05 November 2024, 23:18
f224Hunting in Ireland
My wife and I recently took a sixteen day trip to England and Ireland, we a full week of that in Ireland to hunt Sika Stag. Despite the widely practiced Irish tradition of hunting. Irish weapons ownership and storage laws, make it harder to own firearms. You can own three firearms, but when you want to increase that number to six, it requires a major upgrade in the home vault and security system. Beyond six firearms, the rules are almost unbelievable.
Typically when I’ve traveled abroad to hunt, I have taken my own Blaser or Styer Scout rifles. That is very difficult to do in England, slightly less so in Ireland. On my Irish Sika Stag hunt with Norm Mulvany @IrishSafaris, (norman@irishsafaris.ie) I was able to use his custom Schulz and Larsen 270 Winchester rifle with a Zeiss scope.
On day one of my hunt, we walked in and this old boy was crossing the field in the fog. After a short miscommunication between myself and my guide, who kept repeating "nice stag, nice stag"! I asked should I take him? Before he finished the word shoot I fired the shot.
One shot at about 80-100 meters, he ran less than 60 meters with his heart, lungs, and liver destroyed. This was less than ten minutes after we left the hunting vehicle on the first day! His initial SCI score was 137”, putting him into the top ten all-time Sika, and maybe as high as number five.
Note the suppressor in my photo. It’s considered bad manners to hunt and shoot in most of Europe without one, and they are mostly unregulated.
We spent the next three mornings and afternoons trying to connect on a fox. We saw plenty and a few seconds after the guide shined a light on them they would take off. I hit one, but we did not recover him. It's much tougher with a borrowed rifle, and a flashlight on a really small target than using my own night vision set up on predators at home. The red fox are plentiful, but very jumpy.
As I get older, my hunting trips are less about the size of the trophy, and more about the whole experience including the people, the countryside, and the local customs. But now and then, you have to “Take What The Bush Gives You”. I know I got lucky with this trophy.
My fellow hunters, all from Europe at the pub one evening asked me what rifle cartridge I use for hunting in the the states? When I told them that I had several dozen firearms they could not believe it!
As I write this, it's election day in the U.S. I hope you voted.