Jim's Blog
Armenian Urial Hunting Success
Yesterday...
Blogging from somewhere in the middle of the Islamic Republic of Iran, close to the city of Arak. This area is where we're hunting Armenian mouflon. We got here late last night and got up at 6 am, headed out at first light to sight-in my gun. We're up at about 7,500 feet in elevation. I shot my T/C 300 Win Mag and we got into the hunting area just as the sun was coming up and right away we were spotting sheep. The sheep in this area are strange because they either look like Armenian mouflon, which tend to be more North all the way into Armenia into the border of Iraq, or they look like Isfahan mouflon, which are south of us, or they will look like a cross between the two types.
So we spent the morning checking out groups of sheep but couldn't find one that looked Armenian-looking with a horn configuration that was big enough. Then this afternoon, after we had lunch in the thousand year-old ruins of a castle, we spotted a big band of sheep with about seven rams, snuck up on them within 500 yards. When we got up close, the one that I wanted just wasn't quite old enough, but at least we know where they are, so we might go for them another day if we want. So we ran out of time and that was the end of our day. it was a good day though; lots of sheep, really dry country and we still have four days left so we're all in pretty good spirits.
I'm eating way too much and we aren't really exercising. It's funny because when you're sheep hunting in Iran, you're always glassing from the vehicle up on the sides of the mountains so unless you actually go after them, you don't do much walking. This is the first sheep hunt in my life that I'm actually going get fat on.
The Next Day...
Fantastic day today. We got up as usual and headed up into the mountains. The first group of sheep that we glassed through the spotting scope were just smaller rams. The guys in the truck have amazing eagle eyes and spotted the next group from way down in the bottom of the valley. The game scout spotted one ram going over the ridge. I just had time to get my binos on him and he was a beautiful, huge Armenian-looking horn-shape sheep, so we crawled all the way up the mountain and over the ridge at the top. We were glassing, glassing, glassing and then I crawled a little bit ahead to look right down below us on the far side and sure enough there was the ram with his ewes. So we snuck over and made a perfect shot and he is a magnificent, gorgeous Armenian sheep. We're all so excited and the guys are all ecstatic.
Now we've been skinning all day and we got them all caped and fleshed and since we got done so early on this hunt, we're going to be able to hunt a different sheep that we weren't planning to be able to hunt. So we're headed towards the Pakistan border tomorrow because they think there are Blandford urial all along there. We'll still be a safe distance from the Pakistan border in Iran, as safe as you can be near that border.
Other than that, everything is going good. There are a lot of ticks in this area and so far Mike has found one crawling around in his hair and I've found two in mine. We're a little creeped out about that. Today we ate some interesting parts of the sheep. These guys are barbecuing it, and skinning it and it seems like just about every part of this sheep is food.
So now we're off tomorrow morning on another long, long journey across Iran towards the south east. We're going to see the whole country by the time we're done.
12/11/2010
