Holly and I and our friends, Wade and Stephanie, had a wonderful time during our two weeks in Spain!

Madrid is a magnificent city, clean, safe and easy to get around in. We spent 4 days sightseeing in Madrid and Toledo before the hunt began. World famous Museums, great restaurants with wonderful food and Spanish wines, Parks, monuments, the Royal Palace and the Bullfights! It is worth the trip to Spain just to spend a few days in Madrid!

Alphonso Fabres of HuntinSpain www.huntinspain.com picked us up in Madrid and took us to his Lodge and Estancia near Salamanca, about 3 hours west of Madrid where we spent the next 5 days hunting. The Lodge is a magnificent place filled with Alphonso's trophies from around the world and many excellent Spanish trophies. The staff there saw to every detail, the food and wine was wonderful. The guides were good hunters and the game was plentiful. We would recommend HuntinSpain without reservation to other hunters interested in a Spanish hunt.

I shot a nice Red Deer, a Fallow Deer and a Wild Boar. Holly shot a fantastic, Gold-Medal Mouflon. Our friend Wade also shot a Red Deer, Fallow Deer and Mouflon. We had an incredible morning of driven Red-leg Partridge shooting and a memorable horseback ride through the countryside. We took our trophies with three days to spare, so we rented a car and drove to the beach in Portugal for three days and two nights, an extra bonus!

We would like to thank the Forum Members who offered advice prior to our departure, and especially Forum Member, Montero, for his help with hotel choices and the online bullfight ticket link.

Here are some photos of our trophies.

My Red Deer




My Fallow Deer




My Boar


And Holly's great Mouflon




Red-leg Partridge

Hi,
Congragulations on all counts....but especially for that fantastic mouflon. BTW which animal did you find more wary the fallow or mouflon?
The shot placement on the fallow is pretty much textbook! What calibers were used?

Weidmannsheil on a successful hunt!
- mike

Congratulations Mark

It seems like you had a good time in Spain.

It looks like your gun is a Jarret. I guess the caliber is 300 Jarret or equal since you are from the South Good 'ol boy's area

/ JOHAN

[ 10-07-2003, 23:48: Message edited by: JOHAN ]

The Mouflon were by far the most wary of the animals we hunted.

The Red Deer would usually stand and look at us for a long time before slowly moving away.

The Fallow Deer were more wary than the Red Deer and would only look at us for a second before running away.

I think the Mouflon run all the time, they just shift into Overdrive when they see a hunter coming!

Holly and I used my .300 Jarrett with 200gr. Nosler Partitions @ 3050 fps. Wade used a .270 Winchester.

All the shots were quite close, several under 100 yards, the longest were just past 100 yards. The animals never moved, they all dropped dead in their tracks.

Johan, I was writing my last post when your post appeared. That was a very good guess!

Kenny is a friend and a fellow Member of my SCI Chapter. His gunshop is about 2 hours away from my house.

I visited Kenny yesterday to shoot on his 1,000 yard range in preparation for a Mountain Goat hunt in Alaska next week.

The .300 Jarrett is an incredible cartridge and Kenny's rifles are amazingly accurate.

Hey MArc,
Weidmannsheil to your Trophies!
Good to hear that you liked your Trip to europe!

All the best
Konstantin

Mark, beautiful, just beautiful!

I think I have found the perfect hunting vacation that the wife (non-hunter) can also enjoy.

I've been to Castilla La Mancha (Madrid and Toledo), as well as Andalucia (Sevilla, Cordova).

Love the country. It's even better when your distant relatives hail from different provinces of Spain and you are fluent in Castellano.

Mark in SC,

Contratulations on the trophies! Its sounds like you guys had a great time!

I particularly like the Mouflon Holly took; that is a beauty...

What sort of terrain was the Mouflon taken in? I have always had it in my mind that Mouflon were mountain game, but appearently that is not stricktly true???

Regards,

Pete

[ 10-08-2003, 13:37: Message edited by: Pete E ]

Felicitaciones

Daniel

Pete E, we hunted Mouflon, Red Deer and Fallow Deer in the mountains for 4 days in rough country and very thick brush.

The Mouflon were very wild and difficult to approach. We chased a large bachelor band of rams up and down the mountain side all afternoon one day, but they never stopped long enough in the open for Holly to get a clear shot. By the end of the day she was very frustrated and a little demoralized.

The next morning, Alphonso had our guide, Pedro, take us to the Marquis of LLen's estancia. As you can see in the background of the trophy photo, the hunting area there was fairly open and relatively flat. That made it easier to see the Mouflon, however, it also made it possible for the Mouflon to spot approaching hunters from a greater distance.

There were incredible numbers of Red Deer, Fallow Deer and Mouflon on this property; literally herds of them running all over the place. After several wild chases, the biggest Mouflon ram finally stood still briefly and Holly dropped him in his tracks at around 100 yards.

It was quite a priviledge to be allowed to hunt this estancia. It is hunted very little, and usually by VIPs only; the President of Spain for example. The Marquis is a relative of Alphonso's and I think they felt sorry for Holly after the previous afternoon's hunt and made arrangements to allow her to hunt on this estancia where it would be easier for her to get her Mouflon.

I'm not sure what the preferred natural habitat for Mouflon is, but they were very challenging to hunt in the mountains and only slightly easier in more open terrain.

Here are the gates to the estancia.



And the estancia house.



Fighting bulls raised on the estancia.