Some members here know I was headed overseas for a hunt so I decided to share it with all. Here is a little recap of my Russian Western (Kuban) Tur hunt.
I flew to Moscow Russia via New York, then another flight the next day to the Western end of the Caucasus Mts. After over nighting again, an 8 hour jeep ride brought us to the end of a beautiful rugged glacier valley. We set up base camp and went on an evening hunt to stretch our legs. The train was very steep in parts but not so bad if you just took your time and followed the local guide. We did see several groups of Tur but ewes, lambs and young rams on the evening hunt.
That night the other local guide came with horses to use. So the next morning we road 5 hours back into the Northern end of the valley to set up spike camp at an elevation of 8500 ft. The tents we set up next to a mineral lick that the tur used all the time. We were told the older rams almost never come down out of the cliffs to these licks. The guides were surprised when an eight year old ram was there for several minutes.
That evening I went one way with one local guide and Larry, the other hunter, went the other. Larry was the lucky one as he was able to stalk up on a group of 4 to kill a nine year old ram. He was very happy in being able to get his sheep early as he was having knee and ankle problems. I wasn't so lucky and sat for 2 1/2 hours waiting for three rams we found to come down to feed as we didn't have the time to make a stalk on them from behind. Even my guide was doing exercises to stay warm as the temp was down into the 30s.
The next day we went back to find the rams still in the high cliffs. Today we had time! I'm here to tell you this was one of the hardest 3 hours I have ever spent on a stalk. I knew it wasn't going to be easy so I had trained especially hard for the hunt And I am so glad I did. We started around 8700ft ending in me shooting my tur at 10,400ft. The first hour was just climbing but the last part was up through rock shoots, cliffs, sheer drop-offs ect! I've been in a lot of places but this one had my legs shaking several times! Ali, my guide, was great. He would point out a way up through the next stretch of rocks and turn to me with a smile and thumbs up. Like is that OK with me. What was I going to say? He couldn't speak or understand English so I'd give him a thumbs up back and off we'd go.
As soon as we made the top we would edge over to see if we could see the rams. Finally after 70-80 yds Ali jerked his head back quickly indicating right below us. I slid over the the top finding two of the rams making a break up the nearest rock shoot. I easily saw with my eyes the second ram was the bigger of the two so and quickly found him in my crosshairs. 4-5 steps later he turned slightly and I let him have it. At the shot he turned and started side hilling away from us till he tipped over 30-40 yards later. Pictures, caping, quartering and then it started to snow. At least we weren't in a hurry going down because it was absolutely horrible with the snow. The second guide wouldn't even come over to the ram to help. He waited from where I shot from till we made our way to him. I couldn't understand what was being said during the yelling match but I did understand the meaning of pointing a gun in his direction and acting to pull the trigger. With a smile of course.
By the morning there was 8-10 inches of snow. The interpreter woke us up with "get your stuff together. We're getting out of here!" Of course with the extra loads and all the snow we had to lead the horses the 5 hours out to the trail head. Thank God it was 90% down hill.
I was more than happy with the job Phofi Hunt did coordinating every thing for me on this hunt. I couldn't have asked for better local guides, horses, or equipment. Alexey, my interpreter was great and did a super job with all the permits and red tape.
My ram ended up being a great mature 13 year old ram that I couldn't be more proud of. He definitely was worth all the preparation and effort.
Bryan
