Hello,

My best Red Deer! Back pack hunting alone just a week ago.
The place: A big ranch, 12.500 hectares (30.000 acres) 100 km from Bariloche.
At the peak of the rut. Roaring all over the place. A good and healthy Red Deer population. I saw a few very old males. And some light fightings. Great!
At the 3th day, I was, still dark, at a begening of a small valley with some meadows at the lower part. Saw half a dozen of roaring males. And then this one. 13 points heavy antlers and clearly old. I was seating, still, with the wind in my face and the sun rising at my back. Perfect. After 1 hour, the male and the hinds started to came up toward my position. At 150 meters I decided to shoot. Seated, with my arms at my legs I made the shoot. And shoot again, just in case! And was over. The hinds walked around, not too altered, and left. I decided not to move because I saw what appeared to be a very, very old male. Pale in colour. Roaring steady with 3 hinds. An Old One. 8 points, heavy and at his last times. Not moving from its place. I decided to shoot. From my same position. 300 meters and, also, plenty of time to calculate the shoot. One was enough. The male made 3 steps and fell down. All of this inside 1 hour! My best hunt for these great animals!! I took some pictures with the rifle to appreciate the size of the head!
By the way, I used one of my Mauser 7x57 with a Schmidt & Bender 1,5-6x42 Ret Nº4. The load: 175 grs Nosler Partition at 2650 f/s. Perfect work! All bullets pass throught making a tremendous damage inside. As usual with the NP!! Then, after the pictures, started the real work: 6 hours taking and carring the heads and most (not all) the meat to a path to pick them up next morning....And the Condors started to arrive!

PH

Beautiful stags, beautiful country, beautiful rifle. Congratulations.

Bill Quimby

Congratulations. What a wonderful hunt and two fine stags. And thanks for the photos. You did well.

Great looking animals, thanks for sharing.

Gentlemen,

That is an UNIQUE stag, not even in our wildest dreams we will see a free range stag like that !!

PH has a life of experience hunting those mountains and this has been his best stag ever, so imagine what we are talking about...

Compare it with a free range 400+ elk and maybe more to have a real idea of what this stag is.

Congrats for such an unique trophy.

L

beautifull stag.congratulations.

Thank you!

Must say I am very pleased and grateful to have been there, hunting alone, and finded such an old stag! In many places the problem is these great animals do not have the chance and time to grow old and show their potential.
We, who live around here, have more chances to search for places with the possibility to find one...Anyway, hard work is guaranteed!

PH

Congratulacions.Guille

Fantastic stags and a fantastic hunt. Nothing beats being out hunting on your own although I'm sure once those stags were down you wished that you had some help!
Congratulations.

Yes, indeed, Blacktailer!!!

PH

Thank you, Guille!

PH

Tremendous! congratualation!
Hope you had help or a horse to pack out!
Regarding the condor--do you see them often?

Great stags PH. What a difference it must be to hunt roaring stags in the open instead of the brush of La Pampa.

Hello,

Yes, Steve. Condors and Black Chested Eagles are abundant here at the highest peaks. And belive or not, they appear very quickly after the shoot if the shoot is made in the morning or in the evening when they are searching for food and preys!!! This is not only my speculation. Have been observed by many hunters and Park Officers.
I had help the next day...To carry all from a path. But I spend 6 hours myself alone to carry all to that path...
This is entirely different to hunt here than in La Pampa during the ruting season, SBT!

PH

Fantastic!
I'm very happy for you. Thanks for sharing.


Ski+3

very pretty stags there

WOW Great Stags !
Beautiful Scenery.

Thanks for shareing.

Fantastic and a great way to hunt. It seems so much like our elk hunting, I'd love to hear them roar some day.

Excellent Stag! Beautiful country,I would love to go there!

Wow, hunt on a lifetime!
Great report and pictures. Thanx for sharing

D

What a beautiful stag and setting!Congratulations.Could you please tell us a bit more about your rifle? It looks very nice.Thank you.

Best-
Locksley,R

Hello Robin,

Thank you and all. My rifle is build with a Mauser 1935 action, originally a Modelo-Mauser-1935, German made for Argentina in 7.65x54 Mauser. The stock is the original military one. Beautiful walnut and perfectly quarter sawn. Modified by a very good gunsmith in Argentina. The black wood in the foreend, pistol grip and the spacer at the back is ebony. And the barrel is an original Steyr 1912, put unused, from the replacement ones made for the Chilean Steyr 1912 7x57 Mauser rifle. This barrel, originaly 74 cm, Aprox. 29", was shortened at the first step, 60 cm, Aprox. 24".
Shoot great and consistently!

PH

Congratulations!
In my humble opinion, the type of hunt that will be cherished in our memories for the rest of our lives...

Thank you Afrikaander.

And yes, indeed!

PH

Im going to be in argentina in august. Do you have any advice or contacts to help me plan a stag hunt?

In august will be rather difficult. The rut season is march/april.

In La Pampa area will be near imposible to find them without them roaring in la patagonia you will be able to spot and stalk but I believe, maybe I am wrong, that you can hunt them till july.

Someone from Argentina will know better.

L

Hi tx,

As Lorenzo said. In Western Patagonia, where I live and usually hunt for R Deer, the peak of the season, the rut, is from March 15th to April 10. After that it is possible to do a spot and stalk hunt. In the same way you do, mostly during the rifle season for Elk. There are very few ranches offering this hunt. But not after the end of June. Mid July at most.

PH

There are some places at La Pampa where you may find deer in the nights (feeding in cultivated fields). But the hunting season is over of course.

Fantastic hunt and stags!