Guys,
I was wondering if anyone has successfully set up there own, or joined , a deer management group in their area, and if so, how?
I find it deeply frustrating to have bags of energy and commitment, and not be able to find a channel to focus it down.
I have contacted the DI on many occasions to find out how I could get involved, but to no avail.
Don't get me wrong. It's not to get try and gain extra stalking. It is through a genuine interest in deer management, and the processes that it takes on.
in our area of the Home Counties, we fall in a gray area between East Anglia(we are too far south to be of interest to them) , and the South East region( we are too far north to be of interest.....).
I would dearly love to talk to someone who has managed to set themselves up, and find out how they did it.
I know that this forum has a wealth of experience to share. Maybe I can open up a thread that will be of benefit to many who are asking the same question.
Any comments

Dear Puntgunner

I have tried for years to get some realistic organisation locally ref deer management to little response.
PM me if you want to discuss it further.

Regards

Mark

Hi guys,
I have joined a local deer group and i have found it to be an organisation run by a few in order to open up new stalking oppurtunities for them. they offer to manage deer on other estates and the culling duties are kept by them. I don't like it.

Hi

We dont have a culture of deer management in this country like they have on the Continent where deer management runs on a similar line to a pheasant shoot.
Shooting the deer is not such a problem as establishing a non-shooting social side to the shoot similar to the hunt or pheasant shoot. Another example is where ajoining hunting areas agree not to shoot the master buck for a year or two and concentrate on improving herd quality at the same time as reducing numbers.
I train tracking hounds for following up injured deer following shooting/RTA using European traditional line lead techniques as do you thing the local BDS/BASC deer groups could spare the time in their busy social timetable for a evening talk on the subject, but no they never miss and GSP's always get their deer why would one want to see another point of view
Its not so much sour grapes its just run like a secret society where a lot of hunters with stalking rights are frightened of having them interfered with. THe more open and trusting people are in the deer management community the better for everyone. As an experienced deer hunter I dont want to have to spend years requalifying to join the Hubertus Society here just to add a social dimension as I can hunt literally every day twice a day. The British Deer Society could go a long way to improve social matters but IMHO there is a lot of cronyism in some of the groups.

Just my opinion

Mark

quote:

Its not so much sour grapes its just run like a secret society where a lot of hunters with stalking rights are frightened of having them interfered with

Mark, I agree with you to an extent on this but I can kind of understand why it is like that. In many areas stalking is very difficult to come by. Hard Won but easily lost. Land owners also can be difficult in some respects not allowing others on the ground apart from the "authorised principal person".

As a stalkier there is also another side to things. Here on AR and most of the stalking people I socialise with are of a similar ilk. We are typically sensible guys that shoot and share. However even in my small time shootinf geer I have come accross so many fools. One guy even managed to shoot himself dead last year getting over a fence....

With the possibility of coming accross these types a real possibility it's no wonder that some shy away from opening up their sport. I have to put my hands up to doing some degree of it myself.

FB

Hi FB, if you want to PM me your contact I can pass it on to someone within DI that may be able to advise.
Cheers

Z

Hi FB

I totally agree with you but that would not be a suprise as we are both sensible people who respect our friends, colleagues and game animals.
What I would like to see is a greater emphasis on the non shooting aspects of deer management and improved communications so its harder for the 'dangerous element' to hide or accidently shoot the stalker
The more time we spend at the range/pub with the more enthusiastic and intelligent members of the hunting community the better the quality of the hunt for all concerned.

Mark

Mark,

Yes I agree completely. I believe all stalkers/shooters etc are a function of the environment that they are exposed to when they are brought into the sport. If you are shown the way correctly then you will have a proper "modus operandi" (dunno what that means but not bad considering I got 4hrs sleep after lamping last night!!! )

It's very difficult to get a direct social aspect to stalking because it is essentially a solitary pastime. It's the same with the wildfowling on the forshore, and one of the reasons I gave it up. (Along with the Mud, cold and water upto your proverbials...)

Isn't that why AR is great? I've stalked with a couple of guys from here and providing they carry on buying me Indian Takeaways then I think we'll do so again...

I should probably stress that I wasn't involved in the num[pty on the fence having only met him a couple of times in the pub.

Rgds,
FB

DMGs are for landowners wanting to reduce damage from mobile herds of deer crossing boundaries. No unnaceptable damage or landowners with common aim or herds or crossing of boundaries and no reason for a DMG.

You'll learn as much from attending/setting up a DMG as you would attending your parish council meeting. About as interesting and generaly take place around key times such as the rut anyhow.

DMGs go wrong when they become dominated by stalkers - the DI know this which may be why you are not being taken up on the offer. If you seriously want to get one off the ground you will have to get land owners to approach the DI.

Well. I find it very interesting to find that many have had similar experiences as I.

I've had an interest in deer all my life, and find that the attitude of the DMG groups that I have contacted ( and some of the societies ), has been very closed shop.

The immediate assumption is that you are after stalking.
The fact that you have been active as a trainer/lecturer/guide/ helper pails into insignificance once they find out you shoot.

I was under the impression that Mg's were established to educate and advise land owners . I understand that they should be set up initially by the Land owners. I've been to several of the DI meetings. They usual attendance turns out to be 10% land owner , 90% guys hoping to get some free stalking!

So,so much for the land owners setting up the groups. The last one that nearly got off the ground collapsed when the land owners found out how much their 'problem deer' were worth when a sporting agent attended the group.

Deer management in that particular area has now become a problem.

With new grants for planting deciduous trees, and bringing on bare root saplings as a crop, many of the local farmer started to diversify. Happy in the knowledge that there was an active deer management group in the area, the strap saplings went in.

Sadly, when the first few crops were decimated by fallow, it transpired that the only deer being shot were trophy muntjac bucks, as this was the only thing the DMG 'guests' wanted to shoot.
Several stories were overheard down the local of, " I saw plenty of deer, but not the buck that i wanted ."

So much for deer management.

I am one of the lucky one's that has their own shooting, so sympathies when you meet others that would die for what you take for granted.

I have never been one to hold back, and have shared my luck with several people that I have taken under my wing.

This is in respect to the 'keeper who took me on as a rookie 15 years ago. Hopefully, they have appreciated the experience and will do likewise when they have the opportunity.

Sadly, my experience of DMG's is that ,as said previously, they get 'taken over' by an element that then makes it a closed shop shooting group.

Please feel free to contradict and add your own spin. I am glad that I have opened this thread an will look in with great interest.

I have to say that my experience with DMG's set up by the DI is the same as uk roe hunters the one to which he refers is definitely run by a group of stalkers and FC rangers who are only interested in using the DMG to keep and increase there stalking opportunities. Last year they requested members to make a financial contribution to help setup and promote venison sales thereby increasing the market and price of venison to at least £1.00 / lb however they were quite prepared to undercut other local deer managers who were already doing better than this. The only up side was the dealer who they sold to said he would not take any more animals from them as the quality of presentation did not compare.

uk roe hunter PM me if you want to discuss LDMG offline.

Having read through the posts so far, I feel a little sad that there is so much ill feeling towards DMG's in general.

I am part of one in the NW of our fair land, we started off in order to provide reasonably priced stalking to those who have DSC1 but no land of their own. To date, I think we have around 100 people who regularly book days on "our land" We operate in a non profit way, all the stalking fees go towards maintainence of on site caravan, high seats etc,, and of course the annual lease.

We liase regularly with the land agents and owners, ask that our members complete return sheets of any wildlife, unusual flora and fauna seen and pass this info back to the owners, we do a great deal of conservation work on the ground such as introducing owl nesting boxes at various locations and have a good relationship with most, if not all of the residents of the area who reside near to the ground.

We have never played second fiddle to any "organisation" re cull figures and are in general self reliant. But then of course we are south of the border and have no DCS to contend with!!