2014 Bezoar Ibex Hunt and Tourism in Turkey

Ibex in general have always been very interesting animals to me and after doing a significant amount of research I started to focus on Bezoar Ibex in Turkey for my first hunting trip to Asia. One of the many things that attracted me to Turkey was the ability to extend the trip to take in some of the sights and culture of a country so rich with history. My wife loves to travel and we often do separate trips as she is more interested in the cultural aspects and I am more into the hunting and fishing but Turkey seemed like a great opportunity to mix the two. It also helps that our youngest is in grade one now so with both of our kids going to full time school and both of our Mom's willing to look after them while we are gone it seemed like perfect timing to get away together.

The Plan:
Nov 1: Fly Calgary - London - Istanbul on British Airways.
Nov 2 - 5: Tour around Istanbul on our own.
Nov 5 - 7: Fly to Cappadocia region of Turkey on Turkish Airways. Tour around on our own.
Nov 7: Fly to Dalaman in SW Turkey to meet professional hunter for Ibex hunt.
Nov 8-14: Hunt Ibex
Rest of trip would be determined based on hunt results. We planned to drive to Antalya to spend some time touring there if we got done hunting early.
Nov 16: Fly Istanbul - London - Calgary on British Airways.

Istanbul:

I was not sure what to expect in Istanbul. Everyone I knew who had been there said they loved it. I was pretty sure it would be good but with a population of over 14 Million I thought it might difficult to get around and generally too congested for me. However, one on the advantages of doing this trip in November was that it is not as busy as earlier in the year. The weather is still pretty nice - typically sweater weather at this time, but the main tourist season has passed so hotels prices and availability are good and the main tourist attractions aren't crowded.

When we landed, Alper, a representative from the company I was hunting with met us at baggage pick-up to help us clear customs and get the necessary police paperwork prepared for me to travel around the country with a rifle. This was a huge help and I would not have felt comfortable attempting this on my own. The representative then took us to the hotel that we had booked which was on the European side of the city (Istanbul lays partly in Europe and partly in Asia). It was a great little boutique style hotel with super friendly staff in a good location. They clearly don't get a lot of gun toting Canadians through their doors. It didn't cause any issues at all but some pretty wide eyes as I rolled my gun case up the stairs. The staff there called me "Sniper" most of the time.

The weather was great and we spent a ton of time walking around historic parts of the city checking out attractions like the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya, Tokapi Palace, Galata tower, the Grand Bazaar, etc. and all of it was really interesting and we had no troubles getting around at all. We also took the train to a shopping district called Istiklal that was really good. Deanna loved it there. She found all kinds of shoes and clothes that she liked and I found that I really like Efes Pilsen (essentially the Budweiser of Turkey). The biggest surprise for us in Istanbul was the food. We aren't super fussy but we weren't really expecting to enjoy the food in Turkey, however almost everywhere we ate was excellent! Overall, Istanbul was great to visit and I would highly recommend it.







Cappadocia:

This is a region central Turkey that is mostly known for its cave hotels and scenic valley's. There are huge layers of soft rock in the area primarily composed of volcanic ash. It is fairly easy to carve out and as a result mainly ancient civilizations have lived here by making houses and churches carved right out of the hillsides. It is a must-see if you travel to Turkey. We booked a one day tour of the area and it was a perfect way to see a lot of the main attractions. One of the most interesting parts of the tour was Derinkuyu which is an elaborate underground city. I believe construction started about 2000 BC and continued for many years. There are over a hundred underground cities in the region built to hide out from marauding Persian and Arab armies. The one we were in had many levels. Only part of it is open to the public but we ended up going down several levels to about 50m below ground level. The network included a ventilation shaft, stable for animals and all kinds of rooms. Really, really cool to see. They believe that Derinkuyu held up to 10,000 people underground at times.

The food here was excellent as well. Most memorable was a tiny 10 table cave restaurant called "Top Deck" that had the best mushroom soup I have ever tasted and everything else was great too. Our Hotel was Cappadocia Cave Suites and it was really nice. As Cappadocia is in central Turkey it is much cooler and drier than the coastal regions. Night time temps dipped below the freezing mark.

Our hotel in Cappadocia:


Church and living quarters carved into rock:


Volcano:


Dalaman / Koycegiz: The hunting area:

Our Professional Hunter, Reshid, met us at the Dalaman airport and helped us retrieve our bags and rifle. We took a short drive to Koycegiz where we would be staying at a hotel along the lake near the hunting area. The plan was to drive to the hunting area early each morning and return to the hotel each night. Rashid and his team of scouts had been out spotting for the last 3 days. They had been seeing decent numbers of Ibex but nothing giant. The rut was just beginning and the dominant Billie’s were starting to chase the females around. The weather looked good for the first couple days but rain was on the way later in the week. All things considered it was looking pretty good to me. I was not super concerned about getting the biggest possible Ibex. I knew I would be happy with a good mature Billy. We got settled in and tried to sleep as much as possible before our 4:30 AM alarms. Neither of us slept much that night. I was too excited to get going on a hunting adventure that had taken years to plan. Deanna just really couldn't sleep. She was looking forward to the hunt but didn't quite have the "opening day" jitters that I had.

Day 1 of Hunt: We are up at 4:30 and they had prepared coffee for us at the hotel. We packed lots of food so we would have something to eat later on the mountain while we were spotting. First order of business was to pick up the local game warden who would accompany us during the hunt. We would also have a community representative with us along with Reshid's two scouts. It was quite an entourage but everyone had a job to do and added something to the hunt.

We ended up getting everyone rounded up fairly early and made our way to the hunting area. We stopped at an open spot to sight in my rifle. It was still fairly dark so we waited for a while and in the meantime another hunting party joined us. Turkish citizens get a percentage of the licences available for each hunting area as well and it was one of the local licence holders. He took one shot a cardboard box with a dot on it at 100yds. Six inches high and a couple inches left.... he seemed happy with that and away they went! My first shot was not great either. Apparently the five flights and the long tumble I took down an icy marble stairway in Cappadocia had taken a toll. I kind of ended up riding my gun case like a toboggan on that incident which prevented me from breaking a leg. Who knew such a uniquely Canadian skill would come in so handy that far away. I made some adjustments and got my rifle dialed in nicely.

One scout had ridden a motorbike to an area where they had seen a nice Billy previously. There is quite a good network of roads through the mountains here. They are kind of similar to logging roads. They are rough but give you quite an advantage in not having to climb everything right from the bottom. We took the road until we found the motor bike. From there we hiked up the mountain to where the scout was. He was excited and a long Turkish exchange took place with a pile of hand gestures. I didn't need to know Turkish to know things were looking good. Reshid translated that the scout had found the Billy and he was headed down the mountain towards the creek coming off of it. We wiggled our way into position overlooking the deep crevice where the creek ran. I was pumped and was ripping the terrain apart with my binos. Deanna was beside me also peering through her binos. "Did you see that one?" she whispers. I hadn't seen a damn thing and she out-spotted me already! "It went behind the trees" she said. We keep spotting. Reshid was on the other side of me and finds the Billy. He points it out to me and I lock in on it. It is magnificent! I love that image that gets burned in your mind when you finally see something in real life that you have only seen in pics and video. It might have been the greatest part of the hunt. They are such a noble creature.

We watched for a long time as he chased around females and posed for us on different rock outcroppings. He would disappear for a while in the trees than re-appear, zig-zagging his way across the mountain. We were in perfect position and there was no rush. The Ibex had no idea we were there and they seemed very content. We discussed the situation at length. Here we were only hours into a weeklong hunt with a very tempting opportunity. Reshid felt we could likely find one an inch or two longer through the week but we may not find one with this classic shape to the horns and perfect colour contrast in the cape. Apparently there can be a lot of difference in colour of the capes and this guy was exactly like I had pictured. Deanna voted to shoot. Reshid left the decision up to me after giving me his full assessment. I didn't know what to do. I didn't like the thought of it being over so quickly but I have had things go very badly on hunts in the past and knew I might really regret it if I didn't take this opportunity. My long period of indecision was enough for Reshid. He suggested we go and find some others. At that point it was very clear the rest of the hunting party did not agree. Of course they probably aren't as interested in hiking around the countryside as I am so I took their opinion with a grain of salt. One thing that worried us was the other hunting party and rumor of a couple more hunters coming in the next few days. Reshid asked me one more time and I knew I would be happy with this Ibex so we decided to take the shot.

It was a steep downhill shot at a bit over 200 yds. As we watched him I was very relaxed because we had so much time but once it was time to shoot I could feel my heart pounding through my ears. I waited so his horn tips were not covering his vitals. When he moved his head I fired. I thought I had hit him but I felt like I hit a bit far back and immediately jacked another shell in the chamber. As he was disappearing into the trees I fired again. The second shot felt better but I lost him on the recoil. Reshid was happy. He assured me it was down and the celebration began!
I couldn't believe it was over. That is by far the fastest guided hunt I have been on. I remembered a Craig Boddington quote, "When mother nature smiles on you, don't kick sand in her face" and I think that summed up the situation. Truthfully the effort that the crew had put in scouting the area prior to the hunt had a very big impact as well.

Deanna and I were both prepared for a much more physical hunt. The hardest part now would be getting down to retrieve it. We made our way down and the scouts pulled the Ibex to a flat spot near the creek. What a creature! We took a pile of pictures but it was difficult to get the light right as we were constantly fighting shadows in this deep drainage. The crew got to work on caping it and the also took several blood samples in medical viles for research that the game department is conducting. They also started a fire so we could make some Ibex kebabs with our lunch. What could be more Turkish than that? They did a good job caping it out and also took impeccable care of the meat. We made a bunch of kebabs and also saved a large chunk of back strap to cook at the hotel. The rest of the meat was carefully packaged up to be distributed to our crew's friends and family who hold wild meat in very high regard. It was nice to see it all go to such good use. I admit I was surprised that Ibex kebabs were as good as they were and the hotel did a fantastic job of cooking up the back strap that we brought back. We had a great meal and it felt great to celebrate our success.

I am really looking forward to putting up the Ibex mount up in a prominent place in the man-cave. They are certainly an icon of the mountains and it will be a great reminder of a fantastic trip.

The next day Reshid took us on very interesting boat tour through a canal in the nearby town of Daylan. There are intricate ancient tombs of kings carved into the valley walls and ruins of an ancient city built on a coastal inlet. We also stopped by a beautiful beach that is an important nesting ground for sea turtles. They mark and protect the sea turtle nests and also have a sea turtle hospital where injured turtles are brought to be treated and hopefully released back into the sea. There were several patients being worked on while we were there. Boat props and fish hooks seem to be the most common causes of injury.



Field lunch with Ibex kebabs:


Kings tombs near Daylan:

Ancient stadium ruins. Looks like Guns N' Roses is a no-show again:

Turtle nesting beach and hospital:





Antalya:

We officially had time to kill now. Fortunately Antalya was driving distance from our hunting area. It is a fairly large port city on the Mediterranean Sea. There are a lot of resorts style hotels there as the area is quite a popular vacation spot for Russians and many Europeans. The weather was still nice but tourism season over for the most part which meant really nice hotels at good prices. We stayed at the Rixos Downtown which was the perfect spot for Deanna and I to relax and unwind after what had been a very busy vacation up to that point. There is some interesting history in Antalya as well. Walking through the central part of town referred to as the 'Old City' was really nice and had some great restaurants. We really took it easy here which felt great after a successful trip and knowing we were only days away to going back to a busy winter in Calgary.





Summary:

This was trip was the perfect combination of a great hunting adventure and cultural type visit to a part of the world that I really enjoyed. I don't think there are many places in the world that could combine to two so well in one country. The people are incredibly friendly. It is obvious that their economy is doing quite well as the infrastructure and housing is impressive. We also both agreed that we felt safer walking around Istanbul at night than many North American cities. I am sure there are some less desirable parts of town but we never had the slightest issue the whole trip.

The vast majority of people in Turkey are Muslim and unfortunately many people from North America don't have the most open minded approach to visiting a Muslim country which is a shame. There is some bad stuff going on not too far from Turkey but as I write this I can look out my hotel window and see war ships anchored in the harbor flying both Turkish and American flags which is a great reminder that what is going on in some of the neighboring countries is not about religion and all about terrorism and injustice in the world. We spent Remembrance Day here and I was proud to know that Canada is also contributing in this fight by involving our air force. We are all allies against this evil bullshit that organizations like ISIS and Al Qaeda perpetrate through the world. It doesn't matter if you are wearing a burka or a baseball hat. I realize that doesn't have a lot to do with the hunting here but I think is important to think about when people are deciding where they would like to plan their next hunting adventure.

Other trip related notes:

Hunting Company: Caprinae Safaris booked through Jeff C Neal Inc. (Greg Brownlee)

Caprinae is a highly organized, very professional company. There is a lot of logistical issues to dragging a gun around this part of the world while you sight-see but they make it as easy as possible. Alper is a total pro and we could not have been in better hands getting police permits in place and clearing customs. He is also a very knowledgeable tour guide and experienced professional hunter. My professional hunter Reshid’s hunting resume is amazing. I really enjoyed hunting with him. I hope to do another hunt somewhere in Asia and I believe I would be in good hands with him regardless of what country or species I was after. He has done it all. Nazmiye in Caprinae's Antalya office was also a huge help in booking flights, hotels and anything else we needed. Total pro company.

Greg Brownlee's hunt report and firsthand experience with Ibex in Turkey and Caprinae was a big factor in me booking this trip. Greg and I were in contact frequently leading up to the trip and he did a great job. I am very glad I booked through him.

Major Equipment :

Weatherby Mark V 270 Wby Mag Accumark. A heavier rifle than I normally use on a mountain hunt but it is different when you know you don't have to carry all the necessities of life on your back. It is really accurate and one of my favorites.
Zeiss range finding binos. Kind of like a cell phone to me. I forget how life was without them.

Issues travelling with guns:

I did not use a travel agent on this hunt to get to and from Turkey. I was quite familiar with British Airways policies and procedures from using them for our Africa trip and I haven't found an agent in Canada that is really very helpful when it comes to firearm travel. Overall this trip involved 8 different flights. Caprinae booked the domestic flights in Turkey and I handled the international ones.

British Airways is good. You pay a few bucks more for security handling of your firearms and ammo but they get them to you reliably and every time you ask an agent where your stuff is they quickly look it up and tell you if it has already been loaded on the plane. We had a pretty long delay in Istanbul on our way home and it was clearly a case of the check-in personnel unfamiliar with firearm procedures. It got sorted out but was a bit frustrating.

Turkish Airways is also good. There is a fairly strict procedure when traveling in Turkey with firearms. Once Alper walked us through it in Istanbul I was fairly comfortable with it. As usual, the reception you get at airport police changes from location to location. Some are super friendly and interested in what you are up to and some barely look up us they fill out the paperwork but we always had our papers in order and enough time for each flight and had no major problems.
It is almost hard to believe you can travel so far and so freely with a gun these days.

I hope you enjoyed the hunt report. The many great reports posted on here have been a great tool for me in researching things that I hope to do and I like try to contribute to that the best that I can.

Great report and an awesome Ibex.

Really liked all the tourist pics.

Very detailed hunt report and an excellent trophy. Well done!

Beautiful.

What a stellar report. Well done with some beautiful pictures. Istanbul is an incredible city. When you see walls that built when the city was Constantinople and part of the Roman Empire you realize that nothing in North America is "old". I hope you had at least a glass or two of raki. Congrats on a wonderful experience hunting and otherwise.

Congratulations... nice ibex!!!

Wonderful trip report. I've added it to my "next hunt" file in my favorites. I too have had some wonderful adventures in Muslim lands and met some of the very best hosts in them.

nice ibex! I leave in a couple weeks for Bezoar with Caprinae myself. The report gets me pumped. I've been to Istanbul a couple times, so am looking forward to check out Antalya.

Great report!

Turkey is one of my favorit countries, been there 7 times. Love the nature, the people and the wide variety of food

Congratulations on a great hunt and a great report.

Efes beer is waaay better than Budwieser tho.

Super report! Thanks for sharing your experience. And congrats on a beautiful ibex.

Great report - sounds like a great trip and a wonderful trophy to boot!

Fantastic report and an even better decision to take the shot, what a specimen!! I may have missed it but what was your rifle set up and at only 200rds is that a normal range or considered close?

Thanks

Thanks for the comments!

MJines, I did try Raki but could not stand it! Wife had to finish it for me LOL. I was surprised to see they make a lot of their own wine there and some was pretty good.

Bobby7321, good luck on your hunt! Please post up results when you return.

AR MAN, I was shooting a Weatherby Mark V Accumark in 270 WBY MAG. Zeiss 3-15 Rapid Z 800. From talking to my PH, shots form 200 -300 are most common. Being comfortable to 400 would be an asset for sure.

Beautiful report and great trophy. Thanks for sharing.

Awesome report Chad and what an incredible adventure!!!!

Congrats on a very nice Bezoar

Love to hunt Turkey some day - but for wild boar. The food, history and Istanbul city are big add ons

Morten

Outstanding adventure and beautiful ibex! I just asked my wife if we could do this trip.....she just laughed.

Fantastic Report Chad! Thank you for taking the time to post, and thanks for the business and trust!

Greg

Awesome report. That is some beautiful country. Gonna be a nice mount if we can get the stink out!!

Fantastic Report . Awesome Ibex !!!

Thanks for the great report!

Headed there in March, your report was full of great info.

Nice billy, congrats!