In mid-August, I hunted the Kharaulakh snowy in the Bulunsky ulus of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the hunting grounds of the Primorsky Municipal Unitary Enterprise. The hunting was organized by the hunting club "Osikat". The hunting grounds were reached by a comfortable all-terrain vehicle from the village of Tiksi. The journey time took a day. The first days of hunting there was rain, fog. On the third day, I got a ram of 8 years from a distance of 430 m. with a crosswind in gusts up to 10 m/s. Nikita Protodyakonov, the guide, accompanied him on the hunt.
In early August of this year, I made a trip to Yakutia. The purpose of the trip was hunting, and acquaintance with a new region of Russia. I was very pleased with the trip, and got a lot of impressions. I even liked a long trip by car through two ferries crossing two rivers the Lena and Aldan rivers. Then we spent the night on an airboat to the base, where I got a good trophy of Yakut snow sheep. I shot with a caliber of 300mm by 170 meters. After the rest we transfered to the Okhotsk district of the Khabarovsk Territory, where I also managed to get a beautiful trophy of the Okhotsk snow sheep. I also shot at 167 meters with the same caliber. Lots of impressions. The weather was happily stable.
The long-awaited hunt for a snow sheep took place in Kamchatka. 30.07.2022 we arrived in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsk. At the airport, my brother, my nephew and I were met by a representative of the organizer Elena Alekseevna and moved by car to Milkovo. The next day, on a tank tracked all-terrain vehicle, we reached a comfortable base camp, where we were met by guides who had arrived at the camp in advance.After a breakfast that consitsted of caviar, my guide Sergey and I moved to the upper camp. The climb was about 5-6 km, the altitude difference is 300 -400 meters. We got into the rain while walking and soaked to the skin. But there was a cabin with a stove waiting for us upstairs. We were lucky with the weather, and stayed only one day in the cabin because of the rain. Weather was wonderful clear and warm the rest of the days . On the third day of hunting, my guide Sergey and I found 5 grazing sheep. We determined the approach method and trophy qualities, then the guide stayed in place and watched them, while I went down to the stream and approach a pre-determined place for shooting. After taking all the necessary measurements and adjusting the optics, I waited 30 minutes for my trophy to stand up so that it would be easier to shoot. But the fog began to descend and I decided to shoot. The shooting distance was 417 meters, the angle was 12 degrees up. Three shots, three hits. The trophy was taken. I want to note the coherence of work and focus on the result of the team of Asacha LLC! I would like to thank the guide Sergei Nekrasov for his professional work, Elena Alekseevna for her mood and excellent gastronomical delights, and the whole team for a job well done! I recommend an organizer for hunting Kamchatka snow sheep!
That hunt took place thanks to the victory in a charity auction held at the New Year's Eve party organized by the CMH in December 2021. I called the organizer of the hunt and agreed that there would be 2 hunters (me and my brother), as well as my eldest son as an escort, we flew to Petropavlovsk–Kamchatsky on 30.07.2022. Upon arrival, we were met, and relocated to Milkovo in a comfortable and large car. Unfortunately, in just a few weeks before our arrival a helicopter, on which we had to get to the hunting grounds crashed. So, we got to the hunting site on a tracked ATV. Since, it was raining and it was cloudy, we did not waste time waiting for the "flying" weather. I felt that I was getting sick even flying out of Moscow. But I hoped for my immunity and a first aid kit. That condition had greatly complicated the conditions, but didn't postpone the hunt?! Then every morning when I woke up, I tried to figure out if I was better or worse than yesterday? If I decided that it was not very much worse, we began searching for the coveted trophy. The base camp was equipped with wooden houses with stoves, a separate kitchen tent and other amenities necessary for a comfortable stay of hunters. My brother left the camp in the first evening and moved to the upper camp, from which he had to hunt, in the rain. We decided that we would go exploring to another hunting place the very next day. The two upper camps are also equipped with cabins with a stove. One camp was 5 km from the base, the second is 3 km away. I won't talk about the nature of Kamchatka, endless meetings with bears, binoculars for hours , walking 10-15 km a day in search of sheep, etc., etc. I will only say that my brother got a trophy on the 3rd day of hunting. My son and I moved to his camp on the same day. We decided not to take binoculars, a rangefinder, some clothes, in order to lighten the backpack and since all this was already in the upper camp. Which was absolutely impossible to do, as it turned out later. But I’d tell about it later. I want to pay attention on the "focus" of the whole team on the result. When we went down to the base camp at 14.00 Elena Alekseevna informed us that the first team had finished already and offered to go to them right away and she would be with us. She replied to all the statements that we would not have time to go down before dark, or that 6 people could not be accommodated in the house, etc. Her answer was clear and capacious, like a shot: “Will take a tent. We mustn't wait. It was impossible to argue with a woman, and at 4 pm after lunch and a short rest we moved to the upper camp. It took us 3 hours to approached the camp already in the barely approaching twilight. We crossed 350 meters in height and 5 km through the "willows", "cedar elfin Kamchatka rhododendron, streams and a river. And at the very end we saw a ram that was walking slowly down the slope and grazing grass. And how I swore myself for not taking a rangefinder. The opinions of the participants of the hike diverged when we discussed how many meters, what angle. It was decided to get through the cedar elfin to the cabin and bring a rangefinder. It was done, only the sheep disappeared behind the slope. I ran 500 meters, but the ram was already gone. Bears were to blame for everything, there was a bear with a bear cub and another bear 300-500 meters away. I can describe that evening by two words disappointment and hope. The next morning, we moved to the place of trophy extraction by my brother. Unfortunately, the sheep disappeared from that gorge. Although, according to our guide Sergei, they continued to graze for a long time, not paying much attention to the hunters. Perhaps the bear frightened the sheep, or they just crossed the pass and left in search of new pastures. Six hunting days passed. The altitude sets were 1-1.5 t. meters every day, taking into account descents and ascents. We walked from 5 to 15 km per day and at last we were lucky. We were following Sergei, who came off ahead. We agreed that we would let each other know by radio if we meet sheep. As usual, at the most inopportune moment, the radio "died". We detected two sheep about 700-800 meters on the very crest that looked in our direction, we sat down and hoped that the rams would go in our direction. And so it happened, they hid behind the ridge and walked 300 meters back to our side. I waited for the sheep to approach 545 meters then chose one of them and decided to shoot, since there were only 2 days of hunting left in reserve, and that was not a zoo. The first shot was a miss, the position was not very comfortable. It should be noted that the beast was not frightened. Sheep did not pay much attention to the shots and continued to feed and slowly shift along the other side of the gorge in our direction. The second shot at 485 meters and missed again. I got nervous. It was good that Sergey was already there and offered to change the position. I asked to shorten the distance, and we rushed down to the stream. I shot from below with 20% degrees and a distance of 365 meters. That shot fell exactly "in place" and the ram rolled head over heels down. There was no limit to our joy! Although hope was beginning to leave me and my son, we believed that everything comes to someone who knew how to wait, searched and believed! In the evening, my son told me that he wanted to go with me to every mountain hunt! I was glad to hear it! I want to express my gratitude to all the organizers of this hunt, Larisa Pavlovna, Elena Alekseevna, Sergey, Oleg, Alexander for these unforgettable impressions. I will definitely come back to them already on the moose and bear hunting!
We arrived from Tiksi village and immediately moved to the hunting site. A hunt took place in the area of the Chubukulakh River (120 km from Tiksi). A group of 6 males was found. He shot at a distance of 353 meters with a stable side wind of 4-5 m/s.
