for me to go and hunt a class 1 Chamois (= over 8 years of age) on the Swarovski hunting grounds. Needless to say, I feel elated...

Wow! Lucky fella, you! Weidmannsheil!!
- mike

If I said nice things about Swarovski every day on the internet, would they invite me too?

Lucky Bastard !

Waidmannsheil on your hunt in Radurschl !

Seloushunter

You, lucky devil!

Does Schmidt&Bender have a "revier" somewhere? I have two Schmidt&Bender scopes and they are THE BEST YOU BUY!!! ;-)

Frans

André,

Great! Waidmannsheil!

I have a couple of old Tasco's somewhere in a box in the basement......wonder if I'll get an invite, too?

I was invited to hunt wild boar in Greece this winter.

I'm back from Austria, having had one of the best hunting experiences in my life. The weather was awful, with lots of rain and mist (clouds actually). The 3 of us ("berufsjäger" Albert, my son-in-law Christopher and myself) hunted at 1500 m in a very hard terrain. I suffered but was glad that I trained during the preceding month and stopped smoking 9 months ago. Still the stalking was pretty steep and I suffered from vertigo several times (I never admitted, of course…). During our first day, we saw 3 Chamois, a young, an unsuitable buck (I was after a class 1 buck) and finally this one. We spotted him at 100m, walking the 5 meters that separated him from the cover and the rest happened very fast. I started to raise my bino's but the PH who had recognized the buck whispered : "nein, schiessen, schnell !". I dropped into position and let go 5 cm forward of the shoulder to compensate for the walking. The buck stopped, then took a step backwards before his hindquarters let go. He toppled over on his back and rolled downwards for a few meters on the grassy slope, never moving again. All in all, it was over in 3-4 seconds, not leaving me the time to get nervous, so that I reacted by reflex.

However, nervous I became when we stood before him, a giant buck counting 13 growing rings = aged 13 ! The 3 PH who saw him afterwards had good hopes for C.I.C. Gold ?!? Anyway, I'll have to wait till May 2008 before collecting the trophy as he will participate in the 2007 selection for "best chamois of Tyrol".

Needless to say, I'm elated for having confirmed the French saying "point n'est besoin d'être beau pour avoir de la chance" (there's no need to be handsome to have luck).

A fine animal, congratulations!

Vous avez en effet beaucoup de chance !!!

André,

WAIDMANNSHEIL!

What a great Trophy!

Thanks for sharing your expereince and photos with us - fantastic!

From the first photo it appears you manged to send one down range to just the right spot in spite of being rushed - Good on Ya!

There's two & the Gams in the photo - the Butt Ugly one for sure isn't you!

Un bouc magnifique! What about the rifle? Blaser? Needless to say that the scope is a Swarowski

Superb! Weidmannsheil!
- mike

Thanks for your appreciation. Although I had planned to take along my Sauer 202 for which I recently acquired a new .30-06 barrrel, the (horrible) weather forecast for Austria (heavy rain on Friday and light rain the following days) dissuaded me. Not willing to expose the Sauer stock, I changed my mind in the last minutes and opted for my Blaser R93 OffRoad instead. I shot my .300 Win handloads consisting of 165 Sierra GK / N 160 / 73.5 (CCI 250 primer). I had to shoot fast and my bullet entered the point of the right shoulder, exiting behind the off shoulder. Both lungs were shot away and several pieces of it + a large spraying of blood were found at the "anschuss". I was amazed to see how tough a hide the Chamois has as the exit wound was only slightly larger than an inch (a deer hides tears more easily).

As it turned out, we had lots of light rain and mist the 1st day and nice sunny weather on saturday and Monday.

Wildboar, well...yes, the scope is indeed a Swarovski 2,5-10x42 and the binos are EL 10x42. How did you guess ?, I thought it might be looked upon as an "indélicatesse" to go with a Tasco...

That is a very good one Andre! Chapeu

Thanks to all. I'm particularly attentive to the opinions of our German, Swiss, Italian and French friends who for sure know a lot more about Chamois than I do. Not only was it my first time hunting them but also the second time I watched Chamois in my life, both times in Austria. What has already become evident is that Chamois and/or mountain hunting is dangerously addictive. I do not dare to tell my wife but I am already dreaming about Ibex...

Andre,

Wow, thats an impressing chamois!

Congratulations!

What a Trophy !
WAIDMANNSHEIL

Seloushunter

Allright Andre nice one - surely in the silver class (105-109,9 CIC) maybe over that elusive gold of 110, but at the end the hunt counts most (try the winter one next ) - congrats

You're absolutely right, Mouse. I was excited to go after my 1st. Chamois and never thought of a medal. The adventure was exciting and would have been the same even with a smaller one. Only after the kill, was there talk of scoring. Anyway, I already learned that there's no such thing as an easy Chamois, whatever its size.

Finally, one year later, I received my trophy from Austria. It went through the national trophy contest and came out with a C.I.C. bronze medal (103.9 points, barely missing silver by 1.1 pt.) .

Anyway, whatever the quotation, I'll forever cherish the memory of a great hunt and challenge .

What an exceptional animal, Waidmannsheil!

What do you have to do to get into a Swarovski Revier hunt?

Congratulations to the adventure, trophy and the well written story!

Super trophy, Andre! They don't grow on trees in that size...

- mike

Congratulations and thanks for sharing the photos and story.

Andre those hooks look lonely on the wall - BTW - here is a clip from one of my friends (actualy his wife's), that may look similar to your hunt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9QvPjvjJSg

Bring back some memories huh?

Hey Mouse, I could have been it in place of the lady ! Except for a few details, everything looks amazinly the same : surroundings, stalking, the Chamois rolling down the hill, etc. The only thing the lady misses is an "Alpenstock" (mountaineer's walking stick), which proves mightily handy and safer on the rocky slopes. Thanks for the video

Waidmansheil Andre!

The scenery looks amazing and that is a proper trophy!

ATB,

Amir

Very nice clip, Mouse.

Andre'

Thank you for sharing your hunt with us. Such a noble looking animal!

elkjaeger