I am an avid White Tail deer and Waterfowl hunter who is slowly trying to expand outside those realms and begin going on big game hunts. My cousin, 1115, has been trying to get me to go to Africa, which I am indeed interested in, but my major interest lies in Red Stag.

I want to hunt a territory and not a high fence area. A Stalk and Shoot type hunt with a guide. Can all of you who have experience with hunting Red Stags give me some advice? Pictures, share your experiences, etc? How much $ do I need to be prepared to spend to shoot a very quality Red Stag and maybe a Fallow Deer also?

Any advice would be very much appreciated. I am new to this site and just love it thus far!!

Jimmy

There is a very big range in price from about $2500NZD to $40,000US

Most guides charge $100-150 a point and a daily rate $250-1000 a day.

It will all come to what you want from your hunt.
Some hunts you will be staying in a hunt with no power or running water to a 5 star hunting lodge.

T P pritty much covered it
like he said it will depend on how much you want to spend

a couple of reds of mine
16 ptr on the wall



13ptr



and a nice fallow as well

If you and I go, it will be in a 5 star lodge with hot and cold running everything!!! I expect no less. I don't mind roughing it in the field, but in the evening a warm bath, a good meal, a couple of scotches, and a good night's sleep go a long way towards making the next day's hunt better. Plus, I am a lot older than you, and my ol' bones need pampering.

If you guys do end up coming down here and are interested in turkeys,add a couple of days on to your trip,ill be happy to take you out after turkeys you can shoot as many as you like.
Their just a pest around here and to be shot on sight.

Skyjacker

Two red stags photos for you.

Free range hunt on NZ North Island farmsland bordering some mountains/wilder country.

Story

Hunted with a Kiwi outfitter, Brian Harre in 1993. A lot younger then.


Aussie red stag from South Australia, also free range. This stag was probably an escapee from a deer farm about five or six years earlier, along with a dozen plus others. Hunted in fallow deer country.


Hot and windy that day.


On the grass.
Story

Jimmy
I too am new to this sight and enjoying it as well.
You have an interesting 'problem" to solve in regards your quest for Red stag.
I'll have to put in a good word for NZ. We have stag hunting down here that will meet with your requirements and 1115.
There are numerous guides and outfitters down here ,of which I'm 1, that would be more than happy to help you in this matter.
For a first away from the States hunt, NZ is very esay to arrange. I even know wheres theres a spa bath for old bones at the end of a hard day on the hill.
Good luck .

I shouldn't tell tales on myself, but I hunted a high-fenced property in NZ this March.

I bought the trip at the DSC's silent auction in January and didn't know it was on a fenced ranch. When we drove out to the place on the first day and I saw the fence, I have to admit my heart dropped and I had an internal debate about calling the hunt off. But we drove around the place for a few hours and I saw that the fence encompassed quite a bit of land. The animals, Red Stag, Fallow Deer, boar, and feral sheep and goats, were all part of permanent breeding populations and not put and take. So I decided I'd see what it was like.

In degree of difficulty I'd place it with caribou hunting. To give you an idea, here's how my Fallow Deer hunt went.

We're glassing from a ridge and spot a good buck. It's about 900 yards off and two ridges away. So we duck down the hill and start working down the valley towards the deer. We spot two rams between us and them, so we wait until they move off. Then we work around the base of ridge into the second valley. While still too far away for a shot the deer get spooked and head out.

The next morning we go the the head of the same valley and work our way down while staying below the opposite side of the ridge. Occasionally we pop up to see what we can see. Below us is another valley (all on the same property) and we see a group of red deer hinds. They're about a half mile off. Anyway, well over an hour into this we spot a group of fallow deer. We look them over and see that the buck we want is there. We skirt some boulders and head down through that black NZ thornbush and eventually I get a shot. The deer is alert and facing me. He turns to run at the exact second I pull the trigger so I don't drop him. He runs quartering away from me downslope, across a creek and up the far hill. My guide tells me he's well hit and will stop so I should wait. Sure enough he does when he hits the same type of brush we're sitting in. I shoot again across the valley and drop him.

We dress out the deer and pack the meat about a quarter mile or so down to the foot of the valley where we know there's road. My guide heads back to where we left the truck at the top and brings it down to pick me up. This takes about two hours.

I'd post a picture of me and my Red Stag if someone will tell me how. You'd see two mountains behind me. All that and more were on the same property along with considerable land on either side.

My guide thought he was just showing me deer on the first day. Actually what he did was convince me to go through with the hunt. I had never hunted fenced land before and wouldn't have done this if it was just shooting fish in a barrel. But you couldn't walk across this ranch in a day so I thought it was fair.

The guide is John Berry. ( http://www.johnberryhunting.com/ )
He's extremely good and also has accesss to other properties that are not high fenced. On our last day we went to one such place, a working sheep ranch. We went there to fish, but on our drive out saw good bull Tahr. As the Brits in Africa used to say, "The things you see when you don't have a rifle!"

OK, I found the instructions. If they work you'll see the pic. If they don't here's the link:

http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j311/spolito/?action=...current=DSC01869.jpg

I know Skyjacker doesn't want to hunt a high-fenced area, but you can get an idea of how much land is inside the fence I hunted.

And like I said, John has access to a lot of land that is low fenced only to keep cattle and sheep in.