Alright Fallow Buck!
I dont generally enjoy discussing this kind of thing in public, but I have just returned from what turned out to be a real shooting experience for me!

Due to a new rule that all fenced animals need to be tested for bovine TB here a friend of mine has decided that instead he will cull out all but 15 of his fallow deer and restock with animals that have already been tested - so he has had to cull out some 150-200 fallow deer so far with about another 100 to go. I joined him this last weekend to help out with some of it...it went really well and we managed to get 54 or 56 fallows in about 12 hours of shooting over 2 days.

It was really good experience though, coz even though it cant be called hunting of any sort, its not so often that one is able to experience so many different shot opportunities in such a short space of time. You really learn to appreciate both your own capabilities, and those of your rifle.

Each day we found the deer out in the open - the shooters positioned themselves along the forest edge and from here it was mainly long distance shooting off a dead rest, taking into account trajectories, wind drift & expected performance of the bullet after entry.

All of the shots were neck shots - the shoot leader having elected neck shots as opposed to brain shots to reduce the margin of error, i.e. If the shot was high chances were you would hit the brain...low would take you into the neck above the shouders or maybe the shoulders...if you were a little left or right of center, theoretically it would be a clean miss, which I thought was pretty good reasoning and worked quite effectively. With a pure brain attempt you leave yourself wide open to animals with missing noses, ears and a higher number of clean misses I think. He really wanted to try and keep the shooting to one shot - one animal as far as possible in the interests of keeping stress levels as low as possible.

After picking off as many as we could in the open before they got into the forest we gathered together, accounted for each shot taken, reported any wounded & collected the animals before taking them off to the butchery. I would mention that in the whole exercise there were only 3 animals wounded. Two of which were accounted for shortly after they were first reported - we had radio contact between each other so if an animal was wounded it was quite simple to relay to the shooter towards whom the deer were headed. Obviously wounded animals were dispatched with whatever shot could be safely taken. The third was recovered using a dog and tracking it to where it was found dead.

In the afternoon we used mainly drive dogs, Dachshund, German Hunting Terriers & a type of spaniel that I dont know the English name for - a wachtel. Shooters were again positioned in strategic places and advised on what animals to shoot - the fallow deer here are starting to rut, so males were not permitted, something to do with the musky flavour of the meat around this time. Shooting was much more tricky here - generally the oportunities were more brief, so offhand snap shots were more in order - and you had to take into account all of the brush, grass etc that might interfere with your shot - not forgetting to be aware of deer(or other shooters!!) that were positioned behind your target that might be wounded by bullets passing through animals that were targeted. Fortunately this only happened once and the shooter in question realised what had happened with time enough to drop the wounded animal directly.

The two days were excellent training, and although it is tragic to see so many animals being taken out - especially under the circumstances - if anybody should ever have the opportunity to participate in something similar I would encourage you to do so. As I said previously - it is an excellent way to get to know your own capabiities & those of your rifle in a field situation, which I am sure most of you will agree - is quite different to most of the standard drills we might go through at the range.

I regularly help with springbok culling is the arid Karoo reagion of South Africa, where I live.
We have 2 methods, night time with lamps or day time driven by horsemen. The night method generally works better, since you need less "hunters". We would drive around with a powerfull light until detecting eyes in the distance, then cover the lens with a red filter and drive towards them. They would mostly run away, but the driver would slowly keep up with the lead buck until after say 200m they usually stop to look. Since they look straight at the light, it is easier to do brain shots, with little risk of broken muzzles. Typically one vehicle with 3 occupants would do about 30 in a night, gutting inclusive.

Yes, it teaches you to "get ready quickly, then shoot slowly" as I normally put it.
It also humbles you as soon as you think you're a hot shot.
Lochi.

Just a thought.. you said that only neck shots were allowed. Okay.
But on the other side you said, that u were using dogs in the afternoon, so i question myself how you can place neck shots on "chased" animals.

Konstantin

Hey konst,

This is exactly why we used slow-moving dogs...i.e. the dachshund & the wachtel. The Tysk jakt terrier is a little quicker on his feet, but the deer still manage to get away from them from time to time - especially in a fenced area where the dogs are relying on sight and windborne scent most of the time.

I am sure you have driven hunts in Germany as well, and what you very often see is that a deer will run from the dog until it has some distance between itself & the dog. Then they stop & look back to see if the dog is still following. They stand still, listen to the dog, check the wind & move on if they still feel threatened. This is the best time to take the neck shot. Generally you do not have a lot of time, so it does beome more of an offhand snap shot than a steady shot with a dead-rest...whether or not you take the shot is your own decision.

I did have one opportunity where a deer ran within 20 yards of me - moving not so fast - and I had the cross hairs on her as she went by, but at the last minute avoided the shot because of the wound risk...I still think I could have taken the shot, but to err on the side of caution is no error at all.

The other shot opportunities that occurred were when groups of deer that were not being driven by the dog would move from one patch of cover to another, simply because they were either concerned with the proximity of the dog, or perhaps they got wind of a shooter or dog. These groups acted like any other animal moving from cover to cover. They would walk from place to place, stopping occasionally to test the wind or look around and see if there were any threats in the immediate area.

The dog-handlers were also walking freely within the area. We probably had least chance of shooting anything, as we had to whistle a lot of the time to keep contact with the dogs & the other shooters. The guys sitting in shooting positions could obviously not whistle back to us, but at least they knew when we were within bullet-risk vicinity.

I hope that clarifies my meaning for you.

Yes, thanks for th ekind reply.

cheers to sweden,
konstantin