Cool, I always like reading about your roedeer exploits over there. How's the population of those little buggers? You seem to have alot of success.

Congrats!!!!

Hi Ca Vermonster,

you are right. The roedeer is the most hunted kind of deer in Germany and I think western Europe. In Germany more than 1 million are harvested every year, number increasing. It is like your white tail, only smaller. Roedeers live nearly everywhere both in forests and fields. They are socalled followers of the culture, means they don't mind about disturbing their habitat, they get used to it. So the roe deer do many biting damage at young trees in the forests. So we try to harvest as much as we can.

Regards

Kirrmeister

I'm just curious how is the population of these little deer? 1 million harvested yearly sounds like a lot. Do they often have more then 1 fawn a year?

Hi -mark,

roedeer have very seldom only one fawn, only young does have one. The older does have normally 2, 3 are also not rare, even does with 4 fawns were seen. This ability of high reproduction is the problem here. Because the curious thing is when hunting pressure gets stronger they start to produce more. So you have only a chance in reducing them when shooting all does and fawns you can get during their hunting time. In Germany the hunting season is much longer as in the USA. We are allowed to hunt doe and fawn from 1st of sept to 15th of jan. bucks are free from 1at of may to 15th of oct and yearling does from 1st of may to 15th of jan.

Regards

Kirrmeister

Do they taste gamey? Similar to Whitetail (IF you've ever eaten one)? That sounds like a good bit of hunting you're allowed. That is really fantastic. how many deer per person is the limit (If there is one)?

Hi Mark,

for me roedeer is the best venison. It tastes smooth and not so much like venision as for example elk.

Here in Germany we have plans for every hunting ground. They rule how much a hunting ground is allowed to harvest. How this number is devided up between the hunters doesn't matter. So if there is only one hunter he can shoot all. You must know here in Germany we have not so much hunters, only 370000 of 82 million inhabitants and the huntable areas are put together to hunting areas called Reviere. These Reviere must be leased from a single hunter or a group. And only the leasers´are allowed to hunt there. Furthermoe we have state hunting areas. They are open for all hunting licence owners.

Regards

Kirrmeister

Sorry for all the questions, but it is interesting. So, do I understand that it's sort of a quota system? We have that in California for Bears. You can have 50,000 hunters, but when you hit a pre set number of bears checked in, the season is ended.....

Yes it is a quotesystem. But the quote belongs to the situation of the vegetation in each hunting area. You must know that in Germany the land is devided up in hunting areas, private or state. These areas can be leased from hunters for 9 or 12 years. That belongs to the game which lives there, biggame areas 12, smallgame (roes, fur, birds, etc) 9 years. And the leaser decides who else can go hunting in his area. It is no licence-system like in the USA, but a hunting ground-system (german: Revier-System).

The quote must be fullfilled to 80%. So there where I hunt we have 1500 hectars hunting area, many in the mountains, we have to hunt 50 roedeer and 16 reddeer (elk), 9 chamois.

Regards

Kirrmeister

Cool. Now, in your situation, how many hunters are hunting to reach the 50 roe/16 Red quota?????

The hunting ground is devided up in 7 areas. We are 11 hunters all in all. For the moment we have about 35 roedeer and 8 reddeer, 7 chamois. Season goes good so far.

Regards

Kirrmeister