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I have just got home from a great late afternoon / evening hunting with friends.

We decided we needed to thin out the roe deer on our 900 h ground in North Rhine Westfalia, Germany. And what better way to do it than invite 16 sporting friends to join in for a short evening of roe deer management.

We met up at 17:00 with the hunting horns calling everyone together with "Sammeln der Jaeger" and "Begrussung"(Welcome the hunters).

Roe deer spikers / prickets, does, yearlings and kids on the line of "young before old" and "weak before strong" as well as wild boar, fox, badger and other ground game predators were all "open".

We drew lots for our stands 1 - 16 with numbers written on Underberg shot bottles. Then following the horns playing "Aufbruch zu Jagd" we took our stands at 17:30 with the order to stop at 20:00.

The first shots were heard around 18:30 and the last at 19:45, being my .223 CZ full stock rifle, dropping a single roe doe that was feeding near a good size buck for some 30 minutes with no kid to be seen.

In total 8 deer were taken, all female, with 3 kids, 4 yearlings and my doe making up the total.

After the horns sounding "Reh tot" and all hunters that shot deer being given a oak leaf twig as a "Bruch" we rounded the evening off with a BBQ and beers, alcohol free beers and soft drinks, to what was a wonderful evenings hunting with friends steeped in German hunting tradition and a cold German beer!

Sometimes the simple things in life are the best!


Ps. Apologies but I was too busy organising and arranging that I did not take a single photograph! Next time.

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Dang that sounds like a fun hunt Charlie, thanks for your posts

Taking roe does in September has always seemed bad to me. Whether the kid is at heel or not it or they will be around - there is zero evidence to suggest that 1+ year old does are yeld after year 1.

We are permitted to take does and kids after 1st September under general license but I never do - I wait until the season opens on 21st October. I just feel it's better to let the kids get fully self-sufficient before taking out their means of support.

Diffrent strokes......

Charlie:

You're having so much fun I hope you never wear out!

George