We had Rose and Sam Pancotto over for dinner last Saturday. Sam and Rose's first trophy room
is shown on the Trophy Room thread-"Tell Me About this Trophy Room".

Sam gave us a DVD of his 1988 USA-USSR Inaugral Hunt. Talk about trailblazing a new area. The hunters flew in from Dushanbe in military helicopters. They had to bring their own food,tents, and donkeys. As hard as it is to be believed, they brought donkeys on the helicopters. Watching them load and unload stubborn donkeys through the cargo doors was classic.

One of the donkeys dumped Sam in an icy river and to ward off frostbite, they rubbed vodka on him.

As their was no electricity to charge batteries they ran out before the kill was made. Sam spent 19 days camping out there before he got his sheep.

I would say that 20 years later these hunts seem a lot easier.

Hi Kathi,
thank you for sharing. You must force the pancottos to write a big book with lots of pics
Must be great to know living legends like the Pancottos. I saw the post of this absolutely fantastic trophy room. The longer I looked at the pictures I found more and more of the rarest species..not to mention the high trophy quality. absolutely great. In my opinion he is one of the biggest international hunters at all with one of the best collections worlwide. Good to hear that a big part of it will be protected for future in a museum. He plays in the `premier league` of international hunters, like abdorreza, mellon, rothschild and just a handful other more or less known characters. The best thing: he is still living and can talk about hunts which will never be repeated for no money in the world.
Hope he can enjoy the outdoors for many more years with his family.
This is also very admirable: In contrary to many others he hunts together with his wife who also loves hunting. Nice Idea to have somebody who shares your passion.
Thanks for posting `maneater of bastar`too. Great story from a time that is now gone forever.
Thats why I like these old hunting pics and stories so much: You look at the pictures and you can dream for some minutes. Its like a short holiday/ time machine trip to a time when the really big game was still abundant and hunting grounds in India, southeast asia and quite the whole african continent were open.
I also read this NFD story from kenya with the big tuskers in the book by andrew holmberg. Unbelievable- 3 100lbs elephants in one safari!.Sadly I couldnt read the other story about sam that was posted on this forum earlier. The link didnt work.

Hunting changed dramatically in tajikistan. I knew a german hunter which passed away 5 years ago who shot ammon poli in 1989 there. He shot a nice ram with a mauser .300 weath.He spent there four weeks because of a snow storm. The helicopter couldnt pick him up. it was too dangerous and so he must wait about a week until the weather changed in thin air and high altitude. They had no connection to the rest of the world, just waiting for good weather and the sound of a helicopter, while food and gas were running out. his family didnt know if he is dead or alive until he could make a phone call back in dushanbe.
At this time they had no hot spring sauna camps. They brought everything with this big russian military helicopters and slept in tents. on that safari they havent donkeys as far as I know and there was no jeeps or prescout service for 60inches rams like today. It was also one of the first hunts after the iron curtain went down.More expedition than a hunting trip.
I remember a book by Egon Lechner, a still living hunting agent. In his book he claims about being the first westerner in modern times who officially shot marco after many decades of closing hunting in tajikistan(i heard also about 2 or 3 special permits for VIP foreigners in the time of cold war and some science permit for the russian nomenclatura. He also writes that at the same time there was an american hunter in another tajikistan camp for marco. there must be something like a competition who is succesful first. I could imagine that it possibly was sam.
Anyway I love this stories and looking forward to an own pamir experience that will be probably a little bit easier but still remains one of the hardest hunts on this planet.
Kathi, do you know what caliber/ gun sam used for argalis?

If I speak to Sam before we leave I will find out what caliber he used.

We leave on October 26th-Chicago to Istanbul
October 29th-Istanbul to Dushanbe
October 30th, charter plane to
Khorog and a short 6 hour
drive to camp

My husband has a Marco Polo/Ibex license and I have an Ibex license.

We are staying in the newly constructed camp. Indoor plumbing, hot showers, etc.

Cannot wait to go!!!!


When are you going????

Thanks.
Best wishes for you and your husband and always straight wind to your face!
for americans its a long travel to the pamir mountains.Half around the world.
After arriving and more after a long hunting day you are probably very happy to take a hot shower in camp
I will hunt for ammon poli in 2010. But its not yet booked. Enough time to persuade my friend and get myself and the .300 RUM in top shape.

Dentist,

I spoke to Sam, 7mm Remington Magnum was used.

Good luck to you and your husband on the hunt Kathi!