One Heck Of A Ride

154 World Record Tur When Al flew back to the states, I flew to Kurgan, a city of about 350,000 inhabitants in Russia’s southern Caucasus Mountains, to meet the people Bob Kern had arranged for me to hunt a Siberian roe deer with. These little deer are not the same species as the roebuck of Europe. Although they are similar in appearance, they are about twice as large and their antlers typically do not grow nearly parallel to each other as do those on the European variety. Weighing up to 120 pounds, they are found across middle Asia, China, and Mongolia, but the largest regularly have been taken in Russia’s Siberia. I shot three of these interesting deer, including one with non-typical tines as well as a buck with exceptionally large typical antlers. I had booked a seven-day hunt, with two days of traveling and five days of hunting. We hunted by driving and spotting, and then figuring the best way to stalk on foot. Most of my roebucks were taken in wheat fields; there were no high seats or farmhouses where I hunted. The fields went on for miles and miles, broken only by a few small stands of trees scattered across the landscape. Fifteen years later, Bob Kern and I were at an SCI convention and talking about this hunt when he said Russian president Vladimir Putin had closed that part of the mountain to hunting after he had a cabin built exactly where we had camped. When I asked him about the men who approached us at the hotel, he shrugged and said the KJB and the Russian mafia wanted to check us out. While working on this book, memories of all the hardships Al and I endured while hunting our western tur came rushing back. It had been a true mountain hunt that I rank among the toughest hunt in the world, both physically and mentally. ReturnToNorthOssetiaFor Dagestan (Eastern) Tur And Caucasian Chamois In late July of 2000, I flew from Los Angeles to Moscow on Aeroflot for the eastern Caucasus tur hunt a booking agent had given me as restitution for a terrible snow sheep hunt he’d sent me on earlier. I won’t mention his name, but I had seen only one small ram and a couple of ewes and lambs during the first hunt and no sheep at all on the second. The guides had not scouted their areas, their camps and gear were filthy, and the food was awful. It definitely was not what I’d paid for. From Moscow, I flew on a Russian military plane that was so old, beat-up, and dirty that it would not surprise me if someone said it had been used during World War II’s Eastern Front conflict. Sitting across from me were two guys with handguns on their belts. Each took an aisle seat and kept others from sitting in the two seats next to them. Each held a sack on his lap during My Russian Guide and Author with a very good Siberian Roe Deer This was a last minute non typical Siberian Roe Deer