The Red Stag Roar: What It Is and How to Hunt It
The red stag roar is the mating call of a mature red deer stag: a deep, guttural bellow he uses to announce his size, gather hinds and challenge rival stags. In Argentina it is called la Brama. It happens in the austral fall, from mid-March to mid-April, and it is when hunters locate stags by ear.
The roar is the voice of the red stag rut, and the roar hunt is the most sought-after way of red stag hunting in Argentina. This guide covers what the roar is, why stags do it, what it tells you about the animal and how a free-range roar hunt unfolds.
What the Red Stag Roar Sounds Like
A red stag roar is low, hoarse and guttural. The stag lays his head back, stretches his neck and lets out a long bellow that often ends in a string of shorter grunts. Stags roar in series, and on a still morning the sound carries a long way.
The roar is produced in an unusual way. Research by W. Tecumseh Fitch and David Reby, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B in 2001, showed that a red deer stag pulls his larynx down toward his chest as he roars. That lengthens the vocal tract, lowers the resonances of the call and makes him sound bigger.
If you have hunted elk, the contrast is the first thing you notice: a bugle is a whistle that ends in a scream, while a roar is a lion.
Why Red Stags Roar
The roar is a system for settling contests without fighting.
The classic research, by Tim Clutton-Brock and Steve Albon on the red deer of the Isle of Rum, in Scotland, showed in 1979 that stags use roaring contests to assess each other's fighting ability when there is no obvious difference in size. A companion study, "The logical stag", found that up to 6 percent of rutting stags are permanently injured each year, and that stags avoid fights they are unlikely to win.
So a rival approaches a harem holder and the two roar at each other. If one is clearly outmatched, he leaves. If they are evenly matched, they walk side by side in a parallel walk, and only when neither backs down do they lock antlers. The roar is the first round of that contest, and most contests never get past it.
What the Roar Tells a Hunter About the Stag
A roaring stag gives away more than his position. Reby and Karen McComb analyzed a large set of roars from free-ranging stags and found that the resonances of the roar, the formants, are a reliable indicator of the caller's body size and age, because a bigger stag has a longer vocal tract. The study appeared in Animal Behaviour in 2003. A playback experiment in Proceedings of the Royal Society B in 2005 showed that stags act on it: when they heard a roar that sounded like a larger animal, they paid attention longer, roared back more and stretched their own vocal tracts further.
For the hunter, that means three things:
The deeper the voice, the bigger the body. A low, hoarse roar with a heavy, rolling finish usually belongs to a mature stag. A thinner, shorter roar is often a younger animal or a satellite stag.
Cadence tells you his status. A stag that roars steadily, answers every challenge and keeps roaring while he herds hinds is almost always a harem holder.
A stag that answers can be worked. Because stags respond to a bigger-sounding rival, a roaring stag can sometimes be pulled toward the hunter.
The roar tells your guide which stag is worth the walk. The glass tells you whether to take him.
The Three Phases of the Roar in Argentina
The rut in Argentina comes in the austral fall. It builds through the second half of March, peaks between the last week of March and the second week of April and tapers toward the end of April. In the Andes the useful hunting season is March and April, which lines up with the roar. For the month-by-month calendar, see our guide to the best time to hunt red stag in Argentina.
Phase | Approximate window in Argentina | What the stag does | What you hear | How we hunt it |
Build-up | Second half of March | Mature stags leave the bachelor groups, thrash brush, wallow and start gathering hinds | Scattered roars at dawn and dusk | Listening points at first light, scouting where the hinds are |
Peak | Last week of March to second week of April | Harems are formed. Stags roar, herd hinds, chase off satellites and barely feed | Roaring at dawn and dusk, and on cold, still mornings through the day | Locate by ear before light, pick a stag by his voice, stalk with the wind, call only when the guide judges he will answer |
Taper | Mid to late April | Hinds are bred. The big stags go quiet and feed again; younger stags keep roaring | Fewer and shorter roars, mostly from younger animals | More glassing and less listening, on the edges of cover at dawn and dusk |
Exact timing shifts a week or so with the weather, so a roar hunt is planned around a block of days rather than a single date. Our month by month guide covers each part of the season.
What Happens to the Stag During the Rut
The rut transforms a red stag. His neck swells, his mane darkens and thickens, and he spends hours wallowing in mud and thrashing brush. He also eats very little, because his days go to roaring, herding hinds and chasing rivals. A study of more than 4,000 hunter-taken red deer in Slovenia, published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution in 2020, found that stags lost on average 19.5 percent of their body mass during the rut and had not regained it by the end of the year.
That is why the roar is the window in which a mature stag is most exposed to a careful hunter: he is loud, moving and distracted. For the animal itself, from body size to antlers and meat, read our guide on what a red stag is.
How We Hunt a Roaring Stag
Here is how a free-range roar hunt works with us.
Before first light. We drive or walk to a listening point with a wide reach of ground downwind, and we wait. Your guide is not just counting stags. He is placing them, judging which voices belong to mature animals and which can be approached with the wind in our favor. The loudest is not always the best: a deep, steady roarer on the edge of open ground is a better bet than a bigger-sounding stag buried in thick calden with the wind wrong.
Closing the distance. We move in on foot, always working the wind. A roaring stag is easier to approach than a silent one: he keeps telling you where he is, and his attention is on his hinds. The hinds are the problem: a harem holder may have a dozen or more around him, and every one is a set of eyes, ears and nostrils that will blow the stalk long before the stag notices anything. Satellite stags cross the path of a stalk too, and a young stag that catches your wind often takes the whole group with him.
Calling, and not calling. Your guide can answer a stag with a challenge roar. A mature harem holder that is already fired up will often come looking for the rival, and that can pull him out of cover. It is the same logic as bugling at a bull elk. But calling is a judgment call. Sometimes a call only makes the stag hang up and roar from cover, or a satellite answers first. Often the better play is to stay quiet, keep the wind and let the stag's own routine bring him into an opening.
When the wind turns. It does, most days, as the ground warms mid-morning. That is the moment to back out and set up again on the other side, or let that stag go and listen for another. During the peak there is usually another.
The shot. It usually comes when the stag steps into an opening, often closer than you expect in the calden woods and at longer range in the mountains. Midday is for lunch and rest at the lodge, and the last two hours of light are often the most productive, as the stags fire up again. Most hunters plan four to five hunting days for a roar hunt, which leaves room to be selective. The details of each program are on our page on red stag hunting in Argentina, and our complete red stag guide covers the rest of the trip, from documents to bringing your rifle.
The Roar in the Calden Woods and in the Mountains
We hunt the roar in two landscapes, and it sounds different in each.
La Pampa, North Patagonia. Our own ranches are here: La Gitana Ranch, with more than 60,000 acres of free-range land, and Pampas Ranch, with more than 30,000. The calden is a native hardwood forest with open plains between the woods, and at the peak it becomes an amphitheater: you hear stags close, often all around you, and you see them late, when they step out of the trees. The ground is flat to gently rolling, the fall weather is mild, and it is the roar hunt that asks the least of your legs.
The Andes. Andes Ranch covers more than 120,000 acres of free-range mountain country near Bariloche, and the roar is its season: March and April. Here the sound carries down the valleys: you hear a stag long before you reach him, and the stalk can take hours on foot or on horseback. Shots run from 100 to 500 yards.
Both are Patagonia, both are free range and both are hunted spot and stalk, one guide per hunter, as we have done since 2002.
Bowhunting During the Roar
The roar is the best window of the year for archery, because a stag focused on hinds and rivals lets you get closer than at any other time. Every big game species we hunt in Argentina can be taken with rifle or bow, and roar hunts for archers are built around close-range stalks and blinds. Our bowhunting in Argentina page has more.
If You Have Hunted the Elk Bugle
If you have chased bugling bulls in September, you already know half of this hunt: locating by ear, picking a bull by his voice, working the wind through the cows, calling to fire him up. What changes is the sound, the animal and the calendar. The elk rut peaks in September and October; the red stag roar in Argentina peaks in late March and early April, so you can hunt both ruts in the same year. For the full comparison, read our note on the red stag roar vs. elk bugle.
What Our Hunters Say
Clayton, a hunter from the United States, hunted the roar with us at Pampas Ranch in April 2024 and wrote this on BookYourHunt:
"I was taken care of once I got off the plane. The staff and accommodations were exceptional. My guide was very knowledgeable of the hunting area and animals. I heard free range red stags roaring everyday. I would definitely recommend Heritage Outdoors."
Mark, also from the United States, hunted with us in March 2026:
"The roar hunting was an unmatched experience. The outfitter was very hospitable, organized, experienced, and flexible. Fair on the final bill."
You can read more verified reviews from our hunters.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the red stag roar?
The red stag roar is the rutting call of a male red deer. It is a deep, hoarse bellow, usually given in series, that a stag uses to advertise his size and condition, hold his hinds together and warn off rival stags. In Argentina the roar is called la Brama and it happens in March and April.
What does a red stag roar sound like?
Deep, hoarse and guttural, closer to a lion than to a bull elk. A stag lays his head back, pulls his larynx down toward his chest and lets out a long bellow, often followed by shorter grunts.
Why do red stags roar?
Stags roar to gather and hold hinds and to size up rivals without fighting. Research on wild red deer shows that the resonances of the roar reveal the caller's body size, and that stags roar more and stretch the vocal tract further when they hear a bigger-sounding rival. A roaring contest usually settles the matter, and a fight is the last resort.
When is the red stag roar in Argentina?
In Argentina the roar comes in the austral fall. It builds in the second half of March, peaks from the last week of March to the second week of April and tapers toward the end of April. In the Andes the useful hunting season is March and April, which lines up with the roar.
How long does the roar last?
About four to five weeks in total, with roughly two to three weeks of peak activity in which mature stags roar at dawn and dusk and, on cold mornings, through the day. The exact window shifts a week or so with the weather, so we plan a roar hunt around several days rather than a fixed date.
Can you call in a roaring red stag?
Yes. During the roar your guide can answer a stag with a challenge roar to fire him up and pull him out of cover toward you, in the same way elk hunters bugle at a bull. It works best on a mature harem holder that is already worked up. Calling is a judgment call, and sometimes the better play is to stay quiet and stalk.
Is the roar the best time to hunt red stag with a bow?
Yes. The roar is the best window for archery, because a stag focused on hinds and rivals lets you get closer than at any other time of the year. Every big game species we hunt can be taken with rifle or bow.
Is the red stag roar the same as the elk rut?
It is the same kind of event, the fall breeding season of a close relative, but it happens in the opposite half of the year. The elk rut peaks in September and October in North America. The red stag roar in Argentina peaks in late March and early April, so you can hunt both in the same year.
Plan Your Roar Hunt
Every trip is built to measure around your dates, days and species. Learn more about red stag hunting in Argentina with us, or contact us and you will be talking to the owners.
