Manageing Bucks and Stags

NoNameRanger

Its that time of year again, buck and stag season. When logic goes out the window and buckfever sets in. Any male deer unlucky enough to meet a hunter will be taken.

There is very little trophy management in this country, which is why we have so few Gold medal heads when we have a country capable of producing the finest heads in the world.

People say they shoot stags for the meat, if you do, you have never eaten a yearling hind/ doe or a calf. Stags are fine as mince and stew in my opinion.

People say they need to shoot stags/ bucks to control the population. That does not make sense, the best way to control the population is to shoot Hinds/ Does and Calves/ Fawns.

We all agree that there is something about hunting a fine trophy stag in full rut, it gets the adrenaline going like nothing else. But we are shooting far to many young potential stags. We are shooting anything we see instead of selectively culling out the poor stag and saving the potential medal class animal.

Very few people that hunt deer that i know are able to see the potential in young stag.

Fallow suffer very badly in this country, a fallow buck takes a long time to mature, he isn't at his best until between his 8th and 10th head. Few fallow in Ireland reach this. People will say we don't produce good heads in Ireland because of the ground or poor genetics, etc, etc. All you have to do is look at the bucks in the phoenix park. Plenty gold medals there, on average ground in the middle of the city.

There is an attitude in Ireland that if i don't take it now somebody else will shoot it tomorrow. And with everybody taking that approach we end up with very few mature animals.

We should be spending more time watching and studying stags/ bucks during the rut. Buy a spotting scope or record them on a video camera. Learn to pick out the best stags and be prepared not to take the shot . Learn to pick out the ones that will never make it and cull them. Learn what you need to look for in a potential stag/ buck. And when your big stag/ buck is fully mature you can take him, he will have passed on the traits you desire in the herd and you will get a lot more value and pleasure from managing your stags and bucks properly and hanging that awesome trophy on your wall.

And when the hinds/ does and calves/ fawns come in to season, cull them hard and fill the freezer and all your relatives and friends freezers too:D

Sika_Stalker

its a pity not enough people have the common sence to do this:(

tiny-nioclas

Great post, All very true points,

There is an attitude in Ireland that if i don't take it now somebody else will shoot it tomorrow

Id say i personally know around 8-9 deer hunters around my area,and i can safely say only one of them knows their stuff about effective deer management, but the rest havent a clue, their opinion is the very one you said above, how do you get the likes of them educated? who have been shooting deer for ages but dont see it like this, they just shoot deer,not selected deer just any deer at all.Now dont get me wrong their not just being ignorant,they just dont know about it,or see their shooting as management.

Now im no expert either(far from it),but im learning a nice bit from this forum and others and on my own stalking ground,this is only my second season.

Tackleberry.

Sika_Stalker wrote: »

its a pity not enough people have the common sence to do this:(

+1

We are bad in our management of deer but thats cos it turns into a competition between local stalkers.
in saying that i shot a 2 year old red last week that could well of turnned out a fine stag, but i also seen a older stag looked very good it may of been his dad,that's my management.... but i hope to shoot him later this week using a Nikon i'll post pics if i see him.

shaft666

Very well written post

Paul

meathstevie

When it comes to the meat I always use a bit of anecdotal information. Every cattle farmer I know who's into bullocks and young bulls will nearly always have one for the freezer for himself every year : a heifer that is.

hazza

I like the proposal to be selective in our culling but fear like you say that not enough people share or are educated to this view. I put myself in this camp as I'm new to stalking and though I find the HCAP training I've done a good practical introduction, the principle of 'deer management' seems to be very much slanted to preserving forestry and agricultural crops. The emphasis appears to be in culling numbers yes and there are references to culling the female and young population hard (HCAP manual) but there's only passing inference to culling for quality of the herd and how to achieve it.
Is this something we should be taught by more experienced stalkers or can we learn to differentiate through our own endeavours?

Deer Hunter DL

very good post i agree with it 100% , i think maybe there should be something like a one day Deer Management Course before you can get your licence for shooting

cavan shooter

Excellent post, and comments.

I don't shoot deer (I'd love to give it ago) but I do hunt pheasant etc and the same can be said of hunters I know. Wont give a bird a chance once they know there is a cock they'll cover every inch of ground till they get it and come the first they'll boast how many they shot.

Your a nothing if you haven't got 9-10. However, Time and time again after I've shot a bird on the next flush I have lifted the gun then put it down, and not shot...I have enough 2 birds or even 1 bird is plenty

As for cock and hens the older the hens get they can stop the younger hens from breading with the stronger cocks. You can have too many old hens on the ground, and this can be detriment to breading. If you suggest culling out hens you get dirty looks.

Sorry for going off topic:o

J.R.

cavan shooter wrote: »

Excellent post, and comments.




I don't shoot deer (I'd love to give it ago) but I do hunt pheasant etc and the same can be said of hunters I know. Wont give a bird a chance once they know there is a cock they'll cover every inch of ground till they get it and come the first they'll boast how many they shot.

Your a nothing if you haven't got 9-10. However, Time and time again after I've shot a bird on the next flush I have lifted the gun then put it down, and not shot...I have enough 2 birds or even 1 bird is plenty

As for cock and hens the older the hens get they can stop the younger hens from breading with the stronger cocks. You can have too many old hens on the ground, and this can be detriment to breading. If you suggest culling out hens you get dirty looks.
Sorry for going off topic:o

Definitely agree with you - I don't shoot deer but I've noticed what you're saying with many pheasant / woodcock and duck shooters - it's a numbers / boast game with them ...they seem to think the best shooter is the one who shoots the most.....and the annoying thing is that most of these are chaps who don't join / contribute to the local gun club but have permission from landowner to shoot....they also seem to have plenty of time on their hands to shoot throughout the week while other are glad to be able to get out one day of the weekend.

I would take about five / six cocks in the whole season........if a young bird rises then I would just let him go ....may come across him again when he's older / more mature but many cannot understand this concept....there is definitely an element of greed with some out there and their narrowmindness does nothing for the sport in the long term.

rob308

i really enjoyed your post but in all reality i can never see the day when this will happen. there are too many guys going around just waiting to see a master stag so they can harvest him. one morning two seasons back myself and a buddy spotted the finest sika stag i've seen in 10 years of deer hunting. we decided to leave him be as the rut was coming up. he was within 200 yards of us and we sat looking at him for 20 mins before carefully leavin satisfied. 4 weeks later i heard through the grapevine that a guy in my locality who had no business being even in the area had shot him. seemingly everybody that had a rifle within 10 miles knew about him through word of mouth. this is just one instance of this happening and i'm sure more of the guys have similar stories. not trying to be righteous here but not only do you have to put up with trophy hunters but also poachers who dont care what they shoot so long as they can brag about it to their friends. i'm all up for keeping the gene pool going but at the end of the day the reality is unless you have an area of land with noone shooting or travelling on it within a couple of miles radius word of mouth will get out and attract every rifle around. sadly these days if i see an animal and have a safe shot at it i will generally take it. the truth really is if you dont there is someone out there who will

NoNameRanger

If everybody on here was to adopt the following it would result in a lot of very fine stags, and if everybody convinced one other hunter not to shoot young stags/buck with potential. It's got to start some where. I would love to see the same systems for trophy animals here as in Austria. The deer societies should be leading the way on this and forming regional shows where all members display what males they have shot at the end of the season. Heads should be measured and medals given for the medal class animals. Animals that didn't make medal class should be aged and discussed as is done on the continent. This years CIC exhibition was a good start and hopefully the start of better things to come.

One of the easiest ones to gauge is a pricket. This is a first head animal with no visible coronet. If he has long spikes or antlers with tines then he should be left. A huge amount of prickets don't get to their second head. If only a few good ones were left. I shoot a few prickets each year, but always the ones with the short spikes such as the one E.Fudd shot last sunday. I never shoot anything over pricket age unless they are injured or are showing malformed antler or I know them and they are going back or i know they are at their peak and i want the trophy. But i let medal class animals pass me all the time. Oddly enough a lot of the stags and bucks that i chose not to shoot i see them year after year. Some disappear but most don't.

Contrary to popular belief the size or number of points on antlers do not give us a positive recognition of the age class of a deer. They can be used as a rough guide if the observer has sufficient knowledge and experience to recognise other age class indicators. Red deer in some areas of Ireland can have 14-16 points in their second head and up to 8 in their first. Once a deer has been shot, however, an examination of the teeth and head may be more reliable indications of age. The stalker or deer manager, therefore, needs only to be able to recognise young, middle aged or old. The best way to learn how to do this is through constant observation of deer at close quarters, such as in a deer park or in the wild on ground that you can regularly see a number of stags. National parks such as Killarney and Wicklow give good opportunities.

As age sets in, the older bucks and stags of each species may lose condition and the antlers will go back in size and quality. Malformation of antlers is of course a feature of old age testosterone levels drop and tooth wear affects the food intake . It is quite possible that an old deer's head will resemble that of a younger, developing beast and the only way to tell the difference is by the carriage of the head and posture of the body. A deer carrying a leg injury from when in velvet will have a malformed antler on the opposite side to the injury. If the animal is still lame it should be culled as the injury has not healed properly. If the animal has one malformed antler and one healthy antler but is otherwise healthy, then the animal had an injury during the velvet stage but is now recovered and will produce normal antlers the following year most likely.

If an animal has healthy antlers and is lame , it is possibly a strain and could possibly recover, but it could also be a more serious wound. Observation will reveal whether he needs culling. If his body weight is bad and posture poor, it's best to take him out.

An understanding of how points are achieved in the CIC system is a good way of knowing what characteristics are favorable in good stag/ buck, such as span, symmetry, weight, length of tines and beam etc.etc.

Below is an excellent paper on an Island population, it makes very interesting reading and shows how reducing female numbers increases stag numbers and antler size.

http://www.snh.org.uk/publications/on-line/advisorynotes/101/101.htm

Another good site.
http://www.dcs.gov.uk/BestPractice/health_welfareCulling.aspx

kerryman12

Thats a good post NNR with some practical advise you can take into the field with you.

Thanks and regards

hazza

kerryman12 wrote: »

Thats a good post NNR with some practical advise you can take into the field with you.

Thanks and regards

+1
Thanks for sharing you knowledge NNR and useful links there.

fathersymes

In the UK where all stalking has a commercial value, the result is that there is careful management in order to produce medal heads for clients.

Whereas we in Ireland have the luxury of having free stalking, but will probably share the land with many others who are uneducated in herd management or as in alot of occasions just couldn't care less as long as they shoot 'A deer'.

ps!

BUT, they are still unable to manage the explosion in deer numbers and colonisation of previously uninhabited areas by new species, such as Sika appearing in south Devon.

BryanL

Are you kidding there is an unbelievable population of deer all over England which are not being controlled. Muntjac and Chinese water deer are spreading without check.
Bryan

fathersymes

That's what I'm saying; even with management of the more valued Roe trophies, they are still multiplying.

perhaps if there was less regulation of game dealers we would see a greater demand for venison and hence more females being shot to supply this demand.

BryanL

fathersymes wrote: »

That's what I'm saying; even with management of the more valued Roe trophies, they are still multiplying.

perhaps if there was less regulation of game dealers we would see a greater demand for venison and hence more females being shot to supply this demand.

Agree with you 100% there, maybe more public education regarding the population of Irish deer and the needs for control. When you see the reaction here to E Fudd posting a picture of a shot deer. It's the beast meat you can get.
Bryan

E. Fudd

BryanL wrote: »

When you see the reaction here to E Fudd posting a picture of a shot deer. It's the beast meat you can get.
Bryan

His back leg is just about to be taken out of the oven!