broken brow tine and scored only 266 DS, which Alain regarded as poor. However, 46 years later, in 2014, Alain secured a better red stag in the Gisborne region, which scored just under 305 and was placed third in the NZDA national competitions.
Securing any trophy of record class ranks highly, but naturally Alain has his favourites. He ranks his fallow buck as the most memorable, if only because it took him so long.“ A good fallow must have large, even palms on each side and guard tines at the bottom rear of the blades – which must have 10 or more welldefined points on each side,” he explains.
Finding such an animal set Alain a real challenge. He was much helped by Russ Mitchell and former NZDA national president Howard Egan, who suggested he contact forestry worker Martin Marshall at Beaumont, near the Blue Mountains. But even after Martin provided plenty of advice and Alain repeatedly hunted the Blue Mountains and Lake Wakatipu herds, year after year saw no success in seeing let alone shooting a top-quality trophy.
Alain managed to down a big buck but it did not quite make the record book. Then he found an isolated area which held just three bucks. After long deliberation, he decided to cull a big buck as it was likely infertile since several hinds over successive years had not produced fawns. It made 199 DS – one scorepoint short of record-book status. The quest still was not fulfilled.
Over the following seasons he watched the two remaining bucks mature. About seven years later, the herd had increased to 22. Refraining from shooting, Alain was concerned that poachers might take the
Alain’ s fine fallow buck was secured after many years spent searching to find a trophy up to his high standard
Three of Alain’ s trophies. From left: whitetail, wapiti and rusa. This particular wapiti was not his Grand Slam one, but was shot in the US and measured about 380.
NZ Hunting & Wildlife 196- Autumn 2017 29