One Heck Of A Ride

141 Chapter 15 Poland’s Roaring Stags I t still was dark at 4:00 AM as my Polish guide Ryszard Ryborczyk and I were walking quietly down a narrow dirt road toward a distant tree stand when we heard it, the unmistakable roar of a polski, a European red deer so close it seemed to shake the leaves off the trees. I’d heard Spanish red deer roaring two years earlier in Spain, but the peak of the rut had passed before we arrived and the smaller Spanish stags were less vocal. These polski were downright noisy. We continued to weave our way through the Black Forest to a small, open meadow where a “high seat” rose some twenty feet into the air. In the dark, we could hear the roars of barrel- chested red deer, some very close and others more distant. It was a sound I can best describe as deep gutteral bellowing. I sat very still, keenly aware that several animals were quite near to us, or so it seemed. As dawn broke and the rest of the forest awoke, nothing broke the distinct line of forest in the direction of the sounds I had heard. About 1 1/2 hours later, we returned to the estate for a hearty breakfast of Polish sausages (the real thing) and eggs. The European way of hunting begins two hours before daylight, ends a couple hours later and does not resume until about two hours before dark. Midday was reserved for resting, Poland’s Black Forest where the author hunted “polski” during the peak of the “roar.” sightseeing, and some great duck hunting. Poland’s forests are mainly pine and oak with farmlands and swampy areas. Game is abundant because the animals are managed so well. Bag limits are liberal, and visiting hunters may add animals for very reasonable fees. The climate is similar to that of our northern plains. Hunting seasons are from August through February. It can be from very warm to very cold. Its largest big game animal, the European red deer was once found all over Europe. Unlike the fallow deer that shares its habitat, it is extremely shy of man. A near cousin to the North American elk, the polski has three distinctive features. First, it’s smaller than our elk. Second, it has no shoulder “collar” or mane, and third, the tines on the antlers of mature bulls typically cluster (“crown”) at the top of their main beams. Of the three red deer categories in the SCI record book, the European red deer is the largest (a mature bull weighs 500-600 pounds). Because of its extreme shyness, it tends to stay in the heavy forest for cover and cross open meadows only during early morning and just before dark. The hunt I’m describing came together at a Safari Club International convention in Las Vegas. Later, seven Americans — George and Zelda Moore, Doug and Jennie Robinson, Paul Robey, Dennis Jensen and I —met in Copenhagen in September 1985 and flew to Warsaw, where drivers and interpreters hired by Jan Krossteig of Denmark’s Diana Travel met us. Everyone was friendly, excited and eager to get on with the hunt. We were the first group of Americans ever to hunt this area of Poland and, interestingly, there was no delay in checking our guns through customs. Next came a seven-hour drive that took us south and west of Warsaw through the beautiful rolling countryside and farmlands of southern Poland. Some of the farms