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The last two days were full of rain and mist. Actually ideal hunting conditions – at least the rain is good and the moments when it stops raining are even better – but my hunting area is differnet. I’m hunting the mountain forests of Germany. My specific area is owned by the Bavarian State Forest. Such public land if you want to put it that way is not comparable to private land. Game is not as abundant and State Forest tries to keep the game numbers small, so that the forest can grwon on it’s own, without the necessity of planting trees, without protective fences and other expensive stuff. When one thinks about the fact that we tax-payers would have to pay fences, plants and stuff to built fences and maintain them, it makes absolutely sense to limit the number of game. But as a hunter, such conditions are not easy to deal with. Harvesting 1 single animal takes about 10 times stalking and ambushing in the woods. There is no such thing as a guaranteed success.
Now this specific day way still very misty. I had spent 2 hours waiting under a little roof right next to a big boulder with no effect: as usual, I could not see a single hair. So after that time I decided to change the place and started carefully stalking towards a newer tree stand, which I had built up the previous summer. Upon reaching the stand, I closed my eyes and took a nap and when I opend my eyes again – there he was! A mature, bigger buck just 10 meters in front of me beating a fir heavily with his horns. He was marking his territory. To get to my rifle was tricky and made the buck aware of me so that he started running after having noticed my fourth little movement and I had to be real quick taking a shot on the running buck which luckily, luckily worked just perfect!
That buck will be my biggest gift of that hunting area for a long time I guess, but upon grilling it’s liver only hours later the same day, I was still much more happy than I could ever have been, would I have shot that animal in a private area, where one can count lots of roe every evening and where hunting is often too easy in my eyes. That buck means everything to me. The hunt: unforgettable!