When a hunter comes up with the idea to hunt in the mountains, the main thing that he starts to collect information about places, weapons, equipment and ignores completely such things are usually comprehended with experience, sweat, and sometimes blood. I'm speaking about hunting ethics and safety.
A hunter should have an idea of cultural and religious traditions and respect them, and about people, which live in the hunting area. I had never doubted it. And life has never tired to confirme it.
For example, it is not customary among the inhabitants of the Altai Mountains to enter someone else's house (a hunting hut or a shepherd's village) with a weapon. I knew it when traded furs for several dozen seasons there. The guest had to leave it outside. You'll be permitted to bring it inside only after a little chat with the owners. However, It is better not to bring a carbine into the warm part of the house for anticorrosive reasons. In the national dwellings of the Siberian peoples there are conditional partitions dividing the inner part into male (left) and female (right) halves. The place that the hunter should take is to the left of the door. The guest can approach the table or the bonfire burning in the center of the house only after the invitation of the hosts. Most likely, you will be offered a bowl of hot national tea in the Altai house. This is an unusual drink for us, which contains the infusion of black tea, milk, roasted ground barley, salt and butter sometimes. However, you should not refuse it - it will offend the hosts. If you know a few welcome phrases in the local language It'll help you to establish friendly relations.
Ethics is not a form of speech.
The local population evaluates the visiting hunters and is able to create conditions under which the hunt will be unsuccessful, or even you will have to pay for your health in case of a negative attitude towards you. You need to take care of nature, hunting huts, temporary homes of shepherds even when you hunt alone. The place should be left clean after spending the night by the campfire in the forest. You should stack on the stones the firewood harvested, but not useful for a night fire, so that they do not get wet from the ground. If there are large pieces of logs left, they need to be leaned vertically against the nearest tree, putting the butt end up. It is necessary to leave the place of cutting the extracted animal as clean as possible. You should bury unused insides, or at least hide them under the grass. There is a requirement in the culture of some peoples to remove all traces of blood from the ground, grass and fallen leaves. They are collected and burned at the stake or buried.
It is necessary to clean up temporary homes when you leave, regardless of what conditions they were in at the time of your arrival. The more remote the place where you have found shelter, the more useful the firewood, kindling, matches will be there. If you know that you can leave some non-perishable products without compromising your well-being, do it. The locals will define who do it , and the next time you come, you will be a friend to them. By the way, I don't understand still the ability of people who constantly live in nature to understand what was happening in some place in the taiga, if there was no one but you. Therefore, everything that happened to you on the hunt will become common property after your departure.
Some peoples of Siberia have customs that are completely incomprehensible to the townspeople. For example, the Altaians leave a lamb shoulder bone in a prominent place when leave the house (hut or village) for a while. It has to protect the house. If you've spent the night in this shelter, put it shovel in its former place when you leave.
Once I was corresponding with the hunting specialist of the state hunting inspectorate of the Gorno-Altai Autonomous Region, and asked him about the possibility of fishing. He kindly informed me that in the area where I planned to hunt, visiting hunters were usually killed. I had complications with the locals, but I am still sure that the main reason for this is the "firewater" and the behavior of the visitors themselves. Once my closest Altai friend "pleased" me when said that the local men were going to kill me because I ate from the same bowl with my husky. Moreover, it had always really been the case that at first I ate hot food myself, and then I put a little cold on the dog. I washed all the dishes after eating. How they knew about it was absolutely impossible to imagine. My friend gave me a half of a children's rubber ball with a diameter of 15 centimeters and made me promise that the dog would eat from it. Then, he promised to talk to the hunters about the cancellation of the "sentence". In addition, he gave me useful advice not to stay overnight in the cabins near rivers. I followed his advice scrupulously to the rest of that season.
However, then there was a story that corrected my characterization in the eyes of local hunters. One day, I found a stopped mechanical watch with a date indication in the taiga by a strap sticking out of the snow. Later, when I was leaving the forest I asked an unfamiliar hunter, who was passing in those days. The next day I found the hunter who had lost his watch. The locals still remember this return of the clock.
If an unknown hunter came to your camp, offer him food or at least a cup of tea. Ask him if he needs any help, and offer to spend the night in your "apartment". Twenty years ago, I read an inscription made with charcoal on the door of a lonely hut in the Altai Mountains: “ Russian pig”. It wasn't addressed to me. It was the first time, I was there. But I still remember it. At first, I offended by the author of the inscription. But then I realized that that was how we raised one of our children.
If the hunt is collective, there must be a senior in it. He is not a master for everyone else, but an "older brother". All participants in the hunt are brothers, so all the work on the hunt should be shared in a brotherly way, as well as the prey. A company during the hunting is very important. It is a gross violation of ethics to impose yourself as a hunting companion. You should have to behave so that other hunters themselves make you an offer to hunt together. You can't go on a difficult hunt with people you don't know well enough. It is more correct to make several trips to relatively easy hunts beforehand. The behavior of quite nice people can be completely different in difficult conditions. Once, in my youth, I could not refuse a well-known dramatic artist in a joint bear hunt. I had never been on any hunting trip with him at all before that. He was a charming man, and I could not resist. We agreed in advance that I would take the first shot. The bullet hit the bear in the head, but it rushed to us to attack. At that moment, I heard heavy footsteps behind me. I looked back, and I saw how my partner was running away at full speed. I searched for him for twenty minutes when the situation was safely over. He said that he was afraid.
There is another unwritten rule, which must always be observed. You can touch someone else's weapon (rifle, axe, knife) only in case of a threat to the owner's life. You shouldn't request to see a rifle or a sight in the field.
The ethics of mountain hunting has its own characteristics along with the traditionally established norms of hunter behavior. It requires not to shoot animals from a helicopter and not to use it to search for them. It is necessary to exclude shooting beyond the distance of guaranteed destruction of the animal, which must be previously set by each hunter for his weapons and ammunition. The hunter has to refrain from firing shots when it was not possible to accurately aim the beast. In my opinion, the skill of a hunter is not that he can shoot from any position, but that he can resist an unprepared shot. This also makes practical sense. It is very likely that a more successful approach will be possible. Unnecessary shots are unacceptable in the hunting area. The gun's check must be performed away from the hunting area.
The hunter is obliged to do everything possible to use not only the horns, but also all the meat of the hunted animal. Therefore, it is better not to shoot in a situation that does not allow you to get to the trophy in the next 12 hours.
Females and young males are not shot on trophy hunting. Males 7-8 years and older have good horns. It is a matter of honor for the hunter to get it a wounded animal.
Respect for the trophy is an important indicator of the hunter's internal culture. Peoples, whose life the hunting takes an important role, respect for live and harvested animals. Old hunters who live in the Altai Mountains not skin the sable with canonized techniques, and bury it near the hunting camp to the traditional ritual song, "tying" its front and hind legs. It has no sense to instill such an attitude with instructions It is brought up from childhood throughout the whole life in unbroken contact with nature. These traditions are an example of the highest morality, which we, the inhabitants of the "stone jungle" should strive to comprehend, or respect.
In conclusion of this article, it should be said that the correct selection of your equipment indicates the level of hunting ethics, because the hunter relies only on his own strength and is always ready to come to the rescue of a friend, which is necessary in the mountains like nowhere else.
Written by blood.
The main feature of mountain hunting is the difficulty of moving in comparison with the flat terrain. It's hard to say what is easier - to climb or descend. If you think seriously about mountain hunting, then you need to train in walking, and even more effectively - in cross-country running. An average citizen who doesn't play sports needs wo or three years of regular training to bring himself into a more or less decent physical condition. The purpose of these trainings is to increase the functionality of all body systems. Extra kilograms of fat deposits will automatically go away.
The extreme degree of overwork waits for an unprepared person in the mountains. It does not allow not only to move at an acceptable speed, but even to think well in difficult conditions. It is clear that there is nothing to think about accurate shooting in a state close to unconsciousness. Most accidents usually occur against the background of serious physical fatigue. You should always have a one-and-a-half-liter bottle of pure water with you. It is useful to replenish water in a bottle at each mountain stream or river.
Another serious danger is the loss of orientation in an unfamiliar area. The GPS navigator is a reliable prompter, as long as the power source works. Just in case, you should also have the hunting area plan and compass with you. It should be understood that determination of the azimuth in a mountainous area does not help to get to the right point, since it is often impossible to pass through it due to the complexity of the terrain. You should try to remember the way, or take pictures from time to time of the landscape that remains behind you on the way "there".
If there is snow in the mountains in sunglasses are absolutely necessary. The eyes can become so inflamed in sunny weather that you can become completely blind for a day or two.
You need to forbid yourself to move in the mountains at night, except on the road or on a horse trail, and only if you have a flashlight.
It requires extreme caution to overcome mountain slopes covered with snow and especially ice. An alpenstock or a monopod helps well along with special shoes in this situation. Any of these tools helps seriously in mountain walking, it removes part of the load from the legs and shift it to the hands. They are also indispensable helpers when overcoming small mountain rivers and walking on large stones. You should pay special attention to the safety of weapons in addition to saving your own body parts (arms, legs, head and everything else), when passing difficult sections. Most hunting rifles are quite shockproof. They stay safe and don't lose working capacity after unauthorized flights from the rocks. However, a rifle with an optical sight requires a completely different attitude. This is already a subtle product. It is most correct to wear it "backwards" on the stomach in difficult places. It's safer for her that way.
A small sapper shovel is often useful in the mountains, with snowfields on the slopes.
You need to be ready to spend two or three nights and sit for a day or two in the rain while hunting in the mountains. Fortunately, light enough tents and sleeping bags are available today. Once, my friend and I had to put up an old canvas tent with two carabiners in the Kamchatka mountains, and tie the tripwires to the shaft A set of spare warm clothes is also a must-have in a backpack. If you are up to spend two or three days autonomously in the mountains, then you need to take matches (in two separate sealed packages), a light hatchet, a pot with a volume of about one and a half liters, a gasoline or gas primus, a couple of small cans of stew, 200 grams of breadcrumbs, about the same amount of sugar, a chocolate bar and a small pack of tea. A polyurethane foam mat in a waterproof case will be useful too. It is better not to go to the mountains without at least 25 meters of nylon halyard. If you are going to hunt for a week, a month or even more, the set of products should be incomparably wider.
It is necessary to have with you a means of communication (satellite phone and walkie-talkie) during mountain hunting and a pair of flares. Going to the mountains, you should tell your friends (and even better rescuers) the expected route and the time when you plan to return to the locality when going to the mountains.
I won't teach the mountain hunter the general requirements for the safe handling of weapons, since there should not be "beginners" among them, but I emphasize that they must be carried out especially strictly in the mountains. Unfortunately, most of us learn from personal experience and personal mistakes, and no matter what the instructions are written (with blood, with life), we don't follow them. Therefore, it is necessary to start mountain hunting with "light" mountains, so that the inevitable mistakes do not become fatal.
