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

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.