JAGDcast #194: Jungjäger Julius, Teil 2

Julius, a Jungjäger in training in Kiel, is six and a half months into his Jagdschein course with the Kreisjägerschaft. The program runs three to four evenings a week plus weekend shooting, and he describes the current phase as the most intense. Of the 35 who started, 29 remain. The dropouts, he suspects, were mostly due to time constraints—not a lack of interest, but the sheer impossibility of fitting the schedule around a full-time job or family. Julius himself works full-time and relies on his wife's support to keep going. The course covers the standard subjects—hunting law, weapons, game species, diseases, meat handling, forestry—plus extras like trapping seminars and tracking exercises. The shooting component includes both shotgun and rifle. He estimates the total cost of the license at roughly 1,500 to 2,000 euros, though that figure excludes the much larger expense of outfitting oneself afterward: a gun safe, at least one rifle and one shotgun, and weatherproof clothing. He notes that the Kreisjägerschaft option is far cheaper than a Jagdschule (which can run 3,000 euros for an all-inclusive intensive course), but he believes the longer, slower pace of the part-time course leads to deeper retention. "I think a bit of that is true," he says, contrasting it with the "Jagdschein in nine days" ads he sees on Instagram, which he suspects only teach to the test.