One Heck Of A Ride

134 My Introduction To European Hunting (I’d seen photos of huge European boars that weighed hundreds of pounds, but the Spanish variety was much smaller. The boars taken by others in our group on average may have weighed no more than a hundred pounds after gutting.) I chose to hunt a mouflon for a couple of reasons. First, some hunters question the ancestry of the mouflons introduced to Texas and elsewhere in the States. Secondly ... well, I like to consider myself a sheep hunter and the mouflon are handsome sheep with distinctive markings and horns. Most wild sheep can be tough to hunt because of the rough terrain they inhabit and I expected finding mouflon in the relatively gentle hills of Medem’s estates would be easy. However, El Castano’s rams were nocturnal and sought out the thickest cover. I had to work for the ram I shot. I was impressed with the ritual the local guide performed with each animal I took. Before posing it for photos, he would take a small leafy branch and place one half in its mouth and dip a leaf on the other half in a bit of blood and stick it on my hatband while saying “waidmanns heil.” My interpreter said the tradition of giving the animal its last meal and congratulating the hunter began in Germany centuries earlier, and that I was expected to respond by saying “waidmanns dank” (thanks to the animal, the guide and the landowner), which I did. Although the Spanish red deer is among the smallest of the world’s red deer subspecies, author’s stag was an excellent trophy with well-developed “crowns” and heavy beams Our host was especially proud about hosting and conducting a game drive he called a “monteria” for us, because he considered it the epitome of European hunting. The Spanish hunters Medem had invited to join our group were easy to spot. They all wore woolen German-style collarless hunting clothing in loden green, and some wore hats decorated with “brushes” made of chamois hair. Game drives obviously were social events in Six members of the SCI delegation to the World Hunting Congress in Spain ham it up for the camera by practicing le coup de grâce. From left: Bud Dyer, Albert A. Cheramie, Tony Guilbeau, Holt Bodinson, Andy Anderson and author tradition-steeped Europe. I was among a group of hunters who were stationed every fifty yards or so along a fire break on a long, brushy ridge when a bugle announced that the dogs were being released about a mile away. These were not hunting hounds, but a mixed variety of breeds of small and large dogs that yapped and barked instead of howling like our bear and cat hounds do. Their handlers added to the din by shouting to push their dogs and the game toward us. We were told we should shoot any red deer or boar that crossed our portion of the fire break, but we were not told that most of the game would circle behind the dogs and drivers, and those that didn’t would bound across the thirty-foot opening in an instant. A shotgun with 00 buckshot would have been a better choice than the scoped rifles we all were using. Another blast of the bugle announced the end of the drive. I’ve forgotten