Seeking red deer during the roar is a major interest to many hunters. While deer hunting is never easy, the month or so of the roar offers the best chance of bagging a stag as they are concentrated into the smaller breeding grounds and their natural wariness is diminished by a flood of hormones as they compete with other stags for breeding access to the in-season hinds.
After the roar, the stags carry their hard antlers through until September. In that period, they return to their preferred location, usually quite distant from the breeding grounds, and regain their acute circumspection once more.
By December, the older stags have significant velvet-covered antler growth. The stags, gathered together into ‘companies’, favour areas of more open brush and avoid fences where there
