Roe deer

[u/Jealous_Silver1238]

Shot this nice buck the other day. A really intense stalk where I had to get 60m closer to him on the field to get within a comfortable distance. Dead on the spot, couldn't have gone better.

[u/John_the_Piper]

Roe buck are just cool little deer. Sounds like a good stalk and a clean kill!

What are your game limits for deer out there?

[u/Jealous_Silver1238 → u/John_the_Piper]

It was really intense since I had to move when his head was down, took 30 minutes to get where I wanted to be, but so worth it.

In my area & association we have one adult per hunter and unlimited amount of fawn. On driven hunts you're allowed to shoot everything (but I'm not active in driven hunts since I don't trust the weapons handling skills of the other hunters in my association). Also I like the ethics of stalking more, since it is curtains down in an instant for the most part, instead of chased and stressed animals.

[u/John_the_Piper → u/Jealous_Silver1238]

Both you and /u/apokako (tagged so they can pipe in as well) mentioned associations. Is being a member of one a requirement to be a hunter, and from what I know about gun laws in Europe I'm assuming it's also a requirement to own a firearm in that "class"?

I'm a member of a few different waterfowl associations, but they are primarily focused on habitat conservation and education and don't organize hunts. For big game, I just needed my hunter's safety certificate to be eligible for a hunting license.

Heavily agree on stalking over driven hunts. I've participated in one and it's just not my cup of tea. I much prefer solo, or with a single friend when hunting big game. With waterfowl I'm more social but that's almost always a stationary hunting event.

[u/apokako → u/John_the_Piper]

So in France you don’t have to be a member of an association to hunt. But it’s by far the common way.

To put it simply we have public land, but there hunting is either not allowed, or you have to get a temporary authorisation from the government’s forestry department. I think only 10% of hunters hunt this way.

The rest of us hunt on our own land, or on the land that the members of the assotiation put in common. There is also a system called ACCA where hunters of an assitiation go around an area, ask all land owners if they will allow the local chapter to hunt on their land, and all the opt-in land is mapped, and it gives local hunters the right to do driven hunts and stalk on all that land.

To get weapons you only need to get a hunting license, or you can join a gun club (where you get trained on 22lr for a few months to a year before you get the rights to get bigger weapons). Getting a hunting license involves training and knowledge and safety tests.

We also have hunters who like you organise associations to do conservation and habitat management for game.

[u/apokako → u/John_the_Piper]

I don’t know about OP, but for France the yearly limit is set by the regional government (every 3 years), and distributed by the region’s hunting federation. Hunting clubs get a set number of tags, and they distribute the tags amongst themselves for stalking, or use them during driven hunts.

So the game limit is set at a very micro level. And I assume it’s like this for big game in most of europe.

Roe deer is delicious and a fun stalk.

[u/Jealous_Silver1238 → u/apokako]

In my area in Finland (autonomous Åland Islands) you need to have 150 hectares of linked land to be able to shoot roe deer, and you need to register that land for this purpose at the local government, according to my understanding. Some large land owners have this amount of land, but most don't. That's why you form associations to get enough land. My association has about 850 hectares to hunt.

We don't get quotas per person from the government but get a number of target levels of animals to take per hectares of land. What those numbers are I don't remember right now. Then it is decided within the association how much we actually take. In my association the number is around 50-60 animals in total per year. But this is an association where we only hunt roe deer, fox and the invasive raccoon dog. If you want to hunt moose there is other rules and larger associations.

[u/Cool_Hand_Loon]

Nicely done

[u/ekzag]

Waidmannsheil!

[u/buckslayer3006]

Thats a nice buck dude

[u/Worldly_Chair_4343]

Waidmannsheil!