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Become a RIDGE member ~ Visitors
Become a RIDGE member ~ Visitors		The 2008 RIDGE Inc ballot season certainly lived up to all expectations. We thought it would be a good one and it proved to be the best yet. Despite all the "knockers" who keep saying that our system would never work, the quality of our overall herds and especially the trophy heads it can produce, keeps getting better and better each season. The "recipe" is simple, protect the best young stags and let them do the breeding (the 6 1/2 year rule) put pressure on the big old stags with the worst genetic traits before they do the breeding, (Give more praise to those who take cull animals) keep predator levels down so that we get the best recruitment of young stags, keep the overall deer population within the levels set by the individual landowners (Property Based Game Management) keep the pressure on the Game thieves using our best weapon.... the video camera. (these thieves simply don't want their wives, bosses or mates to see what they have been up to..."catch them in the can") make the whole system economically viable for the landowner to keep deer on their properties instead of forcing them to have deer on their holdings through Government regulations as other groups are trying to do. Get everyone behind one set of rules and stick to them. In total there were 60 hunters who participated in the ballot either by themselves or with Kurt or I guiding them. There were some impressive heads taken but for me the greatest was a 7 pointer taken by Saskia Kremer. This was her first red stag and she took it as well as any seasoned hunter could have. It made no difference to her how many points it carried as long as it was old and she took it the right way. Our best heads for the season were simply massive. The were four big 12 pointers taken by Rod Williams, Ron Conrad, Tibor Jurant and Kerry Gray. Ulf Johannson took a big old 5x7, Heath Green a big 5x8, Bob his Dad took a good 6x5 and so did Rick Gigli and Leigh Hall while Doug Shupe took a big 5x5. John and Kath Clapham took a good 5x5 and a big 4x4 and Richard Fenning took a big 4x5. A number of other members took good mid range trophies and some of these were quite interesting heads, with at least 3 showing signs of severe pedicle damage. There were some big cull stags taken as well across the entire herd and so many top class young stags seen that was obvious the trophy quality is heading in the right direction. Just as pleasing from the point of view of overall deer management was the success shown on all the other properties managed by RIDGE members but not included in the ballot. There were some truly massive stags taken from a number of different properties which are being run along similar management strategies as we are using. This is helping to have a big influence across the whole deer red deer range which will benefit all hunters not just RIDGE members. During the season I hunted with Luke Whybrow, firstly for fallow deer in Tasmania, then we decided to chase something really big in the red deer department. We were rewarded one morning on a high clear hillside next to thick patch of scrub with what must be one of the best free range red stag I have helped take in the last 22 years. Carrying 12 points, this 36 inch long trophy stag had antlers a thick as a coke can and was at least 10 1/2 years old. Stories of other mighty stags are still coming in from across the whole range proving we are lucky indeed to have one of the finest huntable red deer herds in the world.
		©RIDGE INC. QUEENSLAND AUSTRALIA Page last updated: 07 Aug 2008