In late 1800s America, the excesses of market gunning resulted in a prohibition on the sale of wild game. Not so in Europe, where it’s a staple in the kind of restaurants where people still dress up to go eat. As a result, we have a sneaking suspicion that there are more people per capita in Germany familiar with the delights of venison and wild boar than there are here — a great shame given the rich variety of our resources. We made it a point to continue the tradition and support the local hunting economy wherever possible — meat sales offset some of the costs of running a hunt.

Hunt Day
The hunt location in the northern state of Norrhein-Westphalia was a poignant reminder of a different time and another life — years ago, as a freshly minted platoon commander, I was stationed just 12 kilometers down the road. The chance to hunt in the woods surrounding the base never presented itself, so in a world with few second chances, the opportunity to revisit the area was especially treasured.

Joining the other 150 or so participants in muted, pre-dawn light, the expectancy of the hunt was palpable. Around 40 beaters were going to push through a mixture of hardwoods and pine forest, driving game toward upward of 70 hunters in tree stands, positioned throughout the hillsides.

Dogs of all breeds and sizes accompanied them, dressed in florescent Cordura jackets. Hunters were allocated to small groups by the hunt organizers; after
a 15-minute briefing the designated leaders gathered their flocks before heading off to designated areas. Before the assembled throng dispersed, a dozen buglers strode out and, standing shoulder to shoulder, blew the traditional “Gather the Hunter” on their brass jagdhorns.

There were to be two drives that day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It’s considered exceptionally bad etiquette (not to say dangerous) to leave your allocated stand until after the final hunting horn is sounded, but once it’s heard, everyone congregates for a hearty lunch around a campfire.

The idea of lunch occupied my thoughts as the morning sun burned off a light fog. Being too excited to eat, I’d skipped breakfast and my decision was coming back to bite me. A combination of lack of calories and freezing temperatures left me wishing I’d packed warmer boots. My exposed position meant any kind of calisthenics to keep warm was out of the question, so I just soaked in the beauty of the woods around me and shivered.

It wasn’t long before movement caught my eye. About 120 yards away, on the other side of a small ravine, a roe doe and fawn nervously emerged from the treeline and crossed a small opening. In Germany, it’s considered the ethical choice to shoot the fawn first — if it escapes after mom bites the dust, its chances of survival are slim and it’ll probably wind up either starving to death or, more likely, being chased down and eaten alive by predators. I took the shot.

While dragging what might have been the smallest deer I’ve ever killed back to a dirt road where it would be picked up, our photographer pointed out the spot where she’d seen a large pig make its leisurely way through a stream. Despite frantic waving from an adjacent stand, she’d been unable to attract my attention, and it had escaped, unmolested. Needless to say, comments regarding age, virility, eyesight, powers of observation, and mental acuity weren’t slow in coming …

Lunch turned out to be every bit as good as I’d imagined. Cheery frauleins ladled hearty bean soup into bowls, accompanied by huge chunks of fresh bread, while the morning’s haul was brought to the center of camp and hung from an improvised butcher station. Volunteers eld dressed animals as a team, before reverently laying them out on a bed of pine boughs. While my Teutonic language skills are limited to profanity and ordering beer, it was obvious from the amount of laughter and back-slapping that everyone around the various camp res was retelling hunting stories from the past few hours.

As soon as everyone had refilled their bellies, we jumped into cars for a short ride to the next stands. Horns signaled the start of the second drive, bolts cycled, and once again eyes scanned the woods for signs of approaching game. Before long, a yearling doe made the poor life decision to run parallel to a line of tree stands and was treated to a 21-gun salute. She ran unscathed past all of them before ducking back into the woods, no doubt considerably wiser for the experience and fortunate that, like in the U.S., magnumitis is endemic in the local hunting population.

The most popular caliber carried by members of our party was .300 Win Mag, with several 9.3×62 Mausers and at least one .375 H&H. A big roe deer is around 70 pounds and none of the wild boar seemed bigger than 200, so this would seem to be overkill and probably results in more missed shots due to inching than might otherwise be the case with smaller, more easily managed calibers.

An hour or so following the doe’s escape, a dark, hairy form crept up to a tree line to our front and toyed with the idea of breaking cover, before thinking better of it and slinking away. Pigs are notoriously smart. Pigs that have been shot at regularly are smarter still and will circle back through a line of beaters, rather than compliantly run from them. Deer, on the other hand, while faster, don’t quite have the level of smarts their porcine neighbors do. As if to prove it, a couple of minutes after the boar’s non-appearance, a doe emerged from the same spot and stood blinking in the sunlight, unsure what to do next. While she was thinking about it, a 180-grain bullet ended her internal dialogue.