12 October 2017, 14:02
Charlie64Report In - Lederhosen, check shirts & felt hats! Summer Chamois in the Carnic Alps!
.
Dates - 18 to 22 August 2017
Outfitter/Guide - Stefan Hofer, Gams Austria, Wuermlach, Austria (Carnic Alps right on the Austrian Italian border)
Hunted - Summer chamois x 3,
Marmot x 4,
Taken - Summer chamois x 3,
Marmot x 4 plus 1 lost
Rifles - Anja & Ilsa CZ 30.06 shooting 150 grain RWS TIG factory ammo, Rob & myself a 1974 Mannlicher Schoenauer Stutzen in .243 Win shooting 100 g RWS factory bullets
Travel - German Autobahn from Dusseldorf by rental car (VW Touareg) with an overnight in Munich at the Oktoberfest!
Anja would tell you that I became wildly excited about this hunt over a year ago and she is right. I did. And I was excited and thrilled about it in all the months leading up to it. I researched it, I emailed and called the Austrian hunting guide, Stefan Hofer, I purchased a new (used) rifle and a new knife and I lived and breathed chamois in the mountains in the months, weeks and days leading up to this hunt! My excitement and anticipation factor was at 120%!
Anja, and I have been blessed in that we have lived the past decade plus in Africa and we have been fortunate to have been able to travel, hunt and fish extensively throughout many African countries. I would guess we have enjoyed more than 50 something safaris / hunting trips over the years and we have taken a wide variety of plains and dangerous game. We have been blessed and we have been spoiled, we have met wonderful people, been to wonderful places and seen wonderful things and we have savoured every moment of every African adventure and are very thankful.
In contrast in Europe, where I suppose we have our roots, we have hunted a few times over the years, successfully taking stags in Scotland and Hungary, roe buck and doe in Germany and the UK, wild boar in Germany and feathered game in various European countries.
Yet there are two animals on my European 'Bucket List' that get me very excited, more excited than deer and feathered game, and they are mufflon and chamois ! Big hard, full curl mufflon and agile, elegant chamois, high up in Europe's mountains!
This was to be a bucket list hunt for chamois!
I came to Stefan Hofer, our guide, through his website - simple, unpretentious, straight forward information with enough detail to cover the main points but not overkill and IMO fantastic photographs and pictures! It was the pictures that sold me on "Gamsjagd Austria Hofer Jagd Abschusse" and prompted me to contact Stefan. Chamois, high up in the limestone dolomite Carnic Alps, on the Austrian border to Italy, simple rustic Alpine huts, mountain peaks, white clouds and blue skies! The way I have always thought a chamois hunt should be.
In the phone conversations with Stefan, he answered all my questions and volunteered advice and suggestions. The season on chamois runs from 1 August to 31 December. "Did we want a summer or a winter chamois?" In summer the chamois are grey / beige in colour, with short coats; they are usually high up in the mountains, typically above the tree lines, and they are pretty used to summer walkers and hikers. Also with no snow on the mountains in August / September most of the cabins and huts can be reached by vehicle and you can drive the forestry tracks and paths. An easier hunt all round.
The winter chamois is a tougher hunt. The chamois do come down the mountains into or below the tree lines due to the snow but there is more walking and hiking and often longer shots. Tough going through the snow. The plus is that the chamois are in their thick black brown winter coats and arguably make a more attractive trophy for a wall mount and you can make a 'Gamsbart' hat decoration as an additional trophy. Plus November is the rut, which makes for exciting hunting when the rams are battling each other in the snow.
Now Anja, whilst she was very keen to join in on the trip and vacation to Austria, she was not really keen on hunting chamois. And this is where Stefan suggested Anja could, if she wanted, try for a mountain roe buck, which would be open at the same time as gams.
Great! I would hunt gams and Anja could hunt roe buck.
We wanted to hunt together and Stefan was happy with that. 3 or 4 days would be more than enough to have a shot at a chamois and a roe buck. We also wanted to stay up in the mountains in one of his huts a couple of nights and in a B&B or hotel in the valley the other night. Not a problem at all, Stefan has 4 mountain concessions including 8 Alpine cabins / huts which can be used by hunters in summer and winter. We would do a couple of nights in his guest lodge in the village of Wurmlach with electricity and showers and one or two nights in the mountains with oil lamps and outdoor wash facilities! Btw the family has had the main concession for over 38 years!
Stefan's other question was whether we wanted to hunt rams or ewes? Interestingly the ultimate chamois trophy for the German or Austrian hunter is a female chamois of 10 plus years! An old ewe is much higher prized than a younger ram. I don't think I can come up with any other species where this is the case, neither in Europe nor Africa. We opted to make this decision on the spot on the day rather than in advance. Stefan was ok with that but we did give him some guidance in that we would be after 'trophy' chamois and a solid roe buck for the wall.
We booked 4 days 4 nights in August, targeting 1 trophy summer chamois 1 roe buck and overnighting in a cabin in the mountains. Bucket List stuff!
We would drive down from Duesseldorf, where we have a home, and spend a night in Munich, visiting the Oktoberfest and then arrive in Wuermlach the following early afternoon. Two easy days of relaxed driving on German autobahns and the Oktoberfest!
For rifles, we would take Anja's 30.06 shooting RWS factory ammunition, whilst I went out and purchased an Austrian 1974 Mannlicher Schoenauer Stutzen in .243, a great and fitting 'mountain rifle' for chamois in the Alps. Now I just needed the check shirt, leather shorts, wool socks and felt hat of course! No Austrian mountain hunt is complete without the felt hat!
And then, a short while later, in a phone call or Whatsapp session with my good hunting buddy and friend, Rob, now living in Indonesia, I told him of our plans and sent him a few pictures of mountains, trophy chamois, clouds and blue skies and he - and his wife Ilsa - were sold in minutes ! Could they join us and hunt chamois with us in the mountains? Of course !!! We would hunt chamois and roe together in the Alps!
Rob and Ilsa would fly into Germany from Jakarta and drive down with us. They would use our rifles but Rob would have to get his own leather pants and felt hat.
I phoned our guide and cleared it with him. Could we hunt 4 instead of 2? No problem at all, we could!
Deposits were paid and August could not come quick enough for me.
In February, we visited the Wild & Hund Show in Dortmund and amongst other things, we got felt hats for everyone!
And then it was September. Rob and Ilsa arrived from Jakarta via Amsterdam into Dusseldorf on KLM arriving the Saturday early afternoon. We spent the Saturday evening in Krefeld, got supplies in for the trip and enjoyed a local pub restaurant evening meal.
Early the next morning, we loaded up the car and headed south towards Munich. A 5 hour drive through Nordrhein Westfalen, Hessen and into Freistaat Bayern and Munich. When it comes to driving there is nothing to equal German autobahns with no speed restrictions! It was a breeze at a steady 150 kms with spurts of 200!
We arrived in Munich, checked in to our B&B and off we went to the Oktoberfest! The worlds largest beer festival and Europe's largest festival with 3 million visitors in 2 weeks. We had a great time, lots of beer, and then lots more and sang along with the bands!
The following morning, none the worse for wear, we drove South into Austria and on to Wuermlach.
Austria for those that don't know it is an easy country to get around and spend time in - magnificent countryside, friendly people, great food, super infrastructure and great hunting, full of old tradition - before, during and after the hunt.
We arrived around mid day as instructed and linked up with Stefan. The weather was bad - wet and foggy. We quickly settled into our accommodations - a newly built two bedroom guest lodge / apartment - and at 3 pm went out to see what the weather on the mountain was like. I went with Stefan's father, Joseph, and Rob and Ilsa with Stefan. Anja stayed at the lodge. Thick fog hung in the valley and up the mountains. Not a promising start.
Nevertheless, Joseph drove me up the mountain in his Suzuki Grand Vitara and up to one of their mountain Alm huts. We sat at a high seat for an hour or so but the fog did not lift so we called it a day and drove down the mountain - after spending half an hour with a warming oven and a schnapps in one of the mountain huts.
Tuesday was pretty much the same with low hanging fog in the valley and up the mountains. But again we went out and Anja and I, guided by Joseph, spent a couple of hours in a high seat overlooking a mountain valley. We spied a few roe deer but no shootable buck and around 4 pm we called it a day.
When we returned to the farm we were joyed to see that Rob had taken a chamois. A good solid ram of 2 - 3 years, although not that strong in the body. We drank to Rob's 'gams' that evening!
Now, perhaps a line or two on the catering. It was a self catering arrangement and we drew up a menu and bought foodstuffs in Germany on the Saturday. We could have saved the space in the car as Wurmlach had a number of supermarkets and stores and we could have shopped on the doorstep. Live and learn. The menus that we drew up leaned very much towards German and Austrian cooking - Birnen, Bohnen & Speck, Labskaus, Maultaschen, Nurenburger sausages and Sauerkraut, Linsensuppe and so on. Nobody complained, we ate well, the ladies drank lots of champagne every night and despite hiking in the mountains every day nobody lost weight !
The "Schnitzel"!
"Birnen Bohnen und Speck"
We awoke Wednesday to sunshine and snow capped peaks! The temperatures had fallen in the night and the top 1/3 of the mountains were covered in 10 - 15 cms fresh snow!
Above the clouds in the snow!
Rob and I bundled up warm and went out with Stefan after a gams for me. We drove to the top of one of the concessions, through and above the clouds and we were greeted by a dream of blankets of snow and white fir and pine trees! In September! Thank heavens we had the right boots and layers.
We walked to one of the mountain huts and we were soon glassing chamois. A group of some 25 plus animals, ewes, kids and young rams. Stefan spied an old old ewe but we could not make out whether she had a kid or not so we held back and waited. After a cold hour, I felt the wind on the back of my neck and sure enough the chamois bolted. We followed in the snow but again we were winded so we walked and climbed back to the car to look for another group of animals.
Here as a side note, its perhaps of interest to mention that Stefan
uses a hand held thermal image camera/scope with which he can spot chamois, roe and red deer out to 2 km - bright white dots of light against the snow and trees. When he spotted something, he then bought out the Swarovski spotting scope mounted on a Swarovski tripod and dialled in on the animal(s). A brilliant set up that got us onto gams numerous times.
We crossed the valley to spy a ram that Stefan spotted from the other side, but we failed to find him on the hanging mountain face and so we moved on to another range.
Here we scoped a hang for an hour and made out 3 or 4 gams in and out of the pines but none presented a chance of a shot. We also picked up a large red deer stag in the pines and I also saw a murmel (marmot) for the first time, a big fat bear of a marmot sunning himself on a rock! Great stuff. Stefan decided we would call it a morning and go down for something to eat and return late afternoon.
Back at the farmhouse, we met up with the girls. Ilsa had shot a chamois - a long downhill shot and she hit him a bit back. Joseph opted to wait rather than follow up straight away, confident that they would find the dead ram the next day. Anja and Ilsa also both shot a marmot! Anja's however had a nerve attack at the shot and fell back into its burrow / den, where it likely still is as I write this. We would have needed a JCB to shift rocks and earth and get it out! Ilsa's however was recovered and she was more than happy with her prize!
The gals in their felt hats!
We prepared lunch and then Stefan told us that he was going up to have a look at the stag again - his passion is without doubt red deer. His brother in law, Karl, would pick us up and we would meet Stefan back up the mountain after lunch.
The ladies would go out again with Joself that afternoon whilst Rob and I went out with Karl, in his Suzuki Jimny, a far cry from an African Landcruiser, but ideal for mountain paths and tracks.
Up at 1.900 m we met up with Stefan pulled over on a forestry path glassing the slope that we looked at that morning. There were gams in the tree line on the left including two good rams.
Taking my pack, my .243 and my walking stick, I followed Karl and we slowly made our way to below the clearing / hang where we positioned ourselves some 250 m below the point where we hoped the chamois to be. Over the next two hours a ewe and a ram flirted and skirted the left hand edge of the mountain clearing, grazing, jumping from rock to rock and back again. A very decent ram, but we knew that there was a better one around and Karl thought that he was in the tree line off to the right. We waited and glassed and glassed and waited. And then around 6.00 pm a third chamois showed itself. The larger ram!
"He's the good one. Will you shoot him?" Karl urged / asked.
I bedded the .243 into my mountain pack and searched for the ram finding him in my scope. A steep uphill shot of 248m.
"Grazing, head to the right?"
"Yes," replied Karl.
I squeezed off the shot and saw the ram rear up and break away to the right through my scope, clearly hard hit. I reloaded and searched the mountain side through my scope but could not find the chamois.
"Shoot again! He's still standing!" Karl.
"Where, I don't see him?" I replied.
"Where they were before. In the tree line on the left. He's looking down at us."
I found him in the scope. Looking straight on down at us, a few twigs and smaller branches partly covering him. I sighted on to his chest and squeezed the front trigger again and saw and heard the bullet strike and the ram, hit hard, bolted to the left into the pines and fir trees.
Karl and I exchanged looks and I told him that I was sure of the first shot.
"Maybe a bit far back and soft?" his reply and we started the climb down to where Rob and Stefan were waiting some 500m below.
Now at this point doubt starts to set in. I was sure my first shot was good and solid. The ram reared and buckled as if heart or at least liver. Karl again said he was sure my first shot was soft.
As we approached the cars, Stefan and Rob wore confused looks on their faces.
"Why did you shoot the smaller of the two?" asked Stefan. "And then you shot the larger one afterwards."
He had videoed everything through his spotting scope with a camera mounted on the back and we replayed the film.
Based on where I was standing behind a rock for cover and where the larger ram was on the left on the mountain slope, I could not see him and I had picked up the right hand ram. Karl was watching the larger, left hand ram and at the shot the larger ram broke right and then turned back to the trees on the left seeking cover. My ram, the right hand ram, hit hard, bolted 20m before dropping dead behind some cover, out of sight of Karl and myself.
The first ram was down but the thermal camera showed that the second and larger ram was still up and able to move, albeit slowly. With the light fading fast, we recovered the first (dead) ram and took a couple of quick photographs before heading down the mountain. We would recover the second, larger ram the following morning.
And that is exactly what we did. Stefan hiked and climbed up to a steep ledge above the ram, which was bedded down, and put in a finishing shot before dragging the ram down the slope to where I was at the car. My shot had totally shattered the ram's front left shoulder and broken a number of ribs but not connected with the vitals. It was 2 cm too far right.
Nevertheless he was a wonderful, solid ram, estimated at 9 plus years. I think that Stefan was even more excited than I was and I was most grateful to him for finding and securing the ram. We spent a lot of time admiring the chamois and taking pictures.
Then we drove down the mountain where we met Rob and the girls with Stefan's father, Jospeh, spying for a marmot for Rob. He later shot a great bear of a 'murmel' with Joseph's Blaser .222 Rem .20 bore combination rifle.
That afternoon whilst I was skinning / caping the ram for a long shoulder mount, I received a text from Anja that they were all settled down in the local village pub with Joseph drinking beers and pine cone schnapps! Dinner was late that evening!!
Friday kicked off early with Joseph going up the one mountain and recovering Ilsa's trophy. The meat was lost / bad but he came back with the trophy horns and head. Ilsa was happy.
After that, Friday was a lazy morning with some site seeing in town and after lunch we all went up the mountains in two cars to try for a marmot for me.
Stopping at an open grass area dotted with stones, large rocks and cows and goats - sporting cow and goat bells - we soon spotted a number of marmots sunning themselves on rocks or on ledges at the entrances to their dens.
It was a wonderful afternoon, the sun was out, the sky blue and a slight breeze blew. The sound of cow and goat bells rang across the hillside.
Rob glassing for murmel!
Photobombed by an Alpine cow!
The long and short was that I missed the first two murmel - shooting low - but after a stalk and climb down over the rocks onto number 3, I had my murmel bear. A 50m shot downhill onto a big bear murmel sunning on a large rocky outcrop!
We took pictures and then I gutted him, being careful to keep the fat inside the body cavity as it is used for medicinal purposes and treatments (marmot fat / oil rub - to aid aching joints and bones! I kid you not!)
We stopped at a couple of remote mountain bars / pubs on the way down the mountain and toasted my murmel bear with 'schnops' (as the Kaernten Austrians call and spell it) and beers. The pubs were basically someones house on the mountain with the front rooms turned into a bar for tourists and tables outside. A different world!
Oh and geraniums! All of the houses have flower boxes full of geraniums. Beautiful.
A local pub!
We got back and put the murmel in the cool room along with the other 3 marmots and the chamois and then after dinner we headed to the local village pub. It was like going back in time! The pub - again someones living room - consisted of 4 tables and chairs, a stove, a cabinet full of glasses, a kitchen and old family and village photographs on all the walls! All the 4 tables were occupied as we walked in but the locals all squeezed together and made space for us. Interestingly everyone knew who we were, where we were from and that we were hunting with Stefan and Joseph ..... rural village drums beat quickly and loud! We enjoyed a couple of beers, chatted with the locals, had a couple of pine cone schnops' and then called it a night.
The village pub
Saturday we breakfasted, packed up and then Rob and I took the trophies to a taxidermist some 35 kms away before we all loaded up and headed north to Germany and Dusseldorf to arrive back late Saturday evening.
Rob and Ilsa flew out back to Jakarta on Monday after a great breakfast in the Dusseldorf Altstadt and I returned to Nigeria on Tuesday whilst Anja stayed on in Dusseldorf.
All in all it was a wonderful trip. The 'Oktoberfest' I would highly recommend as a 'must do' (but maybe only once) and the chamois hunting in the mountains was simply fantastic! Again a 'must do'! Superb views and scenery, great accommodation, good guides and plenty of quality game - chamois, red deer, roe, murmel and we saw black grouse as well! It went beyond my hopes and expectations.
A big thanks to Rob and Ilsa for coming over all the way from Indonesia and joining us and also to Stefan and his father, Joseph, for guiding us on to great animals / trophies and showing us their mountain world !
And thanks to all AR members and readers for coming along as well!
And to finish off in traditional AR style here the sunset picture - albeit over a German Autobahn at 200 km ! ( not taken by me as I was driving !)
Ps. Anja was very happy with her murmel and although we did see a number of roe buck, Anja passed on the opportunities and was more than happy joining myself, Rob and Ilsa and sharing our hunting and laughter and fun! Next time .... and a next time is already in the making!
.
