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I just got back from visiting the wife’s family in Hungary. Getting desparate (after failing to connect with a hunting local club member) to do something other than spend time with her family, I forced my wife to take me to a hunting shop in a town nearby. The owner was able to line it up for me after much calling around to various guides.

As a foreigner, you essentially need an invitation from a local club or a contract with a professional guide to hunt in Hungary. It was my first professional guide experience and European hunting reg.s are quite different from the US. I had a hard time convincing them that I was qualified as a hunter. I ended up sort of bluffing through with my carry permit, the notation of ‘firearm safety’ and ‘firearm certificate’ on the back side of my DL and the small game/turkey licenses I had in my wallet. A copy of last year's deer license would have gone a long way.

The arrangement was with a privately managed operation on long-term leased land from the government. It was on what had been the Bishop’s hunting estate at Süttõ before the commies grabbed Hungary, and then was the hunting ground for the army’s high officers. 9500 hectares of 90% forested land managed for game.

My guide was the forester/game manager for 1200 hectares of that and had primary responsibility for his section and knowing how many of each game species are resident on his parcel. If I recall correctly, he thought there were about 40-60 red deer, 120-140 wild pigs, 30-40 mouflon, 30-40 fallow deer and 20 roe deer on his parcel. Pigs are in season almost year-round as are roe buck and in the summer months there should be a discount on the per head charges.

I wasn’t interested in a trophy, so asked only to shoot a yearling, with the idea that it would be better to eat. This was really no challenge at all for the guide, so he led off on a stalk to try to walk one up. We did manage to sneak up on a total of six red deer and a roe buck, but no pigs. Just before sunset, we went into a highstand looking over a clearing in the forest. He probably could have set his watch by the arrival of the yearlings to this opening, so it was over very quickly.

If my experience with the outfit was typical, then I would be happy to recommend them. Their website is at the following address: http://www.bp-erdo.hu/english/index.html
German knowledge would go a long way for non-Hungarians. though French and Spanish may also be more frequently known than English.

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