23 January 2013, 16:18
Vince HazenFather/Son Marco Polo and Ibex in Kyrgyzstan
Hunt: Marco Polo/Ibex in KyrgyzstanDates: January 5-18, 2013
Rifle: Remington .300 UltraMag with Bushnell Elite HDMR Scope
I used the Accuracy First system for the Horus H59 reticle and it worked like a champ. I highly recommend it:
https://www.accuracy1stdg.com/...etail.cfm?prodID=496
Shot factory Federal Premium 180 grain Trophy Bonded Tips. They performed flawlessly.
Leica Geovids - my favorite piece of hunting equipment and are absolutely essential for trophy judging and laser ranging.
Kestrel 4500 NV for determining Density Altitude and wind speed.
I brought a Swarovski spotting scope, but never took it out of my pack.
I have been eyeing the Marco Polo/Ibex hunts Igor (profyhunter) has been advertising on AR for quite a while. My oldest son speaks Russian and I was trying to schedule a hunt between his school semesters so he could hunt/translate, but it did not work. So I found my son an internship in Moscow that did not start till January 19, which gave us plenty of time to squeeze in a hunt on his way to Moscow.
I talked to some of the folks who had hunted with profyhunter and with good reports received, I took the plunge. I have read the reports from prezman who had an unfortunate run-in with the local officials, but I had no such experience. Some things that go with this part of the world are just out of the hands of the outfitter. My guide, Talant, was as good as any I have had anywhere in the world. While the accommodations were not first class, I had no such expectations. This is not a hunt for everyone. Lets just say this was one of the most incredibly awesome experiences I will probably never want to do again. If you do decide to take this hunt: get in shape, learn Russian or have a trusted companion who does, learn to shoot very long distances, and relax and go with the flow. This is a sketchy part of the world and sketchy stuff happens. Just know that going in.
As most of you have just read Brett’s fabulous report of his trip to Kyrgyzstan, I will just say to most of it “ditto”. Like Brett, we also used Travel With Guns, we flew into Istanbul and stayed over and saw the sights, we used Instanbul for Hunters and Arda was our guide, we flew into Bishkek then drove forever out into the vast wilderness that is the Kyrg Republic.
We left Austin, Texas on January 5th.
We flew to Chicago, then to Istanbul. We were met by Arda, who is a master with the local officials and guns, and he took us to our hotel, got us checked in, and gave us a quickie tour around Old Istanbul before we had dinner and hit the sack. After breakfast, Arda picked us up and gave us a magnificent tour of Istanbul.
After the tour he delivered us to the airport for our flight that night to Bishkek. The 5 hour flight into Bishkek arrived at about 6:45 am. We were met at the airport by Audilet, the son of the outfitter who speaks excellent English, and we were loaded into a very large Mercedes bus and hit the road. It was about a six hour drive to the base of the mountains. It is a very interesting drive, though after flying all night you will likely want to sleep a good part of it.
When we hit the base of the mountains, we switched over to a fairly primitive truck. Not luxurious, but it worked. After about 3 hours, we hit base camp. Again, fairly primitive, but it worked.
However, I must say, a squatter outhouse at -25 really sucks.
The next day we sighted in the rifle, made some minor adjustments, and then hopped in the little Russian jeep and drove deeper into the mountains.
The inside of the jeep was sweet.
On the way into the mountains we stopped at a shepherd’s house and ended up spending a good chunk of the day there waiting for horses. This was one of those things that you can either be pissed about losing the hunting time or enjoy the experience of spending the day with a Kyrg shepherd and his family. We chose the latter and it was pretty cool. Learned that this woman had killed a wolf with a knife while it was attacking her husband. These are tough people.
When we left the shepherd’s house, we began a 3 hour ordeal of off-roading at night, cramped with 6 people in a rough 4 person Russian jeep, with everyone but my son and I smoking, and terrible Russian music blaring. It was truly the ride from hell. This was the low point of the trip. We finally made it to the hunting camp.
It was way too cold to spike camp so we used a little hut with a stove. Not the ritz, but it worked.
The camp we stayed in was primitive, but it worked. We were plenty warm with the stove on. Food was plain, but good.
FYI, I was in pretty good shape when I left at 200 pounds. I was about 185 when I came out of the mountains. You burn some serious calories running up and down those mountains, and without and sugar or crap food, the weight comes off.
We had fantastic weather. Very cold at night (-18 to -25) but would warm up into the 20’s during the day. Clear and very little wind. We hunted the MP in the rolling lower mountains, but was still nearly 13,000 feet. I really worked hard on my cardio, but still felt the altitude climbing those hills. It would have been impossible to hunt without the horses:
The scenery was spectacular. Riding around the mountains on the horses was worth the price of admission itself. Although everyone says it, you truly cannot believe where those horses will take you. This was one of the unexpected highlights of the trip.
We saw a lot of MP herds, but mostly females and young males. We finally spotted a nice group of males and made a good stalk to within 330 yards and took a left rear quartering shot. He ran about 25 yards with the herd on the shot and then stopped. I was about to shoot again and he tumbled over dead.
Negative 18 can be cold
We saw a few ibex herds, but it was hard to get in a position to take a shot. We saw a herd, but the males were on the other side of the mountain, so one of the guides went around and drove them to us. We initially engaged the herd at about 490 yards, however, they were continued to run towards us and the final shot was at 287. It was fairly close, but the angle was at 17 degrees down. He dropped immediately at the shot.
The final day of the hunt, we encountered a very large herd on the next mountain over. We got on them at about 500 yards, but they kept moving. When we finally had a shot, the lead male was at 813 yards. My son drilled him in the neck and he dropped. It was an amazing shot.
We had a few days after the hunt to see Bishkek and relax and clean up. We went to a great Russian bath house and both of us got our first shave from a barber (who happened to be mute).
All in all it was a great trip. If you are up for some adventure and willing to put up with some long, long rough jeep rides with really bad Russian music, I highly recommend it. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip:
Muslim cemeteries are incredibly beautiful:
I went to the Blue Mosque at about 7 am on a rainy morning and there was just me and one guy in the mosque:
The Hagia Sofia had wild cats running around that cracked me up:
