roedeer and downwards, so at the end of the day you will se roedeer lying side by side of Woodcocks.
When hunting larger animals, Fallow, reds, Boar (we dont have many boars), then we use rifels, and only go for those larger animals, + noone will let a fox pass.
On those hunts the animals often comes fastmoving, with dogs colse behind them, so shots are on moving targets.
I had 250+ days of traditional Danish driven hunts, and i never paid anything for them, because i come from farming, and have been blessed with good friends and lots of invitations. Shot Ca. 50 roedeers using shotgun on those hunts.
Normal there is 0,1-0,4 deer pr hunter pr day+ other small game. Exeptions are there, but often it is restricted to max. 1 deer pr hunter pr drive.
Then there is Germany.
I have had around 80 driven hunting days in Germany, it is close, cheap, and as we have EU firearm passports we just bring our own rifels, and Geman hunting licence are easy to get, for us danes as they accept Danish hunting licence.
Germany there has private and state/federal forrestry hunts. lest start privatly.
In Germany all persons taking part in moving hunts have to wear signal west, so they can be seen.
Shooters are NOT placed in lines. They are placed around inside the drive. Drivers is NOT beating in a line, they usually come in small groups 1-3 persons with 50-100 meters distance between individuals and 1 dog pr. group, and they do NOT move in line. So drivers may come from any direction, and they may pass you tower more than once.
They dont want to drive the deer, they just want to get them moving around, and hopefully pass a shooter and give a good chance him in his tower.
Private driven hunts are typical 20-50 hektars, using 1-2, mostly small slow dogs, like dackels, and 2-3 beaters (normally 1 of each group is armed with a revolver or short rifle), but sometimes large dogs are used, and they give a lot faster drive.
Drive time is normally 1-2 hours, and 2-3 drives a day, will be normal. Typical 6-15 shooters. Typical 75-100% of shooters i towers. No matter what, there will be strickt restrictions for shooting directions.
Main target will often be the wild pigs, but roe deer are usually the most shoot species.
Caliber permitted depends on the person who organize the hunt, (law says min 6,5mm) but many organizers will demand minimum 7mm, often only lead free bullets will be allowed, (.270 is only 6,8 mm when using German meassurement system).
The number of animals shots are typical 0,3-0,7 pr hunter pr day. Typical around 20 and 50% will be wild pigs.
When small dogs are used the animals often come slower, walking or run/stop moving, many shots can be on standing targets.
With larger dogs, normally only shots at moving/fast moving targets.
State/federal forrets.
Normally only one drive a day. The drive will typical be 75-1000 hektars. Typical 20-120 shooters. So it can both be very large or more "intimate", but the system is the same. The single drive on one of those days typical has 3,5-4,5 hours allowed shooting time.
First you will be standing together and taking the ruels for this particular hunt from the boss of the forresty commision districkt. He will tell what can be shot, and what can not. (often there will be no foxes!!!!, and no stags bigger than spikers, and no leading sows)
He will also be going over safety, and restrictions on numbers of shots. If you fire a shot and the animal is not lying dead, where you can se it, then they will put dogs on the track after the hunt.
Typical ruels say: stop shooting when 2 shots have been fired without dead animal lying visible. Max allowed shooting range will never be more than 100 meters!!!!
There will be a "drive start time", and a stoptime. You will normally be allowed to load and shoot as soon you have been placed in a tower, sometimes this can be up to 1 hour before "drive start" but the stoptime, is set and shots are not allowed after that time.
When he stop talking, the hornpalyers will be playing the "hunt start" tune and he will call people up by name. Shooters are called up, in grups of 3-6 shooters, and they wil have to orgize driving within the group, acompany a forrestry worker, who will drive in front, it can be up to 10 miles driving to reach the posts.
All post will be in towers (some small specilly build for driven hunts, and other large and high, build for night hunts), and the towers will have numbers.
The Worker have a list of wich number towers he will have to man, and it is registerd who sit where, and he will usually personally accompany the shooter to the tower, and tell if there are any non shoot or attention zones from this particular tower.
He will normally have his own rifle, and take the last tower on his list, and register the number of shots from "his" towers.
The towers are so far apart, you will normally not be able to se the other shooters.
No shooter is allowed to leave the towers douring driving time, so, if you need to take a P.., do it from the tower, and if you have a wounded animal you have to shoot again, not go down to it.
After stop time you can leave the tower, and go to have a look around it and you have to clean (take the insides out) animals you have shoot, but stay around tower to you get picked up by the same person who put you in the tower.
If it a small drive, there will typical be only 1 max. 2 dogs, accompanying the beaters.
But if its a big drive there will be shooters who brought their own dog. Those shooters will be sitting in a tower like all shooters, and stay there, but on the "drive start" time they will release their dog, who will move around freely in the drive, and hopefully get some animals moving around.
So beaters, dogs, and animal may come from any direction, and pass more than once.
All shots are registerd, and all animals who, has been shot at, and not lying, will be registerd when "your" forrest worker comes to pick you up, and serched for by trained persons and dogs, in the hours after the stop time. You will be surprised how many animal the find that way.
When all seaches has been done and all animals colleckted (on a big hunt this can take several hours), they will be lyed out on a "parade Grounds", so everyone can se the animals, and the districk boss will be calling every lucky shooter up to personally congratulate him.
The hunt is over when the hornplayers play the "hunt over" tune over the collections of the dead animals, and it is considers very rude to leave the premises before that.
Expect 0,3-0,7 animald Pr. hunter Pr. day. Germans say if there has been fired more than 2 shots Pr animal on the "parade", then it has been bad shooting.
Exeptions are always there, my personal record for 1 drive was on a state forrest hunt in Germany, 8 pigs, 2 reds and 2 roes, in on drive, 13 shots fired.
There will always be someone more or less lucky, so i have also tryed to be the unlucky one, spanding 3 days on driven hunt without fireing a single shot, usually around half the shooters on a hunt like that dont shoot anything Pr. day.
As they tend to use smaller dogs, and few comapired to drive size, the animals often come slow and carefull, so many shots are on slow moving animals.
Many let the roedeer run on these hunts, as there are so many of them,, and they dont wnat to alert the pigs by shooting at roes. At one time the forrestry boss told me to shoot as many i could, they relly wanted reducktion, so i shoot 7 on that drive.
Now Poland
Been on driven hunts 2 times in Poland, both it was 3 days hunts, so 6 days of driven hunting.
In Poland they have 10-40 hektar drives, always 8-12 shooters, and more or less same number of beaters and dogs (the beaters in poland are usually unarmed, and may go without high visebility wests).
They go for 8-12 of those drives a day, and shooters will mostly be set up in a U shape, then the drivers drive into it from the U opening.
This means the drivers will come in more or less a line, and from one direction.
The size of the drives and number of beaters, means this is a very fast form of drive hunt.
Most animals will be coming very fast, and shots are mostly on fast moving animals, and difficult because the shooters will be standing on the ground within sight of each other. This makes shooting at fast moving targets more difficult as you have to wach safty at the same time as concentration on hitting the target.
The Poles dont tend to make a lot of seaching when an animal is not lying on the spot, they spend Max. 10 min on seaching, then moves on to next drive.
Main target is usually the pigs.
Typical 0,5-1 animal Pr. hunter Pr day. The Poles say 3 shots for 1 animal, and this is often right.
My first 3 day driven hunt in Poland i shot 1 pig, using 1 shot douing those 3 days. Our group of 12 shooters got 34 animals.
My second time on driven hunt in Poland i fired 0 shots and our group of 11 hunters got 32 animals.
This means my personal experince with polish driven hunts are not the best.
Contrary i got 21 animals on 3 days cull hunt in Poland, combined stalk/tower (reds and pigs)
Croatia.
I was a soldier i Croatia 1991-2 and has been invited down there by the locals privatly a few times since then, where i could bring a friend.
8-10 shooters, 2 drives a day, typical 250-750 hektar.
More beaters than shooters, and more dogs than beaters.
One local took us out and palced us, then took the last post himself.
Once you get your post on the ground, you dont see the other shooters they may be very far away, the posts are where the Croatians think the pigs will come.
They try to place the shooters in a somewhat line, and try to drive in a line.
On the hunts i had there, we got 0,75-1,5 pigs Pr. shooter Pr day, and we where only allowed to shoot pigs.
The pigs mostly comes fast with a lot of dogs behind them, so many fast moving targets.
Spain
2 days of Monteria.
Main target reds, pigs and muffel.
Very big drives, i think 1000+ hektars, to 12 shooters, 2 drives a day.
A spaniard took us to our posts around in the mountains, where thet think the animals will come, and explainde where the driveres will from and to.
20 beaters, and Ca. double that in medium size dogs.
I only got 3 cances on that trip, day 1 I missed a pig running fast, with 3 shots at a distance of 120-150 meters.
Day 2 i missed 1 shot at a standing red stag distance Ca. 250 meters, i dont feel comftable shooting much more than 200 meters, but this was a chance, and was expected to shoot.
Then a pig passed only 40-50 meters from me, but i saw it to late, and never got a shot off.
So from our goup we where 2 shooters without any animals, but at least i got to fire 4 shots.
The spaniards dont care for animals, when they are not lying on the shooting spot, they simply dont seach for anything.
Everything seemed chaotic, but the group got 31 animals, this gives 1,3 animals Pr. person Pr. day, Ca. 50% was pigs.
South Africa
Tried 1 day of driven hunt for Springbuck in Karoo dessert.
Nowhere to hide, they can se us, so they keep distance.
Placed in a office chair, where they welded good rifle rest on to the armrest. This way you can turn 360 degrees and have good rest for the rifle.
One helper beside the chair, helps to spot the springbucks.
We where 6 shooters, i could see very far, but not se any other shooters.
3 beaters on quad bikes, sometimes so far away they couls not bee seen.
We where allowed to shoot 15 springbucks each, and i had my 15 within 3 hours.
Min. shooting distance Ca. 180 meters, Max i took was Ca. 250 meters, absolute wind still.
When the quads where at range the bucks run 40-60 meters then stop for 20-30 sec, to look at the quads, so all my shots where at standing targets.
Used 16 shots to get 15 Springbucks, a statement to the very stable rifle rest on that chair, combined with the good range estimates of my helper.
So, when i se people asking questions about driven hunts on wild boar, they have to realize, driven hunts can be made in many ways.
Poland is the most popular country to go driven hunt for us Danes, personally not best experience, when it comes to driven hunts, but love thier cull hunting.
Germany is only Ca. half price, but usually not as good, however from here it is easy, cheap and I had some really good experience from there, so i will defniatly go again some time.
Croatia, personally i had good experince, but when i hear from paying hunters, they have very mixed reports. From here Croatia is more expensive than Poland.
Monteria in Spain was by far the most expensive i tryed, but was unlucky.
South Africa, well i loved it, and some day i would like to try it again.
Most important, it seems some british hunters think a driven hunt will involve lage number of shots fired by every shooter every day, this is not the case.
First of all, you need to be alert, a chance will come and pass very quick, so take it when it is there and the safety is OK. There may not come any more cances that day!!!
Then train you shooting skills on moving targets before you go on driven hunts, not just side running targets from 50 meters, but from differet angels and distances. In realety a clean sideshot from 50 meters is very rare.
Have a rifle scope able to go down in mag. It shoud be able to go down to at least 3 (reqred by law in Poland).
Hope this was usefull to the ones who dream about driven hunts but never been on one.
Sorry for my bad English, it will improve when you beat the spaniards Sunday evening.
Sonny
When i read trough all these treads, it seems to me that many British hunters do not really know how diverse driven hunts can be.
No wonder as you dont have a tradition of driven hunting the same way as europeans. But then again, the European ways can be very diffent, depending on where in Europe the hunt is taking place.
I will try to write a little about my experience from different places here.
As i am Danish, my first experinece with driven hunts was of course when my fathere started taking me along on driven hunts as a 10-11 year old boy.
The main target was roe deer, and the weapons shotguns.
Here in Denmark the tradition is 2-6 beaters (beaters are also armed with shotguns, and take shots of opportuety, when the chance comes), using 2-4 dogs, driving towards 2-30 standing guns.
One drive is typically over 5-30 hektars (12-75 acres), and takes 20-60 minutes.
Shooters normally placed in line or L shape, drivers always try to keep in line, so we know the direction of the drivers.
Normally there will be 2-5 drives pr day.
Dogs are typical German pointers, spaniels, or labradors.
The target ant legal animal from roedeer and downwards, so at the end of the day you will se roedeer lying side by side of Woodcocks.
When hunting larger animals, Fallow, reds, Boar (we dont have many boars), then we use rifels, and only go for those larger animals, + noone will let a fox pass.
On those hunts the animals often comes fastmoving, with dogs colse behind them, so shots are on moving targets.
I had 250+ days of traditional Danish driven hunts, and i never paid anything for them, because i come from farming, and have been blessed with good friends and lots of invitations. Shot Ca. 50 roedeers using shotgun on those hunts.
Normal there is 0,1-0,4 deer pr hunter pr day+ other small game. Exeptions are there, but often it is restricted to max. 1 deer pr hunter pr drive.
Then there is Germany.
I have had around 80 driven hunting days in Germany, it is close, cheap, and as we have EU firearm passports we just bring our own rifels, and Geman hunting licence are easy to get, for us danes as they accept Danish hunting licence.
Germany there has private and state/federal forrestry hunts. lest start privatly.
In Germany all persons taking part in moving hunts have to wear signal west, so they can be seen.
Shooters are NOT placed in lines. They are placed around inside the drive. Drivers is NOT beating in a line, they usually come in small groups 1-3 persons with 50-100 meters distance between individuals and 1 dog pr. group, and they do NOT move in line. So drivers may come from any direction, and they may pass you tower more than once.
They dont want to drive the deer, they just want to get them moving around, and hopefully pass a shooter and give a good chance him in his tower.
Private driven hunts are typical 20-50 hektars, using 1-2, mostly small slow dogs, like dackels, and 2-3 beaters (normally 1 of each group is armed with a revolver or short rifle), but sometimes large dogs are used, and they give a lot faster drive.
Drive time is normally 1-2 hours, and 2-3 drives a day, will be normal. Typical 6-15 shooters. Typical 75-100% of shooters i towers. No matter what, there will be strickt restrictions for shooting directions.
Main target will often be the wild pigs, but roe deer are usually the most shoot species.
Caliber permitted depends on the person who organize the hunt, (law says min 6,5mm) but many organizers will demand minimum 7mm, often only lead free bullets will be allowed, (.270 is only 6,8 mm when using German meassurement system).
The number of animals shots are typical 0,3-0,7 pr hunter pr day. Typical around 20 and 50% will be wild pigs.
When small dogs are used the animals often come slower, walking or run/stop moving, many shots can be on standing targets.
With larger dogs, normally only shots at moving/fast moving targets.
State/federal forrets.
Normally only one drive a day. The drive will typical be 75-1000 hektars. Typical 20-120 shooters. So it can both be very large or more "intimate", but the system is the same. The single drive on one of those days typical has 3,5-4,5 hours allowed shooting time.
First you will be standing together and taking the ruels for this particular hunt from the boss of the forresty commision districkt. He will tell what can be shot, and what can not. (often there will be no foxes!!!!, and no stags bigger than spikers, and no leading sows)
He will also be going over safety, and restrictions on numbers of shots. If you fire a shot and the animal is not lying dead, where you can se it, then they will put dogs on the track after the hunt.
Typical ruels say: stop shooting when 2 shots have been fired without dead animal lying visible. Max allowed shooting range will never be more than 100 meters!!!!
There will be a "drive start time", and a stoptime. You will normally be allowed to load and shoot as soon you have been placed in a tower, sometimes this can be up to 1 hour before "drive start" but the stoptime, is set and shots are not allowed after that time.
When he stop talking, the hornpalyers will be playing the "hunt start" tune and he will call people up by name. Shooters are called up, in grups of 3-6 shooters, and they wil have to orgize driving within the group, acompany a forrestry worker, who will drive in front, it can be up to 10 miles driving to reach the posts.
All post will be in towers (some small specilly build for driven hunts, and other large and high, build for night hunts), and the towers will have numbers.
The Worker have a list of wich number towers he will have to man, and it is registerd who sit where, and he will usually personally accompany the shooter to the tower, and tell if there are any non shoot or attention zones from this particular tower.
He will normally have his own rifle, and take the last tower on his list, and register the number of shots from "his" towers.
The towers are so far apart, you will normally not be able to se the other shooters.
No shooter is allowed to leave the towers douring driving time, so, if you need to take a P.., do it from the tower, and if you have a wounded animal you have to shoot again, not go down to it.
After stop time you can leave the tower, and go to have a look around it and you have to clean (take the insides out) animals you have shoot, but stay around tower to you get picked up by the same person who put you in the tower.
If it a small drive, there will typical be only 1 max. 2 dogs, accompanying the beaters.
But if its a big drive there will be shooters who brought their own dog. Those shooters will be sitting in a tower like all shooters, and stay there, but on the "drive start" time they will release their dog, who will move around freely in the drive, and hopefully get some animals moving around.
So beaters, dogs, and animal may come from any direction, and pass more than once.
All shots are registerd, and all animals who, has been shot at, and not lying, will be registerd when "your" forrest worker comes to pick you up, and serched for by trained persons and dogs, in the hours after the stop time. You will be surprised how many animal the find that way.
When all seaches has been done and all animals colleckted (on a big hunt this can take several hours), they will be lyed out on a "parade Grounds", so everyone can se the animals, and the districk boss will be calling every lucky shooter up to personally congratulate him.
The hunt is over when the hornplayers play the "hunt over" tune over the collections of the dead animals, and it is considers very rude to leave the premises before that.
Expect 0,3-0,7 animald Pr. hunter Pr. day. Germans say if there has been fired more than 2 shots Pr animal on the "parade", then it has been bad shooting.
Exeptions are always there, my personal record for 1 drive was on a state forrest hunt in Germany, 8 pigs, 2 reds and 2 roes, in on drive, 13 shots fired.
There will always be someone more or less lucky, so i have also tryed to be the unlucky one, spanding 3 days on driven hunt without fireing a single shot, usually around half the shooters on a hunt like that dont shoot anything Pr. day.
As they tend to use smaller dogs, and few comapired to drive size, the animals often come slow and carefull, so many shots are on slow moving animals.
Many let the roedeer run on these hunts, as there are so many of them,, and they dont wnat to alert the pigs by shooting at roes. At one time the forrestry boss told me to shoot as many i could, they relly wanted reducktion, so i shoot 7 on that drive.
Now Poland
Been on driven hunts 2 times in Poland, both it was 3 days hunts, so 6 days of driven hunting.
In Poland they have 10-40 hektar drives, always 8-12 shooters, and more or less same number of beaters and dogs (the beaters in poland are usually unarmed, and may go without high visebility wests).
They go for 8-12 of those drives a day, and shooters will mostly be set up in a U shape, then the drivers drive into it from the U opening.
This means the drivers will come in more or less a line, and from one direction.
The size of the drives and number of beaters, means this is a very fast form of drive hunt.
Most animals will be coming very fast, and shots are mostly on fast moving animals, and difficult because the shooters will be standing on the ground within sight of each other. This makes shooting at fast moving targets more difficult as you have to wach safty at the same time as concentration on hitting the target.
The Poles dont tend to make a lot of seaching when an animal is not lying on the spot, they spend Max. 10 min on seaching, then moves on to next drive.
Main target is usually the pigs.
Typical 0,5-1 animal Pr. hunter Pr day. The Poles say 3 shots for 1 animal, and this is often right.
My first 3 day driven hunt in Poland i shot 1 pig, using 1 shot douing those 3 days. Our group of 12 shooters got 34 animals.
My second time on driven hunt in Poland i fired 0 shots and our group of 11 hunters got 32 animals.
This means my personal experince with polish driven hunts are not the best.
Contrary i got 21 animals on 3 days cull hunt in Poland, combined stalk/tower (reds and pigs)
Croatia.
I was a soldier i Croatia 1991-2 and has been invited down there by the locals privatly a few times since then, where i could bring a friend.
8-10 shooters, 2 drives a day, typical 250-750 hektar.
More beaters than shooters, and more dogs than beaters.
One local took us out and palced us, then took the last post himself.
Once you get your post on the ground, you dont see the other shooters they may be very far away, the posts are where the Croatians think the pigs will come.
They try to place the shooters in a somewhat line, and try to drive in a line.
On the hunts i had there, we got 0,75-1,5 pigs Pr. shooter Pr day, and we where only allowed to shoot pigs.
The pigs mostly comes fast with a lot of dogs behind them, so many fast moving targets.
Spain
2 days of Monteria.
Main target reds, pigs and muffel.
Very big drives, i think 1000+ hektars, to 12 shooters, 2 drives a day.
A spaniard took us to our posts around in the mountains, where thet think the animals will come, and explainde where the driveres will from and to.
20 beaters, and Ca. double that in medium size dogs.
I only got 3 cances on that trip, day 1 I missed a pig running fast, with 3 shots at a distance of 120-150 meters.
Day 2 i missed 1 shot at a standing red stag distance Ca. 250 meters, i dont feel comftable shooting much more than 200 meters, but this was a chance, and was expected to shoot.
Then a pig passed only 40-50 meters from me, but i saw it to late, and never got a shot off.
So from our goup we where 2 shooters without any animals, but at least i got to fire 4 shots.
The spaniards dont care for animals, when they are not lying on the shooting spot, they simply dont seach for anything.
Everything seemed chaotic, but the group got 31 animals, this gives 1,3 animals Pr. person Pr. day, Ca. 50% was pigs.
South Africa
Tried 1 day of driven hunt for Springbuck in Karoo dessert.
Nowhere to hide, they can se us, so they keep distance.
Placed in a office chair, where they welded good rifle rest on to the armrest. This way you can turn 360 degrees and have good rest for the rifle.
One helper beside the chair, helps to spot the springbucks.
We where 6 shooters, i could see very far, but not se any other shooters.
3 beaters on quad bikes, sometimes so far away they couls not bee seen.
We where allowed to shoot 15 springbucks each, and i had my 15 within 3 hours.
Min. shooting distance Ca. 180 meters, Max i took was Ca. 250 meters, absolute wind still.
When the quads where at range the bucks run 40-60 meters then stop for 20-30 sec, to look at the quads, so all my shots where at standing targets.
Used 16 shots to get 15 Springbucks, a statement to the very stable rifle rest on that chair, combined with the good range estimates of my helper.
So, when i se people asking questions about driven hunts on wild boar, they have to realize, driven hunts can be made in many ways.
Poland is the most popular country to go driven hunt for us Danes, personally not best experience, when it comes to driven hunts, but love thier cull hunting.
Germany is only Ca. half price, but usually not as good, however from here it is easy, cheap and I had some really good experience from there, so i will defniatly go again some time.
Croatia, personally i had good experince, but when i hear from paying hunters, they have very mixed reports. From here Croatia is more expensive than Poland.
Monteria in Spain was by far the most expensive i tryed, but was unlucky.
South Africa, well i loved it, and some day i would like to try it again.
Most important, it seems some british hunters think a driven hunt will involve lage number of shots fired by every shooter every day, this is not the case.
First of all, you need to be alert, a chance will come and pass very quick, so take it when it is there and the safety is OK. There may not come any more cances that day!!!
Then train you shooting skills on moving targets before you go on driven hunts, not just side running targets from 50 meters, but from differet angels and distances. In realety a clean sideshot from 50 meters is very rare.
Have a rifle scope able to go down in mag. It shoud be able to go down to at least 3 (reqred by law in Poland).
Hope this was usefull to the ones who dream about driven hunts but never been on one.
Sorry for my bad English, it will improve when you beat the spaniards Sunday evening.
Sonny
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