Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Favorite big game hunts you’ve been on

What animal and location was one of your favorite big game hunts you’ve been on in the past? I’m always feeling like I might be overlooking a fun hunt while in the process of booking my next. Just don’t want to miss out! Life is short my friends.

I've enjoyed hog hunting. It's typically an easier hunt for me and yields good meat. Not walking 10 miles a day in search of them. Easy to drag out.

I hope to draw a moose tag, which is pretty much a once in a lifetime hunt for me.

If I win the lottery a African safari and Brown Bear would be on my list!

This year I had my whole family come up to our lake place where we have some land in a back lot to get away.

On a whim, I ended up taking a big doe with a muzzle loader. I'd never shot a deer on the back lot property.

Having my wife and son come out and spending time in the woods together as a family, then taking a deer for the first time on that land was awesome.

While safari is always a great adventure, my favorite all time hunt was red stag on horseback in Patagonia with Algar safaris.

For pure no pressure, relaxing hunts Wyoming antelope hands down. For excitment mountain lion with hounds is a blast.

For sheer fun, it had to be some of the crow shoots we went on in years past. There was a local turkey farm that butchered turkeys before Easter and we used to sit the fields where they dumped the guts. We'd burn through several hundred rounds of ammo. It was a great time. We'd haul a ratty old owl decoy up in a tree and run the Johnny Steward with an crow in distress tape, and the crows would zero in on that owl decoy from far out. We litterall shot crows off that decoy on severl occasions. That decoy had so much shot in it, that it rattled.

Pronghorn in New Mexico hold a special place for me.Quail in South Texas are my favorite birds to chase when the numbers are there.

For sheer enjoyment, I find the pronghorn antelope hunts I have been on in my life to be at the top of the list. Whether with centerfire rifle, muzzleloader, or bow, with family or friends, or by myself, always something to look forward to. Getting harder and harder to do nowadays, with permits getting scarcer to come by.

Elk during the rut in New Mexico for me. Nothing else comes close.

This is one of my favorites for sure...

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/13232550/1

Pronghorn antelope with my brother and my late father. Always a good time and we always got game. I also enjoyed hunting waterfowl with my father before he passed. There is just something about sitting in a duck blind with a hot cup of coffee watching the sun come up that was always special.

I've been fortunate to have been on some very good hunts out of state that brought many memories, some good and a few that were not so good. However, my favorite hunt will always be a leisure walk in the woods in October with my favorite 20 ga. O/U accompanied by my loyal Labs.

That was an awesome write up! Thanks for sharing that!

Giant muleys in Sonora, MX.

Pronghorn. Its light hearted fun. With Moose you're always nervous. Always trying to figure out how to get one out of wherever you happen to be if you get lucky.

My buddy and I have been going on a eastern Montana deer hunt the last few years. It’s mainly doe hunting and its a ton of no pressure fun, his dad and son have started coming out from Minnesota and my daughter comes too. When one of us draws a buck tag we have ample opportunity to get one. Both mule deer and white tail deer are in the areas we hunt.

Went on a river hunt for Moose, in British Columbia. Up and down the river, stopping at places the guide knew to climb a hill or tree and glass. He had plywood moose antlers he would rake the trees with. Friend and myself both got nice moose. Had a griz coming in at night to try and get the meat. Tried several things to keep him away. Last night there I put peanut butter on a can of pepper spray and hung it from the meat pole. Heard him scream when he bit it and nice big hole in the can. Heard later a bear came in a totally flattened the camp. Good times and good memories.

Moose hunt in Maine.
Bear behind hounds in Virginia.

6 or 7 years ago, a former Fire member came out to go mulie hunting. I took him on a llama pack trip. We had a ball and he got his mulie. I didn't get one but I wasn't half trying. I was just trying to find him one. I spotted one on a far hillside and we did a long range sneak. He crawled in and shot it, then we discovered that it was a different deer than the one we'd been after. No matter, everyone was very happy about it.

Pronghorn is a great hunt. As hard or difficult as you wish. Pigs are fun also although the ones I have been on are not trophy hunts but out shooting pigs. My favorite animal is free range Hartebeast always at least several of them and open land mostly makes getting close tough. Kind of like antelope in Wyoming.

I'm dying to hunt antelope in Wyoming. I had it all lined up two seasons ago but the guy I was going with Dad went into the hospital and it got canceled. Next season maybe...

I am an elk hunter, pure and simple, have been for 60 years. Last October I was sitting in the timber on a ridgeline at 7,000+ feet, at sunrise, listening to three bulls bugling and carrying on for 3 hours. It was fantastic, and a wonderment, just before sunset a very nice big fat cow walked into an opening 300 yards away and I killed her. The hunt is the thrill, it always will be, the end of the hunt is depressing. I would love to try Cape Buffalo, but I doubt that will ever become a reality, at least I can dream.

AK Moose. I lived there so mostly the fun of being with good, fun, and tough guys that would always pull their way. It was a special time and a special place. Much like many’s deer or elk camp. It’s what we lived for year round.

I have only been in one professionally guided hunt. I've DIY moose ,deer,grouse my whole life. The one guided hunt was with Bruce Duncan in Idaho for mountain Lion. I will remember the details of that hunt for the rest of my years.
Just a fantastic experience.

The one hunt that I've been on that I will most remember was my AK float moose hunt with my best friend who was brown bear hunting on the same trip. It was a lot of work, and we had quite the "float" experience and I really don't know that I want to do it again, but I have memories of a great adventure.

I have struggled to sort out one favorite hunt. I guess I just can't do it. I have enjoyed all of it so much, from the times I was a kid, tagging along with my father and uncles to being an adult, at home or on trips, alone or with my kids or my brothers. I just love to get out and hunt.

I would have to say my first really rare tag back in 2010. Montana moose. I spent 2 weeks scouting, all solo on horseback and ended up killing a 54 1/2 inch shiras bull 8 miles off the road.

I love being in the backcountry by myself. I know it can be dangerous, but I get the biggest satisfaction out of it.

My only two horseback hunts, I would rate one among my best experiences. The best outfitter was in southern Montana, about 30 miles north of Yellowstone park. We would ride the horses uphill and the guide would take the horses and meet us at a predetermined spot after we walked downhill through the dark timber and brush.

The worst horseback experience was hunting west of Cody, WY.. Before I booked the hunt, I told the outfitter I had a knee surgery and would not be able to climb, He said no problem I would be on horses most of the time. The guy was so worried about his horses, he had us leading the horses up or down every hill and my knee was in big time pain.

The bottom line, for horse back hunts don't forget to communicate with their references, if you will be able to ride the horses uphill.


My favorite big game hunts were during the 70s & 80s when I was young enough to get around in steep country (western slope of Colorado) and do it yourself hunts with friends using our own 4WD trucks and camping equipment!

Hunting Leaf River caribou above the 57th parallel in northern Quebec. After tagging two fine bulls apiece, we shot a bunch of ptarmigan and caught Jurassic brookies and arctic char till our arms fell off.

I really enjoyed a trip to Kansas to pheasant hunt with my buddy and his dad in the mid-1980’s. I also enjoyed rabbit hunts with my beagle on our farm in central Kentucky. But my favorite hunt of all time for me was seeing my son take his first deer ( a spike whitetail buck) a couple of years ago. Getting to see his smile and being able to know that he was hooked on hunting we’re thrills that Inwill never forget.

BTDT and I would have to agree, it was a great time.
I think it was 2007 when we went, may be off by a year. Anyway the caribou hunting is apparently shut down up there now.

WY moose

I did this BC combo goat and deer hunt. I guess it's been 15 years ago now. It was a great hunt. But I've enjoyed lots of good ones for different reasons. Getting married has curtailed my out of state hunting. Still hoping to find an elk one of these days.

Elk hunt on horseback at, or above timberline with one of the best elk talkers in Colorado. Elk were talking even as we set up camp.

Dall sheep followed by Alaskan moose.

long bow hunt for caribou during the migration in the Ungava in N Quebec



or elk in the mountains during the rut

for me the one I would have to say is the Wyoming antelope... I hunted elk, deer, antelope, turkeys, etc all over but for me, as far as just plane fun... Antelope out of Casper area. I love going out there with friends, staying in a Hotel, eating out each night, staying comfortable... Seeing a TON of animals, chasing them, and the pure enjoyment of seeing someone who has not done it before, is amazing... no stress, no worries just fun

My favorite was a limited entry, public land muzzleloader elk hunt in Central Utah, only an hour from home. It took me 13 years of applying to finally draw the tag. I had 3 of my best friends/hunting buddies with me and shot a 362", perfectly symmetrical, 6x6 bull. It was the hunt of a lifetime as we looked at 5 other mature bulls before I shot mine on the second day. We had scouted the week before and found a really big 7x6 that probably would have scored higher than the one I shot, but being asymmetrical, he wasn't nearly as pretty. That elk mount has a place of honor on the living room wall and the hunt will long be remembered for good times, good friends, great weather and a fantastic animal. I couldn't have scripted the hunt any better.

Benn guiding in yukon/BC for decades now, and my favorite hunts are still right here in the north. Moose rut hunts, bear, sheep, goats....

Dandy bull ribka, I think I’ve asked before, is that a blues bull? Damn thirds are stupid long. Grats

Boy I’d love to sit down and bullshiit you, bet you got some stories

Been blessed with all kinds of great hunts, but the 2 that stand out most, were being beside my Wife & then my 12 year old Son, the following day, when they both shot their first deer !

Cast and blast trips to WY. When I was in active duty stationed across the country, with some friends scattered about as well. We would meet in Farson, WY for an antelope hunt a couple days before the sage grouse opener. After the goat tags were filled and we had a day or two of sage grouse hunting, we would fish and bird hunt for a few days on our way back up to Jackson. A hot shower and a few rounds at the bar.. The next morning we would part ways til the next year. The best of times with the best of friends!

My most memorable time hunting was for black bear in Michigan in 2017. This was from a stick blind on my private land. The season had been pretty slow, but one evening I had eight bears of all sizes come in over a 90 minute period from all directions before taking a sow that dressed at 198 lbs. I thought it was a boar, but that's not always easy to figure. I had a lot of fun watching the bears, including a cub climbing a white pine about 20 yards away while momma and and another cub held back behind me. It was a great night.

About 15 miles SE of chinook pass. I saw 2 larger ones than the one I ended up taking

Gotcha, cool country in there. Shame the Indians got em beat down, less than 1/2 the permits than there was 5 years ago. Great bull man. 👍

My 2nd entry on this topic: Bighorn Sheep and Mountain Goat in my native CO.


Both taken DIY on backpack hunts. Nothing quite like that sort of hunt when you are young enough to do it right.

The most fun that I've had on a hunt was elk hunting in the Selway bitterness region of Idaho near Nez Pearce pass in 1978.
The most production elk I've had was the one and only elk hunt I've been lucky enough to get a tag in SD.
Some of the most enjoyable hunts lately is hunting with my cousins, or should I say shooting with my cousins - Prairie Dogs.
The most expensive hunt I've been on is Moose hunting in Alberta.
I also really enjoyed pig shooting in Texas.

My favorite so far is a do it yourself Caribou hunt with a friend in Alaska

I find it hard to pick one "favourite" ... perhaps one of these:
Horseback / pack train hunt for mountain caribou and goats in the Selwyn mountains of the Yukon territory. With Moose and Grizzly and wolf as side dish possibilities. Or Manitoban bull elk in the rut, regular rifle season, second week of September at home in Saskatchewan. Or a traditional Druckjagd, driven game hunt in Germany for roe deer, wild boar and fox. Lots of tradition, culture and plenty of game action. Or a plains game hunt in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Elusive Kudu in the rough and brushy hills are wonderful quarry. Or Cape buffalo in Namibia's Zambezi region, on the Chobe river floodplains. Lots of elephant and crocodiles and hippos to watch out for while stalking the buffalo. Or just chasing the enormous whitetails of Saskatchewan with a muzzle loader and a call and rattling antlers in the golden Indian summer days of late October.

My favorites so far were my two boys’ first deer kills after a few years of trying:
















They always high-five the deer for their success:

Next best is Alaska bear and moose:

The hunts with grandkids

[
I should have married that gal from Alberta and tried to get Canadian citizenship. You guys have great hunting opportunities in Canada


quote=castnblast]I find it hard to pick one "favourite" ... perhaps one of these:
Horseback / pack train hunt for mountain caribou and goats in the Selwyn mountains of the Yukon territory. With Moose and Grizzly and wolf as side dish possibilities. Or Manitoban bull elk in the rut, regular rifle season, second week of September at home in Saskatchewan. Or a traditional Druckjagd, driven game hunt in Germany for roe deer, wild boar and fox. Lots of tradition, culture and plenty of game action. Or a plains game hunt in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Elusive Kudu in the rough and brushy hills are wonderful quarry. Or Cape buffalo in Namibia's Zambezi region, on the Chobe river floodplains. Lots of elephant and crocodiles and hippos to watch out for while stalking the buffalo. Or just chasing the enormous whitetails of Saskatchewan with a muzzle loader and a call and rattling antlers in the golden Indian summer days of late October. [/quote]

Nice. Bet that was a lot of work!!

RickyBobby: I am first of all an open country Mule Deer Hunter and Antelope hunting fiend!
But I have also been in on 14 Mt. Goat Hunts mostly as the designated "packer" but also three of those ventures were my own Mt. Goat Hunts.
I have been in on the kill of Mt. Goats in Alaska, Montana and taxington.
I get incredible satisfaction from Mt. Goat Hunting and the remoteness and lack of humans is VERY rewarding to me.
If you are looking for suggestions for enjoyable Hunts I recommend a Mt. Goat Hunt!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Arizona Coues deer. Rugged beautiful country, a lot of glassing/ stalking, a lot of deer and a new experience for most.

KUGURUROK

I’ve been on a lot of hunts in Colorado, and several western states and in Alaska. But the hunt that I went on in 2007 is probably the best adventure that I have had the privilege to experience.
I went on my first Alaska expedition in 1987, when I climbed Mount McKinley with a group from the Colorado Mountain Club. I returned two more times to climb Denali; in 1993 with R.J. Campbell and in 1996 with my son Bryce. I didn’t return to Alaska for eight years. But the lure of the Last Frontier had taken hold of me and I yearned to return.
In 2004 I placed a post on an Internet hunting forum, and three men answered my post. The four of us corresponded for six months and in September, we met in the hub community of Dillingham, on the shores of Bristol Bay. Our goal was to hunt moose. We flew in on a bush plane and floated east for a week, down the King Salmon River, to the Nushagak River, where the bush pilot met us for the flight back to Dillingham. I didn’t get a moose on that trip and instead of quenching my thirst for adventure it just intensified it. Bill Oster was one of the guys on that trip. We became good friends and have hunted together many times since then.
In 2007, Bill and I returned to hunt Caribou on the Kugururok River, which is a tributary of the Noatak River, north of Kotzebue. Most people call it the Kugurok or just the Kug. The Noatak River is a world class river, at times half a mile wide, and a thousand miles long. But most people have never heard of it because it’s so remote. At the time, the Northwest Alaska Caribou Herd was 400,000 strong.
We arranged for a one-way bush plane flight and for rental of a raft, then flew on Alaska Airlines into Kotzebue. The next leg of the trip was a bush plane flight onto the upper Kugururok River. The pilot landed on a gravel bar and when that plane left, we realized just how remote we were, 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle and over seventy miles from the nearest people, and the plane wasn’t coming back.
We were on a side braid of the river and we wanted to get in to the main stream that evening. So, we inflated the raft and floated down the side braid. In Alaska it’s illegal to hunt on the same day that you fly. While we were negotiating the side braid a herd of a couple hundred caribou crossed the river in front of us and another herd about the same size crossed the river behind us. We had to accomplish a short portage to get into the main flow and we set up camp ½ mile down-river from there.
We camped in the river bottom and while we were setting up camp, we saw lots of ‘bou and some big bulls strolling along the rim, less than a hundred yards away. There’s a lot of vegetation, willows and alders, in the river bottom. But above the rim it’s all open country; muskeg, marsh mounds and in the distance, we could see low hills. We decided to try our luck tomorrow morning, from that location.
At first light, we climbed the rim and looked out onto that open country and we saw thousands of caribou. Not one big herd, rather many smaller herds; a hundred here, a couple of hundred there, smaller groups everywhere. But there was no cover for us to hide in and they were all out of rifle range. The animals were generally moving to the west and the river was flowing south. We hiked along the rim until we came to a small gully that the caribou would eventually cross. Bill and I sneaked up that gully on our hands and knees, until we were about a hundred yards out into the open country. We peeked over the edge of the gully and watched as hundreds of critters were generally meandered in our direction.
I saw a nice big bull that was going to cross the gully a hundred and fifty yards east of us and I told Bill “that’s the one I want.” He said “OK. I’ll wait for a bigger one.” When the bull crossed the gully, he was just east of us and the morning sun was shining behind him. I carefully placed my first shot in his lungs and the spray from the exit wound sparkled in the sunlight. It was visible for just a few seconds but, I’ll never forget the site of that spray glistening in the sun. My bull was resting in the bottom of the gully and the approaching animals couldn’t see us in the gully. As I was field dressing the kill, Bill removed the cape and antlers.



When everything was butchered and bagged and ready to be carried back to camp, Bill started hunting again. He saw a bull, bigger than mine and decided to take him. The bull was not approaching the gully as close as Bill wanted so he crawled on his hands and knees then slithered his way, on an intercept angle, toward the bull. He shot him at about 100 yards. So, we had two bulls down before noon on the first day that we could hunt.
We were only about a mile from camp but, there was a field of marsh mounds between us and camp. I was reminded just how much I dislike hiking across them. It took two trips to get the animals back to camp. The arctic twilight lasts so long that we still had enough light to negotiate our way through the swampy ground when we finally got the second load to camp at 9:00pm.
The next morning, we packed up camp and began the long float trip back to civilization. We weren’t going all the way to Kotzebue, because that would require us to weave our way through the myriad channels of the Noatak Delta and then to row our way across the open ocean and Kotzebue Sound. But we still had 70 miles of river between us and the little bush community of Noatak Village. We spent nine hours on the river and traveled 23 miles on the first day. Bill’s GPS said we were traveling at 3 miles/hour. That seemed reasonable because we were close to the river banks on each side and could see the territory passing beside us. We passed Kayak Lake and Trail Creek at about 1,000 feet elevation. Fall had already appeared where we were hunting because there had been a hard freeze at that higher elevation. But when we passed through 1,000’ elevation, summer returned along with lots of insects, and the caribou disappeared. We traveled 23 miles that day and camped just a couple of miles north of the Noatak River.
It would probably take two more days of floating to make it to Noatak Village. So, we started the second day of floating as soon as we could get ourselves going. Bill caught a big silver salmon and hung it on his stringer in the river. After only a short time, we arrived at the Noatak River and stopped for some more fishing, then moved out onto the wide Noatak. The River seemed about half a mile wide at this point and even though we could read the GPS unit that said we were still going about 3 miles per hour it didn’t seem like we were traveling at all because we were a long way from the shore. We passed the mouth of the Kelly River and saw a cabin on the bank of the Kelly. We hadn’t seen any other people since the bush plane left. Bill said to me “If a boat were to come along, how much would pay to have them tow us into Noatak?” I said “I would pay $25.00,” and Bill Said “What a cheapskate.” No more than ten minutes later a motor boat passed us and I yelled “Would you tow us into Noatak for $100.00?” They made a quick “U” turn in our direction. They first tried to hook on with a rope but the raft kept fishtailing so, they beached the boat, had lunch of caribou soup, and put our now deflated raft, us and all our cargo into their boat.



There were five people in the boat in addition to Bill and Myself. The owner was of European decent and a teacher in Kotzebue. Whittier Burns and his wife and another lady are Eskimos. There was even an Ainu who told me that he was a whaler by profession. The boat was traveling slow because the owner had failed to fill up with gas at Noatak Village and they were afraid that they would run out. Still, we arrived at an island across from Noatak Village in about six hours. They dropped us there but via UHF radio, Whittier called one of his sons to meet us with ATVs for the ride into the village. They noticed the fish that Bill had caught and Whittier said that his mother would cook that up for all of us to enjoy. We never saw that fish again.
Whittier and his wife (each was on their second marriage), had nine children between them, ranging in age from young children to sons in their twenties. They invited us to eat dinner of caribou stew, with them and to spend the night in their BIA cottage.
We had arrived in Noatak Village a day earlier than we had expected so we had a day to explore. There are about 450 residence and that makes Noatak one of the largest bush communities. The town includes an FAA airport, a post office, an ACC store (Alaska Commercial Corp.), a native store, and 40 or 50 BIA cottages all exactly the same. There is a building that houses the National Guard 1st Scout Battalion, 297 Infantry. Lots of motor boats, snowmobiles and ATVs, everywhere you that you look. There were even some full-size SUVs and pickups. We were told that the vehicles are delivered to the boat ramp via a ferry and everyone in the community helps pull them up the ramp.
There still remained one of the original buildings, at the time about 80 years old, which is a remnant from the community that the BIA built in the 1920s, as part of their effort to convince the Noatak People to give up their seminomadic ways. There were also some museum quality relics just lying beside the road; a wooden dog sled and a wooden fishing boat. Lots caribou and moose antlers were just laying around. The people were all friendly and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit. Finally, we had to leave and fly back to Kotzebue on the mail plane.
I’ve hunted and toured in Alaska six times since then and although all of those visits have been good, none was quite the adventure as our hunt on the Kug.

Dall sheep in the Chugach for me, hands down. 2015.

I've got to rank this one close to the top....three years of history with this bull.

And the way it went down, is something I'll never forget.

Damn nice bull, let’s hear how it went down.

Yeah. Let's hear the story.

Caribou hunting with my grandpa and dad when I was a little kid. Magic...

My favourite big game hunt.... hmmmm....

I am always divided between my very first one, with my Father, and my last one, its feelings still strong.

Or maybe my next one, the one I am still planning and dreaming about.

In any case here is a picture of my last one, from only a few days ago. Himalayan Ibex hunted in the Karakorum mountains in Pakistan, in Chipursan Valley, close to the Whakham Corridor of Afghanistan, at 14,300 ft.

Not exactly a solo hunt but a great experience nevertheless.

Dang, no synthetic stocked SS bolt gun

I don't care if there's 12 people present. That's an awesome picture.

Nice work!

Probably should be an African Safari I took with my late wife when our kids were young.

But really it’s a a caribou hunt off the Steese Highway near Davidson Ditch NE of Fairbanks. The second day of hunting she turned to me and said “I’m pregnant with our second child.”

I don’t remember if we shot many ‘bou that weekend. I remember using the ATV trailer as the flat spot to pitch our tent on. I recall it was cold, autumn cold, not freezing cold.

I was in the attic today and saw the backpack and boots and the binos I’d bought for the trip. Seems like just yesterday.

Lori’s gone on to be with the Lord a long while back. I don’t know if there is hunting in heaven, but I hope so, and I hope she’s found a good spot.

That child is now our son and a Soldier, a medic stationed in South Korea, closing in fast on his 30th birthday.

But I can remember the day and the smells and the land and thinking we’d live forever.....

Old style Asian shikar, Thank You!





Actually, a K95 Blaser single shot in .270 !

Most fun, pigs at night in Texas. Get downwind, sneak up slow in oat fields and shoot the biggest one you can see in the head. No night vision or thermals, just starlight until after the first shot then buddy turns on the spotlight and the real shooting starts. I laughed so hard the first time I did it felt like a kid again.
Favorite hunt, deer drives in PA with my late father and uncles, they’re all gone now. Like many events in life you do t know how great a time you have had until it has passed and is out of reach. It makes you sad until you understand how blessed you were to have them and that God gave me sons and we have started the cycle again. Got to take my 14 y/o son on a backpack hunt in Idaho last year, it was better than I could have hoped. I’ve lived a charmed life.

MM

Awesome picture! That’s cool as hell.

WOW! That gets my vote.
Brought back memories of some of the hunts with my gandfathers and dad and brother, all of whom have passed on.

Good stuff DW....

I guess I'm gonna have to play....this one, for sure.

when i was young and in superb shape, a diy dall sheep hunt in alasks, several diy caribou hunts, also when i lived in alaska, and several diy moose hunts. i've been on many guided hunts with guides and outfitters in the last 30 years, but none have left memories like my early-years diy hunts.

My dads OIL NM desert sheep hunt is one I will never forget. We did it DIY.

That is awesome. What led you to hunt in Pakistan? I spent many months there not too long ago, but didn't get to get out of the city. Can you tell more of the story?

What led me there...? My love for high mountain hunting, visiting the remotest places, sharing the way of leaving with people of different cultures, breathing strong and treading on snow, fair chasing animals that are perfectly adapted to such harsh environments... it is a mixture of things that brought me here, and to the other mountains I have hunted.

And I like testing myself as hunts like these let me know more of myself, and know better what I am made of.

I regret having waited so much to hunt in Pakistan as the conditions at some point got a bit tricky for this 62 year old hunter.

Everything was perfectly well organized... My hunting buddy and me arrived at Islamabad via Istambul with Turkish Airlines, a very gun friendly airline company that I use -and fully recommend- in my hunts in Central Asia. The paperwork with the guns went smoothly taking us about 15-20 minutes while they checked our permits, serial numbers, and ammunition.

Our local flight to Gilgit was cancelled, and in 20 minutes we had two Toyotas waiting for us outside, which took us on a 16-18 hour drive along the Karakorum Highway, the term Highway being a bad joke :-)) to Gilgit where we overnighted and to Sost, where we met the Government Game Scout who would stay with us for the whole hunt.
From Sost we drove along a dirt road to the very end of Chipurson Valley, close to the Whackam Corridor of Afghanistan. We overnighted in a little village and the next day, with a team of porters who carried all the camp gear on their backs, we hiked to the mountains and fly camped for the rest of the hunt.

The conditions were quite bad because of the cold, the altitude, and the animals being scattered in the deepest valleys and highest peaks, which is typical of February. We had planned for early December, time of the year which offers a much easier hunt with the big fellowsdue chasing the females at lower altitude due to the rut.

But we made it, and I was able to draw off the mountain a seven and a half year old ibex, which is the best I could do, on the third day of climbing.

That day we left the sleeping bags at 3;30am, had some tea and oatmeal and were off, my thermometer reading -12F. We gained 2600 ft and five or six hours later Icould finally get into shooting position at 14,500 ft



from where I dropped my Ibex with a 510 yd shot, which is way over the distance that I like to shoot at game, but I was destroyed and could not take one step more. In fact, I had a really bad time going down and to the cosiness of a warm lunch and my sleeping bag.

The way back was so much easier, as we could fly Gilgit - Islamabad, saving ourselves the torture drive along Karakorum Highway. The flight, along all those peaks was absolutely breathtaking. We flew quite close to Nanga Parbat, one of the 8.000 meters plus peaks in the world, known as the Killer Mountain... funny, from the plane we had to look UP to see its summit.

I am coming back in December, when I will try for a 10+ year old troply, or nothing.

Alvaro

Thanks Alvaro for the excellent write-up and pics. Good luck getting that trophy. Sounds like quite an adventure in the making.

When flying to Karachi, I would fly Etihad because, coming home, I would connect through Abu Dhabi, which allows you to go through U.S. Customs there before boarding the flight home. But I don't know if Etihad is gun-friendly.

#1 and I would do it every year, desert sheep in Nevada area directly north of Las Vegas in mid November. Got a very big ram on my birthday. Night sky was bright from the lights on the strip.

#2 doe antelope with my old beagle in the Pahsimeroi Valley just below Mt Borah, October with my S&W 357.

Plains game hunt in africa with my mom and dad. My mom went with my dad and me on our second trip. She wanted to shoot but wasn’t comfortable with either of our rifles. So I built her a short stocked 7-08 with a21” barrel. She shot zebra, kudu, gemsbok and impala and chuckled and laughed each time. You can’t put a price tag on memories like that.

Mixed bag horseback hunts in the Yukon and B.C.

8 Moose hunts. all made meat. best times .

Although I didn't start hunting until I was in college in the mid '60s, I have had a pretty fantastic hunting life. My first deer was a spike muley buck that I shot in NW Colorado with one of my college roommates. I proudly hung those spike antlers on my college bedroom wall. The next year I again hunting with my roommate and shot my first elk. Back then many hunters left the head and antlers in the woods, but I again proudly hung those 5x5 elk antlers on my wall.

Ten years later I moved to Montana and my hunting opportunities really opened up. Shooting a deer, elk, and antelope every year was almost a given. I had two horses, and packing one or more tent camps into the backcountry every year provided many great hunting memories.


From the late '70s into the '90s I was able to draw a bighorn ram tag and multiple bull moose and mountain goat tags, and I was able to buy an unlimited unit sheep tag almost every year. All of those hunts were DIY and most were solo including 3 of my rams, my goat, and one of my Shiras moose.




Then in 1999 I went on my first guided hunt for a Dall ram and a Mountain caribou in the Mackenzie Mountains of Canada's NW Territories. This was a backpack hunt and while my guide and I were packing out my ram I was able to get a Wolverine. A very memorable hunt.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/iYV4nUQm.jpg[/img]

To be continued....

My fantastic journey continued...
Into the 21st century I made my first of 6 hunts in Africa. With so many different animals to hunt, I decided early to hunt different animals on each trip. For the most part I stuck to that decision and I made hunts to South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. Along with many of the more common plains game animals, I was also able to hunt..


Another year my girlfriend and I went to New Zealand where we hunted a week out of Gary Herbert's 5-star lodge. then rented a car and spent another two weeks driving on the wrong side of the road to see and visit much of the beautiful south island.




I shot my first caribou in 1980 when some friends and I did a DIY drop camp in Alaska, and as I posted earlier, I shot my second caribou species with that mountain caribou in the Mackenzie Mountains. For many years I had thought of doing a Musk ox hunt but I really didn't want to do it in sub zero weather. Then in 2004 I found a fall hunt that could be combined with Canadian Barren Ground Caribou. A fantastic week at Bekere Lake out of Inuvik, NWT provided me with both a caribou and a Musk ox that made the Boone and Crockett all time record book.


Also for many years I had wanted to hunt caribou in Quebec, so in 2017 I booked a hunt there with Leif River Outfitters. My good luck continued as the first day of my hunt I shot this great bull that not only made the B&C record book but gave me an invite to the 30th B&C Awards ceremony and 6 pages in their Awards Book.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/BKG7PJRm.jpg[/img]

So I have almost 50 years of great hunting trips and experiences. In 1988 I built a 1,000 sq ft Trophy Room addition to my house. I never thought it would happen, but it is now filled with over 70 of my mounts. Every day I enjoy seeing those mounts and remembering each of their hunts. They are all great memories, but I can't really say which one was the best.

Aoudad.

Black Bear boat hunt in Alaska with my son...Easy and beautiful..

I completed my Grand Slam with a Rocky Mountain Bighorn here in my home state of Arizona! The other came from Nevada, British Colombia and the North West Territory’s. All were fine hunts but to complete my quest here, not more than about 250 miles from home (and a 178 B&C ram) is something I will never forget.

Dall sheep hands down
Then horseback elk hunts
DIY caribou hunts
Then moose

I bet that goat was the hardest earned...

If I am telling the truth here, my first deer hunt and my two javelina hunts since my divorce. The deer especially. I took a week off of work, no bitching about being gone, no bitching about losing money from my paycheck. It truly was wonderful. The javelina hunts were fun to. Wake up, go hunt. simple and easy.

Outside of that my first elk hunt where I killed a bull, as did my dad and grandpa. That would turn out to be the last bull either one of them killed.

My brothers first elk hunt where I helped him kill a giant cow elk. (I also got engaged shortly after he killed that elk, so that part sucked.)

I have taken out of state hunters our for coues deer over the years, some of those hunts have been outstanding as well!

Same for me.

I like the challenge. I have been fortunate on Antelope 3 years in a row with bow and arrow, turkey 3 years in a row with bow and arrow, Whitetail deer seem very easy. Got a nice 4x4 last year with my homemade muzzle loader. Killed several mule deer one was 9x8 point. a real dandy. possibly thinking about wolves just takes the right place to be in.
Martin

2010 Yukon fly-in moose hunt with oldest daughter. Didn't see a moose, but this B&C Mtn Caribou more than made up for that. We had the trip of a life time.

1995 I went for Dall sheep and caribou in the NWT with Gana River. Best trip ever.

Can’t remember the last time I posted here but this right here is what it’s all about. Damn. Thanks for sharing this!

That is a stud caribou! Yeah that would make my trip too