Wallydeuce
Well-known member
This is good stuff. Finish it, you can sleep later.
Tajikistan Ibex
- Thread starter SC Living Outdoors
- Start date
SC Living Outdoors
Well-known member
I just landed in Houston. Waiting for bags and go through custom, X-ray all that stuff. I’ll try to write up some more in the hotel tonight or in the morning.
SC Living Outdoors
Well-known member
Made it to Houston. It was a great trip but it’s great to be back in the USA.
Back to the story.
We got up around 8am. They had breakfast ready for us which was over easy eggs and sausage with…wait for it… bread. We discovered they only cook their eggs runny, that was the only option, and sausages are hot dogs. After breakfast we headed back to our room to break down our clothes/gear that was going up the mtn to camp and what was staying at the guest house. I’m a pretty light packer so it wasnt too tough. I could’ve gone even a bit lighter with clothes and gear and been completely fine, but I went by lists and recommendations of what others told me. It all worked out.
How time is viewed on that part of the world is different. They just aren’t really in a hurry then all of a sudden “we go”. It’s just a different culture. We got everything separated out and headed to load up the donkeys. These donkeys were insane. They were small under 5’ to the top of their head and I would guess they weighed 250lbs maybe 300. They would load them up with gear, food, any and everything. Those donkeys would just get on the trail and go. There were no scales just load them up. We figure they had around 200lbs on their back. They also had 2 yaks for hunters to ride. I’m not really big on riding large animals I’m not scared of them or anything it’s just if they get pissed what am I going to do? A good college friend of mine was hurt bad when she was thrown from a horse, so I try to give large animals the respect they deserve. I wanted to hike in and I wanted to carry my pack and my gun. They just didn’t understand this. In the end I won out and we headed off.
Our goal was to hike into the area that they call the 2nd camp. This is where the guides were already and they had radioed out saying they had 3 groups of ibex already located and each group had atleast one big billy. The ibex were rutting so odds are if you find a group there would be a big billy with them.
I was able to pull some gps coordinates off of a slide show they sent me so I saved some onX off-line maps of the valley I knew we would be hunting. I also marked the different camp locations prior to leaving home so I had a general idea of where we were heading. The maps I saved didn’t have topo lines but the satellite imagery was great. I had a general idea of how far we had to go. The trail in wasn’t too steep in general. It worked its way up the valley along one of the sides. About 2-3 miles in there is an area where they drove some giant spikes into a sheer rock wall and stacked logs, sticks and rocks on it to make a “path”. This all also had snow on top of it. The donkeys and yaks walked on it with no problem, but it still added some excitement.
On the way in we saw some 10-20’ deep caves that had rock walls built up in front of them. Our translator told us that these walls where where the poachers used to stay when they hunted. They called them “brokeman” and I explained that in English it was a poacher. Since ANCOT started it’s hunting in that area the poaching has completely gone away. It’s a pretty awesome conservation success story.
We stopped for lunch by a creek (bread, meat and cheese). There were a lot of frozen waterfalls all down the valley that were really cool to see. There were also rocks the size of houses that had fallen down the mountain that made me stop and think a little bit, lol. We kept going up the trail and around 4 miles in we saw our first ibex. It was a group of 10-12 ibex with 2 good billies one probably 7-8yrs old and the other probably 10yr (this is hindsight. By the time we left I had a good handle on ages and size). These first ibex we saw were about 5k feet above us. I said “let’s go kill one” they looked at me like I was crazy.
The first camp we came to was camp #1 6 miles in. This is usually where most hunters stay the first night, rest, shoot their guns and make sure everything is good to go. Kevin and I shot our guns. I had to bring mine down 2” due to elevation but everything else was good. We continued on.
After about 8.5 miles darkness had set in and I was starting to feel it. I’d gone 48hrs with minimal sleep and the elevation change was getting to me a bit. I gave in a rode the yak in the dark for the final 3 miles. It wasn’t too bad. Looking back I think my exhaustion was mainly due to lack of sleep. I kept up great with the guides for every day after this. We rolled into camp around 7-8pm. 11.5 miles in. 11k elevation. Dinner was ready for us. It was a fantastic meal. It was ibex and some other stuff I don’t know but it was the best meal of the trip and it was appreciated.
The camps are concrete houses built with stone and sticks/logs. 3 closed rooms with wood stoves that were great. All the concrete was packed in by those awesome donkeys. Lows were -10 to 0 and highs were 10-25. Our translator came in saying they had a plan for tomorrow I would go with Jomi, Nowrus and one other guy(I don’t remember his name). No translator but a couple of the guys spoke minimal English. All the guys were great. Jomi and I hit it off immediately even though he didn’t speak much English. We were almost the same age and he was a funny guy.
This is how they hunt. Glass a big ibex. Figure out how to climb the mountain up through the rocks. Keep 1-2 spotters down below with radios to keep the guide informed on locations. We went to sleep with high hopes for the morning.
Headed in.
The top of that valley covered in snow is where we saw our first ibex.
The super sketchy part of the trail.
That awesome first dinner.
A cool b/w pic I took of our camp.
Back to the story.
We got up around 8am. They had breakfast ready for us which was over easy eggs and sausage with…wait for it… bread. We discovered they only cook their eggs runny, that was the only option, and sausages are hot dogs. After breakfast we headed back to our room to break down our clothes/gear that was going up the mtn to camp and what was staying at the guest house. I’m a pretty light packer so it wasnt too tough. I could’ve gone even a bit lighter with clothes and gear and been completely fine, but I went by lists and recommendations of what others told me. It all worked out.
How time is viewed on that part of the world is different. They just aren’t really in a hurry then all of a sudden “we go”. It’s just a different culture. We got everything separated out and headed to load up the donkeys. These donkeys were insane. They were small under 5’ to the top of their head and I would guess they weighed 250lbs maybe 300. They would load them up with gear, food, any and everything. Those donkeys would just get on the trail and go. There were no scales just load them up. We figure they had around 200lbs on their back. They also had 2 yaks for hunters to ride. I’m not really big on riding large animals I’m not scared of them or anything it’s just if they get pissed what am I going to do? A good college friend of mine was hurt bad when she was thrown from a horse, so I try to give large animals the respect they deserve. I wanted to hike in and I wanted to carry my pack and my gun. They just didn’t understand this. In the end I won out and we headed off.
Our goal was to hike into the area that they call the 2nd camp. This is where the guides were already and they had radioed out saying they had 3 groups of ibex already located and each group had atleast one big billy. The ibex were rutting so odds are if you find a group there would be a big billy with them.
I was able to pull some gps coordinates off of a slide show they sent me so I saved some onX off-line maps of the valley I knew we would be hunting. I also marked the different camp locations prior to leaving home so I had a general idea of where we were heading. The maps I saved didn’t have topo lines but the satellite imagery was great. I had a general idea of how far we had to go. The trail in wasn’t too steep in general. It worked its way up the valley along one of the sides. About 2-3 miles in there is an area where they drove some giant spikes into a sheer rock wall and stacked logs, sticks and rocks on it to make a “path”. This all also had snow on top of it. The donkeys and yaks walked on it with no problem, but it still added some excitement.
On the way in we saw some 10-20’ deep caves that had rock walls built up in front of them. Our translator told us that these walls where where the poachers used to stay when they hunted. They called them “brokeman” and I explained that in English it was a poacher. Since ANCOT started it’s hunting in that area the poaching has completely gone away. It’s a pretty awesome conservation success story.
We stopped for lunch by a creek (bread, meat and cheese). There were a lot of frozen waterfalls all down the valley that were really cool to see. There were also rocks the size of houses that had fallen down the mountain that made me stop and think a little bit, lol. We kept going up the trail and around 4 miles in we saw our first ibex. It was a group of 10-12 ibex with 2 good billies one probably 7-8yrs old and the other probably 10yr (this is hindsight. By the time we left I had a good handle on ages and size). These first ibex we saw were about 5k feet above us. I said “let’s go kill one” they looked at me like I was crazy.
The first camp we came to was camp #1 6 miles in. This is usually where most hunters stay the first night, rest, shoot their guns and make sure everything is good to go. Kevin and I shot our guns. I had to bring mine down 2” due to elevation but everything else was good. We continued on.
After about 8.5 miles darkness had set in and I was starting to feel it. I’d gone 48hrs with minimal sleep and the elevation change was getting to me a bit. I gave in a rode the yak in the dark for the final 3 miles. It wasn’t too bad. Looking back I think my exhaustion was mainly due to lack of sleep. I kept up great with the guides for every day after this. We rolled into camp around 7-8pm. 11.5 miles in. 11k elevation. Dinner was ready for us. It was a fantastic meal. It was ibex and some other stuff I don’t know but it was the best meal of the trip and it was appreciated.
The camps are concrete houses built with stone and sticks/logs. 3 closed rooms with wood stoves that were great. All the concrete was packed in by those awesome donkeys. Lows were -10 to 0 and highs were 10-25. Our translator came in saying they had a plan for tomorrow I would go with Jomi, Nowrus and one other guy(I don’t remember his name). No translator but a couple of the guys spoke minimal English. All the guys were great. Jomi and I hit it off immediately even though he didn’t speak much English. We were almost the same age and he was a funny guy.
This is how they hunt. Glass a big ibex. Figure out how to climb the mountain up through the rocks. Keep 1-2 spotters down below with radios to keep the guide informed on locations. We went to sleep with high hopes for the morning.
Headed in.
The top of that valley covered in snow is where we saw our first ibex.
The super sketchy part of the trail.
That awesome first dinner.
A cool b/w pic I took of our camp.
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SC Living Outdoors
Well-known member
Everyone was awake before daylight. The guides were outside glassing as soon as light would allow them to do so. Breakfast was brought in (eggs and sausages) and we were ready to go. Outside the guides had located 2 small groups of ibex in one general location where I was headed with my guides. There was a good billy in each group. The ibex were rutting so odds were pretty good that if you find a group of ibex a good billy would be there also. We also saw multiple good ibex solo cruising the mountains looking for girlfriends. I looked at the good billy they were pointing out as our target through the spotting scope. They asked me if it was “ok?”. I said “It looks good to me”. They grinned and we headed out.
I did my best to capture the sheer size of these massive mountains in my pics and videos I shot, but it was difficult. These mountains are truly massive. I’ve hunted over 12k multiple times across the west and even a bit over 13k before in CO. In the Pamir Mountains 12k isn’t even a mountain. The ibex we were hunting were in the 13-14k range because the snow had pushed them down, but there was 5-8k feet of mountains above them. That first day is when that really really sunk in. I looked at that big billy and thought “That’s not too bad. If all goes according to plan well be over there in an hour or 2.” Nope.
4 of us left camp with a good plan in mind. 2 spotters were back at camp keeping a watch on the ibex. My guides stayed in constant contact with the spotters checking in every 10-15 minutes to make sure everything was still good. We navigated our way through some boulders down in the valley finally getting to the base of the mountains. There were some gnarly cliffs and chutes that we had to figure out a way through in the first 500-700’ of our stalk at the base of the mountain. None of the guys that were with me spoke amazing English. 2 of the 3 spoke broken English and the other spoke zero, but you’d be amazed how quickly you can learn to communicate when there is a common goal.
We got through the cliffs and continued to work towards the ibex. For the most part the ibex weren’t visible to us. We stayed down in valleys and behind boulders. Every so often Nowrus (my main guide) would sneak up to a spot and peak around trying to get a visual confirmation of the billies. About half way up they called on the radio saying they saw a 3rd good billy. We continued up. While climbing we glassed across the valley and there was another good billy solo directly across from us. I thought for a bit that we were going to climb down to go after that billy but we kept going up. Most of the climb was steep and the loose rocks and snow made for some sketchy footing. But I kept up with guides and I think that impressed them and it made me feel good. One of locals guys that came up with us got tired and we left him at a big rock to take a break while we hopefully finished the stalk.
After about the 3rd hour I realized that I had underestimated the Pamir’s but we were closing in and the excitement was building. The guys on the radio called and notified us that the big billy had bedded down with a nanny close by still on her feet feeding. This made me happy because I knew this guy wasn’t going anywhere with that girl around. We climbed out of the valley we were in behind a massive boulder trying to get a visual on the big billy. Nowrus and Jomi (helper/2nd guide) found the billy and Jomi told me “he’s sleeping”. They ranged him and wrote “900” in the snow. I shook my head and wrote “600”. They understood. Back into the valley we went climbing higher.
After a few hundred more yards we climbed out of the valley behind a pile of rocks that were on the ridge. We stayed as low as possible to avoid being spotted. Ibex have fantastic vision. I checked the wind and we were good on that front too. About 15 yards from the rock pile Nowruz motioned for us to stay while he crawled up and peaked over the edge. After about 60 seconds he ducked back down and motioned us up. He said fast words to Jomi and it was relayed to me that he was back on his feet. I peaked over the edge and the billy was standing. I ranged him at a littler over 640 but he was moving away slowly. I got my bipod set up then I had to stack some rocks under the butt of my gun to get steady. Nowruz ducked down to hold my legs in place so I wouldn’t slip bc we were on a hard incline. I dry fired twice to make sure everything felt good (I found out afterwards they thought I had bad bullets when I was dry firing). This whole process felt like 5 minutes but it was probably 25 seconds. The ibex had stopped moving away from me and was broadside. He hadn’t gone far so I dialed 650 guessing I he was between 650-660. I squeezed off the shot. I wasn’t nervous or shaking. The shot felt true. The billy and the nanny bolted left on the shot. They immediately started saying “Shoot again! Shoot again!” I was scanning with my scope, but the only one I could see was the nanny. I need to say this really quickly. These ibex are incredibly tough to spot. They are the same color as the rocks and they have a white patch on their back so they look exactly like every single snow covered rock on the mountain. If they weren’t standing in the absolute wide open they were really really hard to spot. With that said, I continued to look with my rifle for the big billy for a second shot and only seeing the female. All of the sudden the radio crackled then Jomi and Nowrus said “Congratulations” and hugged me. The ibex ran about 40yds to the edge of a valley and fell sliding another 40 or 50 yards out of sight. The spotters had seen the whole thing. I was elated. It was 11:40am. The stalk was 2 miles from camp where we started and had taken 4 hours. I had seriously misjudged the distance because of the massiveness of the mountains.
We hiked over to the billy which took another 75 minutes. There laid an animal I had dreamed of hunting for 15 years. The shot had been great. A clean pass through behind the shoulder. A little bit high, but a fatal shot on any big game animal. I was 7,268 miles from my house. 4 years of saving and 3 years of planning. The elevation was 13,255’. He is a gorgeous 9yr billy everything I wanted. Beautiful symmetrical horns and a thick full coat.
The following 4 days I hung out around camp and did some short 1-2 mile hikes taking pictures and videos of ibex. Kevin killed a great 10yr billy 2 days later. We were happy. The local taxidermist that was in camp worked on our hides and they boiled the skulls for us to bring home.
I’m currently on a plane writing this out. It’s my final flight (7th) of the trip. I’ve been traveling for 3 days now and yesterday was 35hrs long (not a joke… it was 35 hours). I’ve forgotten what day it is like 3 times, lol. It has truly been the trip of a lifetime. Not all hunts live up to the hype but this one did. In the words of a famous explorer “I’m going on an adventure!”
I did my best to capture the sheer size of these massive mountains in my pics and videos I shot, but it was difficult. These mountains are truly massive. I’ve hunted over 12k multiple times across the west and even a bit over 13k before in CO. In the Pamir Mountains 12k isn’t even a mountain. The ibex we were hunting were in the 13-14k range because the snow had pushed them down, but there was 5-8k feet of mountains above them. That first day is when that really really sunk in. I looked at that big billy and thought “That’s not too bad. If all goes according to plan well be over there in an hour or 2.” Nope.
4 of us left camp with a good plan in mind. 2 spotters were back at camp keeping a watch on the ibex. My guides stayed in constant contact with the spotters checking in every 10-15 minutes to make sure everything was still good. We navigated our way through some boulders down in the valley finally getting to the base of the mountains. There were some gnarly cliffs and chutes that we had to figure out a way through in the first 500-700’ of our stalk at the base of the mountain. None of the guys that were with me spoke amazing English. 2 of the 3 spoke broken English and the other spoke zero, but you’d be amazed how quickly you can learn to communicate when there is a common goal.
We got through the cliffs and continued to work towards the ibex. For the most part the ibex weren’t visible to us. We stayed down in valleys and behind boulders. Every so often Nowrus (my main guide) would sneak up to a spot and peak around trying to get a visual confirmation of the billies. About half way up they called on the radio saying they saw a 3rd good billy. We continued up. While climbing we glassed across the valley and there was another good billy solo directly across from us. I thought for a bit that we were going to climb down to go after that billy but we kept going up. Most of the climb was steep and the loose rocks and snow made for some sketchy footing. But I kept up with guides and I think that impressed them and it made me feel good. One of locals guys that came up with us got tired and we left him at a big rock to take a break while we hopefully finished the stalk.
After about the 3rd hour I realized that I had underestimated the Pamir’s but we were closing in and the excitement was building. The guys on the radio called and notified us that the big billy had bedded down with a nanny close by still on her feet feeding. This made me happy because I knew this guy wasn’t going anywhere with that girl around. We climbed out of the valley we were in behind a massive boulder trying to get a visual on the big billy. Nowrus and Jomi (helper/2nd guide) found the billy and Jomi told me “he’s sleeping”. They ranged him and wrote “900” in the snow. I shook my head and wrote “600”. They understood. Back into the valley we went climbing higher.
After a few hundred more yards we climbed out of the valley behind a pile of rocks that were on the ridge. We stayed as low as possible to avoid being spotted. Ibex have fantastic vision. I checked the wind and we were good on that front too. About 15 yards from the rock pile Nowruz motioned for us to stay while he crawled up and peaked over the edge. After about 60 seconds he ducked back down and motioned us up. He said fast words to Jomi and it was relayed to me that he was back on his feet. I peaked over the edge and the billy was standing. I ranged him at a littler over 640 but he was moving away slowly. I got my bipod set up then I had to stack some rocks under the butt of my gun to get steady. Nowruz ducked down to hold my legs in place so I wouldn’t slip bc we were on a hard incline. I dry fired twice to make sure everything felt good (I found out afterwards they thought I had bad bullets when I was dry firing). This whole process felt like 5 minutes but it was probably 25 seconds. The ibex had stopped moving away from me and was broadside. He hadn’t gone far so I dialed 650 guessing I he was between 650-660. I squeezed off the shot. I wasn’t nervous or shaking. The shot felt true. The billy and the nanny bolted left on the shot. They immediately started saying “Shoot again! Shoot again!” I was scanning with my scope, but the only one I could see was the nanny. I need to say this really quickly. These ibex are incredibly tough to spot. They are the same color as the rocks and they have a white patch on their back so they look exactly like every single snow covered rock on the mountain. If they weren’t standing in the absolute wide open they were really really hard to spot. With that said, I continued to look with my rifle for the big billy for a second shot and only seeing the female. All of the sudden the radio crackled then Jomi and Nowrus said “Congratulations” and hugged me. The ibex ran about 40yds to the edge of a valley and fell sliding another 40 or 50 yards out of sight. The spotters had seen the whole thing. I was elated. It was 11:40am. The stalk was 2 miles from camp where we started and had taken 4 hours. I had seriously misjudged the distance because of the massiveness of the mountains.
We hiked over to the billy which took another 75 minutes. There laid an animal I had dreamed of hunting for 15 years. The shot had been great. A clean pass through behind the shoulder. A little bit high, but a fatal shot on any big game animal. I was 7,268 miles from my house. 4 years of saving and 3 years of planning. The elevation was 13,255’. He is a gorgeous 9yr billy everything I wanted. Beautiful symmetrical horns and a thick full coat.
The following 4 days I hung out around camp and did some short 1-2 mile hikes taking pictures and videos of ibex. Kevin killed a great 10yr billy 2 days later. We were happy. The local taxidermist that was in camp worked on our hides and they boiled the skulls for us to bring home.
I’m currently on a plane writing this out. It’s my final flight (7th) of the trip. I’ve been traveling for 3 days now and yesterday was 35hrs long (not a joke… it was 35 hours). I’ve forgotten what day it is like 3 times, lol. It has truly been the trip of a lifetime. Not all hunts live up to the hype but this one did. In the words of a famous explorer “I’m going on an adventure!”
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marksjeep
Well-known member
Outstanding! Congrats!
BAKPAKR
Well-known member
Congrats, and thanks for sharing the adventure!
Kiwi
Well-known member
Excellent! A dream hunt.
OverlordBear
Well-known member
Dude thanks for telling us about this epic adventure. Makes me want to add this to the dream list of trips.
MTLabrador
Well-known member
That is a pretty awesome adventure. Congrats.
BirdManMike
Well-known member
Wonderful. Congrats,
SFC B
Well-known member
Great write up of awhat looks like an incredible adventure. That will make a wonderful mount.
BAKPAKR
Well-known member
I would definitely do this hunt but for my bad back (big yellow streak exacerbated by Taliban across the river, 1000+ foot drop off if I would fall from the yak, diet of runny eggs and hotdogs, 35 hour travel day, etc…). 
Marshian
Well-known member
Wow, that is epic! Bucket list hunt for me too right there. Just to see those mega mountains would make the trip worth it.
WNC2500
Well-known member
Wow! Amazing pictures, and thanks for sharing with us. Glad that it ended up being all that you planned for it to be.
fishing4sanity
Well-known member
Congratulations! Thanks for sharing your photos and adventure. Do you think an old fat guy could ever pull off this hunt and live... (asking for a friend)?
BAKPAKR
Well-known member
That was a heck of a shot! Tell us about your rifle and load. Did you use the Tikka 300 WM you put together yourself?
shoots-straight
Well-known member
Thanks for taking us along. Congrats on such a fine Ibex.
ashersdad
Well-known member
One helluva an adventure! Nicely done.
SC Living Outdoors
Well-known member
Yes, I used my Tikka I built. 180 federal premium accubonds. It shoots those rounds incredibly well. I’ve practiced a ton with it and trust it. I was very comfortable with the shot even though it wasn’t a great rest.
SC Living Outdoors
Well-known member
Where there is a will there is a way. They do everything they can to accommodate you. Just like any really tough mountain hunt the better shape you are in the more enjoyable the hunt will be.
