Reports

At November 2017 I hunted in Karachay-Cherkessia, in the Elbrus district. The hunt took place on the height from 1600 to 1800 masl. We were lucky with weather. It was fine all days while we were there. The density of population there is high and we saw lots of animals while hiking there. On the third hunting day we detected the group of animals and tried to approach. There was no way to come closer and I should fire from 620 meters and hit the aim! It became my own record for a long- distance shooting. The trophy was a big male but with small horns. The used rifle Tikka Т3 кал. 300 WM.

Once again, I hunted with Yuri Matisson on Pamir. At last we had happened to reached the Belangrik gorge where the river with the same name flowed. It was a real Lost World. There was nothing except wild animals and high mountains. I spent few days in the Base camp, located on the height 4000 masl. That time I needed for acclimatization. Then we should hike 20 km more to the next mobile camp and to go for hunting from there. My goal was to get the trophy with horns not less than 120cm. After 7 hours hiking, we accommodated in the second camp. Nasreddin Musaev- the 71 years old hunter, who worked with Yuri for many years, met us there. After that hunt I was going to go with him to Jirgatal and to hunt for a Gissaro-Alai ibex.   I accommodated in a single tent. The temperature at night was about -15o C. The weather in the afternoon was sunny and windless. Nasreddin told us that monitored the group of ibexes, led by the old male, with 130cm horns. But animals crossed the ridge and moved to the next valley just above our arrival. We followed them. Our group rose the upper ground 4400 m and spotted a big group of ibexes. There were not less than 50 individuals. They all were different ages including the big ones. We shared into two groups. And the smallest one began to approach the herd. The wind blew into our backs what was not good. It took us a couple of hours to cover 5km distance. We managed to crawl up being invisible to 550 meters. Ibexes laid down to have rest but were on their guard. We spied the biggest male, in the center of the group but it was closed by other animals. Suddenly they smelled us and ran to the mountains all together. It was impossible to fire because the needed male was constantly covered by others. And in a split second I caught it in the crosshairs and shot. The shooting distance was about 600 meters. I got it. Then we rose to the place where it laid. It happened on the height 4800 masl. The traditional photo session. The length of the one horn was 128cm and the second one was shorter because of the broken tip. That day we hiked 20km and crossed twice the ridge of 4400 m high. It was dark when we came back tired but happy.

I'd been planning to hunt for a long time for a second subspecies of ibex, habited in the Gissaro - Alai mountains of Tajikistan. They are located to the north-east from Dushanbe and separate Tajikistan from Kyrgyzstan. The hunt was organized not far from the town Jirgatal in 280km from Dushanbe. It took us about 4 hours’ drive. The hunter Nasridin Musoev and his son Sharofidin met us there. We accommodated in the home of his elder daughter. We didn’t have much time, as always. There was just one day of good weather and the forecast promised snow in a day. On Thursday at 7.30 am we left the house and moved to the gorge of the Tandykul river where we expected to find ibexes. A heavy snowfall had happened in the mountains in a day before our arrival. It modified the animals’ behavior and the hunting process. The mountains at that area were really steep more than 3000 m high, we could see lots of signs of snow avalanches. The animals prefer to stay in less snow-covered places where they can feed and there is not risk of avalanches. We went about 5-6 km along the gorge monitoring the slopes and looking for ibexes. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any ones except females. Nasridin told us that the ibex population wasn't high there because of the poacher's pressure. Coming back, we examined the gorge where the groups of ibexes with two good size males were detected few days ago. We were able to detect them in a deep and difficult-to-reach area. The day wore along, and the second one didn’t bode anything good. That's why we decided to climb and to hunt. Probably it was one of the most difficult and dangerous climbing in my life. Deep snow, steep slopes and tracks of snow avalanches made the ascend so dangerous. We were almost biting into the rocks in several places not to fall down into the snow abyss. There I understood, why all local hunters wore the rubber boots which almost flew around the rocks and provided the best grip on the surface. My mountains boots slid and didn't provide high-quality grip on the stones. The temperature, about -10 degrees added extreme to that adventure. It took us more than 2,5 hours to climb from 2200 m to 2700m. We reached the rock which separated one part of the gorge from another one where the ibexes could be. There was not another variant to approach animals, a deep canyon split us. The guides detected the group of females and two males. The shooting distance was 645 meters. One male stood at full height and sideways, what allowed me to make a good shot while I could see only the breast of the second one. I resolved to fire though my position wasn’t comfortable. There were no other variants because we knew about coming snowfall and my chances to find the new trophy was very low. I hit the ibex by the first shot and it fell down into the deep abyss after flying not less than hundred meters. Telling the truth, I didn’t believe that we’d pull it out but Sharofidin and his assistant assured me that they could descend to the bottom of the canyon. We had nothing to do but to go down and it wasn’t an easy matter.

After hunting for a Konya mouflon we moved to the territory near Adiyaman where I got the Hybrid Bezoar goat. That hunt also took one day. I can’t say that it was easy to find and to approach the worthy trophy but I took 10 years old male. The shooting distance was 350 m.

I hunted for a Konya mouflon. It was the easy hunting and I was not tired at all. It took us just one hour. I shot to the running aim from 170 meters. My trophy was 8 years old male.

The snow sheep was taken with dogs. I’ve got snow sheep trophies before which were better.

At the end of the hunting season my friend invited me for a hunt in Chechnya. The weather was fine and everything was great. We went to the gorge where detected the group of turs. I and my friend got two nice trophies with horns more than 100cm. My trophy’s horns are 104-105 cm!

At the end of November, I hunted in Tyva near the border with Mongolia. In the first hunting day we climbed 2800 meters and detected the group of ibexes. It consisted of males and females with babies. The wind with the gusts blew down along the gorge and I resolved to approach the animals from above. I had to go up for 1,5 km along the spring and then to ascend the herd level. The animals moved to the side while I was climbing but my guide told me about it by radio. The ibexes had hidden in the hollow and the guide couldn't explain where they were. I had nothing to do but to move slowly toward them by the loose slope. Fortunately, they laid for rest in one of the hollows on the slope and I could approach them 150 meters. The trophy was got by the first shot. I fired to the running aim on the height of 2429 masl. The rifle Blaser, cal. 300 WIN MAG. The local ibexes have very interesting light color.    Next day we decided to move to the valley and to hunt for wolves. We checked the tracks and defined where a couple of predators and a lonely one dwelled. We fenced the wolve’s area by fladry but they could escape. After a short discussion we agreed to try once again next day but later in the evening the local herder wounded one of the wolves when they attacked the young bull and the animals moved to Mongolia and crossed the border.     In a day the guides told me that detected the group of seven boars. We resolved to hunt them. It was calm and frost, about minus 20C. I had stood on the place for about two hours when heard the crunch of breaking twigs. Then the boar stopped for a moment and then ran. I got it by the second shot though I seriously wounded it by the first one. My trophy became 4 years old sow. The others turned around in the corral and moved to the opposite direction.    The thickets of local acacia are impassable to humans but the boars and wolves feel well there.   Thank you very much to the IRBISH company and my personal thanks to Oleg Shakhov, Vladimir Lykynchuk and Vladimir Mongush for the organization of this trip.

The shooting distance was 375 meters at 15 degrees angle. The wind speed was 0,5 m/sec from the right to the left. The rifle BLASER R-8, caliber 300 WM

The shooting distance was 458 meters at angle 40 degrees. The rifle BLASER R-8, калибр 300 WM

I decided to close my hunting season 2020 in Kyrgyzstan in spite of the revolution and CoronaVirus Pandemic. At the end of November Vladimir Smelov (LLC Safari-Valmir) and I left St. Pete and flew to Bishkek. Next day, November 27 we arrived to the hunting base, which belonged to MK-Travel and was located in Jety-Oguz district of Issyk-Kul region. The beginning of the first hunting day was nice. We detected three groups of argali but there were not worthy trophies in them. I likes one of them but the guide said me that it has a broken horn. We went on our searching. The good size ibex was spotted on one of the tops. We admired the size of its horns and how they curved. Ruslan, my guide, suggested not to approach it but to find the argali. The storm wind began when we were climbing. Its speed was about 20 m/sec and it was even knocking the horses down. I couldn’t see the guide who was in 5 meters from me because of blizzard. But Ruslan went on to look for a trophy. He did his best but weather didn’t allow us to continue hunting and we had to come back to the camp. Next morning, we left the camp when it was still dark. At the sunrise our group ascended the plateau where we detected three groups of animals. Ruslan distinguished a trophy size male in one from them. It was busy chasing away the other males from the group of females. We decided to come close. At the same time, we noticed that the next group of animals was excited by something. We saw how nine wolves were moving to the herd, ready to attack argali. The distance to the wolves was about 1200 meters and we couldn’t prevent predators to do what they were going. Thus we had no choice but to go on to approach our group. The open areas didn’t allow to come closer than 335 meters. The biggest male laid down to have rest in the center of the herd after the fight with other males. I had the opportunity to measure the wind speed which was from 8 to 11 m/sec with gusts to 13 m/sec and to take breath. The male gave me chance to concentrate on the shot but then paid attention to the female which passed near it. A shot rang out and the herd moved fast to the hills. They ran about 100 meters when the male fell behind the herd and fall down like a log. Later we found that the bullet came through the body and got stuck in the heart. We all were happy when came to the trophy. It was a worthy 13 years old male, with nice horns. The hunting God tested us at the first day and then awarded us by that trophy. Thank you very much to all our team members for the opportunity to take part in that adventure.