This is a multi-faceted story.

Back in May, I contacted Marius of Huntromania about the possibility of quail hunting in Romania that was listed on his website that I had perused because of the bear reports, etc.

Because my son, Adam, had to be back at UT Austin for the first day of classes on 27 Aug, we planned on hunting roughly 20-24 Aug. While Marius said this was a bit early (due to quail migration, which apparently is best starting around 1 Sept) we made the dates. I had a long time hunting buddy that decided to come along and in mid-May, I sent in 1/2 costs of trip (1000E/person for 3 1/2 days hunting all expenses included not including shells (E13/box) or gun rental E30/day) for 3 in form of wire transfer of E1500. This deposit was the source of the only real problem on the trip which we'll get to later but one month before trip because of unexpected problems, my friend had to cancel out so only Adam, now 20, and I went.

We left DFW 13 Aug on KLM to Amsterdam (the flight from DFW to Amsterdam on KLM was probably the best 10 hour plus flight I've ever taken), change to Bucharest, arriving in Bucharest afternoon of 14th (8 hours difference from USCDT) where we immediately took a plane to Istanbul where we "touristed" for the next 4 days.

We stayed at a small hotel (Hotel Sapphire, highly recommended for those of us who are mid-priced hotel travelers, roughly $75/night for 2), among hundreds, in the old town in Istanbul within reasonable walking distance from the major sites, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia, and the Grand Bazaar. In general, the food was good to very good, the major local beer "Efes" was excellent on draft, and the people were friendly. The only real drawback was that Istanbul has become a tourism "must do" and there were hundreds of thousands of tourists around. We took a boat tour up the Bosphorus to the mouth of the Black Sea, took about 5 hours total, and enjoyed it. On one side of Boshorus is Europe and other, Asia. Both Adam and I agreed, that while we enjoyed it, unless we had a specific reason to return to Istanbul we probably would not. Personally, if I was going back I'd consider March or April when it is still cool, but has less tourists.

So, we left Istanbul late afternoon on the 18th and arrived in Bucharest without any real problems going through customs (of course we had no guns so that didn't enter the equation). We were met outside area by our guide, George, who was very personable, spoke very good if not quite fluent English, and was funny. This was arranged by Marius in our PMs on AR. George took us to our hotel, which was an excellent new modern hotel called Hotel Christina which we had booked online thinking we would be on our own the first evening. (Recommended, one of the best in Bucharest, around $80 night single bed, beautiful modern rooms, architecturally designed, but the AC unit (wall type) in our room didn't work, upon check out, I told the clerk and she said, "Oh, we've been having trouble with that." Duh! However, the nights are cool and the problem only showed up in the morning with full sun on the room. Not a biggie but a warning of things to come).

So after checking in at the Hotel Christina, George took us to an extremely nice restaurant, Curu cu Bere. It is located inside and outside a beautiful old mansion and the food was extremely good and the home brewed beer was even better. We had several liter drafts.

The next morning, we were informed that due to the abundant summer rains, the area we were supposed to hunt in, didn't have many quail (probably true, but I grew to mistrust anything Marius or his minions said) and instead of hunting in a famous spa area about 8 hours drive we were going to hunt in a not so famous farming area about 3 hours drive near the city of Caraiova (pop about 300K). We drove there, checked into the airport Hotel Helin (there are 2 Hotel Helins, this is not the one downtown), had lunch, took a nap and went hunting that afternoon. We hunted in an area that was rife with mosquitos, they nearly ate us up. It was also quite warm. For whatever reason, Adam is more susceptable to them than I (probably bathes more often) and he was miserable. I shot the first and only quail of the day and after walking a mile or so, returned to car. From then on we asked for and used mosquito repellent liberally. But the first day's were by far the worst.

The hunting vehicle was a 4x4 Nissan Terreno (I think) that had 2 doors and was diesel powered. It was a perfectly adequate vehicle for us and we had no problems with it.

Typically they hunt quail about daybreak to 9 AM and late evening, mostly because of the heat on the dogs.

The quail are quite small, about 1/2 to 2/3 the size of a native bobwhite. They are hard to pick out, and are fairly sporting targets. They used 10 shot for them. Their coloration is similar to our meadow larks, yellow with darker streaks, making them difficult to find in the grass.

The next day was similar, lots of walking and very few quail. It turns out the ranger we were using had never hunted quail using calls before and was not placing calls correctly. He was replaced on day 3 and from then on thru day 5, there was a fair amount of quail available. Adam probably killed about 200 for the whole trip.

The first dog we used was probably a Griffon/short haired GP cross, and was a decent dog, but the owner/ranger didn't know how to use calls. The second dog, owned by the second Ranger, was a pointer, pretty decent but young. There was a continual problem of finding dead or downed birds and I would say that at least 1/4 to 1/3 of all birds shot were lost.

The quail, which are migratory, but due to timing, we were hunting mostly local birds, are called and concentrated into an area by using electronic calls, which sound more or less like cheep da cheep cheep, awwwk, squaak, cheep, etc. This doesn't stack them up but does move them into an area around the calls covering several hundred acres. Supposedly the quail can hear them for over 5 kilometers. There was a fair amount of walking, probably averaging 6 to 10 mi/day. I didn't participate much, but Adam hung in there and became quite proficient on the quail.

The main problem we had was the hotel air conditioning both didn't work at all at times, and when it did work was only designed to cool -6 degrees C from ambient and most of the time was not cooling even that much. That was not adequate in the daytime when you basically felt like you were in a sweatshop. I complained, they supposedly fixed it, NOT, and I complained some more. Due to hunting times, early morning and late evening, basically mid-day and afternoon was nap time and it was too damn hot to sleep. We were going to move and George (probably for monetary reasons) talked me into staying, "It's only a couple of more days." Like a complete dumbass I agreed. Luckily the nights were cooler and the rooms we OK after about 10 PM.

We've had the electricity blinking on and off and I don't want to start over so I'm posting this for now and will continue later.

Can't wait to see some pics.

3 weeks and this is not completed.

I have a feeling this one is going to end ugly.

you think? his son killed 200 quail in 4( or less) days. i am confused as to why you would fly to Bucharest, then continue on to Istanbul for a visit, then back to Bucharest. surely there were flights from Amsterdam direct to Istanbul??? it seems the main problem was a faulty air conditioner in the hotel. is that the situation?

The ending is not really ugly, but I haven't finished because Marius of Huntromania says he is going to send me the missing deposit back. That was supposed to be here last week, "probably" he said. So far no money.


AFA the actual hunting goes, it was done fairly well, considering they "made a plan" as we got there, because of the changing quail populations. I had no problem with that. George, our guide, and Huntromania did all that could reasonably be expected on the ground part of it, except for the hotel AC, which obviously is not their fault, but could have been corrected by a simple change of hotels. We were in a city of well over 300K people with multiple hotels available. but, as I said, I agreed to stay in the one we were in, so I am not blaming them, simply reporting facts.

Regarding the hotel AC, keep in mind this was not a "roughing" it hunt, not a safari, we were supposed to stay in a luxury centuries old spa resort WITH AC (but changed by a couple hundred kilometers or so due to quail populations)so to expect to have AC that works is not unreasonable IMO. I don't like being hot, especially don't like sleeping hot, even if I do live in Texas. That's why they have AC.

AFA the flights go, online it was nearly impossible (to book flights from DFW-Istanbul-Bucharest-DFW) and cost well over twice as much to fly as jdollar suggested because on the back end, we were returning from Bucharest, not Istanbul. I looked into it but the costs were too high to make it worthwhile IMO. I imagine a good travel agent might have made it more palatable, but I didn't use one.

There won't be any pics. I don't take many, and the ones I did take were in Istanbul, etc. In addition, I don't like posting them.

Nice accommodations can ease a long and difficult trip. With a long flight, lots of effort and considerable money, 200 quail may not result in many return hunts.