Muskox
AH elite
Well I got lucky and got to attend the Grafenwoehr Red Stag rut trophy hunt.
I don't know how the quotas work exactly. There were 10 hunters on my hunt, 3 of them were US Forces, the rest were Germans. Most of them lived in the district.
This was the 2nd red stag rut hunt, there was one the Thursday and Friday before my Monday and Tuesday hunt.
I did not take a stag, short answer.
Was probably the best non-kill hunt of my life. And one of the best hunts of my life.
I felt like the guide did a good job, and we sure saw a lot of stags. It is only a 3 outing hunt. You hunt the arrival night and then the next morning and then the next night.
We met at the Villseck forest service office at 3pm on the hunt day. There was a safety brief and some background information, which they did not do in English. My guide didn't really give me the story, so I just did the best I could with my knowledge of German and what I thought was being told to me.
My guide spoke English fairly well, but there was some miscommunication. Nothing serious and we had a good time.
I told him I would love to shoot a big stag, I will shoot whatever you tell me to shoot. I can work within the budget of what we were told the prices were.
10-14 Kg total head weight 1500 Euros skin, jaw, cut at the atlas joint. Probably a 5-7kg stag as a skull.
14-16 Kg total head weight 2500 Euros probably a 7-8 kg stag as a skull.
16 plus Euros 3500 Euros, probably a 9-10kg stag as a
I paid 750 Euros for the guide fee, and had about another $750 in gas, hotels and food.
If you compare that to a similar hunt in Hungary or Poland it would be similar priced if you didn't shoot anything. Since they won't actually let you shoot the 3500 Euro stags, the hunt cost is probably a wash.
We went and shot my rifle and I was off about 8 inches to the right. We fixed that and off we went to the stand. On the drive to stand we saw 3 good stags and a hind. I don't think they were in our hunting area.
In the stand I checked the wind with my dust bottle and it was blowing the wrong way. We had two stags roaring at one another, then they smelled us. So we moved about 1000 yards away to another stand. This stand was full of hinds, and they let us sit down. We saw a stag for a fleeting moment and then it got dark.
In the morning, we tried another stand and watched two stags fighting with the thermal camera 600 meters away. The guide would not let me shoot from the ground. As there was some military training going on about 2 miles away. They closed the distance to 300 meters but the fog never burned off. Then rut activity ended.
That evening we sat in the same general area in a really big open clearing with some hinds about 150 meters away. We had constant rutting and fighting that we could only see within the timber behind the clearing at about 350 meters. Eventually when it was well beyond shooting light the stag came out. We had some confusion with the stag and whether or not it was legal to take. He couldn't see it then, I couldn't see it then we weren't sure. Then it was over. That was it.
In total I saw over 40 stags and over 100 hinds. I had stags and hinds at my cabin at Wild BOAR on Graf every night.
Felt like I paid taxes for the bang flop experience on my stag hunt in Slovenia.
A couple of things about Graf. It is very large, probably in excess of 100,000 acres. I don't know how the different districts of the hunt work, or how they allocate things.
From the top photo the stag on the right in the 2nd row is the biggest.
The stag in the front on the left is the 2nd biggest.
Overall I think trophy quality is just ok. Body size I feel as though the deer on Grafenwoehr are smaller by 80-100 pounds (30-40kg) than the red deer in Hungary around lake Balaton or the game park deer by my house in Rheinland Pfalz.
Antler size I feel they are slightly smaller than other Central European stags or the game park deer near my house.
I don't know how the quotas work exactly. There were 10 hunters on my hunt, 3 of them were US Forces, the rest were Germans. Most of them lived in the district.
This was the 2nd red stag rut hunt, there was one the Thursday and Friday before my Monday and Tuesday hunt.
I did not take a stag, short answer.
Was probably the best non-kill hunt of my life. And one of the best hunts of my life.
I felt like the guide did a good job, and we sure saw a lot of stags. It is only a 3 outing hunt. You hunt the arrival night and then the next morning and then the next night.
We met at the Villseck forest service office at 3pm on the hunt day. There was a safety brief and some background information, which they did not do in English. My guide didn't really give me the story, so I just did the best I could with my knowledge of German and what I thought was being told to me.
My guide spoke English fairly well, but there was some miscommunication. Nothing serious and we had a good time.
I told him I would love to shoot a big stag, I will shoot whatever you tell me to shoot. I can work within the budget of what we were told the prices were.
10-14 Kg total head weight 1500 Euros skin, jaw, cut at the atlas joint. Probably a 5-7kg stag as a skull.
14-16 Kg total head weight 2500 Euros probably a 7-8 kg stag as a skull.
16 plus Euros 3500 Euros, probably a 9-10kg stag as a
I paid 750 Euros for the guide fee, and had about another $750 in gas, hotels and food.
If you compare that to a similar hunt in Hungary or Poland it would be similar priced if you didn't shoot anything. Since they won't actually let you shoot the 3500 Euro stags, the hunt cost is probably a wash.
We went and shot my rifle and I was off about 8 inches to the right. We fixed that and off we went to the stand. On the drive to stand we saw 3 good stags and a hind. I don't think they were in our hunting area.
In the stand I checked the wind with my dust bottle and it was blowing the wrong way. We had two stags roaring at one another, then they smelled us. So we moved about 1000 yards away to another stand. This stand was full of hinds, and they let us sit down. We saw a stag for a fleeting moment and then it got dark.
In the morning, we tried another stand and watched two stags fighting with the thermal camera 600 meters away. The guide would not let me shoot from the ground. As there was some military training going on about 2 miles away. They closed the distance to 300 meters but the fog never burned off. Then rut activity ended.
That evening we sat in the same general area in a really big open clearing with some hinds about 150 meters away. We had constant rutting and fighting that we could only see within the timber behind the clearing at about 350 meters. Eventually when it was well beyond shooting light the stag came out. We had some confusion with the stag and whether or not it was legal to take. He couldn't see it then, I couldn't see it then we weren't sure. Then it was over. That was it.
In total I saw over 40 stags and over 100 hinds. I had stags and hinds at my cabin at Wild BOAR on Graf every night.
Felt like I paid taxes for the bang flop experience on my stag hunt in Slovenia.
A couple of things about Graf. It is very large, probably in excess of 100,000 acres. I don't know how the different districts of the hunt work, or how they allocate things.
From the top photo the stag on the right in the 2nd row is the biggest.
The stag in the front on the left is the 2nd biggest.
Overall I think trophy quality is just ok. Body size I feel as though the deer on Grafenwoehr are smaller by 80-100 pounds (30-40kg) than the red deer in Hungary around lake Balaton or the game park deer by my house in Rheinland Pfalz.
Antler size I feel they are slightly smaller than other Central European stags or the game park deer near my house.
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