In March 2022, I firmly decided to visit the annual hunting fair in Madrid for the first time. But I wanted to make the most of my trip to Spain. Augusto Rodriguez Zafra, who organized my hunt in the spring of 2021, has helped me to make up a detailed plan and schedule for that spring trip to his country. Since I didn't have any extra time, the schedule turned out to be very tight, and I hoped that everything would go well, without unpleasant surprises. On March 18, I landed in Madrid, where Augusto met me. I carefully studied in his company all the aspects of the hunting fair that interested me. Then we went by car to Almeria province, and arrived at our hotel six hours later, when it was already dark. First of all, I wanted to get the "South-east Mountain goat". Early in the morning, a local professional guide waited for us at the hotel. He was an elderly gentleman in excellent physical shape, energetic and temperamental, a typical Spaniard. We made a thorough hunting plan together. Since I came to Spain without my own weapon, Augusto provided me with his Blaser R8 rifle, caliber 270 WSM. In one hour’s, drive, we stopped and I took a few control shots. Then we set off on foot and an hour later noticed a group of animals at a distance of 400 meters, including several males suitable for us. The sun was shining brightly, but it was quite windy. So, we decided to approach the animals in a circle, hoping to get as close as possible so that I wouldn't miss from someone else's rifle. We could not get closer to the target than 300 meters despite numerous attempts, because the plateau did not allow us to move stealthily. I fired twice, and both missed, I didn't even really understand the reason. Most likely, I lacked confidence when using someone else's weapon, I didn't hit anyone. After lunch, we moved to the next slope. In an hour later we found a new group of males. It was easier to sneak up on them. We shortened the distance to 200 meters under Augusto's guidance, I made an accurate shot and got a 9-year-old male. In the evening, we celebrated the successful hunt at a local restaurant, and treated delicious food and wonderful wine. I was deprived of such pleasure for almost a whole year. The next morning, we went to the province of Malaga for the "Ronda mountain goat". We arrived at the place in the afternoon, and moved out onto the mountain slopes, but the sun was scorching mercilessly, and there was no wind at all. We saw only females, not a single suitable male. Probably they all were hiding obviously somewhere in the cool shade. In the morning of the next day, the weather changed a lot, it began to rain and a cold wind rose. We changed the place of hunting, and went to the vicinity of Ronda, hoping to find a suitable specimen. There was only a day and a half left before my flight back home, so Augusto asked local hunters to join our expedition, they walked with binoculars along the mountain slopes in search of animals last night . The cold penetrated to the bone, we had to put on all the clothes we had. The weather conditions resembled Kyrgyzstan, not the south of Spain during the ascent. In the first half of the day, we saw only wild boars, but after lunch we detected a group of goats at a distance of about 700 meters, including one suitable male. We approached them cautiously for a long time, eventually reducing the distance to 235 meters. I fired from a very uncomfortable position, but successfully. Result: I got the 8 years trophy of Ronda goat. This trophy allowed me to receive the "Goats of the World" award for getting of 12 animals. The local huntsmen stay in one km from us and watched our approach to the goal through a telescope. The sound of the shot reached them after the fall of the animal. Augusto did a great job. He prepared and accommodated so many hunting events in my tight deadlines and promptly making adjustments as needed, even organized the help of local hunters so that everything went as well as possible for me, his guest. In the evening of the same day, we had a great rest at the local club of professional hunters, shared our impressions about hunting and adventures in different parts of the world.
