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Hunting in France usually starts on 1st June with roe buck summer stalking and ends on the last February day of the following year. There are in between distinct opening / closing dates by species and by regions.

Roe deer

I had not much time this year for summer hunting as I was called on international projects at several occasions; I was away most of the time in July and August during the roe deer rutting season as well as in all September, over the red deer one.

Anyway, I managed to get out at two occasions in late July and in mid-August, in the foothills of the north western Pyrénées mountains of France. The area is good roe deer country: rolling hills covered with oak and chestnut woods, scattered meadows intersected with edges, and some maize fields in the bottoms; average elevation ranges from 150 to 300 meters. Following very dry Winter and Spring, we had an extremely wet Summer; with the Atlantic Ocean being quite close the area is not known for being dry however it rained this summer much more than average and I was deeply soaked each time I went out. On the positive side, there were no dry leaves on the ground to make my move noisy!

I was hunting this year with a Mauser rifle manufactured in 1961 by Anschütz, in caliber 6,5x57 Mauser, shooting RWS ammunition (Kegelspitz-type; 8,2 grams/ 127 grains), and set with a Schmidt & Bender 1,5-6x42 riflescope. The combination of an extremely accurate rifle, good optics and perfect caliber for the game I was hunting was a real pleasure to shoot.

In late July, I did not manage to find the roe buck I was looking for and only spotted many does I was not interested in or young bucks not worth being harvested. In late afternoon one day, I spotted in the distance a buck that looked big, however it was 250-meter away and there was a hedge between us; it took me some time to get closer but by then the buck had gone back into the woods. I waited for it to return for almost one hour under heavy rain but it never came back.

By the end of the day a fox unfortunately crossed my path and I shot it at 100 meters; the below picture shows the exit wound of the 6,5x57 KS. I can’t remind of 6,5x57 damaging venison, however the fox is a small animal and the shooting distance was short.

I came back to the same location two weeks later, in mid-August, for an early morning stalk. The big roe buck previously spotted was still there, grazing in a meadow along with a doe; I spotted it at 220 meters, managed to get closer until 150 meters, and shot it at 0700AM. It ran away for circa ten meters after being hit and fell down; I noticed later that the shot was heart placed.

It was a massive roe buck for the area, sporting a much decent trophy, with already greying face hair, probably 5-year old or slightly over. I gutted it and field dressed it on the spot; I kept the head for the trophy, the two filets and the two hind legs, and payed my contribution to crows, foxes and wild boars with the remains.

The trophy is now ready for being mounted on a plaque.

I did not go back roe deer stalking in September and October as I was away on business over that period and, as the older roe bucks start shedding their antlers from mid to end October in southern France, they are not anymore worth being harvested after that time.

Red deer

I had a license for a red stag in the central Pyrénées mountains this year, however I missed the rutting season - around two weeks spanning between late September and early October, as I had to deploy overseas at the same time. I wish I will be luckier next year.

Isard

In mid-November 2017 I managed to get out for three days in the Ariège region of the central Pyrénées mountains for isard hunting, for which I had three licenses. We had had first snow in the week before and weather had been terrible until the day before I went out to the hunting area, when it turned to deep blue skies.

On day one the ascent to the hunting grounds started from a shepherd’s cabin located at an elevation of circa 900 meters that had been used as the base camp in the night before. The track went through a mixed beech and conifer forest; snow was quickly encountered, scattered first and subsequently thicker but firm on top, which made walking easy.

From circa 1300 meters hazel bushes replaced beech and from circa 1500 meters we were out in the white.

We hunted the northern side of a small range, at an elevation ranging from 2000 to 2300 meters and isards were spotted in the distance. By 0930 AM a not such distant herd was spotted and I managed to get into firing position within the next half hour. The isard herd, three bucks, a dozen of goats and some young ones were located on a ridge at a 300-meter distance and 150 to 200 meters above in elevation, constantly moving as bucks were either fighting among themselves or pestering goats. I aimed at what looked to be the bigger buck, waited for him to get closer as he was constantly changing places, shot when he was at 270 meters and missed, probably too high a shot!

The herd scattered out of view but I didn’t move as after an initial run isards often come back in order to try to identify what the danger was. As expected isards came back within minutes, the herd reformed almost at the same place but the big buck always stayed on top of the ridge where he was not shootable because of a cliff on the far side (if hit it may have been lost) before vanishing for good after a short while. I then selected another buck within the herd, which was doing his best to take advantage of the absence of the big buck. I took a slightly lower aim and took an uphill shot (270 meters & +30°); the buck sprang, fell almost on the spot and, because of the iced snow started to slide quickly downhill in a small gully that ended at 50 meters of the place I was. Thanks to that it was delivered to me by the mountain and this spared me another uphill walk to the place it had been hit.

The horns had not been broken during the downhill slide and upon further inspection I realized with surprise that my isard had tits instead of having balls; in the heat of action, I had shoot what we call in French a ‘brehaigne’ female (either an adult female that does not mate or an older one that has mated but is now sterile), which usually have a male behavior within herds! Anyway, this had no importance for me as the hunt since this early morning had been really good and as the trophy was nice.

The 8-year-old goat had been hit in the heart; I skinned and gutted it on the spot and packed the two filets, the two hind legs and the head. Then we had a quick lunch on site before starting the downhill journey as the hunt was over for the day.

On day two we started again before sunset from the same location than the previous day but hunted the south-facing slopes – where snow had now melted below an altitude of 1600 meters, of the same mountain range.

Some isard bucks were spotted during the morning but were either too distant or too young to be harvested. In very early afternoon a herd of circa 15 goats were spotted downhill, dozing in the sun at a distance of circa 300 meters. If goats were there, bucks should not be far away as we were in the peak of the rutting season. I found a good shooting position on top of a flat rock and waited; 45 minutes later, goats slowly started standing and feeding one after each other; within minutes, two good bucks were with the herd and started chasing each other.
I selected the one that looked to sport the best trophy, waited for it to stop briefly and shot downhill (275 meters & -37°); the buck was visibly hit, sprang, ran for about 15 meters and fell.
I waited in firing position for another 5 minutes, then packed and moved downhill to the place where the buck had fallen; there was quite a long detour to do between both firing and anschuss locations as there was a small cliff in-between. Almost upon arrival to the place where the buck had been hit, a goat was spotted standing on a rock at a mere 100-meter distance; upon glassing the goat was apparently extremely old and, as the French Forestry Commission on whose land I was hunting had requested to harvest some old isards, I shot it. It was a 19-year old goat, with horns almost worn-out, much erased teeth and a fur that looked to have been mothballed; due to its poor condition there was no meat to take. The buck was found as expected at the anschuss location; it was a nice 9-year-old sporting a decent trophy that had been hit by a lung shot; as per usual, I skinned it, field gutted it and packed the filets, both hind legs and the head.

Isard hunt was now over for this year as I had used the three licenses I had been granted.
Trophies, from left to right: buck, goat mistaken for a buck, and old goat:

Mouflon

The hunting season in France closes on 28 February at the end of the day and I had managed to book two stalking days on 27 and 28 February 2018 for mouflon ram, in the mountains of Haut Languedoc in southern France.

This area houses a good mouflon population since the 1950’s. Landscape is Mediterranean-type, not much elevated (600 to 1000 meters), dry and rocky, hot in summer and cold in winter.

On 27 February temperature remained well below 0°C all day, thanks to a harsh wind that was blowing from the North; water was frozen in water bottles in the rucksacks. I had for the occasion taken with me my ‘old’ Mauser 66 in 7x64 (1972). The area I hunted, one main valley intersected with ravines, was planted with chestnut trees as well as with some firs in the bottoms and with scrubs on the sides, ridges were rocks only.

I saw almost 30 mouflon ewes over the day as well as some young males, but not the full circle ram I had a license for.
By the end of the day, circa one hour before sunset, I glassed one big ram in the distance; it was almost 500 meters away and there was a deep ravine planted with dense scrub between us. As it was definitely too late for the day, I planned to hunt the area where I had spotted it on the following day.

In early evening we had a weather forecast warning about snow falls all over southern France from the following morning, on 28 February. As snow in Southern Europe usually creates havoc on roads and as I did not want to get trapped in the area for several days, I cancelled my second mouflon stalking day and drove back home during the night. Snow started to fall in the early morning as planned, just when I reached destination; it created havoc as expected and some people were blocked for two days in their cars on highways; I had therefore made the right decision!

The 2017-2018 hunting season is now over and I have started to plan for the 2018-2019 one, hopefully roe deer and isard if Diana, Artemis and Saint Hubertus are kind with me, and if really lucky, red deer and mouflon in addition. The Mauser Anschütz in 6,5x57 should stay on the rack and I plan to take out to the field kipplaufs in 6,5x57R (Sauer & Sohn Mod. IX - Eckenförde – 1957) and 7x65R (Winkler Benedikt – Ferlach – 1971).

Louis

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"Everything that doesn't kill me makes me stronger"