C-F,

As long as you enjoyed your hunt and it was fair chase, if fair chase was what you were buying. If the stags acted "wild" they probably were wild. Maybe they were released from a deer farm in the past (or not) but eventually stags do get wilder especially in a hunting area.

I have a 11-point red stag I shot which had escaped from a deer farm a few years earlier and it when spotted was standing there, but as soon as we were spotted it took off at a run. I shot it as it ran away. No different from the reaction of wild bred fallow stags in the area.

On the other hand I have seen stags released only a few months earlier and they are pitiful, standing openly in sight with no fear of man in them. Give them a year or two and they will be quite different.

A nice set of trophies.

I have hunted a sheep too on the North Island as a trophy of chance when hunting red stag.