Dagestan Tur hunt May 29th 2015

Outfitter: Safari Outfitters

Dates: May 29th thru June 3rd plus a couple of travel days in and out.

Area: No man's land between Ismailli and Sheki

Gear: This isn't a complete list, just what I think may be of interest. I'll comment on gear below. Hanwag Alaska boots, Leica Geovid 10X42 HD-B binocs, Burris 12-24X50 spotting scope, Snugpak Hawk 20F sleeping bag, Klymit Insulated Static V sleeping pad, Mystery Ranch Crewcab pack,

Rifle: Remington 700 in .300 Win Mag, Burris MTAC 4.5-14 scope, 190gr Nosler LRAB handloads

Cameras: Panasonic DMC ZS-25, Olympus OMD-EM5 with 14-150 lens

This was a last minute trip that I snagged as a cancellation offer. I saw the offer at the end of March and called Clark Jeffs at Safari Outfitters to discuss it. With the details in hand, I poked my head into the living room. "Honey, can I go hunting?" The answer was as I predicted, "Where and what is the cost?" The details were relayed, and permission granted.

Step one was complete and I could proceed. Step 2: get myself in shape. Step 3: Gather my gear. Step 3 was easy, step 2 took a bit of doing, but I got it done with a 6 day a week workout over the 8 weeks that I had to prepare.

On May 27th I flew out of Indianapolis to Chicago. A change of airlines was in order there to get on Turkish Air for the flight to Baku via Istanbul. Everything went smoothly and I arrived in Baku about 2am Friday morning, May 29th. In Istanbul at the departure gate, I met my camp mates for the trip, Alejandro and Paco. Two fellows from Mexico that I couldn't have been luckier to spend time with. Characters, would be a fitting description and they spent most of their waking time smiling and laughing. Great guys. Paco was the hunter, and Alejandro was his designated photographer and scribe. They have hunted all over together for 30 years. I made a mental note to get someone to be my photographer and scribe. That takes a lot of pressure off of me.

Sasha Kiselev our Safari Outfitters rep met us at the airport and we also met the outgoing hunters. One was a tall fellow from California, the other a Chicago native and his fiance. The outgoing flight left at 7:45am, so we had a couple of hours to kill. The Californian was limping pretty badly, and we found out that they had a horse wreck on the pack out that morning. The other two appeared to be in good condition, though they were both mountain sore from the hiking.

Both had taken good 35" rams with 13" bases, and reported seeing plenty more where they came from. The Californian scored on day one at 353 yards. The Chicagoan finished out on day 3 at 200 yards. His fiance hunted the first day with him, and spent the rest of the time in camp. This was her first time hunting, and her first trip to the mountains. Any mountains. They are still planning on getting married.

We gathered our gear, loaded up a passenger van, and embarked on the 5-6 hour drive to the mountains. Baku is on the Caspian seacoast in the low country. The mountains to the west and north suck all of the moisture from the clouds, so the low country is pretty arid. It looks like the sagebrush flats of eastern Montana, or Wyoming. Once you get into the foothills and mountains, it is lush and very pretty. Lots of wheat fields, huge vineyards, and many small towns pass by. You will notice that they like to eat on the road. There are roadside cafes in every nook and cranny ranging from nice restaurants to little more than resin deck furniture and a tin roof over a wood fire grill. The food, by the way, is great. Everywhere that I ate from the mountain to the roadside diner, there was bread, goat cheese, and tea. Then there were other condiments like honey, pickles, nuts, fruit, salad greens, etc. Meat ranged from chicken to lamb to goat. Mostly spit roasted, or kabob style. You won't go hungry, and it was all very good.

The hunting area that we went to is not quite in one of the classic areas. It is in between Sheki and Ismailli and in the DMZ between Azerbaijan and Russia, for lack of a better description. We transferred our gear to a converted pickup bed trailer pulled by a Russian clone of a 1970's Fiat, and took an amusement park style ride up gravel roads to a small village. There, we repacked our gear for transport by horse up to the main camp about a 4 hour ride into the mountains. Halfway up the rifles got checked out.

On day one, my Mexican friends repacked and moved up to a spike camp 4-5 miles to the north. I stayed and hunted south up a long ridge. We each had an entourage of 3 guides, and as many horses as we needed for the day. Day one was slow for me with many sheep spotted, but no good rams. We saw mostly ewes and lambs with smaller rams. The Mexicans on the other hand found plenty or rams to choose from. The first good ram encounter ended in a missed shot. Then they got onto another group, but no shot, then another, and no shot. Finally, Paco got his shot. As the shot broke a smaller ram lifted its head in front of the ram Paco wanted. That was the last thing the smaller ram ever did and Paco had his sheep. Now, I say smaller ram, and it isn't one that you would normally target, but it is Paco's ram. And a trophy nonetheless. It will look great as a full mount in his trophy room.

On day 2, I switched places with them and made my way to spike camp. We got there about 2pm, had lunch, took a nap and went out around 4pm. At 6 we were at a point to glass from and a herd of 28 rams was spotted about 1/4 mile away. Since they were feeding our direction, we decided to wait. Around 8pm, they dipped into a ravine that we could get to, and we were off. Moving as fast as possible, we dropped down about 300 feet and sidehilled to the ridge overlooking the ravine that the sheep had descended into. All the time, I could just see myself cartwheeling down the mountain with what little brains I have being neatly distributed among the rocks. But, I kept my footing, and also kept up with the pace.

We belly crawled up the ridge and the sheep were down below at 250 yards. I got the rifle ready, and took the shot at the biggest ram. A great looking ram with a wide curl and heavy broomed tips. That bullet sailed 3 inches clear of his back. I had missed my first tur by not even thinking about compensating for the shot angle. That kind of put a damper on the day.

Day 3 found us up at 5am and we headed north from camp across what appeared to be an impassible mountain face. We made it across without issue, though, thanks to our trusty walking sticks. I marveled at how these guys never slip wearing rubber irrigation boots. At 8am, we spot a group of sheep 400 yards above us, but they are moving so there is no way to get a good look at them. They weren't running, so we drop down 500 feet to get out of sight and work our way parallel to them for a pretty good distance. Then we headed straight up to a small rock outcropping that gave us a little cover and just enough elevation to see. The sheep are crossing over a ridge above us single file into the ravine to our right. I got the rifle ready, and waited for them to emerge on the other side. One minor issue occurred at this time. If I used my arms to hold the rifle, I would slide off of the mountain. Mustapha, one of my guides, got under me and I put my right foot on his shoulder for support. Have I mentioned that these mountains are steep?

Still single file, they march up the other side. I swept over the line from back to front looking for a good ram. My criteria simply being to find one with broomed off tips. The lead ram met that criteria and I took the shot hitting him just in front of the on side shoulder. Her peeled off down to the right and the others scooted over the top. Shot two took him at the last rib a bit too far back. He ran a short distance and stopped. Shot 3 went low. Shot 4 broke as he was lurching forward and hit his offside back leg just above the hock. Shot 5 went low again. For shot 6, I took a second to adjust for the range, and put it through both shoulders. He dropped and tumble to the bottom of the ravine finally resting against a big rock.

Cheers went up, and my right eye filled with blood from my newly acquired scope cut. But I didn't care, my tur was down. I mopped up the blood with a handkerchief and it stopped in a few minutes. A rather spirited conversation had erupted and I assumed it was about how to get to my trophy. Consensus was reached, and 45 minutes later I had my hands on the horns. They were much smoother than their weathered and cracked appearance would suggest. I was and am blessed with such a fine animal.

Lunch before work was the concept at the time, and we had tinned sardines, hard salami, bread, cheese, fresh cucumbers, white sausage, and cookies. Then my tur was dissected for transport off of the mountain. Try as I might, they wouldn't use my pack. I took a Mystery Ranch Crewcab. A load hauler that was perfect for the task at hand, but no dice. Instead I loaded it with all of the other gear like binoculars, coats, what was left of lunch, etc. I felt bad having them pack everything, though they would have happily done it.

We got to spike camp around noon, packed and headed to the main camp arriving there around 4pm. Dinner was tur kabob with barley soup. Excellent dinner to top off the day.

Since it was only day 3 and we had tagged out, we had a choice to make. Stay, or head back to Baku to sight see for a couple of days. My Mexican friends had planned on sightseeing after the hunt, so that wasn't a problem with them. We packed up and spent day 4 travelling to Baku. Paco and Alejandro changed their tickets to fly out on Thursday, so they got a day of sightseeing in. I stayed an extra day and flew out on Friday as per my original plans. It was cheaper to stay a day than change my tickets.

If anyone is wondering, my tur measured 35 3/4" with 14 1/2" bases. Great animal, and I am very blessed to have taken him.

Gear:

I wouldn't take a .300 Win Mag again. It is really too much rifle for these animals. That said, it is my go to rifle, and the one that I had ready to go. If I took it again, it would shoot 150gr bullets to reduce recoil. A .270 or 7mm something or other would be ideal with 130gr or 140gr bullets. Tur are about 200 pounds, and have small bones so what you use for deer is perfect for them.

The Hanwag boots I used were a good choice. You do a lot of sidehilling, and the ankle support was very welcome for me. I wouldn't suggest anything less than a medium weight backpacking boot, but a mountaineering boot is probably overkill.

It didn't get below 50F at night, so my 20F sleeping bag was actually too hot. The Klymit pad was perfect in the insulated version.

Rangefinding binocs are a nice option for this trip. I went that route not knowing if the guides would speak English well enough to help me. In my case, they didn't, but a separate rangefinder would have been good since the guide could use it and call out the range for you. My two friends got the guides that spoke the best English (for good reason, no one spoke Spanish), and it would have been a better setup to have the separate rangefinder in that situation.

My small spotter was useful, though, not really needed. I would leave it at home next time.

Clothing. Dress in layers. I wore Core4element switchback pants, and they were perfect while hiking, but a little light when glassing. On the top, I went with merino wool light t-shirts and a long sleeve thermal along with a packable primaloft vest or a sweater weight down jacket. Here is the problem. At 2pm it is 80 degrees and you are hot. By 5pm, the fog rolls up out of the valleys and things get clammy and cool. With the constant breeze, you can get cold. The sweater weight down jacket was the right piece of gear while glassing, or a combo of the thermal shirt, vest and rain jacket over the top. Light gloves were also nice. A light to medium weight stocking cap was nice too. Then you take it all off to hike. I liked the vest so I didn't have to.

Speaking of gloves, a light pair of leather shooting or driving gloves are a good idea. Not for warmth, but instead to keep you from getting blisters while using the walking stick. I had a light pair of synthetic gloves, and they worked well, but aren't built for such duty. They were pretty rough by the end.

Finally, just bring a simple small backpack. It needs to carry a couple of water bottles, your rain gear, knife, spare ammo, and flashlight or headlamp. You don't need much, and the guides will carry it. My Mystery Ranch was overkill, and didn't get utilized, so it wasn't worth bringing.

Transferring our gear for the car ride up the valley.

A good luck charm hanging at the entrance of the home we left our rifle cases, and extraneous gear at.

My ride to the high country.

Loading our gear onto the horses.

Halfway or so to the main camp.

Main Camp at the bottom of the valley.

The camp chickens. I named one Tuesday and the other Thursday.

Tur from day 1.

Paco and Alejandro packing for spike camp.

Spike Camp.

Glassing for our quarry.

Lunch on the mountain.

My tur.

A spectator showed up while we were butchering my tur.

The pack out.

The trail from spike camp to the main camp.

Lunch on the way back to Baku

A few random shots of Baku.

The End

Posts: 1483 | Location: Indiana | Registered: 28 January 2011

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