Отчеты

I got the first bear in the Vologda region, in August 2015.

It was my fastest decision, which I made about hunting. I took in in the last autumn, against the background of heated discussions about the closure of the hunt for the Altai ibex in Russia. I decided not to risk and close that position in my trophy list. It was cold.  Hunting took place the very end of November. The temperature at night was up to -28C, during the day -15C. A long road to the hunting area. It was difficult. But, the trophy is taken. I shot at 475m angle 11⁰. 10-year-old trophy.

On November 1 - 4, 2021 and January 26 - February 2, 2022, I hunted the Red sheep and Armenian mouflon in Texas, USA. The hunting took place in 70 km from Alpine. I got a Red sheep at a distance of 150 yards on the first day of hunting. The Armenian mouflon has managed to get only in 2022 on the second hunt. I shot it  on the first  hunting day at a distance of 300 yards. In 2022, it was possible to get a mountain lion according to the hunting program. The hunt was led by Rocky McBride (the older brother of Roadie McBride), a well-known hereditary specialist in hunting and trapping cougars and jaguars in the West. The cougar hunting in Texas is notable for the fact that there is no snow there and finding tracks and reading them by dogs is difficult. The female cougar (mountain lion ) was captured only on the sixth last day of the hunt.

In 2021, I visited Khabarovsk three times. The first time I hunted the Amur bear in the spring, then the Ussuri moose in the fall. After a successful moose hunt, I tried for six days to get a Himalayan bear, but it didn't work out. The beast did not come out for a bait. Probably, the bear was feeding on cones in those days. The December trip was the third that year. That time I prepared purposefully to get a Himalayan bear. On December 20, I arrived back in Khabarovsk. This hunt, as the previous one was organized by the company "Profi Hunt", Artem Veselov, it was my second attempt to take a Himalayan bear. Vadim Atroschenko, who was already familiar to me, met me in Khabarovsk. Our way lay to the village of Yuzhny and after 3 hours we were already in the house where Vadim used to live. The cook, Sergey, was waiting for us there. We had a quick lunch and got ready to go on snowmobiles to the hunting lands, but it didn't work out right away. It turned out that Vadim rented one of the snowmobiles – BRP Yeti 69 and mixed up the keys, preparing for departure. He had to go to Khabarovsk to get them. As a result, we were able to leave only three hours later. In fact, we started at night and arrived to the base at about 11 pm, where we were met by Konstantin, a local huntsman who recently discovered a hollow with a Himalayan bear. The next day, we divided into two group and moved to the tree where my future trophy laid for the hibernation. It's about an hour's drive from the cabin. We stopped the snow machines about 300 meters from that place and approached the den by hunting skis. Vadim found out in advance that the animal we needed left the hollow found by Konstantin and lay down in the roots of a large tree. The exit from that den was small – only about 40-50 cm in diameter. Vadim made sure that the bear was there and we began to prepare for the hunt. It was necessary to wake up the beast and we should create maximum inconvenience for it. Sergey and Konstantin cut down 3 trees. Two poles were used to plug the exit from the den, then Vadim took the third one and began to push intensively the sleeping predator. The bear did not react for about 15 minutes, one of the three working video cameras turned off during that time. Vadim pushed the bear for about 45 minutes, sweated, took off his jacket and persuaded Konstantin to change it for a while. By this time, the den dweller had begun to snap and tried to grab the log with which the hunters were pestering it. Vadim insured him with a "smooth" double-barreled shotgun in his hands while Konstantin was walking the bear up, then went back to work. After about an hour, he jumped back, and warned us that the bear had started to get out of its dwelling. The bear tried to throw away the pole that blocked the exit, then somehow got out, turned sideways and intended to go behind the tree to the right. I used the right moment, and fired my carbine. I took a Blazer P8, in caliber 338, with a cartridge loaded with an AccuBond bullet of 19.5 grams.  I hit the bear in the shoulder blade. It walked about 7 meters and collapsed dead. The hunt was over. My trophy turned out to be a trophy bear, aged 5-6 years. We did the photoshoot, then butchered the trophy, loaded it auto snowmobile and headed to the cabin, where Konstantin met us the day before. But suddenly, the domestic snowmobile "Wolverine" began to mess up, we barely started it only with the help of an additional battery. It was getting colder, and at night a 35-degree frost hit. We warmed up in the bath, packed and loaded the trophies. The next morning, we went to the village of Yuzhny. The sun was shining, the air temperature was minus 32. About an hour after we left the base, we discovered that we lost one bag. One of the bags fell out of the snowmobile while we were driving. We decided that Vadim would return by our tracks and find it. We stayed to wait for him. Two hours later we heard how he was shooting and drove to help him. It turned out that Vadim's snowmobile stalled finally after he found the lost cargo. As a result, Vadim had to return on foot on a snowmobile tracks. We never managed to start an imported snowmobile again. The bulbs were lit, but the starter did not react. We had nothing to do but threw the broken snowmobile in the taiga. We distributed the cargo, hooked two sleds to the domestic "Wolverine", Sergey jumped on the sledge too and continued on the way. Fortunately, our team overcame the rest of the road without incidents. Later in the village we loaded the bags into the car and we were in Khabarovsk in three hours. The next day I flew to Moscow. So ended my second, but successful attempt to get a Himalayan bear. I thank Profihunt, Vadim Atroschenko, Konstantin and Sergey for a successful hunt at the den.

In December 2021, I hunted a Barbary sheep in South Africa.

Chinese roe deer (47 4/8, typical) and Manchurian deer (194 2/8).

Height- 4400m, distance - 250m, Orsis Alpine, 300WM, Horns 110cm, 29 cm, 11 years

It happened so that I did not have a chance to get a bear in traditional hunts for this beast  at the time of the beginning of my carreer in mountain hunting. Nevertheless, the desire to get that predator remained. Last year I made an attempt to get a bear in the mountains. But as a result of the search was that we found only the female bear.  There were bears when hunting turs , but we didn't chase them before the main trophy was taken.  And after that,  there was no meeting. In the fall of 2021, it was decided to organize a bear hunt only and hunt purposefully. I traveled to hunting  with my son traditionally. The hunt turned out to be very hard. Traces of the bear's presence were everywhere: in the forest zone, on the southern slopes, at the crossings of streams, but it was not possible to see the animal. As a result, on day 4, a worthy trophy was found 1.5 kilometers away on the slope in the very rocks.  When we had risen to the viewpoint the beast was no longer there. It started raining and snowing. It was gettign dark and we had to go down. The next day we went to the other side of that circus and found our trophy 240 m away from us at an altitude of 3100 m.  One shot completed this fascinating and very difficult hunt.

On October 7, my wife Angela and I flew from Moscow to Khabarovsk. We were lucky with the plane, and flew comfortably in a Boeing 737. Vadim Atroschenko, the head of the Far Eastern Trophy Company, met us at the Khabarovsk airport. He was responsible for the organization a hunt for Ussuri (Amur) moose and an Asiatic black bear. I needed to get those trophies to participate in the new nomination of the "Club of Mountain Hunters" - the Russian Super Slam(RSS). All participants were tasked to get 35 trophies, including several Far Eastern animals within the framework of the Super Slam. In the spring, Vadim has already organized a hunt for the Amur bear for me. The trophy was taken on March 21, 2021 at the den. My trophy took 1st place in the SCI ranking! Now, I lacked the Ussuri moose, the Asiatic black bear and the wolverine to participate in the Russian Super Slam. I had to take those trophies in the Far East. And it wasn't an easy matter, because not everyone managed to include such trophies in their collection A couple of our comrades were already hunting there just a few weeks before our arrival in Khabarovsk, but they failed to get the Ussuri moose. That's why I was looking forward to that hunt with special excitement. Initially, we planned to hunt a bear about 250 km south of Khabarovsk. However, we had to change our plans due to some organizational issues, and we moved in the other direction to get the Ussuri moose first. We drove about 450 km in the direction of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, to the north. The route to the hunting area was asphalt at first, and ran parallel to the railway tracks, then it turned aside, the hard surface ended, and we took quite a long time to get along a dirt road. About 13 hours after landing in Khabarovsk, we arrived at the hunting base, where we were met by Sergey Vasilyevich Kravchuk and his wife Natalia. The base turned out to be very comfortable. It consisted of several houses with stove heating. We were allocated a separate hut, with a good stove, we just needed to throw firewood in time. By the time of our arrival, the previous group had already finished hunting there, which was accompanied by a well-known outfitter from Irkutsk Oleg Shemyakin. My Moscow teammate from the Club of Mountain Hunters Oleg Sazonov in the company of a friend Boris was among them. They had already got two moose and one good izyubr by that time. One day we admired the beauty of the nature of the Khabarovsk Territory because of the overlap with the previous group. A day later, the colleagues had already left and we began to prepare. I made test shooting with my Blaser R8 in the 300 Win caliber Magnum. The next day we woke up at 5 in the morning, had breakfast and left by boat on the Tumnin River. The boat turned out to be very modern with two comfortable chairs. It was necessary to dress at that time of the year taking into account the weather, because it is quite cold on the river. We moved towards the ocean, the river meandered between the hills and low cliffs. We expected to see something interesting around every corner. And indeed, we had been lucky in that repeatedly. At first, we met a moose with a calf, who noticed us, and ran noisily to the side, hoping to distract our attention from the baby.  Then we saw another moose family. They also tried to hide from our eyes faster. Around the next turn, at the confluence of the river and a small tributary, we saw a moose with a calf. When they began to swim closer, they swam across the river 3 meters from our boat But a little further along the tributary, we suddenly saw a running moose. I tried to look at it through binoculars. My main task was to count carefully the appendages on its horns. And it seemed to me that there were four appendages on the right and five on the left. The fact is that a horned moose with five appendages is a very rare and valuable trophy. Sergey Vasilyevich said that such moose were not often found and it was an incredible luck to get it. My first thought was: "Well, we were so lucky, to meet the trophy in the first hours of our river trip" However, it crossed the stream quickly and disappeared. We didn't want to miss such a trophy and stopped on the opposite shore. It turned out that the beast was too lazy to run far away. It stood a little further in a bay about 70 meters wide. The moose was chewing its favorite delicacy - river grass shamrock. As I was later told, that herb was used in folk medicine, it had tonic properties, and its decoction was useful for the stomach. So the beast appreciated it. Now I had the opportunity to examine the moose more closely. It really had 5 appendages on each horn. We set on a rifle and a video camera. Angela turned on the recording and I decided to shoot at the moment when the beast turned to us left side diagonally. The cartridge was assembled with a Hornady 208gr bullet. The ammunition worked wonderfully. The moose made several jumps after the first hit then bounced 5 meters, stood up, turned sideways. I fired one more shot and the animal collapsed. Emotions were overflowing. Ussuri moose with 5 appendages – it was super! Sergey Vasilyevich went to the place where the moose fell in the bogs, and it was in the water, and confirmed with signs that there were five appendages! All we had to do was pull my trophy out of the water. Therefore, Sergey Vasilyevich went to the base for an assistant and additional boot. Two hours later, we were pulling my moose out of the water almost like boatmen on the Volga. Then we had a photo shoot and returned to the base happy. That day was very cloudy, it was raining. We were wearing waterproof suits Sergey said that animals didn't like to move around the forest in such weather, so we were lucky twice. The first time was when that male went to the river, and the second time was when we came across the owner of 5 appendages. On the same day we went to the hide, which was located not far from the camp. Earlier, the hunters saw a bear and another small animal there, but they could not see it in detail with a thermal imager. We stayed at the hide, hoping to get a bear or a wolverine. But our luck had already run out there, we waited until about 9:30 pm, saw a fox, a hare, mice, but could not see anything interesting. The next day we decided to try to get a Manchurian wapiti and took a ride along the Tumnin River once again, but the weather deteriorated, a strong wind rose and we did not meet anything. The main part of our plans had already been implemented and we decided to return to Khabarovsk. The second stage of the hunting expedition was ahead- a journey for an Asiatic black bear. We followed towards Vladivostok, not far from the settlement of Yuzhny to get the Asiatic black bear. Vadim made a bait there. A female bear and a cub went there in September. But when we arrived there, the barrel with the fish remained unopened, the bear did not come. According to Vadim's explanations, the all bears were eating pines at that time. After waiting six days, we decided to fly to Vladivostok for spotted deer and Manchurian roe deer. Spotted deer hunting. We went to Vladivostok from Khabarovsk. The flight took us just 1.5 hours with comfort on an Aeroflot plane. At the airport of the capital of Primorsky Krai, we were met by a local hunting organizer, Alexander Korneev. He loaded all our possessions into the car and we set off. The final point of our drive was a hunting farm, which was located 248 km from Vladivostok in the southeastern part of Primorsky Krai not far from the village of Lazo. Most of our way was on an asphalt highway, which turned into a dirt road. After 4 and a half hours we were already at the hunting farm. We had lunch there and were offered to conduct an initial observation of the beast. The hunting farm had a specially converted SUV For such raids, whose aft part of the cabin was cut off so that the man could stand there in full height. They suggested to go on a explore trip at night. Our goal was to navigate the terrain, and look at the deer. We estimated the number of animals during that raid. There was a feeling that the deer were roaring around us without ceasing. We saw dozens of them in every clearing. The secret of such abundance was simple. The owner of the hunting farm made an excellent feeding base. Every year, He sows several fields with winter crops: wheat mixed with oats. There were so many ungulates there that it seemed that the deer didn't allow the grains to ripen, they ate their juicy shoots almost at the root. In addition, in winter, they fed deer with the so-called "mixed salad" there. It was a mixture of potatoes, beets and carrots bought from the nearest farmer. But this is not all! They harvested hay specially for deer, in some seasons up to 2 thousand rolls. That year they managed to prepare only 200. That was the reason why the local population of spotted deer was breaking all records both in the number of animals and in the quality of individual individuals. Some males weighed more than 100 kg, what was 2 times larger than the park spotted deer. The hunting farm had a very favorable geographical position, the valley was limited by mountain ranges. It borders the National Park "Call of the Tiger" on the one side, and on the other is the Lazovsky State Reserve named after. L.G.Kaplanova. In fact, neighboring territories are donor territories. The animals are constantly migrating and they do not find such a food base in any reserve that the owner of the hunting farm has managed to provide. The day after our arrival, we woke up early and went to the place where we most clearly heard the roaring bulls. Magnificent landscapes opened up to us in the light of day. Autumn in Primorsky Krai had a special charm. There were deciduous forests there. The hills were covered with birches and oaks. The foliage had mostly fallen off at the end of October and we could clearly see spotted deer in the gaps between the trees. We were already hunting on foot. In an hour of walking on the mountainside, we found a trophy spotted deer surrounded by females. But it stood behind the trees not the good position. Nevertheless, I decided to try, chose the most convenient position and fired, the deer disappeared. It left diagonally. We suspect that I could wound it and we carefully examined the place. There were no traces of blood - it meant that I missed. Our group spent about 2 hours searching that male just in case, but we did not notice a single trace of blood. Then we had completed the search for a hypothetical "wounded deer" and we went on. We didn’t walk long. There were a lot of fallen leaves in the forest, and each step on such a "flooring" was accompanied by a distinct, treacherously sonorous crunch, especially after frosts. Half an hour later we heard the roar of bulls, the crackling and banging of horns. In anticipation of the prey, We climbed the hill and witnessed a rare sight. Two males staged a duel in the floodplain of the stream. It seemed to us at one of the moments of the fight that they locked horns; the score went by seconds. I set on the rifle, and Alexander found a good position for observation. A moment later, the brawlers noticed us. They didn't immediately realize that we were watching them, because their consciousness was clouded by the fight, they were even more excited than we were. One of the deer turned out to be more intelligent than its rival and ran away headlong, and the second one hesitated, what killed it. It turned around at us, as if checking its first impressions, Alexander appreciated the trophy qualities and told me: “Shoot!”. So, I managed to record another trophy on my account almost on the first day of hunting. Then we had a photo session, returned to the base, had breakfast and rested a little. It was about noon when we decided to walk. We spent about four hours looking for the second male, which ran away from us. But all to no avail. My trophy turned out to be of very good quality and my wife and I decided to continue and to hunt one more deer. We saw and heard several more deer that day, but we never had the opportunity to see the trophy at a safe shot distance. The wind constantly changed direction, the animals quickly noticed us and ran away. The outfitter suggested that we track down the prey from the hunting tower. We agreed with his idea, had lunch, dressed warmly and went hunting again in the evening. The local hunting tower was an iron box at a height of about 6 meters. It was quite a comfortable structure with three windows equipped with a rope net for masking from animals. Not a single animal appeared near us in the daytime. When it got dark, a female with a fawn appeared. Then more and more animals began to appear in a clearing about 700x400 meters in size, it happened about every minute.  First one small male came out, then another deer with two females appeared at a distance of 310 meters. And then we lost count altogether. There were up to 30 animals grazed on the field. One of the largest deer, the one with two females, behaved warily, as if constantly monitoring the situation. I wanted to take it as trophies, and was waiting for the moment when it would come closer to examine its horns more clearly. But I was late. At some moment, all the animals turned abruptly their heads to the left. Then one of the deer got scared, took off quickly and rushed into the forest. Everyone else followed it. We could only wonder what scared the spotted deer so much. According to one of our versions, a tiger was tracking prey near a clearing. Another version was that the deer were scared off by their own brothers, who could arrange another duel there. But the fight never took place, the bull roaring in the distance fell silent and also disappeared. That was the end of our evening hunt. The next morning we found another great bull bull in the forest So, I decided to fire. It turned out to be a super trophy! On the same day we moved to Alexander's base. We hunted several days there. I had got two Manchurian roe deer there. I tried to get Manchurian wapiti, but without success. As a bonus, we saw a harza with a bright lemon color. We tried to hunt from the towers for a Asiatic black bear, but also did not come out. I heard a lot of good things about Tatiana Sergeyevna Aramilev while being in Vladivostok and in hunting farms. All hunting inspectors worked at a very high level. They all are provided with good equipment. Everyone remembers her with great respect. On October 31, we flew to Moscow. Our entire journey took 25 days. Thank you for the fascinating journey of the organizers of the hunt, the company Profi Hunt, personally Artem Veselov, Vadim Atroschenko , Alexander K. and my dear wife Angela, who bravely endured all the hardships of our long journey. P.S. Spotted deer took the first place in the SCI ranking. It's a world record!

The outfitter of the hunts told us that the guides have been monitoring the group of urials for several days already. But when we arrived in the hunting area, we saw only one urial with two females. The trophy turned out to be 5-6 years old. I decided to not to shoot.  We were hiking in the mountains all day along, but   did not find a worthy trophy. The density of animals was very low. On the second day we walked 21 km through the mountains, but our attempts were unsuccessful. On the third day, we came to a distance of 450 meters to a group of urials, in which there was one male. After examining its trophy characteristics , we also realized that it was young. Only on the fourth day, during windy and rainy weather, we were lucky enough to find a good male. Due to bad weather, it was possible to approach 380 meters.  After the shot, the Urals remained in place.Many thanks to all the organizers of the hunt!

That hunting brought a lot of positive emotions.  It was difficult to move without horses. But we overcame ourselves. The great physical exertion and achieving the set goal is the reason why we all go to the mountains.

One of my previously organized bites had worked out! The huge pig carcass was to the taste of the wolves that lived in that territory. The camera traps reported the time of their arrival at the place. The next evening I was already waiting for them. But three nights in a row the meeting did not take place, and the fourth evening was productive. The she-wolf has been got!