Hi folks,

With a total of one morning of hind stalking in Scotland 14 years ago under my belt, I'm truly a neophyte when it comes to hunting in Europe. I'd like to work on that a bit and am looking for some suggestions. While my wife and I are willing to hunt just about anything, 2 European animals have caught and held my fancy, boar and fallow deer. Don't ask why, I have no more idea about why fallow deer interest me than I did about why I chose roan over sable on my last African trip.

With those two animals in mind, where would you start looking if you vastly preffered stalking to high seats or driven game and were game fence-phobic, as I am? As I understand things, stalking a boar and finding a free ranging fallow deer will be a tall order, but I'd like to try it that way, even if my chance of success is reduced.

Thanks,
Dean

Dean, are you looking for trophies to put on your wall, or just any old fallow and boar??

There are a ton of places where fallow can be hunted: UK, Continental Europe - you name it. Stalking one should not be impossible. In particular, stalking can be effective on bucks in the rut, as they are vocal and you can locate them that way.

Stalking boar is possible, but by FAR the most boar are taken from either high seats or on driven hunts.

Just to wet your appetite, this DVD has stalking of both boar and fallow deer... Hungary can be a first rate location for the animals you are looking for, not necessarily inexpensive but in the right area very good:

http://huntersvideo.com/index....t=videos&video_id=39

- mike

Dean,

If I was looking for a representative Fallow Buck and Wild Boar at a reasonable price I'd go to the former DDR or as they are referred to here; the "New Bundesländer" of Germany. Brandenburg springs to mind but Meklenburg-Vorpomern would do just as well.

Hello Dean

mho and Gerry are great sources for you here on the European page I see them post good things all the time.

I thought I would chime in and give my perspective as an American who has hunted quite a bit in Europe.

First of all hunting in Europe is not as commercialized as it is in North America or Africa.
I'm not saying that there arn't plenty of hunters who would be happy to sell you a hunt it's more like most hunting areas are small and not many hunters or land managers advertise hunting opertunities beyond there local area.


I would compare it to the Eastern half of the U.S. where hunts are advertised but not nearly as many as the west or north.

It really helps to know someone who has conections. Quite often a local hunter will have an extra deer or boar they would be willing to sell but it takes a local conection to know about it.

I'm mostly talking about western Europe hear. There are many good hunting outfitters in Eastern Europe. Eastern Europe can be a bit spendy but that quite often depends on how big your trophy is.

Spain has several good outfitters advertising here in the U.S. and I'm sure up there in Canada as well. Spain is where I got my Fallow deer and they have real nice ones there. I also took my largest red stag in Spain but they are not as big there as in Eastern Europe.

As far as boar I have hunted them in Germany with a friend on his hunting area but I did'nt get one there. I got several boar on a hunt in France. In France there are many estates that offer boar hunting and I had a lot of fun there but it will mostly be inside a high fence and I might add most hunts for fallow are high fence.

The hunt area I was in was very big and we never saw the fence but I'm sure there was one there. Our group took 71 boar in two days of driven hunting I managed to get 5 myself and could have taken several more but the owner of the estate told me I was welcome to pass the rifle to my girlfriend to shoot at any time and she kept missing. She did manage to get two herself though.

Europe is kind of like Africa in that once you go you will want to keep going back. My first trip all I wanted was a roebuck. Well my friends took good care of me and while hunting with them in Austria I got two nice bucks a doe and a nice gams. On the last day A beuatiful 7x7 red stag walked out and all of a sudden I wanted one of them too.

Robert Kern of the hunting consourtium is a good resource for Americans wanting to go to Europe. His hunts seem to be some of the most expensive though. It would be well worth your time to do a little research and save a lot of money.

Asking the folks on this board was probably the best place to start. I'm sure they will be helpfull.

Dean,

It all depends on your trophy requirements. If you are just looking for the woodland stalking experience and happy to shoot non trophy animals then Fallow stalking in the UK can be had for very little money, Say around £100 per day. To expect trophy quality then you almost have to hunt in the Rut. The beauty is that your stalking can easily be combined with some other types of hunting.

Rgds,
FB

Dean,
If your last stalk was 14 years ago and on a different species, you are going to have to acquire a whole new skillset in going after fallow.
I'd suggest you find a stalker you are comfortable with learning from and go out with them a few times, perhaps get them to coach you.

quote:

mho and Gerry are great sources for you here on the European page I see them post good things all the time.

AK,

Mike, for sure - level headed Guy.

Is there another "Gerry" posting?

Hopefully, 'cause I can't remember what I had for breakfast.....

Thx all the same!

Thanks for the replies and sorry about the delay in responding myself. It has been an interesting week and to top it off my computer is in distress. It appears events have overtaken my attempts at planning. The new current plan involves my wife and I, with our 1 yr old daughter, visiting southern Scotland (Stirling/Oban areas) for 10 days or so at the start of September. History and scenery will be the main focus of the trip, but we'd like to fit in a bit of hunting (in the NA sense of the term)or fishing as well. Besides a search on these forums, can anyone suggest where I start looking to see what might be available and who might be able to help arrange it?

Thanks again,
Dean