The adherents of the Spanish hunts forgive me for the controversial judgments expressed by me in this article. Hunters are so organized that sometimes we have different goals and views on expectations from the same processes.
Most of the reports about hunting for ibexes in Spain come down to a not very dramatic plot: I've combined hunting with a family vacation or I've got the desired trophy in 1 day, etc. I understood all of that quite clearly and set myself the task to find something of my own, special. I didn't want everything to be easy from the very beginning. Looking ahead, I'd admit: I didn't really find it. I hope that not yet.
So, I followed the initial setup – "needed to be tested" - I chose the optimal time from the point of view of "do not interfere with work" and "combine with a family vacation". I used a banal solution – May holidays. I decided that it was necessary to get an elderly, but not a medal trophy. It was my way to make it as complicated as possible in order to suffer in an adult way. I proceeded from the assumption that there were a lot of either young or old medal winners in Spain.
I contacted Yuri Morozov (Stalker Group) and started discussing the trip. Since I was trying to come up with some special difficulties for myself, I initially paid attention to various little things that were important to me, which I wanted to fully explain to the Spanish outfitter. I suppose that ruffled Yuri's nerves a little. Looking ahead once again, I will say that I am grateful to him for the fact that everything has been done at the highest level as a result!
So, we (my wife, two daughters and I) flew early in the morning to Valencia. The hunt a Beceite ibex was supposed to be organized in a place called Fortanete. That was an important aspect of the planned process - to accommodate in an authentic Spanish outback with the aim of maximum "immersion". I rented a car with the guide for the family to examine surroundings and so that they would not be bored.
The local outfitter Alejo Sopino and our guide Angel Cortez met us at the airport. They both were colorful Spanish personalities. Alejo, we called him Alexey, visited Russia several times for hunting and could pronounced a few phrases in Russian. He owns extensive hunting grounds in Spain and a very impressive trophy collection of his own. Angel, at his middle-aged age, has began to draw (especially he succeeds in drawing with an ordinary pencil) and his works have been even published in one of the issues of the magazine "The Magic of a real Safari", because he has many works depicting hunters with trophies.
It makes no sense to describe the enchanting Spanish hospitality and cordiality when they meet the guests from Russia, so I will limit myself to stating a fact.
We plunged into the rustic flavor just in 3 hours after landing. The village had about 100 residents, mostly pensioners, to whom young people came on weekends. I counted 10-15 people during three days while we were there, the rest, apparently, did not seek to show themselves. As I understand it, the village lives mainly due to summer cycling and hiking, as well as agriculture. The stone houses date back to the XVIII century, and there is a bell tower with a clock in the center of the village that rings every 15 minutes for different motives. The windows of our room overlooked the tower exactly…
Forty minutes were enough to explore all the sights and surroundings. We accommodated in quite decent apartments, and had a meal in the only functioning cafe at that time. But! What a wonderful place it was!!! I can write a poem about Spanish gluttony. When I said Alejo that wanted jamon, he personally cut half a kilo of this miracle from the legs standing in the center of the cafe, gave me a basket of bread and a bottle of red wine I think that we should stop here and start talking about hunting itself. Let's try...
It turned out to be extremely useful to have a separate car for the family, because it took about an hour to get to the nearest interesting places like Morella or Taurel, what the family did while I was walking in the mountains or sleeping.
I persuaded my youngest daughter Katya to go hunting with me. It was assumed that most of the time we would drive a car and only when the right animal was found, we would carry out and try to approach.
From the very beginning, I blow Alejo's mind, when demanded a difficult mountain hunt, but he only smiled knowingly and cooled my fighting fervor, when assured me that hunting in spring was even easier than at other times of the year. But I didn't give up.
Alejo gave me a Blaser R93 carbine in caliber .300 UltraRemMag, certainly powerful with a flat trajectory, but I thought it was too superfluous for the local fauna.
The name of my guide was Lionel and he rooted for Barca with all his heart, unlike Angel, who was for Real Madrid... Lionel was talking violently about something with Alejo almost all the time we were traveling by car and fell silent only when he looked through binoculars.
I liked everything. The mountains were very peculiar and picturesque. Rather, not even mountains, but such canyons and crevices. We mostly drove along the plateau at the level of 1700 masl and looked down from time to time. There was a solid landscape design – "trimmed" grass, junipers with thuja and rock gardens of various sizes everywhere we looked. We saw lots of animals on the first evening – both wild boars and ibexes, but mostly females with small babies. It was dusk when we detected a small group of "shooting" goats on the mountain closest to the village. We noticed them at the foot of the mountain, when they were returning from the evening meal to their upstairs. How good that I didn't have a chance to shoot on the first evening! I tried to be a full-fledged participant in the process, so as not to turn into just a shooter.
The next morning, we left as soon as it was light. Again, we saw a lot of different animals. The daughter was delighted, looking at the slopes with binoculars. At last we found a suitable herd in the same range, but on the other side of the mountain, and Alejo ordered to approach, although the wind was not in our favor. I tried to argue: "Let's make a hook, we'll stretch our legs". But he and Lionel didn't give in. As a result, Alejo stated without any regret that the ibexes escaped:"We'll still find. It's not a problem".
We explored the mountain ranges on both sides of Fortanete. I noticed that there were an order of magnitude more animals on the one side, and discussed it with Alejo.
On the second evening, I suggested to check out the place where ibexes were seen on the first day before sunset. So, we did it. We drove out into the field, stood in front of the mountain and began to wait. As scheduled, after 8 pm, ten heads appeared and began to descend from the mountain to feed. We decided to approach by climbing a little uphill. The matter was complicated by the fact that there was quite dense vegetation on the slope, and there could be problems with shooting in such conditions. So, it happened. We had risen two hundred meters above the animals and began to examine them, choosing a potential trophy. And then the Spanish temperament made itself felt. And then the Spanish temperament made itself felt. Alejo and Lionel began quite emotionally began to discuss something, though did it in a whisper. Alejo suddenly began to hurry me, quickly alternating the commands "to shoot" and "don't shoot". I threw the camera into the bushes so as not to get in the way as Alejo's request, and tried to understand what the male to choose. When it finally became clear which one, the goats sensed that something was wrong, tensed up and abruptly began chaotic movement, constantly entering the bushes and changing places with each other. As a result, two seconds were not enough for me to shoot at the right ten-year-old ibex.
Anyway! Alejo said again: "No problem", and wasted an half an hour while searched for my camera in the darkness.
And I was rejoicing in my soul – the process was not completed!
The next morning the weather turned very bad, and a very strong wind blew all day. Alejo stated authoritatively that r the beast lived only on the remote areas in such weather, and indeed in the morning and evening we did not see a single one in the mountains.
In the afternoon, I joined my family and we went to the town of Turel, got aesthetic pleasure from contemplating the ancient Moorish structures and ate his delicious Spanish food.
The next battle started in the evening. We left a little earlier than usual, at about 6 pm. We followed the new route, passed through dense forests that came from somewhere and eventually reached the rocks. We searched for animals for a long time, but they were not there, and therefore we went further. On the way we stopped at the salt lick, where we scared off a trophy male roe deer. Then two boars. Finally, we found ourselves in some kind of translucent forest. Alejo warned that now ibexes would appear from all sides so that I would be ready to shoot, he would give me a carbine, which was in the case all the time - safety first.
We were moving just 10 minutes when Lionel slowed down sharply, Alejo quickly pulled the carbine out of the case, handed to me and whispered in great excitement: “Shoot, shoot... But I didn't see any aim where I had to shoot. In any case, I couldn't see anything even remotely resembled an ibex, from the back seat where I sat. Nevertheless, I jump out of the car with a carbine at the ready. The thought was spinning in my head: that wasn't a mountain hunt, but some other… At the same time, I drove the cartridge into the chamber and monitored simultaneously the surrounding forest.
There was the ibex just sixty meters away from me. It has quite conditioned qualities and surprised hatched at us. I jumped up very quickly, aimed and shot, but all that time I thought that that wasn't a mountain hunt at all. The miss was predictable ... we searched the place where the ibex stood, but found nothing interesting. That time Lionel authoritatively stated: “No problem”. We jumped into the car and sped on.
There were more rocks, more forest, more landscaping... After we had drove enough, I suggested to return to the most where we saw the animals before place. My companions agreed with me amicably, and we rushed to the rocks near our village without slowing down, where we consistently observed males every evening.
Here everything obeyed a once and for all formed schedule, and we predictably found a small herd consisting of only males. Telling the truth, they had not very outstanding qualities. It was necessary to make a short walking approach, which I couldn't call painful with all my desire, and shoot at 200-300 meters. I decided to get a male from this group because that was the final day of the hunt.
We had to hurry up before dusk, that' why we quickly reached the right point, from where I got my eight-year-old Ibex from 200 meters with a single shot on the spot. The Spaniards rejoiced like children, admired my excellent shot (apparently, after the last annoying miss, it seemed to them a miracle). Lionel even rushed to kiss. I was also pleased: the process was logically completed.
The trophy was exactly what I wanted: not young and not a record. I achieved my goal and got unforgettable impressions of everything that affected my senses of the complex - the process of hunting, excellent nature and family recreation…
On the way to Valencia, Alejo kindly invited us to his ranch, comfortably located between the mountains, far from populated areas. I cooked the meat of the extracted ibex there, and Alejo put out a bottle of red wine. We discussed the details of a possible hunt for the Gredos ibex in the future, taking into account my indispensable wishes regarding the complexity of the process.
So a sequel certainly follows!
