Elk hunting
Event ID: 633
29 September 1917
Source ID: 55
“Only a few mortals are privileged to hunt one of these animals. I now count myself among those few.
It is a very unfortunate fact that this rare game is slowly but surely dying out. Like the bison, the elk is also a remnant of times past. As it lay before me on the ground, I had the feeling that I was looking at something from before the Flood. Unfortunately, in recent years, about a decade ago, the elk population in East Prussia was almost wiped out. Thankfully, the slaughter was stopped. As a result, the elk now only exists in the whole of the German Empire in the area around Labiau in East Prussia. It is much larger than a horse and lives in huge swampy forests where foxes say ‘good night’ to each other.
Thanks to the kindness of the forest ranger Mohnike, I was invited to shoot a strong elk. For five days, I stalked back and forth across the vast Neu-Sternberg hunting grounds from morning until darkness fell. My holiday was short, and I thought I would have to leave with unfinished business when, on the sixth day, we were informed that a strong elk had been spotted in the hunting grounds. We immediately harnessed the horses and drove there as fast as we could. Soon we were only three kilometres away from the designated hunting ground and were driving at a brisk trot along a snowdrift when suddenly the capable Rußti pulled the horses up short, and there, five hundred paces away, stood the moose! But only for a moment, as it immediately disappeared into the thicket on the right. Now we had to be lucky to encounter the deer at shooting range. It does not tolerate being dismounted and stalked, so we had to try to get closer with the carriage. Soon I found myself at the spot where we had just seen it, but the thicket did not allow me to see more than forty paces to the right and left. Good advice was now hard to come by. A hundred metres further on, there was a narrow clearing. We wanted to turn around there to drive past the spot where we had seen the deer again. The car was just turning around when the moose stepped onto the clearing a hundred paces away. Now I realised that I had a very strong stag in front of me. It wasn’t a shovel-horned stag, but with its powerful build and long beard blowing in the wind, it made a clumsy impression, just as only a pre-flood animal can. It stood beautifully broad on the clearing. It’s actually almost impossible to shoot past such a giant animal! But the excitement of suddenly and unexpectedly finding myself face to face with a huntable stag after a six-day stalking trip is greater than I had imagined. To my great astonishment, the stag did not react at all to my shot. I silently said to myself: ‘Missed.’ He only made a slow turning movement, giving me time to take the second shot. This would have been impossible with a red deer, although you can experience many things with it during the rutting season. But with this animal, you get the impression that it does not regard humans as its enemy at all and is no longer able to resist civilisation.
A search was necessary, which was not easy in the swamp. The deer had taken both bullets, but it was still necessary to deliver the coup de grâce. Only now, when it was down, could I take a good look at the colossus. It was a large, strong eight-pointer by local standards, and I was very happy. I would not have wanted to miss this elk hunt in my life and am very grateful to my hunting host.”
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