A word of caution to any hunters going to Turkey and borrowing a rifle from your outfitter. I learned the hard way that even though this is very common, it is technically illegal or at least can be interpreted as such by a game warden.

I was supposed to hunt Anatolian chamois three weeks ago and after arriving in the hunting area, the game warden/forestry chief that had to sign off on my permit found out that I was borrowing a rifle. Didn't matter that the legal Turkish owner of the rifle was with me on the hunt, we were done, permit cancelled.

The only reason that we could come up with was that the security is a little tighter in the eastern part of the country, more military checkpoints, etc, and possibly the warden was fearful that he might get in trouble if we got checked.

I don't think most people need to be concerned about this, it is common practice to hunt boar and ibex with borrowed rifles across most of Turkey, but if you're heading to the east for chamois, I would ask your outfitter about it and especially what he would do if you had this problem. I was lucky that my outfitter took full responsibility for the situation and gave me several suitable alternatives to make up for the dissapointment and inconvenience.

I turned what was supposed to be 1-2 days of boar hunting at the end of the chamois hunt into a week (with the borrowed rifle no problem in another area with different forestry officials) and had an enjoyable time touring Antalya.

Turkey is an incredible place and I'll go back to try again, but definitely with my own rifle next time.