Twin Elements · Hunting Stories

Bowhunting Bulgaria : World Class Rutting Fallow Bucks!

Imagine a hillside where a couple of hundred fallow deer are chirping, croaking and fighting all around you. Bucks are crashing antlers in clouds of dust, and does are drifting in and out of an arena no bigger than half a rugby field. Now imagine you are lying on your belly with a bow in your hands, trying to pick one animal out of the chaos.

That was Bulgaria. It was the most intense rut I have ever seen, and it taught me as much about what not to do with a bow as what to do.

A Note On This Story:
This bowhunt took place in October 2019.

In This Report

1. Two Ruts In One Year
2. Landing In Bulgaria
3. Inside The Lek
4. Shooting Over A Buck
5. Everything We Tried
6. The Last Evening
7. A Costly Conversion - Trophy Assessment
8. Lessons From The Lek
9. Silent Pursuits

Two Ruts In One Year

Bucks From Your Dreams

This adventure first started in passing conversation with legendary Australian bowhunter, Ben Salleras. From my understanding, Ben had been working across Europe at the time, places such as Greece. On his travels, he made the connection with a Bulgarian hunting outfit that catered to bowhunters.

In the northern hemisphere fallow deer rut in October and November. A complete switch in time of the year when it comes to our Australian fallow deer rut which mostly coincides with the month of April.

At the time of this hunt, I was really getting immersed in fallow deer hunting after moving to regional, south west Victoria for work. My spare time was spent learning new properties, filling the freezer and preparing for the short window that is the rut!

For any hunter, organising a trip of this magnitude was a bucket list adventure.

For a fallow deer hunter specifically, this Bulgarian fallow buck rut hunt was the pinnacle. It meant getting to experience two separate ruts in one year, and it was too good to ignore!

I hear you ask, why Bulgaria?

Bulgaria ticked a lot of the boxes.

Some of the main factors included:

• Bowhunting is restricted or banned in quite a lot of the European countries. Despite this, Bulgaria welcomed bowhunters.
• In comparison to other countries such as Hungary, Austria or Spain where there is recognised fallow buck opportunities, one allure is that the hunts are generally cheaper.
• Whilst the pricing drops, the trophy quality is exceptional. As to be expected with well managed herds of deer.
• The Bulgarian record for a fallow buck taken with the bow reaches the same ballpark as the biggest bucks taken anywhere in the world.

These factors attracted Ben Salleras to Bulgaria, who subsequently pioneered the way for many Aussie bowhunters thereafter. Ben shared images of a huge archery buck the year before our trip, which set the tone with not only the lodge and guides, but the hunters to follow.

Landing In Bulgaria

The Lodge On The Lake

Preparation for any overseas bowhunt is mostly about gear and logistics. I did minimal research on the hunting itself, partly because we were hunting a new area, but familiar animal.

Leaving Australia, I packed my bow as if the baggage assistants were going to throw it off the plane. That meant a secure hard case, small padlocks and lots of zip ties.

With weight restrictions, you can't take unnecessary gear but you can still fit plenty into the confines of the case. I used my clothing to add plenty of padding and a lot of hope, then shut the bow case for one last time.

The next time I would (hopefully) open it, we would be in another country!

Our luck was mixed. Amongst my hunting party, Nick, Brad and I all got our bows. Yet, for our fourth companion Jerry, his bow and belongings took a detour, arriving a day or so late.

We spent hours at the airport trying to sort it out, before being told to go on our way to the lodge and wait for an update in the coming days.

Our translator was waiting for us in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.

Driving from the capital to the regional outskirts, we traded multi-lane highways for narrow, single lane roads, that could only be described as goat tracks. He drove fast. Three to four hours later we arrived at a lodge on the edge of a lake, about one hundred and fifty kilometres from the Greek border. The scenery was surreal.

It was Balkan mountains with autumn leaves everywhere.

The hospitality was something else.

Even prior to arrival, I was asked if I wanted anything specific for the trip. Comically, via WhatsApp I sent through a photo of a tin of Nesquik. When I arrived I couldn’t believe it, seeing the bright yellow tin of familiarity, learning that the staff had quite literally gone above and beyond, out of their way to find the sweet chocolate helix of life.

Every meal sitting came with an entrée, main and a dessert.

We ate fresh trout from the lake to more traditional Bulgarian meals.

Everyone had their own room, and partners are more than welcome to come along.

The mornings were frosty with bucks croaking everywhere, followed by crisp, blue sky days that were surprisingly mild. It felt a lot like our own fallow rut at home.

Most impressive and striking arriving in this foreign destination.

Bulgaria has an extremely rich hunting culture. From the trophies and taxidermy that decorate the lodges, to the artistry displayed in the many prints and antiques.

You can feel the atmosphere is immersive in hunting and storytelling.

Even though our guides spoke Bulgarian, our translators conveyed through broken English, that there was never any doubt that we all shared the same love for hunting.

The Land Of Giants

Inside The Lek

There were fallow deer everywhere.

We learned quickly that you could leave camp and see deer within minutes. However, we were advised that you only hunted the leks.

A lek is an established rutting ground.

A buck will clear the ground with his hooves and antlers to create his typical scrape. He then adds his scent to the area by urinating on the patch. This becomes his individual platform to warn off rivals.

When a deer population density is high, multiple bucks will establish their individual rutting stands very close to one another in a communal area. This cluster of competing stands and scrapes is called a lek.

In Australia, we are primarily hunting a few isolated scrapes located at different points across a ridge line or gully. Even the bucks themselves don’t seem as committed to their scrapes.

Now, switch to Bulgaria and imagine an area roughly fifty metres wide by fifty metres deep.

At the heart of this lek, there are dozens of scrapes.

On top of the rocky hill face there are even more does swarming the site.

In the middle (generally) sits the most mature buck.

Orbiting him are the does, then the spikers and lesser satellite bucks.

The chaos that is the fall deer rutting spectacle can only be likened to a bait ball of fish.

Where the does are small bait and the bucks resemble large predatory fish. Hanging off the periphery, taking turns at running into the centre and trying to cut a doe out from the mob.

The hunting concession which we were on held six to ten leks. With some of them holding two hundred to three hundred animals during the peak rut.

The lek I was given was the biggest of the lot. It exceeded the general fifty by fifty area and was closer to one hundred in each dimension. It was the same lek where Ben Salleras had shot his record bow buck the year prior. A magnificent animal that had gone years without gaining attention as none of the guides even knew of its existence until then.

The lek covered a huge widespread area. At its core, there was freshly excavated dirt amongst a rocky outcrop of boulders on an exposed hillside. There were virtually no trees or shrubs which made concealment the greatest issue.

Having two hundred odd animals to hunt sounds like a dream, yet it turned out to be one of the biggest challenges of the trip.

A better strategy would have been to follow suit of the other hunters and sit on smaller leks with maybe twenty to fifty does. Another consideration would have been to manufacture a good blind out of the very rocks which formed the lek earlier.

This had been done on many of the other leks, however the big lek which I sat on hadn’t been established as such.

As it appears in reflection, it was far more suited for a rifle hunter. Being able to sneak down along the hill, pop over at one hundred yards and watch the action unfold before selecting a buck. For a bowhunter, closing to within thirty metres was nearly impossible. Especially under the time constraints of a limited day trip where there's pressure to make every opportunity count.

Bucks, Leks & Rocks

Hunting opportunities of this calibre don’t just occur spontaneously and they certainly don’t just appear overnight.

As you heard in the beginning of this story the culture of hunting in Bulgaria is rich and elaborate.

As is the actual management of hunting each of these species here in Bulgaria.

One thing you will notice in the images and footage taken from the trip, there are very, very few black colour phase fallow deer.

The reason being, black does and black bucks are to be culled for free to keep the genetics “pure”.

This method wasn’t fully explained to me due to the language barriers which made communication difficult, however the strategy was applied over a very large area.

When it came to the hunt styles, the guides would drive each of us hunters towards a lek. When we got within five hundred metres or so, they would pull up, hop out of the car with our gear and point us in the right direction that was it.

These men were not guides in the sense that we know them to be in Australia, where they are with you every step of the hunt, helping with decision making and trophy assessment. Much of that is ambiguous and left to the hunter.

My guide spoke Italian, Russian and a bit of English. Between those languages and a lot of pointing we managed to communicate fairly effectively. He was always obliging and keen to hunt. As well as very patient, even allowing me to film him during some driving scenes.

Shooting Over A Buck

Swing And A Miss

Arriving at the lodge, we skipped the relaxing tour of our home for the next few days. Instead we threw on our camo and were taken to the closest lek.

The sight was incredible. There were deer everywhere.

Without going into immense detail, I spotted a buck that I fancied and began to close in for a stalk.

Where he was allowed for a top down approach on the loose boulders.

He bedded amongst a few hinds as I slowly crept to within twenty-five metres.

After waiting for some time, and some internal deliberation, I decided that from where he was bedded, if I could get an arrow down and over that rock, then I could take out his vitals.

It was either that, a relatively easy chip shot on a relaxed bedded buck. Or, wait and potentially risk the scenario becoming much more difficult once he beds and moves in between one of the many does before us.

I drew back, aimed and released.

Watching as in the blink of an eye the arrow sailed harmlessly over his back.

Backtracking from the embarrassment of the situation.

I realised that I had not shot my bow since the flight.

A rookie mistake!

On evaluation of my bow back at the lodge, the sight had come loose in transit and the bow was shooting 8 to 10 inches high. I retuned it that night thanks to an emergency set of Allen keys that I travel with. It was a simple mistake and a costly one.

Having checked and re-tuned my bow you would have thought that my troubles had gone.

However, the bigger problem was unravelling in my head.

Coming to Bulgaria, having seen the photos of past hunters, and then arriving and seeing the calibre of animals myself. I was so confident that I would shoot a buck that I let it affect my decisions. I told myself that there were so many bucks on each lek, that something would always present itself.

The classic story of counting your chickens before they hatch.

It was an inexperienced thought to have and I was constantly reminded of just how difficult it was to get close enough to the target buck.

The days had vanished and I quickly realised that I was faced with the fact that I could just as easily have left Bulgaria without a buck of my own.

Golden Hour

Everything We Tried

The constant reminder, a lek that size is hard to hunt.

I spent the better part of two days trying spot and stalk tactics.

Which mostly translated to belly crawling for hours amongst the rocks. Open rolling hills are great for spotting bucks and terrible for stalking bucks.

The Bulgarian landscape was a mix of thick, choked gullies. With tall standing vegetation such as oaks, beech trees and acorns. These covered areas were in the low spots, giving way to exposed rocky ridges and tops with massive boulders and rubble.

At times you find yourself questioning what the deer are eating on these rocky rutting stands, but therein is the answer. They aren’t eating, they’re rutting. With the eating and feeding mostly done presumably in the cover of these thicker vegetated gullies.

When you drop in on a lek and stalk a buck, you are creeping towards hundreds of eyes and ears, and the animals on the edge, the does and the spikers, often see you first.

So I started experimenting.

Somewhat out of frustration and desperation, I formulated a new plan.

Method 1:

I tried scaring every animal off the lek. Then once they had disappeared into the timber below, try and close the distance and follow the bucks to within bow range.

This worked to some degree as I was readily close to bucks, yet the new challenge emerged. Whilst tailing my buck of choice, I would get stuck, having to wait for lesser bucks, spikers and does to move through between us.

Eventually once again with too many eyes between me and the target buck, I would either lose them or bust animals between.

Method 2:

I tried arriving at the lek before sunrise and being what I thought was close enough to the centre without scaring any animals off.

That didn’t work either.

In the darkness I had closed in on the noise and still found myself on the perimeter rather than at the core of the action.

I tried rattling antlers, rattled off a few doe calls. I even croaked. All for nothing.

It would have been like standing in the mosh pit at a music festival with thousands of screaming people and then starting to scream yourself. Nobody cares, you simply blended in. The deer were so overstimulated that they just did not respond to anything except actual deer.

Method 3:

What did work was ambush hunting.

The guides and the other hunters had built basic blinds.

Created from slabs of rock on the edge of the leks, they formed a half circle wall between the deer and the hunter.

From there, you simply sat still.

It was almost a modification from Method 1 where I tried scaring every animal off the lek. Then once they had disappeared into the timber below, instead of pursuing the bucks.

I ran down to where the bucks would eventually re-emerge and return to the lek.

Hopefully if I waited patiently enough, they would eventually wander within bow range.

At first it seemed like a waste of time.

It was hours of waiting without any animals emerging from the thick vegetation below.

Then suddenly, you would see movement.

It was bizarre, because the whole time you could hear tens of bucks croaking below you, you simply couldn’t see any signs of life.

Then, the first spiker or younger buck would appear and walk back to the lek.

It was almost habit at that point, plus I’m sure many of the hundreds of deer that ran away from the lek earlier had never seen me, the hunter, they were just reacting to other deer running.

Running from what was a good question, although in Bulgaria, there are many natural predators such as wolves, bears and so on, that I’m sure would scare the deer from time to time.

As soon as one buck returns to the lek and starts croaking again, as if by summons, more and more bucks re-emerge. Rather quickly, the lek forgets about the new rock formation and goes back to the business of rutting.

The Rut In Full Swing

The Last Evening

On the final afternoon of the adventure, I had a choice to make. Stay defiant in place or try something new. My lek had not worked.

There just wasn’t an easy way to get close enough to bucks, due to the sheer size and area available to the deer. Wherever I seemed to position, the animals would orbit antagonisingly close, but just out of range.

The other option was to swap locations.

Jerry, another Australian-based hunter had been hunting a smaller lek, and fortunately managed to take a really nice buck. That left his lek available for the last evening.

It was where I had shot over the buck on the first afternoon, so I decided to go back there.

I arrived early, allowing time to set up the bow and camera and settle in. There were beautiful bucks all around me. I had one right below within fifty metres, running rampant and rutting. The problem was he never stood still long enough. He was worked up, fighting other bucks.

I certainly would have been happy to shoot him, although the grass is greener phenomenon came up again. I spotted a bigger, more impressive buck below. He was quite possibly the largest I had seen throughout the whole trip!

He was around one hundred and fifty metres below, croaking at the head of a timbered gully which ran up to the rutting stand.

The debacle was, I only had a matter of time to make this work, and when the hours got down to minutes I could feel the pressure building.

The truth was, this trip wasn’t cheap, more so, I had happily passed up tens of bucks I could only have ever dreamed of all week and to this point, with less than an hour of life left had nothing to show for it.

This was the point where I stopped messing around.

The buck I had been watching was still there. He was rutting hard!

Croaking and fighting his absolute head off.

At one point he was a mere eight metres from me surrounded by does and rival bucks.

I came to full draw, and as he croaked on the tail end of a hot doe I put the arrow exactly where it needed to be. It was a ten-ringer. I shot about four inches past my camera, and the buck ran down the hill and expired.

It was a buzzer beater buck, taken on the final afternoon on an incredible Bulgarian bowhunting adventure.

What made that moment truly special was the fact that I don’t think my camera stopped filming for those last two hours of the hunt.

I had been focusing on that larger buck down the gully below. Because of that fact, I had been afforded the chance to watch the bucks rutting and fighting within bow range.

The same buck that I eventually heart-shot to conclude the trip.

An Arrow Finds Its Mark

The scene that followed my buck falling is one I will never forget.

He ran downhill from the lek, which meant he might’ve made it two hundred metres from the actual top of the ridge. As the light faded, I was trying to take photos when people began emerging from the rocks. They came from everywhere!

The skinners and butchers had arrived from camp.

They were that eager that I had to politely ask and gesture if they could wait a second so that I could take a photo with the buck!

There were a couple of older men watching and a few younger, fitter men who were the muscle.

The buck was quickly gutted before they pitched it onto a pole like a butterflied lamb on a spit. The team carried it out whole, like a crucifix, and I wish I had got it on film. When I had offered to gut the buck myself or assist in the carry out process, the men were almost offended.

Back at camp it was fully utilised. The venison is shared and distributed amongst the villages who love to eat the meat.

The skull and antlers made it to the boiling pot the next day.

I sat with a man who spoke no English, watching the pot boil. He was enjoying a drink and I enjoyed the company. I would like to think that despite not exchanging a word, we bonded over the experience anyway.

A Costly Conversion - Trophy Assessment

In Europe, fallow buck trophies are measured by the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation. Interestingly, weight of antler is the main factor thats assessed.

The antlers and skull are dried for at least 30 days, the lower jaw is removed, and the rest (skull and antlers) goes on the scales.

In my experience, antler weight and age of animals generally line up well.

On the contrary, antler length isn’t always the best measurement for age.

For example, A thirty inch chital stag with long spindly antlers can be outweighed by a mid twenties inch stag that is eight or nine years old. The same goes for a fallow buck with big palms and long finger like projections. That animal can be a five years old, while a shorter buck with thicker palms reaching in over the front may carry more weight and maturity.

The criteria is as follows:

• Bronze: 3.5 to 4.2 kg
• Silver: 4.3 to 4.8 kg
• Gold: 4.9 kg and over
• Exceptional: 5.5 kg and over

My buck weighed in at 3.46 kilograms and was aged at eight years old.

The wildlife conservation work out that information from assessment of the bucks teeth.

I received a full breakdown from the Republic of Bulgaria’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forests, covering antler lengths, circumferences and weight.

Most interesting to me, my buck was penalised for not having adequate antler width/ span, which in all honesty didn’t bother me one bit.

The scoresheet was presented to em as a formal laminated sheet of paper that I will keep forever.

He certainly wasn’t the prettiest deer as evident by the penalty. plus, he had a couple of snapped off spellers / finger like projections at the back of his palm. Although, for is antler length, he had ridiculous mass, and his palms hooked in over the front and back towards the middle.

Another hunter on this trip, Robbie Austin’s buck was a once in a lifetime deer!

On appearance his looked nearly twice as large and impressive with huge palms and great overall length. Amazingly though, mine weighed a similar amount.

The trophy fee in Bulgaria works on a sliding scale by weight. Similar to their scoring system of weight determining, bronze, silver and gold.

My buck ended up costing nearly twice as much as some of the other hunters bucks which were visually similar.

For context, the Bulgarian record was taken in 1988, weighing 5.9 kilograms and scoring over 230 CIC points. Modern top trophies sit around the 5.5 kilogram mark.

5.5 kilograms of antler atop their heads, make them look more like a moose than a fallow deer. For context, Ben’s archery falls buck buck is in that ballpark.

Bulgaria With Silent Pursuits

Lessons From The Lek

Would I go back?

Absolutely.

whether or not its actually Bulgaria, or maybe another European country such as Hungary or Italy. There’s a desire to experience the rut again. I would love to do it with Ayden so we could film it properly, booking as two hunters and joining each other’s hunt a week apart. Red stags and wild eurasian boars are on offer across much of Europe.

To experience a rut like that again is something I definitely want to do.

For me, it was never just about the buck. It was a combination of the guides, the culture, the food, the lodge and the people. That whole immersive experience is what we love.

Leaving Bulgaria and a international trip of this calibre, I have a few takeaways:

• Shoot your bow. Every time you travel. Check your sight, your rest, retune if needed and ensure you’re confident before you step on a lek.
• Don’t be overly Selective. A mature animal is a mature animal. If you would be happy with it on the last day, shoot it on the first. Have a goal, but keep it flexible. It is about the adventure.
• Find the hot spot and be patient. Ambush hunting works if you identify a lek and sit on it. Stalking would have led to failed stalks and educated animals.
• Bigger isn’t always better. Smaller leks hunted better because you could get closer to the core of the action and spook less deer. You have fewer eyes to contend with and a better chance of a clean shot in the chaos. Realistically, every lek was home to a cracker, dominant buck.
• Respect the culture. The lodge and guides were great to us as bowhunters because Ben had set the tone. He also handpicked a group who respected the place, the people and hunted the right way. Whenever hunting in a foreign landscape adopt the culture and be respectful of traditions.
• Sound like a doe. After living amongst hundreds of fallow does, chirping all around me for hours at a time. I now know there is a huge variety of sounds that come from their mouths during the rut. Being able to take these lessons from Bulgaria and apply them in Australia has transformed my calling abilities and should bring new found successes. Pronouncing between a “ming, ming, ming” or a “mew, mew mew” at different pitches and rhythms works best for me. Then creating a higher pitch and faster rhythm frequency signals urgency to a would be buck.

Silent Pursuits

“Facilitating premium hunting safaris in every corner of the world.
Let us take the guesswork out of living your hunting dreams!”

Ben Salleras pioneered Bulgaria for us Australian bowhunters, and Silent Pursuits is the network he built to help aspiring hunters do the same.

Whether its Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan Bulgaria , Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Ne Zealand, Pakistan, Russia, Spain, Turkey, or somewhere else.

Get in touch, Ben has likely been there and done it personally or has a connection to get the ball rolling.

Especially, If you are thinking about chasing a rutting fallow buck in Europe, this is the place to start. Prices, dates and availability have no doubt changed since our 2019 trip, so get in touch with the team for current details.

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The Adventure Continues

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