Отчеты

I hunted for a Konya mouflon. It was the easy hunting and I was not tired at all. It took us just one hour. I shot to the running aim from 170 meters. My trophy was 8 years old male.

At the end of the hunting season my friend invited me for a hunt in Chechnya. The weather was fine and everything was great. We went to the gorge where detected the group of turs. I and my friend got two nice trophies with horns more than 100cm. My trophy’s horns are 104-105 cm!

I'd been planning to hunt for a long time for a second subspecies of ibex, habited in the Gissaro - Alai mountains of Tajikistan. They are located to the north-east from Dushanbe and separate Tajikistan from Kyrgyzstan. The hunt was organized not far from the town Jirgatal in 280km from Dushanbe. It took us about 4 hours’ drive. The hunter Nasridin Musoev and his son Sharofidin met us there. We accommodated in the home of his elder daughter. We didn’t have much time, as always. There was just one day of good weather and the forecast promised snow in a day. On Thursday at 7.30 am we left the house and moved to the gorge of the Tandykul river where we expected to find ibexes. A heavy snowfall had happened in the mountains in a day before our arrival. It modified the animals’ behavior and the hunting process. The mountains at that area were really steep more than 3000 m high, we could see lots of signs of snow avalanches. The animals prefer to stay in less snow-covered places where they can feed and there is not risk of avalanches. We went about 5-6 km along the gorge monitoring the slopes and looking for ibexes. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any ones except females. Nasridin told us that the ibex population wasn't high there because of the poacher's pressure. Coming back, we examined the gorge where the groups of ibexes with two good size males were detected few days ago. We were able to detect them in a deep and difficult-to-reach area. The day wore along, and the second one didn’t bode anything good. That's why we decided to climb and to hunt. Probably it was one of the most difficult and dangerous climbing in my life. Deep snow, steep slopes and tracks of snow avalanches made the ascend so dangerous. We were almost biting into the rocks in several places not to fall down into the snow abyss. There I understood, why all local hunters wore the rubber boots which almost flew around the rocks and provided the best grip on the surface. My mountains boots slid and didn't provide high-quality grip on the stones. The temperature, about -10 degrees added extreme to that adventure. It took us more than 2,5 hours to climb from 2200 m to 2700m. We reached the rock which separated one part of the gorge from another one where the ibexes could be. There was not another variant to approach animals, a deep canyon split us. The guides detected the group of females and two males. The shooting distance was 645 meters. One male stood at full height and sideways, what allowed me to make a good shot while I could see only the breast of the second one. I resolved to fire though my position wasn’t comfortable. There were no other variants because we knew about coming snowfall and my chances to find the new trophy was very low. I hit the ibex by the first shot and it fell down into the deep abyss after flying not less than hundred meters. Telling the truth, I didn’t believe that we’d pull it out but Sharofidin and his assistant assured me that they could descend to the bottom of the canyon. We had nothing to do but to go down and it wasn’t an easy matter.

Once again, I hunted with Yuri Matisson on Pamir. At last we had happened to reached the Belangrik gorge where the river with the same name flowed. It was a real Lost World. There was nothing except wild animals and high mountains. I spent few days in the Base camp, located on the height 4000 masl. That time I needed for acclimatization. Then we should hike 20 km more to the next mobile camp and to go for hunting from there. My goal was to get the trophy with horns not less than 120cm. After 7 hours hiking, we accommodated in the second camp. Nasreddin Musaev- the 71 years old hunter, who worked with Yuri for many years, met us there. After that hunt I was going to go with him to Jirgatal and to hunt for a Gissaro-Alai ibex.   I accommodated in a single tent. The temperature at night was about -15o C. The weather in the afternoon was sunny and windless. Nasreddin told us that monitored the group of ibexes, led by the old male, with 130cm horns. But animals crossed the ridge and moved to the next valley just above our arrival. We followed them. Our group rose the upper ground 4400 m and spotted a big group of ibexes. There were not less than 50 individuals. They all were different ages including the big ones. We shared into two groups. And the smallest one began to approach the herd. The wind blew into our backs what was not good. It took us a couple of hours to cover 5km distance. We managed to crawl up being invisible to 550 meters. Ibexes laid down to have rest but were on their guard. We spied the biggest male, in the center of the group but it was closed by other animals. Suddenly they smelled us and ran to the mountains all together. It was impossible to fire because the needed male was constantly covered by others. And in a split second I caught it in the crosshairs and shot. The shooting distance was about 600 meters. I got it. Then we rose to the place where it laid. It happened on the height 4800 masl. The traditional photo session. The length of the one horn was 128cm and the second one was shorter because of the broken tip. That day we hiked 20km and crossed twice the ridge of 4400 m high. It was dark when we came back tired but happy.

I decided to close my hunting season 2020 in Kyrgyzstan in spite of the revolution and CoronaVirus Pandemic. At the end of November Vladimir Smelov (LLC Safari-Valmir) and I left St. Pete and flew to Bishkek. Next day, November 27 we arrived to the hunting base, which belonged to MK-Travel and was located in Jety-Oguz district of Issyk-Kul region. The beginning of the first hunting day was nice. We detected three groups of argali but there were not worthy trophies in them. I likes one of them but the guide said me that it has a broken horn. We went on our searching. The good size ibex was spotted on one of the tops. We admired the size of its horns and how they curved. Ruslan, my guide, suggested not to approach it but to find the argali. The storm wind began when we were climbing. Its speed was about 20 m/sec and it was even knocking the horses down. I couldn’t see the guide who was in 5 meters from me because of blizzard. But Ruslan went on to look for a trophy. He did his best but weather didn’t allow us to continue hunting and we had to come back to the camp. Next morning, we left the camp when it was still dark. At the sunrise our group ascended the plateau where we detected three groups of animals. Ruslan distinguished a trophy size male in one from them. It was busy chasing away the other males from the group of females. We decided to come close. At the same time, we noticed that the next group of animals was excited by something. We saw how nine wolves were moving to the herd, ready to attack argali. The distance to the wolves was about 1200 meters and we couldn’t prevent predators to do what they were going. Thus we had no choice but to go on to approach our group. The open areas didn’t allow to come closer than 335 meters. The biggest male laid down to have rest in the center of the herd after the fight with other males. I had the opportunity to measure the wind speed which was from 8 to 11 m/sec with gusts to 13 m/sec and to take breath. The male gave me chance to concentrate on the shot but then paid attention to the female which passed near it. A shot rang out and the herd moved fast to the hills. They ran about 100 meters when the male fell behind the herd and fall down like a log. Later we found that the bullet came through the body and got stuck in the heart. We all were happy when came to the trophy. It was a worthy 13 years old male, with nice horns. The hunting God tested us at the first day and then awarded us by that trophy. Thank you very much to all our team members for the opportunity to take part in that adventure.

Российский Супер Кубок

Russian Super Slam

I've got my trophy in the first hunting day. The shooting distance was 320 m, the altitude 1600 masl. Complex transport scheme.

I hunted for the Bezoar Ibex and chamois in Turkey. Hunting for chamois was tough. We didn’t hunt two days because of bad weather and zero visibility. Snow fell earlier than usual. But on the fourth day Lord of the Hunt had mercy on me and I got 11 years old male by the first shot. The shooting distance was 560 m. Hunting for the goat was easy as I expected. I took it in the fist hunting day. My trophy was 8 years old male. Thank you to Ilya Dmitriev for the hunt organization, his support during the trip and the assistance in aiming.

From 2018 hunting in Chechnay is opened once again. The Minister of the Natural resources of Chechnay  Said-Magomed Temirkhanova and a famous hunter Shirvani Khizrieva invited me for hunting. At the end of November, I arrived to Grozny.  The hunt was organized in Sharoy district on the border with Georgia. The Caucasus mountains tested hunters for strength as always. The animal’s population density is high there. We saw group of animals in each gorge which inspected during the hunt. That area is the habitat for the Caucasus Brown bear and Caucasian Chamois and Bezoar ibex, listed in the Regional and Federal Red Book of rare species. We climbed 2750 m and approached the animals from above. I shot from 480 m and wounded the male. The second shot form 280 m finished what I started.