Has anyone here ever heard of the Laurentian Wildlife Estate in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec, Canada? They apparently have some tremendous Elk and Red Stags...





Damn!

WOW!!!

Thats what a high fence and good feed will get you.

Dink

Think I'll stay out of this one altogether.....

...and think, for just $2k more the stag could have been had with 15" more bone

Can you imagine how proud you would be to hang those over the mantle..... Dutch.

Does it double as a petting zoo too?

Yep...it is called an estate shootings...one of those high fence fence operations deals...feed them and shoot them...a look what I have done..

Yes, it's been resurfaced a bunch of times... the top one, the shooters tried to pawn it off as killed on the Selway-Bitterroot... B&C dedunked that one, there was even a picture of it in velvet, eating out of a trough wearing an ear tag.

Kent

Just catle posing as a huntable animal.

Or animate objects as targets.......

Didn't they even try and claim a new world record elk too?? It was then changed to estate hunts....I believe the 2nd one was just listed as the new world record for estate.... canned/pen hunts... I once heard of a whitetail in one of these canned areas that was shot while in its dying bed...was so sick the deer could not even get up as the big time hunter approached...this $hit is what gives our hunting hertiage a bad name...

Yep, they get to pick which one they want and shoot as many times as it takes. Some of them really think they are hunting too

the whole thing dont bug me so long as you dont claim its something it aint.....it aint hunting and your buying per inch but in the end, it aint different than shooting the beef steer for the freezer.....kinda like farm raised mink if all yah want is a mink coat....if all yah want is a head for the wall i see no problem with it.....

The Canadian stag makes mine look like a dwarf. But I had a great time hunting in southern Ohio. I challenged myself by hunting close with my 30-30 carbine. But the stag was wise and it turned out the be a running shot at 85 yards. The bloody hole in the photo is an exit wound. Typical fine performance 30-30 cartridge!

The venison is most excellent, indeed!

Sherwood

Regardless, those are some HUGE damn antlers!

no doubt they are huge and kinda neat to see just whats possible if conditions are perfect......

Those animal species simply do not grow that large in the wild. They can only exist with a man made breakfast and a controlled environment.

JW

I find them to look freakish. Nothing for my wall!

Thank you Sir, I thought I was mighty near the only one who had no love for freaky looking heads. Much rather see a big, balanced head than one with tines going every which way.

BCR

I have no problem with shooting your own meat, either, but something tells me that's not what we're looking at, here. JMO, Dutch.

in the end its no different, i want to shoot a buffalo but refuse to do a wild hunt, my knees and back are [bleep] and i aint packing one out, ill wind up shooting a ranch bison, have a full freezer, a skull for the wall and a hide....will it be a hunt? nope, not at all but sometimes you just want a freezer full of meat....dont see the shooting of the above elk and red stags as any different.....dont see why it should be illegal either, your shooting livestock is all.....

Rattler, the difference is that you're not going to pretend you're the last Great White Hunter...... FWIW, Dutch.

cant stop that, know ppl that snipe whitetail off hay stacks that think they are great hunters cause they kill a buck every year but are completely lost if i take them out after mule deer and they have to spend the day glassing and stalking.......

Can't stop it, but we can sure make fun of the gullible ego trippers... Dutch.

yeah, no problem with it if yah call it what it is, expect chit if yah try to make it what it aint but either way i dont have a single problem with it legally speaking....your shooting livestock, not a wild animal and i dont have a problem with anyone shooting livestock.....thats basically what i was getting at....

In Australia, it is called "cheque book" hunting. Yeah, we spell it that way.

John

Amen brother. I'm not as smart as Salmonella, therefore........any lardass rich guy can kill one like that.

I would dearly love to take even a 400" bull, I just couldnt bring myself to do it this way,
Guess Im just retarded and behind times.

Gunner

My 2 cents......

Preserve or estate hunts are not for everyone but they still play a part in hunting. Some people for what ever reason find this type of harvest suitable for them or their kids.......It is their choice and they shouldn't be chastised for doing so. Nothing is going to waste, from meat to antlers! Any meat that might be left behind is donated to a food bank....and.....they really appreciate it when we arrive with a cooler full of much sought after venison!

since we live in the same state I'll chime in: if you want to run such an operation that's fine with me. it's unfortunately legal. however, we should be clear: it has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with shooting animals. second, you further demean the whole notion of hunting when you refer to it as a "harvest". you harvest corn, you kill animals.

you continue to give the antis plenty of reason to keep screaming.

Call it what you want ,the results are the same..... a dead animal, killed either in the wild or in a preserve.


Do you really think an anti hunting proponent would think your killing a deer is any different just because you think it is the only ethical way to put venison in your freezer.

Remember...... they are anti hunters, no matter where you choose to hunt!

The results are the same to a point; the end point being a dead animal. And I can certainly respect your willingness and desire to defend the business which feeds your family however, while the end point may be the same, let's not for a minute think shooting animals in a pen, excuse me, a preserve is the same as hunting wild animals with unrestricted movement.

I really believe if push came to shove hunting wild untrapped animals versus what you do would occupy two very distinct placed on the antis continuum.

I have no problem with kids or handicap people shooting game in a pen. In fact as soon as my boys are old enough I am going to let them shoot some hogs on a preserve here.

For a grown person with no disabilities shooting big game in a pen and think they have accomplished something is just them being foolish or wanting everyone to think they are "trophy hunters".

I shoot alot of tame birds with my birddogs. I have to to keep my birddogs in good shape. There is no doubt though that tame quail, pheasants or chuckers are nothing more than chickens that can fly a short distance.

Dink

+1 Dink

There's more than feed involved. These are bred by experienced breeders who understand genetics. It's impossible to get this in the wild because of the odds of getting right sequence of matings for the desired result.

These are just cattle and a farmer has every right to harvest his cattle any way he wants to. If he can find a stooge willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to shoot a cow in a pasture, more power to him. Just don't call it hunting.

JS_LaCourse,



I don't think you understand the "antis". They are mentally ill and don't need a reason to scream.



You don't get it.

I've held back from saying this on this forum for quite a while but I'm drunk enough now I'll say it. I worked on a farm like this a while back. People would come shoot elk from the 4 wheeler or side by side and would claim their prize. I would yank the ear tag out before pictures came. It was fun, but not totally for me.

I never once met a client who thought it was real hunting. Most were really old or handicapped. The rest addmittedly recognized it as nothing more than a cattle like operation. A money transaction. They didn't have a problem wth it and neither did I.

You dont get stags like that without a LOT of steroids, feed and genetics. These stags are monstrous freaks - no way in the wild even with the most optimum conditions would a wild red deer grow a head like that ever.
Overhere in NZ in February the roads fill up with stockstrucks with stags being trucked from the farms where they were handraised and sold to game estates at auction, where they are shot in April by (most prominantly) American and German trophy hunters. They pay a fortune for the taxidermy as well. The stags even have names like racehorses. It mostly happens outside of the hunting culture here in NZ, but more and more it is getting noticed because the operations are advertising on the net, and some hunters put there 'trophys' on websites and so forth. It's giving American hunters generally a bad name over here. They think all Yanks are like that...
Maybe these people think its real hunting - I dont know. Certainly the guides try to make out it is to them and walk them over the hills for four days before they take them to where the animal was the whole time. They get the client to shoot them quick lest the animal walk right up to them to get a bit of apple...
Dont pay money to go hunting in New Zealand. They make out you have to because of the chopper shooting, but its completely untrue. I am sad to see this kind of thing also going on over there.

Sad but true.

My first Red was probably the hardest hunt I ever experienced. No monster at all, but a cherished trophy for me. I have been on other hunts that were considerably easier but still free range, which is as it should be.

John

I agree with feed and genetics....but....
I would like to see proof of the use of Steroids, easy claim but not necessarily a fact.



This stag is range fed with supplemental minerals....NO GRAIN,NO STEROIDS. I know because I raised him.


Show me some evidence of Steroid use.......

First I'll say I don't hunt game animals on a preserve/shooting estate etc. Birds yes (if they ain't too fat to fly :D) game animals no.

However to cut everybody some slack and especially my bud Mark I don't think we need to get on his case because he's filling a niche in a legal way.

Now there may be lots of good reasons for somebody to use that kind of place. Maybe they can't for some reason go where the wild things are. Maybe they are crippled. Maybe they want to expose a youngster to actually killing something to see how they take it before laying out the frogskins to do a full blown wild hunt deal. You can probably think of more reasons if you try.

As to lying about what you did that is a whole differen deal. If you are going to lie about one thing you will lie about another.

Problem isn't about how you hunt and kill things the problem is how the truth is handled ain't it?

BCR

Beautiful Marlin in that first photo!!!!!

BCR... I always figured you for a reasonable man and now you have confirmed it......

BCR is right. As long as you don't pretend you shot it on a wilderness hunt, no one should care.

A good friend of mine acts as a "guide" on a put and take ranch here. He complained one day that it took him ALL DAY to shoot the five elk they were after for a group. They just kept running away!

I happen to stock a lot of ponds for folks. Usually it's grandpa stocking a pond for the grandkids. No difference, really (except for the taxidermy bill!). A few guys just want to catch "the big one" once in their life.

It's all fine by me, as long as we understand that it's no great prize to have a "pay by the inch" trophy. JMO, Dutch.

I whole heartedly agree with that statement.
I much prefer my eight point red stag, at least it was wild and a fair chase, not feeding on grain laid out so the hunter could walk up and shoot it point blank.
A genuine trophy to me since it was shot with an old Lee Enfield .303 with open sights at 200 yards with one of our boys along for his first hunt.
We heard him roaring about half an hour before and the boy started asking "Is that a stag? Will we see him? Where is he? How long will it take to get to him?" In the end I stopped and whispered "Yes it is. He's on the next ridge. It'll take about half an hour to get close and IF YOU DON'T BLOODY SHUT UP WE DEFINITELY WON'T SEE HIM!" He got the message and we managed to stalk him on the edge of the bush where he was ripping scrub with his antlers and roaring like a banshee.
Me with the head back at camp, we shot him on the ridge line above my left shoulder right on the skyline.
A couple of the kids playing with the head at camp.

This stag looks a lot like a Red Angus bull I had a couple years ago. Without the headgear of course.