One Heck Of A Ride

142 Poland’s Roaring Stags still were being worked in the old traditional way with horse and plow. After passing the town ofMilicz, we continued driving south until we arrived at our destination, a government hunting estate. On the evening of the first day of hunting, Ryszard and I returned to the same area we had hunted that morning. As we approached the tree stand in the forest, there they were: the magnificent red deer of northern Europe. We froze in our position in a low area and watched the graceful animals while a swarm of blood-thirsty mosquitos had a field day on every exposed area of our bodies. As the deer faded into the forest, we put a stalk on them, only to hear them roar back at us as they retreated out of range. By morning of the second day, my feelings of anticipation were very strong. The roaring sounds continued to tantalize me. There was a feeling of electricity in the air. Once again, Ryszard and I found ourselves in the tree stand. By now, the sound of red deer crashing in the brush was all around us in the forest. One of them kept coming closer (and I mean close). It walked right up to the tree stand, almost directly underneath me. The light was good as we watched it pause in the center of the meadow. We could clearly see now that it was only a young stag with four tines on one side and five on the other. As it moved off into the forest, our attention was suddenly drawn behind us to the grunts of a wild boar coming our way. Its movements were quick and powerful. Sensing our presence, it stopped and then moved off into the forest in another direction. We were back again at the same tree stand that evening. Then, just at dusk, there it stood as if suddenly materializing out of another era of which legends are made, looking every inch the Hartford stag. It was a magnificent animal. “Wow, that’s a good one,” I stammered. But shooting conditions were poor. The stag wandered in and out of the trees and, at a distance of 350 yards, never presented a clear shot. The next morning, I couldn’t wait to reposition myself in the same stand. As the day began to awaken around me, two hinds wandered into the meadow, followed by what I think was the same large stag we had seen the night before. My guide muttered quietly in broken English the only words he knew: “He is a good one.” I quickly found the deer in my scope and squeezed off a round only to see the big stag run off into the forest. We looked for him carefully, but couldn’t find even a trace of blood. Ryszard and I were convinced I had hit that stag. It was wet everywhere that morning. Ryszard and I had differences of opinion as to what direction the stag had jumped. After scouring the area a bit more, he took me to meet the rest of our party and left to find his father to help him track the stag. That same day, we enjoyed a fine duck hunt In Poland, duck shooting provides a welcome break from a hunter’s quest for a European stag and a delicious picnic lunch attended by all seven Americans, our travel host Jan Krossteig and his wife, plus the mayor of Milicz and several forestry officials. After formal introductions, we enjoyed some pass shooting. Afterwards, they started a big fire for the picnic. About that time, Ryszard’s dad arrived and said they finally had found traces of blood. Doug Robinson confirmed that he had heard the shot and