Iran is a great hunting country and offers challenging mountain hunts for different sheep species and bezoar ibex. The wild boar hunting is just unbelievable. I haven't meantioned the wingshooting yet - I never tried it there , but from what I heard it's outstanding too.
But there's a lot more - the people are extremely friendly and hospitable, the cultural treasures date back into the dawn of humanity, and yes - Iranian food is great. I hunted there in January 2001 and in December 2001. The second time my 16 year old son accompanied me. We had adventurous days in the mountains, made many friends and took great trophies. We will be going back again in 2004. Once the ram-bug bites you, you're hooked for life. Anybody wanting to know more about hunting Iran can look at the website of my outfitter Iran Safaris http://www.iransafari.com or contact Reza or Ali Jafari under info@iransafari.com - these guys go out of their way to arrange everything - from visa, gun permits to pick-up at Tehran airport, transport to the hunting area, great and knowledgable guides, outstanding food, trophy preparation and export with all essential permits, etc. The two brothers and their father Kamil became friends before we knew it and will remain friends for the rest of our lives.

Muskwa

Is it safe to hunt in Iran ??

NinjaHunter,

At the present time it is illegal for an American citizen to hunt in Iran!!! They have some really great hunting,especially the Ibex. I hope the US change this policy and allow us to hunt there in the future.

A friend of mine hunted there extensively before the revolution but his politics clashed with the mullahs. His last Red Deer was taken at dark in 1979 at 870 paces. He took the shot because he knew he would never be back.
The present govenment has wanted him to come back. In fact they sent several groups to bring him back. So far John Browning has kept him out of Iran.

[ 07-19-2003, 08:22: Message edited by: Dr. Duc ]

Gentlemen

Iran is a very nice country is you are a mountain hunting loony that sold on Sheeps, Ibex and Gazelles. I have a friend that has invited me to come and sooner or later I will. The problem is that at this moment they are even more currious on what forigners are doing there, why, whom and with who. Which is quite logical because of the events in the region.

The trophy fees are a bit high if you been "unlucky" to shoot a animal with big horns. But they have a hughe variety of sheeps.
I guess there are a few operators for Iran that have fairly good deals for ibex etc. But Pakistan and Afghanistan should be interesting countries for thoos who are interested in mountain hunting.

Muskwa, thanks for your report

/ JOHAN

The Late Jack o'connor and J . Melon were hunting sheep and ibex over there back in the 1960's. yes indeed Iran is a great country.
Johan good luck with hunting there . my late father had hunted both Ibex( which in persian is called for Boz� kohi) and sheep (called ghoch)back in 1920 to 1930 in western side of Iran (Zagros mountain).
regards
Danny
ps Muskwa
Are you iranian? what a strange Name?
regards

I lived and worked in Iran from 1973 to 1979 when Komieni came. With the help of an Armienian friend I secured permits for a 12 guage and a 270. As stated above the wild boar hunting was great, my record weighed 330 kilos with tusks measuring 9" on the outside curve. Dove and duck hunting were wonderful. I lived in Isfahan and hunted ducks in the swamp where the Isfahan river ended west of Isfahan. There were four kinds of Big horn sheep plus the Ibex and the red European deer. The best hunting for deer and boar was north of Tehran between Tehran and the Caspian. In addition there were beautiful silver foxes with wonderful pelts if shot in the winter. The Ibex hunting was the hardest hunting I've ever done. As stated above the people in the villages outside the big cities were very friendly and hospitable, however we had to excercize care not to violate any taboo customs. When Shaw Reza Palavi was in power his brother was more or less in charge of game and efforts were made to promote conservation. There were many game preserves and one near Isfahan had beautiful Ibex. I have watched those Ibex through binos, they would be looking back at me with their heads cocked to one side, then scratch their rears with their horns. The mueseum of natural history in Tehran had a full mount of an Ibex with horns one meter and twelve centimeters. There was a full mount of a Marco Polo sheep that was as big as a horse. I couldn'd reach around the horns at the base with both hands.
My Armenian friend still lives in Isfahan (retired from the army). I communicate by email with his son who lives in Tehran. It is sad what the government has done to that country.

No, I'm not Iranian. And - those members who are from North America should check their maps, and maybe some old sheep hunting books. Where was the largest ram taken in North America? Between the Muskwa and the Prophet rivers! And that is where I spent many happy hunting days!

Anyhow, hunting in Iran is safe, most likely much safer than in many other parts of the world. As far as I know, US citizens will have to thoroughly check the prevalent legislation before they hunt there in order not to run into difficulties with the US government at some stage. Citizens of any other country will not have any problems with visa, rifle permits, CITES export/import permits etc.

Sheep species in Iran are: Armenian Sheep, Red Sheep, Isfahan Sheep, Larestan Mouflon, Kerman Sheep, Transcaspian Urial. You can hunt Beozar Ibex and wild boar too.

The prices are - in my opinion - quite reasonable if compared with other sheep in Asia. Reza Jafari at info@iransafari.com can give you more details.

Hi
Back in the 1960's "I left 1970 and never retuned" I lived in Iran ,but as a child had no possibility to hunt big game and big game hunting was hardly regulated and controlled. HRH prince Abdoreza a great international big game hunter and sportman was on charge of wild life &game department and with help of devoted staff, indeed they did a great job.more than 79000 sq km land is wildlife reservation. I saw on internet that he"prince Abdoreza" had written a book about hunting i wish i could buy a copy and read it. he is a very aknowledged hunter and he had hunted african games plenty of times.Now sadly I have no contact with Iran and I wish and hope that the new guys in chrge do a good game management job as it was done before. Oh god I miss the country even I am living in such a nice country like Sweden.
regards
danny

Danny Pay

What kind of connection do you have to Iran, are you persian?

Send a PM if you like too.

/ JOHAN

Hi Johan
Yes i am persian swede and a little bit french and a lot world citizen.
regards
danny

Danny Pay

I knew that you must be Persian some way or annother.

Aha, you are not alone to have an international background

PM sent.

/ JOHAN

Danny,

Safari Press has a link on their webb page that has the World Record Pesang(Besoar Ibex) A prince from the area took this animal in Iran in 1973. It could be this is the same man you speak of.

Hi Johan
Do I look horrible on internet? how did you know about my persian origing ?
If you are sur to go there and hunt then you have to concider these following tips:
1- you need to be in top fysical fitness able to climbe 45 degree steep at leat 10-20 mile a day carrying your gun and packs.
2-bing with you a real flat shooting light weight gun 270 was very popular when i was there but i see that norma's new 6,5x284 would be a perfect mountain caliber and will do for all the games there maybe with exception of boars which can grow huge over there.i saw a few time french boars but they are dwarfing compared to what you can find there.the sheeps are easier to kill than Ibex and finally try to exercise shooting at 45 degree uppward and regulate your sight for it because otherwise you are going to be realy surprised and may miss your trophy. good luck and good hunt

Hi hawkeye
I left Iran 1970 and as you mentioned the new kind of Ibexhas been introduced later,but the original persian ibex can produce a very massiv horns often longer than 1 meter and ibex hunting is a real chalange for a hunter .
regards
danny

Danny,

I checked the net and the Prince that shot the big Ibex is the one you know. WWW.SafariPress.COM
is the web page. Click on World Records in the sidebar and it shows the picture and has the details of the hunt. Bob Kern of the Hunting Consortium told me the Prince is in his 90's and still actively hunts.

I�ve read many articles by Jack O�Connor which mentioned Prince Abdorrezah Pahlavi. His feats with an open sighted 7 mm. are legend. The magazine was Outdoor Life and Jack hunted Iran once or twice. Herb Klein hunted also there if I remember well, fifty or forty years ago. Wing shooting was the very best by the way.
Bob Mehaffey: your boar is incredible. The weight is outstanding but the tusks are inbelievable!. My best boar measures 22 centimeters (not very good it should be noted) and yours had 9 inches out of the lip!. Often total lenght equals three times the outside measure. Perhaps it was a world record.
Congratulations!

Hi Hawkeye
I watched the pictur on the web site, what an excellent trophy and glad to hear that his highness is in good health and still hunting. I beleive he hunted a lot with a 7x57 mauser as i had read in persian hunting magazin called "shekar va tabiat "and i still remember the late o'conner's writings in the outdoorlife back in the 60's. those wrer the days!
regards
danny

Hi Johan
I got your message . I,ll call you later . I beleive 7X 64 is good caliber ,better than 7mm rem . the difference in perfomance is little .but the gun in 7mm rem would be much heavier and cumbersom. not so good for muntain climbing.
regards
danny

Johan,

my son and I took all our trophies in Iran with a .300WSM - distances varied between 70 and 300 yards. All were one shot kills - and let it be known - we used a Blaser R93. And you can say what you want - it's a great and accurate rifle. I've used Mausers, Weatherbys, Winchesters, H&H - Drillings, bolt actions, doubles, in my over 40 years of hunting - and my Blaser is the best of the lot (although by far not the most expensive one).

I'll go back to Iran next year for some more sheep hunting and an Ibex (and of course a couple of pounds of caviar)

Hej Johan

Detta �r mitt adress
Daniel paydar
rytter�s long 6
53493 stora levene
mvh
danny

Danny Pay

I got it. please edit your post.

Johan,

equipment is quite easy - for November to Feburary be prepared for cold weather in the mountains (Alborz, Heydari, etc)- I used Cabela's stuff and good Meindl boots. It can get warm during the day, so dress in layers, have a good daypack were you can store things. Take some chocolates, etc for day snacks. The guides have delicious home made cheese, unleafened bread and tea along. I enjoyed these things tremendously. At night you need only a light sleeping bag (rooms are overheated - we stayed in gameguard cottage in Heydari and in a shepherd's hut in the Alborz. Spotting scope is a must as well as a good flat shooting Blaser, oops Mauser I mean - the guides are excellent and all of the Iran Safari guides have Swarowski optics. The caviar we got (very often - almost daily) is delicious with fresh unleaved bread and a bit of butter.

The terrain is not too difficult, but if you want to get a good ram you have to put in quite some miles in the mountains - but that's part of the fun.

You cannot take you trophy with you and sending takes some time - but Iran Safari is very reliable in getting all permits diligently.

Cheers
Muskwa

Muskwa

Sounds like a really great adventure. I will email you soon, even if you are a blaser owner

Thanks for the help

/ JOHAN

Nainital, Saludos, mi mejor amigo es de Argintina. First I should have made it clear about the Tusks on my biggest boar from Iran. I boiled his head and pulled the tusks out. The measure nine inches from the root. However you are right about the weight, I was flabbergasted when we weighed him on Art's uncle's grain scales.

Another thing about Iran that always intriged me is that most villages where Art and I initiated our hunts had a "hunter" who usually had a single shot 16 guage shotgun. These guys usually had good advice regarding best methods and places for different game. But they all usually had a story regarding a friend of a friend who had seen a Persian lion. I know they are extinct but invariably they knew someone who had seen one. ???

In addition I had an American military friend who was a bow hunter. He would find an area with trees where boar had been feeding and set himself up at night in a tree with his bow and light. When he heard the boar come he would turn on the light and shoot one with his bow. He swore this happened one night, when he turned on the light a leopard waslooking up at him. Said he was so shocked he missed. I know there used to be leopards there but wonder if this story is true. Suppossedly this took place north of Tehran and sout of the Caspian about 20 miles.

Hi Muskwa
What they give to drink with those good caviars coca cola or iranian tea is it allowed for the bad infidels"forigners" to drink a glass of good drink with those good caviars or you were forced to drink alcoholless champagne
talk a little bit more about the ammo you used for hunting and some pictures
regards
danny

Bob Mehaffey: now these tusks seem normal. Here the Argentine record reaches some 30 centimeters I believe, measured from the root as you did. The boar�s weight is very good but not astonishing, we have some here which are somewhat heavier. In Europe, mostly in the Eastern countries, you can find such weights easily. Hunting there is not cheap I must add.
Regarding the Persian lion, in South Africa there are some scientists who maintains that 2.000 years ago the sabertooth tiger still roamed the veldt. Who knows?. Of course leopards can survive in poultry and leaves of grass, they are such adaptable animals.
Regards

For some excellent information of hunting in Iran and above all about the game available I recommend to Rashid Jamsheed's book "Big Game Animals of Iran (Persia) with a foreword of Jack O'Connor. The book was published in 1976, but the game info is valid today too. There are excellent photos and good articles. I do not know who published the book, since no publisher is mentioned, but I got mine some years ago from Safari Press.

From the cat family you find cheetah, leopard (I saw a video taken by my host just weeks before I arrrived. During a hunt they chanced on a huge leopard, and the cat approached them to within 10 yards - its all on video). Tiger and snow leopard used to occur in Iran, but are most likely extinct there now. Further you find Caracal, lynx, and some species of small cats. There are no reports that I know of(i. e. from the 20th century) that the Persian Lion (as in the old Persian sagas) is still roaming. Most likely it's extinct for some hundreds of years. Another predator, that I observed personally during the hunt is the wolf. A very interesting animal is the wild ass.

As to the weight of wild boar - a good size boar can weigh over 500 pounds. Ramsheed talks in his book about average tusk length of 25 centimeters and top trophies scoring 30 to 33 centimeters. I have again seen a video of a monster boar with a weight of definitively more than 500 pounds. I judged the tusks in excess of 30 centimeters. During my two hunts in Iran, we took a number of boars with average tusk lenghts of about 24 centimeters, and one going over 25. But we did not hunt for boar, just took them as chance trophy during the Urial hunts.

There is NO place in Europe where you can get this type of average trophy quality - and if you take a boar of say 25 cm in Rumania you pay Euro 1250 to Euro 1400 as trophy fee, in Hungary calculate about Euro 3500. In Iran it is way cheaper and you are virtually guaranteed a very large trophy. On top of it, it is absolutely fair chase hunting - walk and stalk or beaten hunts (if you hunt in the dense forest near the Caspian Sea). And believe me, hunting boar in the mountains during broad daylight is quite an adventure. The wild boar in Iran are not intorduced - they have lived there wild forever.

Hi
the last persian lions were killed by a cadjar's prince called "zelol sultan" at the time when my grand father lived 1860-1912 and the prince wrote to his friend and boasted: i killed the last maneaters in the dasht� Arjan( a place nearby city of Shiraz)to secure the path of caravans with my caliber 14 side by side which i've received as a gift from the his majesty king of Belgium. Persian tiger(hircany tiger called also caspian tiger) was still existing until mid 70's and there efter disapeared . i believed the cheetah and leo are protected from hunting as they were in 60's. is it allowed to hunt them as trophy now?
danny

Danny Pay

I have some information about this. There are supposed to be both Leopard and Cheeta in some part of the country. Some folks claim to have seen lion, but I take that for a optimistic fantasy. When they got the claw makrs I will belive them

/ JOHAN

hi Johan
Do you know if leo and cheetah are allowed for hunting now in Iran? they were protected when i lived there and if one killed a leo or cheetah was forced to pay huge amount of fin. I knew a guy who had a farmer uncle living somewhere in western iran near the city of Ilam . he had killed a very nice leo night time trying to enter his stable . he shot at him with a semi auto savage in 22 lr and made a nice hole in between the eyes. it was 1963 or1964 .leo and cheetah existing in iran it is no myth ,but lion has terminated for a hundred years ago.
regards
danny

since we are on the subject of iranian animals, i have a question. i, and my family, lived there in the 70's, in isfahan, when i was in high school. we shot a few wild boar and foxes, ducks and doves, and got skunked by the ibex and sheep. one of our friends shot a big wolf while hunting with us. we had a lot of fun and i'de love to go back someday. one night i was trying to call up a fox(or whatever decided to show up) and some sort of wild dog showed up and i shot it. i still don't know exactly what it was. it was about the size of a texas coyote but had a short tail, about 7 or 8 inches. it hadn't been chopped off but had grown that way naturally. it was colored about like a coyote. it also had a proportionally small head. i still have the skull and the tail. does anyone have any idea what kind of wild canine this was? thanks for any help...bud

Hi
I am sure you got a jackal from the way you describe the animal. there are plenty of them over there and are concidered as varmints.
regards
danny

This is the price list of Iran Safaris - as you can see, leopard hunting is possible with special permit. Check www.iransafari.com you will find great photos and description of the country

I quote the exact price list as received from Iransafari:

BIG GAME HUNTING
2003-2004

Season: September 21st ends March 6th.
Duration: 7 days up to 5 days hunting for each species.
Prices are in US dollar and are inclusive of Trophy fees

Species/Trophy fees 1X1 2X2

-Persian Ibex /$3950 8700 7950
-Southern P.Ibex/$3950 8700 7950
-Arak/$3950 9700 8950
-Armenian/$4950 9700 8950
-Alborz Red/$4950 9700 8950
-Esfahan/$4950 9700 8950
-Kerman/$5500 10250 9500
-Shiraz/$5500 10250 9500
-Transcasp. Urial/$5500 10250 9500

Special Permits:

-Persian Leopard
-Brown Bear
-Red Stag
-Laristan Mouflon

We expect all of our hunters to maintain a high standard in hunting ethics and always practice fair chase

Hej Johan
Jag f�rs�kte maila dig ,men det gick inte b�da p� hotmail adress och tiscali.
h�lsningar
danny

Danny Pay

You got e-mail

/ JOHAN

[ 08-04-2003, 20:48: Message edited by: JOHAN ]

I am, and have been, standing at the ready to go hunt Ibex in Iran. I will be there ASAP if it becomes open to US folks. It is THE place for big Bezoar Ibex! As mentioned, a little bit incorrectly, though, hunting Iran for US citizens is out. Technically, we can go, but we can't bring back anything (obviously including the trophy) and can't dispose of any US originating funds there, making it pretty tough to do anything. Being allowed to hunt Iran and bring back the goods is about the only thing that I envy Canadians for. Danny, the Prince's book is available from Safari Press.

Hi Arts
I wish that the situation will change to the better and relation between Iran and The usa becomes more fiendly, because it is in the intrest of both nations( it is what called geopolitic).thanks for the tip about the book . I am sure it would be very intersting too read. i hope they sell it in Sweden. you are very wellcom to Iran as an american sportman to collect the trophy which you are interested.
regards
danny

Danny, Safari Press sells internationally, so it shouldn't be a problem to get the book in Sweden. BUT....Actually, the book is written by another author based on lots of interviews and talks with the prince, as well as open access to the prince's photos. Also, it appears that it may not be available quite yet. It is VERY expensive! I checked, the book is scheduled to be available in the winter of 2004. I believe a copy is $350; Special edition (50) is $1300.

[ 08-13-2003, 01:31: Message edited by: Arts ]