The Marco Polo sheep became my first trophy after a long break in hunting. That trip to Kyrgyzstan in 2003 finally awakened a trophy hunter in me. I think that I should tell you why and how it has happened.
I restarted my hunting career in 2001 when my friends from the Moscow Safari Club persuaded me to join them for duck hunting in Vologda. It was natural, that the most conversations at such trips were about hunting, including trophy hunting. Thus, I was gradually "accepting" the idea of hunting animals during those two year while we hunted together. My friends told me about what trophy hunting was, how interesting and exciting it was, what role it played in the conservation and protection of wildlife. I was doubtful until in 2003 I decided to try it myself.
My debut as a trophy hunter took place not somewhere, but in the mountains of the Tien Shan where I hunted Marco Polo. The hunt took place in March, in the mountains in many places there was deep snow and a strong cold (-20 – 25 degrees). We could managed to drive to the hunting base but all other movements were by horses only. The guides and all the staff of the camp spoke Russian and there was no feeling that it was another country. Thanks to the freedom of communication with the locals I fully realized that without trophy hunting, the sheep could disappear there, and not "sometime in the distant future", but quite quickly. I saw the slopes, strewn with the bones of sheep slaughtered by wolves in some places. The guides said that in snowy winters, the wolves destroyed entire herds of females with young lambs at once. The sheep were shot "for meat" by everyone who was not lazy – both shepherds, and just locals, plus people from authority and border guards… The last ones, according to the stories, harvested Marco Polo by trucks – not at all shy about using automatic weapons for this purpose. There wasn't any control over the situation. The number of Marco Polo was rapidly declining until European and American hunters came there, with their big money, .
Everything changed when people suddenly realized that sheep could be not only a large piece of free meat, but a constant source of a very considerable income. They began to protect sheep that became, if not the main, but a very significant economic base of the region. First of all, poaching was dealt with – the most skilled and smart poachers from the locals became guides in the new hunting farms, the administrative resource that was interested in new possibilities helped to deal with the rest and to resolve that problem. Then they started the program aimed to protect sheep from wolves, took biotechnical measures. From that time thank to those programs they began to remove from nature not hundreds of heads of young animals and females, but a much smaller number of males who have already passed the peak of reproductive activity. The result was a rapid, just in a few years, the restoration of the number of Marco Polo sheep to such limits that wasn’t possible to dream of before the organization of trophy hunting here.
However, we were not destined to see the numerous herds of Marco Polo. The snowy winter forced the sheep to take shelter in the places, where we couldn’t access to even on horseback due to the high snow cover. We saw only small groups of ewes with lambs during the first few days of hunting, the rams were disappearing from the view when we tried to approach – it was very difficult to get closer to them than a kilometer. The huntsmen explained that after a difficult winter and at the end of the hunting season, the animals were very careful. Any point moving against the background of snow-covered slopes was either a wolf or a man with a weapon for them. Our hunting didn’t promise to be an easy matter.
We rode horses about 12-14 hours each day, left the camp early morning when it was dark and came back when it was already dark. Thank God, I was very lucky with a horse on that very first trophy hunt of mine. The horses were very hardy there-otherwise it would be difficult to imagine how that trip could have ended. We traveled around significant areas of mountain valleys, slopes and couloirs every day. It was complicated to move on foot because of snow, so we walked a little. Usually, we stopped in places with the best view and for a long time, we could spend hours there, searched the landscape with binoculars and high-magnification telescopes. It was not an easy task to detect the trophy size sheep before they found us, from a one km distance or even more. The color of Marco Polo is very light, almost white, only the withers and shoulder blades are darker, it was not easy to see it against the background of snow even to a trained eye.
On the six day we were lucky to detect the group of five trophy size males. They were in 1,5 km from us. The guides, with whom I was also very lucky on that trip – he was really a professional said: “That’s all! We’ll approach them!” We didn't go directly to the sheep, but began to go around secretly though were far. The guide outlined a plan of action – we had to go around them in a large arc, hiding from the sheep behind the terrain, eventually climb a little higher than them and to approach the shot distance.
We made our way along the valleys and gorges for a long time, even the horses were stuck in the snow up to their bellies in some places. We had to make stops from time to time so that the guide could climb a little higher and monitored the terrain. We had followed the tracks of the sheep for 500 meters. The herd had to be close to us according to our calculations. We thought that they were behind the nearest slope, and left the horses and went on foot. We could hardly to go the snow was ... almost waist-deep! It was necessary to crawl a hundred meters to the nearest ridge, where we should have to see sheep as my companion believed. We looked over the ridge taking all caution, – but there were no rams! The only way out was to crawl to the next ridge – another 200 meters. But there were not sheep too! It was already difficult to return for the horses, and it was risky: the plateau was quite flat, and the rider on the horse could be seen from afar. At last we figured out that the sheep were pasturing not far from the place where we were, crossed 600 m more and found the group behind the next ridge! I quickly measured the distance with a rangefinder – 320 meters, but the herd didn’t stand on the place, they were constantly moving, and it was unclear whether they were already worried about something, or just going somewhere. I didn't have much time – I quickly took off my backpack and put it in front of me, put the carbine on it… while the guide was determining which sheep suited me more in the trophy plan. I aimed and shot... And I couldn’t understand what happened! There was nothing except dust, earth before my eyes, nothing was immediately visible: it turned out that I was in a hurry after climbing to the top of a hill, and did not notice how I directed the barrel of the carbine below the surface of the earth! The bullet struck the stones just before the muzzle, rose a column of dust and went nowhere. The males froze for a couple of seconds and ran, but I could to shot once again from the knee and got my very first trophy! I shot at such distances quite confidently from my new carbine .300 Win.Mag.
There were no limits to joy and happiness – the hunt turned out to be really difficult, and not at all the kind that newly-made trophy hunters usually started in Namibia or South Africa. There was everything – the majestic snow-capped Central Asian mountains, and the risk to fall off or to initiate an avalanche, and a difficult approach to an over-cautious animal, and the first shot into the ground that almost ruined everything, and the final chord in the form of the trophy! As I realized later, that first mountain hunt could well not be successful for another reason: I didn't have time at all to prepare for it physically. Fortunately, it turned out on the place that I could tolerate height quite easily, and most importantly-considerable loads at altitude. I heard lots of stories when we sat at the table in the camp that "last year an American had to be urgently evacuated, "or that" just recently, some almost athlete-climber died right in the camp.” My friend was able to go hunting only on the first day, in the evening he became unwell, so that he stayed in the camp the next morning and the next day-again, and on the fourth day he was so bad that he had to be urgently evacuated and sent by plane to Moscow. I didn't have much time to think that the mountains are not a joke!
