The Outdoor Gibbon
Join me on my journey through stories and interviews talking to like-minded individuals. It doesn’t matter who you are this podcast will hopefully educate and guide you through the world deerstalking, shooting and the outdoor world.
The information in these podcasts is for you to enjoy and develop you own opinions, if you take everyday as a school day you will see the bigger picture.
Thanks for listening and sharing in the journey
The Outdoor Gibbon
72 German Hunter Nick Explains How Tradition, Data, And Thermal Tech Can Save Wildlife
A sweltering rut, empty glens, and stalks that end at dusk set the scene for a conversation that goes far beyond weather woes. After a season where deer hid high and hill walkers crowded car parks at first light, we pivot to what really drives outcomes: honest numbers, smart tools, and hunters willing to share what they see. That’s where Nick comes in—a German hunter from a family nearly a century deep—bringing a grounded view on management, tradition, and why public trust depends on what we do when we’re not pulling the trigger.
We travel from Scotland’s hills to southern Germany’s crop edges and up to Austria’s 2,500-meter ridgelines, where tree stands are built by hand and 100-kilo stags take a team to get home. Nick explains how foxes, farming intensity, and hedgerows reshape small game; how fawn rescue won press and public support; and why roe in the Alps behave like restless sentries, not field grazers. In Africa, he breaks down the economics too few headlines cover: trophy fees funding anti-poaching, mandated meat for local communities, and quotas that turn wildlife from a poaching target into a renewable asset with real value.
Technology plays the quiet hero. From legal gray zones in Germany to full adoption in Austria, thermal optics reinvent night hunting. One-handed focus and improved rangefinding cut through fog and guesswork, letting us identify sounders cleanly and avoid orphaning piglets. The result isn’t just cleaner shots—it’s measurable change. Boar numbers fell so sharply after thermal adoption that Nick’s group scaled back pressure in forests to keep the population healthy, focusing only on field raiders. Along the way, venison demand rises among young buyers who want traceable food without industrial baggage, and a new wave of hunters enters—some seasoned by mentors, some needing them more than they realize.
The throughline is simple and urgent: better data, better choices. Whether it’s challenging “a million deer” narratives with hill counts and lowland reports, protesting policies that erase wildlife in the name of trees, or training dogs to recover what we start, this is hunting as stewardship—lived, measured, and shared. If that resonates, tap follow, share this with a friend who debates conservation, and leave a review with the one insight that changed your mind. Your feedback keeps thoughtful hunting stories in the spotlight.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Outdoor Gibbon Podcast. First of all, let me apologise, we are near the end of October, and I think my last release was sometime around about September. I can only say it was the stag season and running up and down to the Angus Glens and taking clients out as well as trying to do my day job and manage family stuff and all the rest of it. There wasn't much time to get these podcasts out. They were recorded back in June. I have just not had five minutes to get the edits done. But I'm back. Here we go. We've got some really good ones to come and hopefully you'll really enjoy them. Let's talk about the stag season for a start. What a weird, weird season it's been. The weather. It's still October, and I think actually this weekend, which is the weekend, the almost the last weekend of October, we're actually seeing a temperature drop. But before that, we've had days out on the hill, and I mean literally 20 degrees. Nothing really wants to be rutting in that temperature. Things are sitting up on top of the hill, they're sitting out the way, they're sitting on other estates where they're not being shot at. It's just been so mild. I think the the worst day I've had, we started off, it was cold and misty in the morning. We set out onto the hill thinking, oh, it'd be alright. You're never sure what to wear, so t-shirt, my smock, away you went, and then the sun came out, and I mean literally it felt like just drenched rats. The two of us by the time we got in to the to the shot point, it was four o'clock in the afternoon just because of the nature of where these beasts were sitting and and the detours we had to make and and get into the burn to crawl up on them, and actually just for them to be there, but with the sun shining down on your back and crawling, it literally was I think I got through about two litres of water. I've never been so dehydrated on the hill. But yeah, there were days when we didn't see a deer completely. You could see them in the distance, you could hear them roaring in the early morning, and then everything would go quiet. Hill walkers everywhere. It seemed more and more hill walkers out in the mornings catching up with them just before they were setting out from the church car park. You'd grab hold and you'd say, Excuse me, we are stalking. Oh, okay, can I see your route? And then you had hill walkers with roots that literally walk the entire march of the estate, and you're just like, I'm really sorry, but we're gonna be stalking out there, and with the way the wind is, if you go out there and walk this route, we're gonna have a blank day. Ninety-five percent of the time they were pretty good about it. They would be like, No problem, we'll come back at another time. They weren't so keen when I told them another time would be sometime around about February when we finished shooting the hill. Uh, but in most cases they went off and they walked somewhere else or did something different. But it's still it just made it very hard. I've probably never shot stags after four o'clock, in some cases five o'clock, getting off the hill almost in darkness as well. It's just unheard of. It's it's a very, very bizarre time, and yeah, hopefully next year it will be back to normality and all the rest of it. But uh yeah, this this stag season certainly was was testing, especially uh when you're you're looking out from the spy point and you see nothing. When you get out there, as it sometimes is the case, and stuff moves on to you or has been pushed on from other places, but it was certainly a difficult time. Where are we in the year? Let's have a look. Well, this gets released today at basically the end of the old stag season in Scotland. So the hinds are now back in and the row does are in. But as we know, there is no close season for the male species, so you can carry on shooting those, but it now gives us a chance to focus on our doe coal. I've got lots of roe to go at. I've been keeping an eye on things, and this year it's going to be uh fairly heavy, getting some numbers down on certain places. We've also got other estates that uh basically are being fully deer fenced, and we've had the the owners come up to us and say, look, we just want to clear everything out. We've replanted a lot of trees on here, can you deal with it? So again, that's some things. We've just had Alex, Hunter Gatherer Cooking. He's been up to visit again. We have made well, it was been a long, long weekend, lots of filming, lots of good content. So watch this space sometime around about uh about Christmas time. We've recorded a podcast with him, and it should be released at about the same time as I think two, three, four films he might release looking at uh some road stalking, even going into the talking about some uh night shooting with thermal and stuff like that, pheasants and etc etc. So, more to come, keep an eye out for those films, and if not, I might actually get round to getting some more YouTube content sorted out, just been looking back at old footage and stuff like that. So, more stuff to come. Poor old Scottish deer though seem to still be the targeted highlight for a lot of people. Some interesting content I saw the other week, some tree fella talking about how many deer there are in Scotland and posting mostly, pointing towards mostly the red deer, the biggest ones with a target on their back, saying about the million deer. Well, there's nobody really knows how many red deer in Scotland, but the figures of red deer in Scotland haven't drastically changed. You can look back at historic data, which was obviously done with the helicopter counts, and in around about the 1960s, I think it was estimated that they'd counted around about a hundred and ninety thousand deer. Now people have said oh that's doubled or tripled since then, but if you actually go on the the Nature Scott website, you can download the deer counts for the last number of years. And I think this year, with all the deer counts on foot by helicopter, including drone surveys, I think we come out of a number of somewhere in the region of around about 222,000 red deer on the hill. So this estimate there's a million deer. Well, where's that other 750,000? What they're probably not taking into account is nobody actually knows how many deer there are in the lowland areas, so Aberdeenshire, uh down to Angus, and then all the central belt, nobody has kind of an idea of how many row they're out there because there are no actual official deer counts. So there could easily be 750,000 deer in that area, the urban deer as well that are appearing around Edinburgh and Glasgow, uh, the fallow that are making their way in different pockets around the country. But again, it's very interesting how this huge number gets spread around, gets misinterpreted, and gets thrown out there as deer are the public enemy number one. And I think that that needs us, the the shooters and hunters of Scotland, to kind of stand up and say, No, they're not. But we also need to get off the guys on the lowland ground. We kind of need to all work together and actually somehow come up with a way of even just giving a bit of a return on how many deer you've seen, how many deer are on your land, how just talk to your mates and and other stalkers and start feeding that information back. Then at least we can actually go armed with the right information. I know people won't want to do that because they're worried about how many deer they shoot a year or how many deer they potentially have on the land, the numbers might be high, their numbers might be low. But but we've got to get over that. We actually need to get that information out there because with with hard facts and numbers, at least we have a case then to go to people and say, Look, your figures are are completely irrelevant. This is the actual number we can see or we have counted in this area, and that way we we have a much better chance of actually keeping the deer stalking community in a better place than letting it go wild, let the government come out with their made-up figures because some expert thinks that that's the numbers that they're they're seeing, and all of a sudden imposed coals or other sanctions get put in place. I would hate to see issues occur with deer stalking because we don't actually the we the people on the ground that can do this haven't stood up and actually put that information out there. Anyway, I'm not going to waffle on too much more about that, but that's my little bit of passionate stuff about the uh the deer numbers and all the rest of it. This podcast I get to chat with Nick. He is a German hunter. Really interesting, he's hunted all over the world. Uh he talks a bit about background history, thermals, and etc. And uh let's jump on and have a listen. The Outdoor Giving Podcast is proudly sponsored by the Shooting and Hunting Academy, an online training platform and UK registered learning provider that provides a host of accredited and nationally available courses and masterclasses delivered by leading industry experts. Today I am joined by Nick. Now he's a German hunter, but he's also hunted in other parts of the world. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_03:Hello, pretty good. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00:It's alright. I know it's been a bit of a bit of a mission to get this actually organized and recorded, but we're finally there, so all good. So um, normally the the first question I ask anybody that comes on is tell us about how you started out uh hunting. Is it a family thing or are you a new hunter into the world of hunting and stuff like that?
SPEAKER_03:For us, it's or for my family, it was hunting was always with us. Let's say it like that. So even my great-grandgrand-granddad hunted. We had an area which is close by where we live. So this area is now hunted by us or by my family for nearly a hundred years.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, wow. Okay, like that.
SPEAKER_03:80 years, 90 years at least. So it's a long tradition in the family. It's typical, let's say the typical German thing. It was always the man who hunted all over all the way down until now. But my sister also did the hunting course, so she's also the first female hunter in the family that say it like that.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, fantastic. Okay, so yeah, because that's really interesting. Because I, as I say, a lot of people I speak to recently have it's kind of a new thing. They're then they're the first generation coming into hunting. But actually, to to meet uh an established hunting family is a really nice sort of way to look at it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's like a big tradition, it's part of the family. Also, if you look back into old photo albums and stuff like that, it's always there's that hunting section in there, and you look at old pictures from 1890, 1895. There's still it's hunting, even in like the houses where my family still lives in. So it's you can see in the background, still the same house. With back in back in those days, hunting changed a lot in our area. So back in that day, there was still a lot of hair hunting done. So you can see with quite a few animals after a successful day driven hunting or doing drives. So these times sadly changed.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think I think well, I think just the way the the world is, everything's changing, but it's still really nice to have that heritage that allows you to look back generation to generation. And and to see, I we we've looked at old records up here in Scotland, and you look at some of the days and the harvests that they they they got on the hill, and the numbers are outstanding. It's just phenomenal. And you think now you're struggling to maybe find 10 or 15 grouse where they were shooting thousands.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's a big shift in the ecosystem, and especially in Germany. We farming got more intense in our region, and then we had in the 80s, 90s, we had a change where they cut off all the hedges between the fields. Okay. So that decreased the numbers of hairs drastically.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, yeah. I I think that's just modern farming though, isn't it? It literally is you want bigger, bigger fields because the machines have got bigger, and of course, unfortunately, the wildlife has nowhere to live.
SPEAKER_02:Definitely.
SPEAKER_00:So you've kind of got some some interesting stories because we're not just talking about hunting in Germany. You've actually been hunting, or you lived, you said in was it South Africa and Namibia?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, exactly. I went to yeah, doing my studies, I went to South Africa and I lived there quite a while, and then let's say there is a saying, once once you start with Africa, you it never you can't get it loose. It just sticks with you, you have to go back there. So after my studies, I went back to a hunting farm in Namibia and worked there.
SPEAKER_00:So that's it's always one of those topics that comes up because as soon as Africa gets mentioned, a lot of people go, Oh, you can't hunting out there, is it all just trophy hunting? Uh, why is it done? And things like that. But obviously, you can explain a bit more. It's not it's not just about going out there and just getting the biggest trophies. There's a lot of management, I'm assuming.
SPEAKER_03:Definitely. So it's a all these quotes where you put in the trophy hunting in a bad position. There's definitely some truth to that in certain areas and certain farms which are doing it, especially for the American markets. That's also a big thing in South Africa and Namibia. There's farms which are specializing on different target groups, it's a customer groups. So for the parts which are going more for the European hunters, because in Europe we have a big tradition, we have hunting tradition behind it. We have way more ethical thinking about hunting and pursuing the game. Yes. So it's a complete difference to say the states, and even there is a big difference between different farms. So you always have black sheep, you have them in Germany as well, as I'm sure over to at your place. It's you always have the uh black sheep there. But neither less it's trophy hunting is a part of conservation. Without trophy hunting, there wouldn't be that much animals or games and different species left in Africa. It's just there's on the one hand side it's a sad thing, but something is just valued if it has a value.
SPEAKER_00:But I suppose the main the I think the thing about the Africa side of it that doesn't really come out unless you actually know the situation is a lot of the money that gets paid by the guest is is put back into the community, the meats used, the money goes back into the wildlife preservation.
SPEAKER_03:Definitely, that's the thing what I was trying to say. When something is valued, uh it has uh something has value, it has a value. So in in the end, during the times where trophy hunting wasn't a big thing in Africa, there was a lot of poaching going on. The locals they sold off the meat, so it was literally just money for them. So they poached different species, especially the ones which they could catch easier, quite heavily. So reduced the numbers drastically, because the only value that animal was for them was the meat they can sell.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So then it changed a lot with people getting interested to hunt in Africa, getting more and more common things, they're paying money for it. So now the locals see, okay, if I manage the herds, if I increase the numbers to a healthy level, so I can take off different trophy animals out of the or different trophies out of the population, then I will gain way more than just selling off the meat. So that effect generated a huge increase in population again. And on the other side, you still have to manage also that population. So it's not all about trophy hunting in Africa. You can do coal hunts and everything like that as well, where it's mainly taking the same what you guys do over at your place or in Germany, where you just reduce the numbers to a healthy level. And then what a lot of people also don't know, there's always a certain amount when you pay a trophy fee, which goes into conservation, so directly into conservation funds. Especially, let's say, if you go to Mozambique, Zimbabwe, hunting uh in those places, let's say Mozambique is a good example. Normally around 60% of a trophy fee goes to the government, which is then normally put back into the game for anti-poaching patrols. Because they have big, big issues with poaching, especially for rhino poaching, which is a big deal there, because there's quite still quite a healthy population with rhinos. So they need the money to invest into choppers, dry like cars, four by fours, and people. Because on the other side, the the poachers they gain so much money from poaching that they have the cop the choppers and everything.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:In the end, they'd say it's a bad thing, but money wins on that side.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I think that's the big that's the bit that nobody sees. They they see the picture of the guy with a nice animal, uh uh, I don't know, some some big uh African trophy, and all they look at is they go, Oh well, he's paid a load of money to go and shoot that, and and that's it. But they don't actually nobody really looks at, well, hang on a minute. All 60% of the money he's paid to do that is actually now going into the protection and and sort of the conservation of of keeping other things safe.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and for example, uh from Mozambique, I went to Mozambique for a buffalo, and there there's the rule that the locals get the meat.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So in in the end, because they also had the issue with poaching, also buffalo poaching. So in the second, they don't get the meat, they will start poaching again because they want the meat and they don't select, they poach what they get.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:So there's no selection if you take the oldest out, or they don't even select if uh if it's a female which has a um youngster with it. So they just take take it out, so directly killing two.
SPEAKER_00:Something for me at the end of the day, just take it and and that's it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So in the end, they have the rule that the local tribe always gets the meat. As a hunter, you get a little piece maybe of the backstrap you can taste, but majority, let's say 99% of it goes back to the community. So it's also a part of educating them. They get way more out of it if they're not poaching than if they're poaching.
SPEAKER_00:Uh that that's really interesting, and it's kind of nice to hear it from somebody that's like a first hand experience because at the end of the day, I think many people listening to this will have they'll have read things on the internet and they'll have seen stuff, but actually to know somebody that's that's been well to chat to somebody that's been there and and seen it firsthand, it's it's a really valuable piece of information that hopefully can be shared. What's your let's go for this, what's your favourite hunt then in uh of African African animals? What what's the best species?
SPEAKER_03:The tough one but I would say warthogs. Warthawks are yeah stalking warthogs is just something yeah, it's thrilling, you need to get close into the in the bush and they're just so sensitive.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Especially for for me, hunting in Africa is stalking. Yeah, yeah. I know a lot of people go to water holes and stuff like that. You can do it, especially if you're handicapped or you you don't have the fitness to do a whole day's stalk, but in the end, stalking is for me also hunting in Germany or in Austria, stalking is poor hunting because it takes all your senses and all your experience to get it done.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, no, absolutely. Oh fantastic. Yeah, and and because obviously they kind of remind me of sort of wild boar in that kind of sense.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, kind of, but you can stalk them during the day, which is okay, way different, especially in my region. The wild boars are mainly night active, so there's no way you can stop them doing the day.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, okay. So that that now bring let's let's leave Africa behind and let's jump back over to your homeland, which is Germany. Now you said you've obviously got family hunting ground there, and I think you you mentioned just before we came on, it was something like you've got the roe and and wild boar. Is that that's all all on your that's sort of the localist stuff you've got to you?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, as I mentioned uh earlier, we used to have quite a good hair. Right. So there was quite a good uh amount of hairs there, but due to the change of over the last say 20 years, the numbers reduced drastically, and then we also one part is definitely the fox population. Yep, which there's always the the thing in northern Germany, you still have a lot of small game.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So also small game hunts, pheasants, hares, rabbits. So there the hunters they focus a lot on taking the fox numbers down.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:In southern Germany, where I'm hunting, because the main game is deer and white boar. A lot of hunters don't really care about the foxes because hare hunts is a long time ago, so they already cut off that part. So the fox population increases drastically, and even if you have quite a big hunting area, if the other hunting areas around you don't also engage in reducing the numbers, it's a tough game. I say it like that. So you you have the two effects which reduce the hair numbers drastically.
SPEAKER_00:So in the UK, obviously foxing is a is a huge thing. There's a uh everybody there's there's there's groups of guys that that's that's all their passion is. They go out and and they lamp foxes or they shoot foxes at night. I'm assuming that's not sort of one of those things that that uh it's pop that popular in Germany.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's in the other areas it's still quite popular because they still have a small game, but in southern Germany it's not a big thing. There's it's a younger generation coming up which get keen in um calling in foxes and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:So it's the younger more the younger generation which starting again to hunt foxes more properly. The older generations normally they say it's in the in the past. We'll just live we're live with the yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So with your with your row and obviously wild boar, is that mostly stalked up or high C or driven? How do how do you do it on your land?
SPEAKER_03:Okay, normally we it's it's a big bit of a mixture. Okay. We do have feeders out where we sometimes take one or two wild boars from the high stand. Okay, but mainly let's say 95% of the white boars are taken doing stalking at night, mainly in crops.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So there that's the majority, and for roe deer, it'd say it's 50-50. 50 stalking, 50 high seeds. It really depends on which part of the hunting area we are hunting, because there's certain areas where it's a high pressure of tourism, say like that, so it's close by to the city, and there you won't have a chance stalking.
SPEAKER_00:So you you need to go into a high seed. Does that mean if you're close to the cities and things like that, do you have many, many issues with sort of the the how would I say it? It's the anti-hunting group, because obviously we've we've seen, I think, world over hunting is becoming it's becoming less of a tradition. It's now kind of we're becoming a minority at the end of the day as hunters, and and there's a lot of pressure on people sort of going, oh, you shouldn't be hunting things and stuff like that. It is that something you see obviously being close to the cities.
SPEAKER_03:Luckily, right now we don't have any issues. We had some in the past where they cut down tree stands of ours, okay, but or high seats, and but currently, let's say the last five years, it was they're quiet, so it's good. We do a lot of educational there's around let's say around 100 people walking every day there, so we have signs up where we educate them about the wildlife, and there is which brought a big impact. We're doing a lot of fawn rescue in the spring.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:So that's honestly the biggest impact for the hunting outside of the hunting society for the last 20 years. So positive impact. So because now the people see hunting is not all about shooting. Okay, it's about conservation, it's about also caring about the animal and respecting the life which you're taking or you're rescuing.
SPEAKER_00:I th I think that's really good because obviously we touched with a couple of other um other German hunters that we know um about the fawn rescue and all the rest of it. And and it's something obviously it doesn't really happen in the UK, but it's it's really interesting that how much of a not popular, but it how how effective it seems to be in parts of Europe where it's sort of really is taken. I think you must cut your silage much earlier than we do. And it's it's really important that you get in there and and you're picking these small deer up, and there's a lot more information out there about the rescue and all the rest of it, which seems to seems to work.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, especially like newspapers, they love to write about it, so it's something which is not that common yet. So they love to put it into the newspaper and talk about it, which in the end addresses the people who are not in touch with hunting at all. So often the big thing is, especially in Germany, the magazines and everything, which is writing about a conservation, is targeting a hunting audience, yeah, not the audience which you normally want to bring that conservation effort and everything towards.
SPEAKER_00:No, and I think that's the key. If you if you can get the national press to actually put it in a positive light instead of these guys just go out and shoot stuff, uh it's so much better. It's like the hunters are going out and saving the fawns. That's fantastic, really. Maybe it's something we need to do in the UK. I don't know. Maybe maybe. It's difficult though, because obviously by the time I think that's the thing, by the time we come to cut silage, yes, it does happen and some deer are caught up in it. But like up in the north of Scotland, they're already on their feet and they're moving about quite happily. So we've we've not got as many problems with with sort of needing to rescue fawns early on in the year.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, Germany they sometimes start in April, May to cut.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I think we were in drought conditions at bound about April and May, so nothing was growing, the grass was still just coming out of the ground. So very poor. Now, the other nice bit that we see a lot on your social media side of things is obviously um we know each other through Pulsar, but you also have some some hunting land uh out in Austria, uh, um and you've got your alpine style of hunting, and it it always reminds me it's it's like Scotland but more extreme.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's like a uh little heaven up there, like little Alaska, let's say it like that. That's how I love to put it in place. It's yeah, you go way, way up, so our hunting area reaches up to 2,500 meters above sea level. Wow, okay.
SPEAKER_00:I think I think you posted pictures of of May time, you had snow coming down. Literally, I I'd arrived home, I think, and it was quite warm, and and and you're putting pictures up of it snowing in the stand kind of thing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's like normally, even if you like when you're all the way up there, normally every month you get snow. So even now in June, July, August, there's always a day where some snow comes down.
SPEAKER_00:And so obviously, people are gonna want to know what what sort of things can you you hunt up in up in the Alps? What's the the main thing you're after up there?
SPEAKER_03:We say like our hunting area starts at 1400 meters above sea level. So there's the first hut. So from there up until let's say 2,000 meters above sea level, the main game is rode here as well as red stacks.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So we we have quite a good population of those two species, and then if you go further up, we do have chamois as well as Ibex.
SPEAKER_00:So do you that's a there's a question for you. As the as you're going up in altitude, do you notice a difference between like your potentially your lowland road here and as you go up higher in in the hills? Do the hedge change, the the size. Size of the head different? Are they getting more minerals or less food up there?
SPEAKER_03:Normally it's the other way around. The really big ones are way more up. But what you what's the big difference maybe from the Austrian road deer to the German road ear is the especially with the robux, they have a complete different behavior structure.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:In Germany, normally it can be that in one field there's two or three bucks, even a bit older ones. That will never happen in Austria. Normally, if you see one roebuck, there won't be another one close by.
SPEAKER_00:Really?
SPEAKER_03:They're so territorial, they fight off all of the others, and they have huge areas where they roam. And normally a roebuck never stands in Austria.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:They're not like going out on the field and crassing and just standing there. They're always on the move and circling their areas. So always on the on the move, circling the areas and looking at no other that's coming in.
SPEAKER_00:That's really interesting. And I suppose yeah, that that really is something different that obviously people probably wouldn't know. So, and you say these areas are fair a fair size. So, how how are the you've got hunting stands and and and huts and things like that? How have they been decided where they go? Is this through people just knowing that that that's where they've always been, or are they sort of you've got cameras out trying to find more information?
SPEAKER_03:I think it's it's a mixture between both. So there's always, especially also in in Germany, if there's a very, very old tree stand which is falling apart, most probably put another tree stand there because it's a good spot. Okay. So it's the same in Austria. There's tree stands, they're most probably over 60 or 70 years old because especially the rope uh the red stacks, they are very keen to their pests. So they stick with their pests the whole time over the years. So they the fawns learn it from the mothers and all the way back. So it's there, it's the one thing. So it's the established places, then of course we're always looking for new possibilities to get new tree cents up there, which is always uh weekend task.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:One tree stand up there, or even two weekends.
SPEAKER_00:I was gonna say at that at those sort of heights, um, yeah, it's it's probably uh probably tricky to get access. I'm assuming there's good roads, there's good roads or tracks in, at least you can no.
SPEAKER_03:No, no, you have to start walking at 1400 meters above sea level and then you walk up.
SPEAKER_00:Right, okay. So if you're you're taking a tree stand up, it's going up in bits, and and you're kind of trying to build it when you get up there.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, normally you build them up there, so often when you're lucky, you st you have some trees around which you can use. Right. So you use the material you have, but neither less you need to bring all the equipment up there, which is quite a hassle.
SPEAKER_00:I was gonna say, so yeah, that it it it's kind of it is extreme hunting. If you if you want to do it and put yourself in a new stand, you're gonna you're gonna have to work hard to to get it there.
SPEAKER_03:And yeah, and that's also the reason why normally we use a lot of trade tray cameras to see which areas are heavily used to get the tree stands up there because there's nothing like I'm testing a tree stand here, and then maybe if it's not working, I just put some somewhere else. So if it's once there, it will stick there, and it's a lot of work to get it up there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. And and so it let's let's talk about you've gone and shot something at at 2,000 meters. How how are you getting it out? If you say there's no tracks and you're walking all the way, is that just you go by yourself, or do you normally go as like a hunting party, a group of you?
SPEAKER_03:It really depends on which kind of hunt you're doing, which animal you're pursuing, because different species are have different weights, say exactly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So normally when I'm going out, for example, for roadier, it's not an issue. I can go out by my own. If I shoot one, I put it on a backpack and just carry it down. If you go for red stacks, it's a bit different story.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you're not putting that on your back, are you?
SPEAKER_03:It's tough to say it like that. So a calf is not too bad or foreign, so you you can drag that out by your own. But the second you're shooting two or you're shooting older, uh, like red stack, a proper red stack, which are normally around 100 kilograms, it's a team effort.
SPEAKER_01:So I was gonna say, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:For example, last year I took one nice stack which had around 110 kilograms. So in the end, we turned out was four people dragging it out.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:We were close to saying we're cutting it, because that's always the last resort to say, okay, we cut it on the spot, put it in pieces, put it in the backpacks, and drag it out.
SPEAKER_00:So, and that and all of that that meat that you're you're harvesting from that, I'm assuming that would get shared between your hunting party, or is is that coming back to you, or do you put it to a to a game dealer or something along those lines?
SPEAKER_03:Normally I'm taking all of it. Right. Pretty much, let's say if if we have a if I shot a red stack where there's four or five people helping, we normally split it. Okay. So that everybody gets a portion of his for his work. But um, if I'm dragging it out by my own, I take it with me, and then I'm eating it. In Germany, we're allowed to sell the meat as well, so we're selling it, or bringing it to a butcher who does sausages or smoked venison out of it.
SPEAKER_00:So fantastic, fantastic. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:It's all used, there's nothing wasted.
SPEAKER_00:I did I didn't realise that yeah, because obviously the law is in in the UK we can sell it, but you'd have to sell it in skin, so almost as the whole animal, unless you have a meat hygiene and and some other qualifications to go with it. But I didn't realise that um yeah, you could you could sell it in Germany. That's quite cool. The Outdoor Gibbon Podcast is proudly sponsored by the Shooting and Hunting Academy. Through the Academy, shooters, hunters, and those involved in the use of firearms can gain an in-depth and unique level of training that enables them to shoot better, behave more effectively in the field, up their strike rates, as well as learning new skills. Crucially, those new to deer stalking, the Academy also offers the Proficient Deer Stalker Certificate Level 1, the PDS One, a deer management certificate that is nationally recognized and accredited both by Lantra and UK rural skills. Visit the Shooting and Hunting Academy to find out more. Let's get back to the show.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, like in Britney you need a weekend course, let's say like that, to be allowed to sell it in pieces.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:And then you need a it's not uh the English word, it's like a small buttery house.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Like it's it's just a battery room which needs to be clean, which you can wash easily and stuff like that, so they come and check it, and then you get a certificate to be able to do pieces.
SPEAKER_00:So the same same as what we've got over here. Oh that's that's that's good. So it means at least you can get more people eat eating venison and uh which is handy.
SPEAKER_03:Definitely, and the interest in it it just yeah, it increased the last say five years drastically in Germany. So a lot of people start to think about buying more venison than going with the normal beef or pork. So it's a good trend, say it like that.
SPEAKER_00:It it seems to be. I was just talking to a farmer today, and it seems to be that people want to stay either local, or there's there seems to definitely be an increase with people wanting to know where their meat or their food is coming from. And I think the that the hunting side of things, they they feel they can trace it and they can see it because obviously there's only one person involved in the process, potentially that's you. You're going out taking the animal that was happily standing on the mountainside at that point, and then you're bringing it back. Still, the farming process, the animal still is nameless at the end of the day, and is going to an abattoir, and and you don't know whether that goat or that sheep you sent in is what you're getting back, it could be something completely different. Whereas, at least with the venison, they know and they trust in that you're bringing that product straight to them.
SPEAKER_03:Definitely, and there's also it used to be just older people that say it like that to buy venison because they still knew how to cook it.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Nowadays, especially last two years, my customer base, especially in the ages let's say between 18 to 30, so really youngsters, increased drastically. So there's a lot of young people starting to get into venison and starting to learn how to cook it, to grill it, to barbecue it. So it's kind of a new trend here in Germany, luckily.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so does that does that mean you've seen an increase in new hunters?
SPEAKER_03:Okay, that's a different part, let's say it like that. So normally the people who are buying the venison, they don't want to shoot it. Okay, they they don't want the blood on their hands, but they still want to know where it comes from and that it's healthy and doesn't have any medications in the in the meat. On the other side, the hunters like the applications increased drastically the last years in Germany. So there's a big trend coming into hunting, it's getting way more and more popular, which on the one hand side is a good thing, on the other hand side it's can also have negative effects. Let's say it like that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, of course, yeah. The more people that want to get into hunting, and there's obviously not that much land or there's not that many spaces, so you're gonna get a lot of hunters, and all of a sudden there's it could increase the prices of of being able to get onto some of these hunting syndicates and things like that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, but that's not the issue. The issue is more if a lot of people come into hunting, which doesn't didn't have the luck, like me, for example, who grew up with hunting with the traditions, with the the respect for the animal. Yep if you come into hunting just from maybe seeing YouTube videos and just hearing about it, you didn't learn the way to hunt, the tradition behind it, the respect behind it. And then if you don't have a we we call it like hunter dad, which is in the end just a person who helps you to learn hunting, not in the from the course side, from the course side you're done, you did the course, you passed it, it's all good. But to proper learn it, that it's also about conservation, that you put up food plots, that you put up tree stands, that you just maintain a healthy population, all these things which you didn't learn in the course, you need somebody to teach you. And if you don't have that, it brings a bad light back on all the hunters.
SPEAKER_00:Now that's really yeah, so so we call them mentors in the UK, and it's the same same sort of idea. But as you say, that we've seen a massive increase in people wanting to get into it. Now, unfortunately, what what I think I've seen is there's as soon as people see that there's more people wanting to do something, there's a lot more people that suddenly work on money, and they'll be like, Yeah, I'll I'll the hunting's great, come out, we'll take you hunting, because it's an instant income maker. But as you say, it's the it's the ethics and the quality behind it, and making sure that what's being trained and these what these people are learning is is sort of still in the traditional ways and and it's still getting the best knowledge. That's really interesting. But uh and again to see that there are people out there that are are willing to take venison that aren't wanting to do the blood on the hands, and I think that's that's brilliant, really. That's that's great that they're interested in the meat, but it's also good that obviously there's more people wanting to to enjoy the hobby, so that's that's a good start. So let's move on because obviously we'll talk a bit about some of the products that we use. Germany still isn't allowed yet to have thermal scopes. Yeah, so it's still been a hot topic. I know we've um we've been bouncing messages backwards and forwards because I think you're potentially having a change in the law at some point that that may well allow you to actually have thermal rifle scopes.
SPEAKER_03:Exactly. There is now it was one state which brought it up, and now it needs to be changed into a law. So it it passed all the different steps on its way to get it legalized, but now they need to change the law, and in Germany, changing a law is quite a long process. So we hope to see it soon, as soon as sooner or faster, but now it's still forbidden.
SPEAKER_00:So but you can cross you can cross the border into Austria where they're allowed. So, how does that work?
SPEAKER_03:I'm just not allowed to bring it back from Austria into Germany. Right. Because then it's like it's uh big penalty. So I'm literally losing my hunting rights, I'm losing all my rifles and everything if I bring it back from Austria. I can buy it in Austria, I can leave it there, I can put it on my rifle when I'm on Austria hunting, shoot with it, hunt with it, but before I'm leaving back to Germany, I need to put it down from a rifle and leave it in the hunting.
SPEAKER_00:Isn't that crazy? And well, let's hope that it does happen because at the end of the day, it's it I think they're classified as military military devices in in Germany at the moment. So that that is a thermal hunting scope, but you guys are still allowed add-ons and things like that that that basically turns a day scope into a thermal scope, which makes no sense really. It's the same idea, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03:Definitely, and the second you put different devices on each other, we know it's always not the perfect solution because there's always potential for faults, it's always it doesn't even need to be the device itself, but if you put it on wrong, and we know we're hunting in the night, so there's a lot of possibilities that something goes wrong, and in the end, normally when you use it, you're planning to shoot an animal, you want to take a life, so you need to make sure that the shot placement is perfect and right, and your recruitment is perfect and right, so it's easier if it's all in one device than having a scope and an attachment, put it together.
SPEAKER_00:Abs absolutely. Now, I think if I'm not mistaken, you're actually you have on test the the new oryx that Pulsar have released. Exactly. So let's because obviously you'll be the first person I've spoken to about it, let's talk about it. It's um yeah. Do you want to just tell us a bit about it and what you think of it?
SPEAKER_03:I'm really impressed, I have to admit. It's the first true-handed, one-handed device.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So it's just you can really use it one-handed. I tested it quite intense hunting white boars in the crops where you often have to change quickly from let's say 100 meters far away, you get the pigs running into the crops, you move closer, or they just come closer to you. So you have a lot of distances you need to adjust your focus on very fast. So that's I think one of the main benefits of it to be able to adjust as fast as you want to.
SPEAKER_00:And this is all adjusted basically with like a roller, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03:Actually, on the little roller where you just with one finger, so you don't need with all the other devices where you had it in front, so you need it a two in the end, was a two-handed device. Because if the animal moves closer or further away, and you still need to identify it, which is a big issue with white boys, where you need to see if it's a female or male. So you need to always adjust, and then especially when I'm stalking, I have my sticks with me, I have the rifle on the one uh shoulder, so I don't have two hands because one hand is always the stick, and the second I need to put the stick down, it's noisy, and it can be potential that the white birds run off.
SPEAKER_00:I know this came I know this came up as quite a big topic of discussion about two-handed and single-handed devices. Obviously, I've always been used to using all the way back to the the quantum which you've got to use two hands, and then I've got a telos, and even the axiom, you've still got to do the focus by holding it in one hand and twisting it. So, this device, obviously, if there was anybody out there that's actually looking for a completely one-handed operation. I think this this is the device for you. It also has a few other nice features and some software updates and stuff like that that seem to be rolled out.
SPEAKER_03:Definitely. And also the range finder, they improved the range finder drastically, which is especially for me in the Alps, where also a lot of fog. We we do have quite a lot of fog up there, so you need a strong that you don't need to measure 1500 meters because you never shoot 1500 meters. Yes. But you need a strong range finder to be able to measure through fog, rain, stuff like that. So that's a big improvement. And often in the Alps, we're doing shots up to let's say 300, 350, 400 meters. So you need to be able to have proper measurement on those distances because your bullet, if you're just off 50 meters, has a complete different impact.
SPEAKER_00:It's quite it's quite a it's quite a drastic change of uh of point of impact at 50 meters at a range of 300 plus meters. That's really interesting. So obviously, I've used different thermals and different range finders and and conditions, and that's normally the weakness. We we see that the thermal can see through the fog and penetrate this this sort of stuff that we can't physically see through, but to actually hear that the th the range finder also has that ability. I know that when I put my binose up and I press the range finder button and it's foggy, everything is only 35 metres away, whichever way you look at it, and you're like, it's not, it can't be. Or you have a complete failure of range finders, and and that's always the big thing. So to hear that they're actually it can it can penetrate that and it you are getting an accurate reading is really good to good to know.
SPEAKER_03:Definitely also with the detection range. I'm really impressed because especially in the Alps, as I said, the distances are way further than we have here in Germany. In Germany, let's say you're hunting at maximum 20 meters.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:And also you normally don't look way further, maybe four and four or five hundred meters to identify an animal if you go into the stalk or not. But in the Alps, we're often looking through like over valleys, so it can be easily to be one and a half kilometers away, and then you need to decide if I'm going to pursue it or not. So it's often a three hour pursuit. So you need to be sure the animal you're looking at is the species you're targeting that day. So with that, I'm really impressed. I took it out now three, four times in the Alps hunting red stacks as well as black grouse. So it was even with those small birds, the black grouse, easy to detect from a couple of hundred meters away when they're sitting on top of the trees to know where they're coming from.
SPEAKER_00:So the next question is so has thermal changed your your hunting style?
SPEAKER_03:Definitely. I think everybody who doesn't say so is lying because it's just on the one hand side you see way more animals, which you would never s have seen before. So you get a way better understanding of the numbers you have in your area. Yes, that's the one hand side. You also understand where they're traveling. So it's just an example. Back in my hunting area in Germany, I had an awesome tree stand in the middle of the forest, looking down a wide open field, which was just in the middle of the forest, and there was never something coming out. And then when I started using thermos, I recognized okay, they all the animals, which I knew they had to move in that area because there's a lot of cover in there, moved directly through a dark spot.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:So they they they always using the dark spots, so it just gives you an understanding. Maybe you need to put your position somewhere else to be able to harvest the uh the one or other animal. That's really handy. And then also with stalking at night, it's just changed wild boar hunting, I think, in Germany or all over the world completely. Because normally you used to be dependent on the moon. So you went out with your binoculars, you had the moon up, so you could just hunt when there's around full moon, or then when night vision started, you had the infrared lasers, but the issue was with the crops when you when the wild boars are in the crops, you didn't see anything because that laser just flashed, it was just widescreen.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So it was uh tough hunting at night, and then also looking backwards. I did hunt at night doing the moons and everything, because also we do need to do damage control in Germany from the wild boars. Yes. But it wasn't that ethical than hunting with a thermal. Because back in the days, even in the in the moon, it was a black dot. You if you're lucky, you could see where it's going and maybe which kind of size it is, but often it's like a typical German thing back in the days when hunting on full moon, you shoot in a wild boar, call in a trekking dog, say it was 20 kilograms or 30, trekking dog comes and there's a 60 kilogram pig. So because it's very tough to estimate sizes when it's dark.
SPEAKER_00:Of course, and everything in the darkness is either it looks much smaller or it looks much bigger. Uh and you never have that ability to go, I can't really tell. And I think that's the beauty of it. Thermal now, I still I still end up popping a lamp on if I'm checking something or something like that, just to be a hundred percent, because you there's sometimes that you still question what you're looking at, and I think that's one of the big things. But the technology, I look at how much it's come on in the last sort of 10 years, and when you look at the old stuff we used to use, and now the the modern kit we've got, it it's phenomenal. It it just shows everything up so well.
SPEAKER_03:And it's way more ethical. So, just a good example, a couple of weeks ago I was sitting on a field which wasn't that high, maybe 20 centimetres of grass on it. And one no two two piglet picks came out which were maybe t 20, 30 kilograms. It was still light, so I could see everything perfectly, but you couldn't see if they like if they're have any um kits or not.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:So then I put out the thermal to check if there's anything around, and all around them was small piglets, which you couldn't see with your bare eyes, but with the thermal you could see okay, there's piglets which uh were maybe a kilogram or one and a half kilograms, so very, very small ones. So and I'm pretty sure back in the days a lot of things could have gone wrong.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, because somebody would have seen those come out. Well, I've I've looked and looked with my eyes, I can't see anything, we'll shoot it, and all of a sudden you've got a load of little piglets that have got no mummy pig anymore. Yeah. But it again it does help, and I suppose that because you guys get penalized on um if you don't deal with the the the boar, don't you, on your on farmland and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so in Germany the rule is if you have a hunting area, you pay normally the um province or the city for the hunting right on it, so you don't uh own the land. And then the farmers who have their crops on there, if they have damage, you have to pay the farmers.
SPEAKER_00:So it can get quite expensive.
SPEAKER_03:Just there there is hunting areas which no hunters taking because the damage is just too high.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:So we're talking about 20 to 50,000 euros a year just for damage. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:That that that is crazy. We're very lucky we don't uh we don't end up with those sort of situations here. I know the wild boar population is not uh well it's not as bad as it is in in Europe, but I'm sure there are there there are parts of the UK that um that boar are out of control, but I don't think I don't think we have the European issues with wild boar.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, on the one hand side, lucky on the other hand side, uh love to hunt wild boars. It would be very sad if we don't have any wild boars left, and in the end it's just if you manage the population right, also the damage is under control.
SPEAKER_00:But I suppose it's it's really difficult because as you just said there, you've got two two pigs have come out and they've got a load of piglets, and the the speed they breed at it must be a constant battle. You'd you'd almost be shooting pigs all year round.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we we allowed to shoot them all year round, we're also doing it. But it'd say it used to be a battle which you couldn't win. Okay. But with turbals coming in, it just changed the whole game. And what we've seen in our areas around like around my hunting area, the numbers, the first terminals came out, and then say the two years after, numbers drastically dropped. So there was literally none of the white boars left, or very, very few. So we even arranged to say, okay, we're not shooting any females anymore, we're not shoot shooting in the forest any white boars just in the fields if they do damage. Because you want to control a healthy population, you don't want to extinct them.
SPEAKER_00:But that's a really nice way of looking at it. Whereas unfortunately, the U the UK's kind of gone completely the opposite. Well, Scotland especially, red deer, oh, they've all got targets on the back, you've got to shoot the whole lot. And it it's it's kind of got to the point where we as the hunter have to turn around and go, Well, actually, we're not gonna kill everything, because otherwise there'll be nothing left. Um, but I think if if Scottish government had their way, there would be no red deer roaming the hillside.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, in Germany, um, just this week the a lot of hunters went on protest. So they protested against the new hunting law which they wanted to bring in in Hessen. It's just a state of ours, where they really keen or the government is really keen to reduce the numbers of rodeo, red stacks, and all animals which could harm the forest. So the hunters went on protest against it and said we want forest with animals, with wildlife, not just forest.
SPEAKER_00:Because that had something else to do with I think I saw had something to do with hunting dogs as well, did it not?
SPEAKER_03:This yeah, they wanted to also change that you need hunting dogs for different hunting styles. So in Germany the rule is say if you go for duck hunting, yeah, you need to have a certified dog for it. So which makes sense because you don't want to go for a swim for every duck, and especially if you have a crippled duck which is still alive, you're not going gonna swim afterwards.
SPEAKER_01:No, exactly.
SPEAKER_03:Also, an ethical part of it to have a proper dog which is trained, which is certified to go after wounded animals.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, okay. That's that's interesting because obviously, yeah, over here we we have trained dogs, but there's no certification that says that that dog is specifically a duck hunting dog, or that dog there is specifically a tracking dog. Um, people will probably argue with me now and say that there is, but I'm pretty sure I think that's the big thing because I think buying dogs in Germany and stuff like that, if you want it for hunting, you have to prove that you're a hunter and and so on and so forth. And you can't just go out and say, I want this breed of dog for a pet.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, normally if you have good breeders, they want this your hunting certificate to see that you're hunting. There's even quite a the very good ones, they normally come to your hunting area and check if your area is suitable to really train their dog and work their dog. So it's say if you buy a lapidar, which is just for duck hunting, just made for duck hunting from a hunting breed, then normally they check if you have enough water in your hunting area and see if if you can work that dog, because otherwise they say it's not it's nonsense to have a dog of that breed with that genetics in it, to not hunt with it.
SPEAKER_00:That's that's but that's really good. That really does work, and it means that you don't end up with a magnificently trained hunting dog that just sits around and goes, Well, there's no water here and there's no ducks to fetch. Definitely superb. I think I think we've covered most things, to be honest. That was a a really sort of a whistle stop tour from Africa to Germany to thermals to everything. So, yeah, thank you very much for for spending some time and having a chat with me.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you very much for having me.
SPEAKER_00:No worries at all. I uh hope you enjoyed that chat. It was all it's always interesting, isn't it, to to be able to get a European hunter or any a hunter from anywhere in the world and go through how it works in those countries. I know we've talked to quite a lot of European hunters. We've also been down to places like Australia and out to the States and Canada, but it's It still always amazes me how there were so many differences. We all have the same target about getting an animal on the ground at the end of the day, but the way it goes about, the way we do it, the history behind it, the routines, the education, it's always slightly different. And it's always really nice to be able to share that with you because again, I think the UK, we are incredibly lucky that our system is so straightforward. Uh, we can just get your rifle, get some land, go out, go hunting. There's no bag limits, you could shoot as many as you want. Whereas the rest of the world works on a completely different process, and I don't think anywhere else in the world it's quite as free as we have in this country. Anyway, let's uh let's draw this to a close here. And the next one we go down a bit of a different route. We're gonna chat to a farmer, talk about mental health, and we go down his route, which is comedy as well, and how that helps and brings everybody together. So uh join us for the next one.