Vilce hunter recalls his path into hunting as drive-hunt season opens in Jelgava municipality

The driven-hunt season, in which beaters push game toward waiting hunters, began in October in Jelgava municipality, as elsewhere in Latvia. Several long-established hunting groups operate in the municipality's forests. One is the association “Mednieku klubs Lazdas R”, which holds active hunting-rights lease agreements for managing land plots in Vilce and Platone parishes.

Two hunting groups

Kaspars Duge, a resident of Vilce, hunts with two groups. One is “Mednieku klubs Lazdas R” in Vilce parish; the other is the hunting club “Krote” in the Liepāja area. He first joined hunts as a beater alongside his father. The forest and hunting are very important to him, and he has been involved in them for most of his life.

As the article stresses, hunting does not mean only killing animals. A true hunter is described as responsible, caring for the forest and its inhabitants, and going hunting only during the permitted season.

First hunts in childhood

Kaspars recalls that he first went hunting as a child with his father. They started with ducks and other waterfowl. He also took part in driven hunts back in Soviet times, when they went to the forests of Zaļenieki parish. He remembers a hare drive there, when he was about 12 or 14 years old.

At that time cartridges could not simply be bought, so hunting supplies were prepared at home. His father first taught him, and later Kaspars loaded cartridges himself, both for the duck season and for big game.

“What I looked forward to most was the opening of the duck season, which was a special event. Together with my father and other colleagues we rowed a boat and waded through the water – it was such an adventure,” Duge says.

That was how his connection with the countryside and forests began, something a hunter cannot imagine life without.