Here's a pick of a 8x7 Red Deer my son took Tuesday morning in Quebec on a private estate. I figured why go all the way to New Zealand to estate hunt when we could go see our Canadian cousins up north instead!

Beauty!! Didn't even know that was an option to do in our great country. Fill us in on some of the details of the hunt. Rifle used, caliber, did it seem like a closed fence hunt or was it a large estate where the red stag were pretty much free ranging??

At least in Quebec, high fenced areas are limited to a maximum of 500 acres. There were three areas like this at the place we hunted: http://www.laurentianwildlife.com/ Being in the Laurentian Mountains, each area had good changes in elevation equating ridges, valleys, ponds, marshes, etc. We were there November 17-20th. The leaves had already fallen, but pics I saw when I was there, as well as their website, shows it being pretty thick.

Spot and stalk hunting, especially in the morning, was pretty much out of the question for us - the ground was frozen and when we walked, the leaves, dirt, and mud crunched quite loud. We hunted one morning from a position on top of ridge waiting for the animals to return to their bedding spot. Two evenings we hunted for a large elevated blind overlooking two open fields. The other times we walked around. It wasn't easy hunting and felt "open". The only time we really used the size of the area to our advantage was the hunt on the last morning where we used 3 other guides do a "drive" on foot. We sat up in several places and my son eventually got his stag.

The shot was about 40 yards - the stag was running and the guide made a cow call that stopped him for about 1-2 seconds. He was using my 8x57 Mauser with a Mannlicher stock shooting 200 grain Accubonds. I actually have some photos of it in the Custom Built Rifles forum on here. I need to post some updates as it has been a work in progress for a while.

I'm not a big high fence guy. I wouldn't hunt a elk here. In my mind elk have to be hunted free range. My friends and I have shot high fenced stags in Texas - larger acreage, smaller trophies, and for "free" - basically not part of the hunt and not managed. The problem with New Zealand is that the estates are fenced as well and highly managed - no different than Canada except larger acreage. The large trpohy free range stags taken in New Zealand are primarily escapees. I think the best place to do a free range stag hunt would probably be Argentina. The Highlands in Scotland would be nice, but while you can get a good trophy there, they are typically below average versus Argentina.

Nice, thanks for the post!! Seems like it was a good hunt! Congrats to your son on his trophy!