Отчеты

That was my fourth attempt to get a trophy of this subspecies of red deer. The previous hunts developed differently. Somewhere there was no deer at all, somewhere the weather made its own adjustments, because the animals turned out to be very weather-dependent and stopped roaring at the slightest change in weather conditions, and somewhere hunting luck turned away from me, although the deer was already practically in sight. That year I hunted at the hunting farm "Malta", the hunting faculty of Irkutsk Agricultural University at the invitation of Yuri Vashukevich and Dmitry Medvedev. I got the trophy early in the morning from a distance of about 400 meters. It happened to be a classic Manchurian deer with five appendages and thin horns. I would like to note that in the same Irkutsk region there are also hybrid maral-izyubrin individuals with more powerful horns.

I hunted on the Verkhoyansky ridge, in the Kobyai district, in the Ildirkei locality. The hunt took place on the height 1600 masl.  The shooting distance was 355m. The used rifle CZ 750 s1 m1 cal 308 win. Thank you Victor Sleptsov and the hunting club “Kyryman” for the organization of this hunt.

In the beginning of October I hunted in Croatia with Ilya Dmitriev. The hunt was organized on the Dugi Otok island. Our goal was to get the trophies of Dalmatin sheep and hybrid Kri-Kri. It wasn’t a hard hunting that took us four hours. The shooting distance for the goat was 376m and 400m for the sheep. I used the rented gun Tikka 300WM. We were lucky with weather. It was +20 with a light wind. Thank you to Gennady Velichko and AYH Safari company for the organization of this nice trip.

There was a heavy fog on the day of arrival. The next day in the morning the fog cleared, it was a sunny windy day. The camp was well equipped, there were good tents with stoves. The first hunting day we went hunting with 3 guides and detected three sheep in the first two kilometers. We could approach 400m. I shot and hit to its right shoulder blade. My mistake was that I didn’t take into account the side wind 5-6 m/s. The bullet went 20 cm to the left.   The ram jumped down and stood, but it was not visible from my position. The second time I shot from the distance 600m but missed. It took us 6 hours to find the wounded animal but at last we got in at the end of the day. It was the late night when we came back to the camp. We went 27 km at that day. Thanks to Alexey Alekseev for the professional service.

Hunting for Kamchatka Snow sheep is always unpredictable. We decided to approach Kamchatka Brown bear while our guides were looking for the snow sheep. The bear we were going to come close was huge. There was just one km left to the bear when the guides interrupted our hunting and advised to change the route and to start sheep hunting. Walking in the mountains was not an easy matter  but we went about 5 km and joined our guides who were watching the group of seven rams. Sheep were not far from us. So, we had short rest and began to approach. We managed to come to 312 m to the group. I shot and got the trophy. It was the worthy one! Thank you very much to people who organized that hunting.

Hunting took place in difficult weather conditions. It was snowing. The group of five turs were detected on the height 3000 masl. I got one of them. It was 8 years old male. The shooting distance was 430m.

The hunting luck smiled us on the third hunting day despite all the problems which followed us that trip. Vladimir Smelov found and could me to approached the group of three males. I chose the best one and shot from the distance 180 m. The sheep fell like a log. We came to the trophy and found that its horns could take one of the record positions in the Record Book.

The difficult of that hunting was in looking for the trophy with the definite characteristics of Hybrid goat. We saw just two animals that require those demands: they had long dark wool, not typical for the Bezoar goats. Unfortunately, the male, I liked, was younger than 7 years old that’s why I chose 8 years old male with a wide, long black beard and long hair on the front and hind legs. The shooting distance was 542 m. Thank you very much to the Stalker group company which organized that environmental protection hunting, the funds from which will not go to maintain the population of these beautiful animals. I thank Vadim Plaksin for accompanying and supporting me in this adventure.

That sheep was recognized by GSCO and  I finally closed the Orvis Super 40 Slam  according to the version of this club when got it.

I bought this hunt at a charity auction, which was held as part of the New Year's Eve party of the Club of Mountain Hunters. The lot was put up by HIGH HANT and Elson Makhmudov. My friends have already had the honor of hunting with Elson and all spoke very kindly about him and his team. The trip took place from October 19 to 22. I was lucky to have sunny and warm weather. The mountains in the Khryug hunting farm, which a few years ago Elson rented as a hunting user, as well as everywhere else in the Caucasus, are difficult and steep. It took a little over three hours to climb from the road to the base camp. The horses helped a lot, for which they are very grateful. Elson made a pretty good base camp in the last season. I was always used to prefer to spend the night in my tent, but in our free time we were going to have tea in a cozy house with pleasure. We had done a reconnaissance on the first evening after our arrival, it became clear that there were a lot of turs there, if not to say too many. We noticed eight separate groups of turs, females and males separately, as it should be during that period of the year. The groups of males were also different, both in age composition and in number. The largest numbered about 50 individuals. In the morning of the next day, we got up to the so-called mobile camp, it took us more than an hour. We rose 3100 masl. To our disappointment, that large group noticed us and began to leave in an organized manner from us, although we had done everything to remain unnoticed. A second group of old males followed her. Perhaps something scared the animals and they began to cross the ridge at the height of 3400 meters. We made an attempt to catch up with them. I shot at the running animals from a distance of 540 meters. I was surprised but the bullet landed a meter above the target. It was the first time when I took a new 6.5 Creed more carbine with a DS2 electronic sight from Swarovski. That shooting complex showed itself perfectly on the plain, but something went wrong in the mountains. I shot confidently but the bullet went higher. A little later, we detected several more groups of turs below to the left of the main peak. We made an attempt to crawl up to them from above, but the animals noticed us from a distance of 800 meters and began to go down the slope. Elson and I rushed down the steep slope in an attempt to catch up with the animals. We had descended 300 meters in height and noticed a group of males leaving far below. I shot from a distance of 560 meters at an angle of 30 degrees, was able to get a 12-year tur. Then a hard climb up followed and return to the camp.        At the end of my brief report, I want to say a few words about the wonderful outfitter and person Makhmudov Elson. You can say as much as you like that the hunting economy of the country and the Laws are in poor condition, you can rely on the lack of development prospects and conditions for this. But there are examples of people like Elson. He rented hunting grounds through an auction just three years ago. He is actively engaged in their development and development, works with the local community of former poachers, forces them to treat the animal world in a new way. He has also formed an excellent team of young guys who got a new opportunity to earn a living in these remote and hard-to-reach areas of Dagestan.  In a relatively short time, Elson has already earned himself respect and authority among many mountain hunters who had the opportunity and luck to hunt with him. A person knows and loves his job and I would like to wish him that all plans are realized, the animal world is under reliable protection, populations develop and multiply, and that there are more such professional outfitters in Dagestan, the Caucasus and Russia as a whole.

It was the second time when I arrived to Dagestan to get the trophy. The weather was awful during all time while I was there. It was raining and there was fog in the mountains. The visibility wasn’t enough to look for the trophy or to shoot, that was the reason why we spent time in our host house waiting for good weather. It changed just for one day and it was enough to get the aim. We had to walk about 15 km through the mountains on foot, climb loose slopes, pass under steep counter slopes, climb waterfalls, cross rocks, cross an incredible number of times a mountain river and return through all of the above in pitch dark with a flash lights and a trophy in my backpack. The outfitter told us that none of the hunts were organized in that gorge for 15 years because of the complexity. I got the trophy of the Dagestan tur. 1) the height was 3000 masl 2) the shooting distance 300m 3) I laid when shot and didn’t use the bipods 4) there was no wind 5) the angle was insignificant 6) cartridge RWS Evolution 300wm. I liked how the guides worked and liked the hunting area. We saw many herds about 100 individuals. The guides said it was normal for that area but I was impressed. Thank you very much to Zaur and Ramazan for their professionalism and personal thanks to the owner of that area Elson and for his hospitality.

The hunt took place in Karachaevo- Cherkessia in Uchkulan district. The weather changed all three days. We saw the sun, rain and snow. The tur were detected on the height 3100 masl. I got Mid Caucasian tur. It was 9 years old male. The shooting distance was 408 m. The carbin Blazer R93 cal. 7mm. Hunting turned out to be quite difficult, taking into account the vagaries of the weather,. Special thanks to Murat and Rashid Borlakov.

I hunted in Macedonia, got a local Cree cree as a credit, as well as a gorgeous sheep and aoudad. The grounds are very beautiful, the huntsmen are well done, there are a lot of animals, the weather is rainy. Organized by Gene Velichko, assisted by Ilya Dmitriev.

The hunt took place in the KChR in the Zelenchug region. I hunted for two days. The first day it was raining, there was a heavy fog, nothing was found. The second day the sun cleared up, they rode horses a lot along the ridges, saw several small herds with females and young animals. In the afternoon, trophy males were found at a distance of 980 meters on the border of the rock and the forest zone. It was possible to imperceptibly approach a distance of 325 meters and make an accurate shot. Fired a 300 caliber Tikka T3 carbine, Nightfoce optics.

An old dream came true - I drove through the Dzungarian Gate! On the second day, two Goats were hunted, 7.5 and 8.5 years old. I would like to express my gratitude to Asien Tour, Stalker Group and Evgeny Kharitonov for organizing and accompanying this hunt.