I would first like to thank forum member b.martins and his lovely wife for there generous hospitality.

The whole thing started with my brother in law �Svante� 40th birthday. I got the idea from this forum that we could give him a �montaria� hunt as present. What I figured out was that this must be something very different from the way we hunt in Scandinavia. I bought some videos and got one from the hunting organization with the help of b.martins. With the help of my sister was I able to arrange two video evenings with some hunting friends and Svante. Svante found these hunts that we saw interesting but little bit scary, since he don�t like quick shoots. I spent some months trying to get him nervous about his birthday and what could happend, but with little result.

On the morning 24th of January my sister asked him if he wasn�t nervous what could happend in the evening. Svante told her that nothing we could give him or do, could make him nervous. In the evening got he first a flight ticket to Lisbon 29th of January, he didn�t understand anything!! Then got he a poster with the information about the hunt. It was then he broke down, his first comment was !!I HOPE I�M NOT GOING ALONE!! He didn�t sleep anything that night and not very good the next few nights either.

We arrived to Lisbon, Thursday the 29th in the afternoon, then it started to rain!!!!

30th meet we b.martins in the morning and after have picked up his wife at there home, went we to the hunting area, it was still raining!! b.martins told us that he had been on a montaria the 29th with 62 hunters and they shoot 84 wildbores!!

The monteria on Saturday the 31st was mainly for red deer (stags). We were 55 hunters and 525 dogs and the area was 1300 hectars. I shoot at one stag, but missed to judge the distance right and shoot over. When the day was finished 55 stags and 3 wildbore was shoot and b.martins had shoot two. During the entire day was the rain terrible.

On Sunday 1st of February was the montaria for wildbore but if you had chance of a large red stag were you allowed to shoot it without extra cost. Also this day were we 55 hunters but only 500 dogs and the area was 500 hectars (in Sweden we use maximum 2 dogs on this area). I was lucky and shoot a wildbore, not big but around 40-50 kg. Totaly was 34 wildbores shoot. The weather was the same rain, rain and rain.

Svante had bad luck when he draw the post, because both days came no animals to his posts.

When we left Lisbon on Monday lunch started the sun to shine again.

This hunt was a very nice experience, everything we had seen on the videos and was told happend. The only thing was the weather that could have been better. The only good thing is that next time it can�t be worse. It will definitely be a next time and I can recomend this kind of hunt with a good organization for those who would like to experience something different in the ways of hunting.

I didn�t see any animals that was unhealty stressed by the dogs during this time. The red deers had full controll of what was happening and lost the dogs without problems. Maybe the weather made some of it, but I had thought it would be worse when you think about the number of dogs.

If things work out will I soon have some pictures to post also.

Regards
JanG

What a great gift! Hope all of you had a good time.