AUSTRIA: Alpine Ibex With St. Hubertus Hunting Tours

[LivingTheDream]

Austria Hunt Report – Executive Summary

I have to apologize for the delay, as soon as I got back, I got hit with COVID and then the craziness of the holidays. Before getting into the hunt details, I wanted to give a bit of an executive summary. Austria is a pretty amazing place, and it had been almost 20 years since I spent any time there, obviously it was different coming to Austria to hunt rather than as a just a traveling through as a college student, but I can remember seeing the countryside and seeing all of the deer blinds/stands and thinking how much I would love to hunt here.

I also have to note, I am not sure this hunt would have happened without AfricaHunting.com! I know it’s a hunt in Europe but the international hunting community and those willing to travel is pretty small. For everyone that wonders if posting a report is worth it, I can tell you it definitive is and you never know when a report will inspire a reader to go down the rabbit hole of doing their own research and eventually going on a hunt. I have to give a shoutout to @JES Adventures for not only his report for also for being so kind to provide answers to my questions.

Alpine Ibex has always been the one Ibex for whatever reason that I wanted to hunt, though I had the mountain hunting bug long before there was always something about the Alpine Ibex that really caught my attention. It had kind of been a dream pushed aside due to financial constraints and or other hunts plan, or pick an excuse but it would be something I would look up from time to time and move on. I read a report on AH and then the search began in earnest, I talked to a lot of different outfitters and booking agents and pretty much anyone associated with hunting Europe at SCI. I had come up snake eyes.

This was twofold, the first being Switzerland had closed their Ibex hunting, not because there wasn’t Ibex but because they didn’t want foreigners killing their Ibex. This narrows the countries down to pretty much Austria and Slovenia, with considerably more in Austria. So supply tightens! The other part of this is the European model, which for better or worse charges by the Centimeter or CIC points. With Austria the license is for a class 1 Ibex requiring the Ibex be 10 years or older which means all Ibex are big Ibex.

I was tentatively scheduled, with a maybe possibly, hunting an Alpine Ibex in 2024 or 2025. This all changed pretty quickly, when Elio from St Hubertus reached out to me in August saying they had a license left for 2023. There was a little debating as I was getting ready to leave the Yukon bush (literally was at the hotel the night before my bush flight out to hunt), I told him I would take it but couldn’t get a deposit to him for 15 days. Elio replied immediately, said it wasn’t a problem, the hunt was mine and not to worry, and he looked forward to hosting me.

Prehunt details and logistics were fantastic, all questions I had were answered timely, all arrangements were made without a hitch including airport transportation, hotel set up, rifle rental, pretty much everything. They did a fantastic job, even with WhatsApp messages before and after the hunt. This included possible other animals I could hunt, hotel selection and even weather updates. We had to make a few changes due to weather but they handled it all without a hitch or hiccup. Overall, they did an amazing job.

Before jumping into the actual hunt report, Austria has a long hunting tradition, and it was amazing to learn and experience it. I will start with this one picture, and for those that understand the hunting traditions will immediately get this picture, unfortunately I didn’t have a proper hat to put them in!

 

[LivingTheDream]

Day 1 Travel Day

I left Dulles Airport on Austrian Airlines on a raining stormy cold Sunday night. I was able to use points to get a direct business class ticket to Vienna. But given the weather, I was really just hoping the plane would get on the air on time. To my surprise it did, but we had a bumpy first 3 hours until we were able to get out over the Ocean. I will spare you my movie and wine selection, but I was able to get some sleep.

As we approached Vienna, the sun was coming up and seeing the snowing country side and the mountains was a quite a site. It kind of sunk in that this was real and it was happening. We landed in Vienna around 8:25, and I was through Passport control by 8:45! Everything was going really smooth! At the luggage carousel, I waited and waited and….waited. They actually took IAD off the board. The one thing that seemed odd to me was I didn’t see any of the “priority” orange tags come through, and noticed some of the others in business class waiting around as well. We all went over to lost luggage to fill a claim, I was travelling light but all my cold weather gear and my boots were in my checked luggage. This was going to be a bit of a problem but until I talked someone who could actually look up my bag tag, I wasn’t going to panic. Around 9:50 am, the carousel lights came on and the bags with orange tags started coming out, my guess is someone forgot to unload them and they went for a ride around the airport. But I had my bag, and my driver was waiting outside of the airport.

A 2 and ½ hour ride went quick, with the further west we went the colder it was getting, it was still relatively warm with a high of 33 degrees in the town I was at. But above freezing temperatures wasn’t necessarily a good thing for my hunt. The game manager, PH, had relayed to me that the snow (they got about 24 inches worth the week before) had pushed the Ibex down and bunched them up. With the warm up, that could change things.

The hotel was really nice, especially by hunting standards. It was typical small town Europe, tucked away in the mountains in the lull before ski season, very friendly people, and it had more of a bed and breakfast feel. A quick dinner (the porkchops were amazing) and then I was able to grab a beer with my guide, and kind of get expectations and some of the timing. Unfortunately with the Jet Lag, I hit a wall and was pretty much asleep by 9 pm.

 

[LivingTheDream]

Day 2 – First Hunting Day

And on to the hunt. I woke up at 3:30 and given how excited I was there was no going back to sleep. Breakfast wasn’t till 7. I saw on the deck for a little bit trying to get a feel for the weather. It was foggy and cloudy and I could hear the dripping of melting snow. I kind of new this wasn’t going to be an ideal day, but that is why it is hunting.

Had a continent breakfast, and was told we were going to be out hunting all day, which was my assumption. The weather was going to be a high of about 34 or 35 degrees which is warm for this time of year. We were 20 minutes from the hunting area, and in this part of Austria, there is no traffic. We met up with the professional hunter right at 8 am. We did a quick rundown of the Blaser rifle I would be using, and with a Zeiss scope, I was told we would get with 200 meters so just hold dead on. No worries there. We get in the professional hunters pick up and off we go.

The best way I can describe the terrain is the convergence of 3 mountains, with ridges running down and across. This provided some interesting terrain, covered in trees with alpine meadows throughout. The plan was to do a combination of spotting from vantage points (kind of like western hunting) and creeping/still hunting to different stands/blinds that overlooked alpine meadows. This was basically done to see if we could locate something worth stalking, determine a general area the animals were in, or an elevation band that the animals seemed to be moving in. Previous scoping from the land manager had a group of ibex in a certain area and they have been there for the last 3 days due to snow pushing them down to more of a mid level.

The first area we glassed to see if they were still where they had been, after looking for about 30 minutes we couldn’t turn up anything and decided to get higher, side hill to a stand that overlooked an alpine meadow and see if we could possible catch them moving around.

Once we got to the higher elevation, I was told to be very quiet since the Ibex could be anywhere in the elevation band. The snow was melting which was causing the trail to be a slick, muddy mess, not exactly the best footing for being stealthy. But about 300 yards into our stalk, we spotted a Chamois about 250 yards away, slowing making its way up the mountain. It was a female but the first Chamois I had ever seen, given we were in the middle of December, it had an amazing thick black coat. We went about 30 more yards for settling in, in a little stand that was basically a bench with a few boards breaking up your silhouette and giving you a shooting rail.

This stand also provided a very strategic view of a funnel point that was on spine of the ridge. (This is key detail for later in the story). Eventually we had 4 Chamois go through the funnel point, which had the same one I saw 10 minutes earlier and the rest of the group. They were only about 60 yards away and it was so cool to be that close to them. About 20 minutes later, we caught a young male about 180 yards away in the Alpine meadow, and he too eventual feed up and went through the funnel. I couldn’t believe it I had seen 5 Chamois in less than hour. The warmer weather seemed to have everything moving up, so our thought was it was just a matter of time before the Ibex moved up as well. Then we didn’t see anything for the next 3 hours, but a squirrel kept me amused, it turned out to be a really nice day but no Ibex.

We decided to make a move and head higher up, we thought maybe they had headed higher overnight and instead of following the Chamois they had actually lead the way. We walked maybe ¾ of a mile and the snow here was much thicker, maybe 12 to 18 inches. We got into the next stand, which provided a great view of an alpine meadow directly and front and to my right, with thick spruce trees in the middle, you could see fresh tracks in the snow. To make a long story short, even though it was picturesque, there was no movement and the tracks were that of Red Stag. So they probably weren’t at a higher elevation.

The last hour was spent rapidly hitting different glassing points, we saw the young male Chamois from earlier and a “young” stag that was a 5x6. But still couldn’t figure out the Ibex, we basically checked all different elevations but nothing. Our guess, was that they just didn’t move, with the warm weather, they were holed up in a group of trees and we just could never get the right vantage point to spot them. So even though unsuccessful, we had a plan and I had a good feeling about tomorrow.

 

[LivingTheDream]

Day 3 – Hunting Day 2

I woke up at 4:30, but I was really optimistic. I left the day feeling like we have kind of figured them out. It was a long wait till breakfast, and checking the weather it was really foggy. The temperature was right at freezing but I could still tell the snow was melting from yesterday. The professional hunter said he was going to be out there at first light glassing and we would meet him at 8am. I was a little worried the fog might mess up the plans, but you can only control so much.

Breakfast was good, I am do enjoy Austrian coffee, with 3 cups and was more than ready to go. We got to the hunting area right before 8 am, the fog was rolling in and out so the PH had got some glassing in, he saw some female ibex with babies in the area they had previously been, but had not located any billies. The plan was that we would glass the Alpine meadow from the first sit yesterday, make sure there was nothing there to spook and sneak in. We glassed maybe 15 minutes and then headed up the mountain. We saw a Chamois on the way in and moved really slowly, glassing along the way and just making sure we didn’t spook anything.

We got to the stand, and settled in. As I got my binos out and started looking around, I thought I saw the black squirrel from yesterday in the closest spruce thicket, when I actually put the binos on it, it wasn’t a squirrel at all but the head of a Chamois. Over the next 10 minutes the Chamois feed closer and closer and actually ran across the opening and got as close as 5 yards to us. It was a baby, and the PH was “baaa”ing at it, pretending to be its mom. It was pretty comical how it kept hanging around and hanging around. It was a really cool encounter to be that close to Chamois and I was already considering the day a success.

My PH said lets find its mom and we were glassing around, suddenly the smile turned to intense focus, and he said get ready, right where the baby was, be ready. I have my scope right there on the thicket, I had no idea what he saw, and given my limited German and his limited English there was not really any need to discuss it further. The time passed slowly and I was pretty much head down on the scope. Scanning and kept coming up with nothing.

He then said higher, get ready, he is coming. I shifted to the funnel point, and in the scope I could clearly see the top Ibex horns, but he was on the other side of the ridge and all I could see was his horns. In what has replayed in my head as a made to TV hunting show, he was slowly making his way moving right to left, and I knew I just had to stay on him, eventually he would top out. But with each step the horns were coming more and more into focus. Then finally, I could see the top of his head. A few more steps and his face and neck were exposed. Now he was walking, continue his slow steady pace moving right to left, and I could see his shoulder and vitals, the safety was off and the moment he stopped, I was ready. My PH “baa” to stop him, but instead of stopping and turning his head presenting a broadside shot, he turned his whole body and faced us head on staring directly in our direction, 50 yards way. Needless to say, this is not the shot I wanted, but it was the shot I had, the moment he stop, the crosshairs were already settled and the Blaser found its mark. The Ibex dropped right there in its tracks, I could only see the legs up in the scope and I ready in case he hopped up, but he was officially done and I had my Ibex. This is when the adrenaline kicked in and I got the shakes. I can’t tell you what a moment it was seeing the Ibex go down.

He was magnificent, once we got to him we paid our respects and gave him his last bit. It was truly an honor just to be on the mountain with him. We estimated him to be either 13 or 14 years old, and we got plenty of pictures.

The plan was then that we were going to slide him down the mountain, maybe 800 yards or so and get him to the road that cut across the mountain to make it easier to load him up. Snow and 40 to 45 degree angle made the slide pretty easy, at one point I got on my butt and started sliding down the snow almost like I was sledding, however as soon as I started to pick up speed I realized this was a terrible idea and bailed out. Though sometimes a little unnerving, we got down without issue, and the PH came around with the truck. As we were doing some cleaning, he mentioned that if I did want a Mouflon, he saw two headed down as he was driving over and thought he knew where they were going.

So we hopped in the truck and drove further down the mountain. Once we got there we did a quick little stalk, maybe 100 yards, to another shooting shack, and within minutes we spotted the 2 rams bedded about 185 yards away. As I was getting set up, the bigger of the two stood up and just stood there giving me a quartering away shot. I got steady with the ram in crosshairs. I focused on my breathing and with a gentle squeeze, the Blaser broke the silence. The ram was down.

This has been a productive 2 hours. I was beyond ecstatic. We decided to wait for the other ram to wander off on his own to ensure they didn’t get spook by people or to at least minimize the possible education of this young ram. In waiting, fog moved in, if we had been about 15 to 20 minutes later we would have never seen the rams as the fog was thick and we couldn’t see more than 50 yards.

We took a few more pictures, celebrated a little, and then loaded them both up and took them down the mountain. It was at this point, we told hunting stories and just enjoyed the moment. It wasn’t even noon but my Day 2 hunt was done and pretty much the hunting portion of my trip!

 

[LivingTheDream]

Day 4 and Home

The rest of the trip was pretty much uneventful. I was up before 7 to get breakfast, and my driver was there by 10:30 for us to make our way to the city.

I stayed at the Marriott in the City Center, did a lot of shopping and highly recommend that people spend a day or two in the city center area. There is really good shopping and restaurants. Even some higher end hunting stores, which I was able to check out some beautiful doubles, drillings and new Blaser hunting gear. I also enjoy going into hunting stores in different regions and this one was no exception. I went to the Christmas Festival, and it was pretty cool, the warm rum punch was really good, and pretty sure if you have 3 of those, you are well on your way to a good night.

I was able to grab a drink with Elio at the hotel and discuss different hunts and I’m already planning to come back and hunt Chamois. I think this is my one regret was that I didn’t book a Chamois license in advance. I thought about it and grabbed a Mouflon. This actually might be a bigger regret in my overall hunting career is the fact that I am just not discovering these little guys. I really hope I get to hunt them in the future and probably will combine with some family trips.

The ride to the airport and flight home, and passport control/luggage was uneventful. Just long.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoy hunting Europe, I am not a huge fan of the pay by score model, but kind of understand why they do it given how highly managed everything is. For me it is a pretty quick flight over, and there are lots of different routes. Just seems logistically easy. The food is great and people are nice pretty much everywhere you go. I would highly recommend hunting with St Hubertus, the communication was superb. I will say it is also important to have really good boots, pretty much all of my hunts having good boots has been critical in all of my hunts in Europe. I had the KUIU guide pants and thought they did phenomenal, my PH even commented how much he liked they’re gear though it was hard to get.

Thank you for reading! And thank you to everyone at AH!

 

[Red Leg]

Day 3 – Hunting Day 2

I woke up at 4:30, but I was really optimistic. I left the day feeling like we have kind of figured them out. It was a long wait till breakfast, and checking the weather it was really foggy. The temperature was right at freezing but I could still tell the snow was melting from yesterday. The professional hunter said he was going to be out there at first light glassing and we would meet him at 8am. I was a little worried the fog might mess up the plans, but you can only control so much.

Breakfast was good, I am do enjoy Austrian coffee, with 3 cups and was more than ready to go. We got to the hunting area right before 8 am, the fog was rolling in and out so the PH had got some glassing in, he saw some female ibex with babies in the area they had previously been, but had not located any billies. The plan was that we would glass the Alpine meadow from the first sit yesterday, make sure there was nothing there to spook and sneak in. We glassed maybe 15 minutes and then headed up the mountain. We saw a Chamois on the way in and moved really slowly, glassing along the way and just making sure we didn’t spook anything.

We got to the stand, and settled in. As I got my binos out and started looking around, I thought I saw the black squirrel from yesterday in the closest spruce thicket, when I actually put the binos on it, it wasn’t a squirrel at all but the head of a Chamois. Over the next 10 minutes the Chamois feed closer and closer and actually ran across the opening and got as close as 5 yards to us. It was a baby, and the PH was “baaa”ing at it, pretending to be its mom. It was pretty comical how it kept hanging around and hanging around. It was a really cool encounter to be that close to Chamois and I was already considering the day a success.

View attachment 577158

My PH said lets find its mom and we were glassing around, suddenly the smile turned to intense focus, and he said get ready, right where the baby was, be ready. I have my scope right there on the thicket, I had no idea what he saw, and given my limited German and his limited English there was not really any need to discuss it further. The time passed slowly and I was pretty much head down on the scope. Scanning and kept coming up with nothing.

He then said higher, get ready, he is coming. I shifted to the funnel point, and in the scope I could clearly see the top Ibex horns, but he was on the other side of the ridge and all I could see was his horns. In what has replayed in my head as a made to TV hunting show, he was slowly making his way moving right to left, and I knew I just had to stay on him, eventually he would top out. But with each step the horns were coming more and more into focus. Then finally, I could see the top of his head. A few more steps and his face and neck were exposed. Now he was walking, continue his slow steady pace moving right to left, and I could see his shoulder and vitals, the safety was off and the moment he stopped, I was ready. My PH “baa” to stop him, but instead of stopping and turning his head presenting a broadside shot, he turned his whole body and faced us head on staring directly in our direction, 50 yards way. Needless to say, this is not the shot I wanted, but it was the shot I had, the moment he stop, the crosshairs were already settled and the Blaser found its mark. The Ibex dropped right there in its tracks, I could only see the legs up in the scope and I ready in case he hopped up, but he was officially done and I had my Ibex. This is when the adrenaline kicked in and I got the shakes. I can’t tell you what a moment it was seeing the Ibex go down.

He was magnificent, once we got to him we paid our respects and gave him his last bit. It was truly an honor just to be on the mountain with him. We estimated him to be either 13 or 14 years old, and we got plenty of pictures.

View attachment 577159View attachment 577160

The plan was then that we were going to slide him down the mountain, maybe 800 yards or so and get him to the road that cut across the mountain to make it easier to load him up. Snow and 40 to 45 degree angle made the slide pretty easy, at one point I got on my butt and started sliding down the snow almost like I was sledding, however as soon as I started to pick up speed I realized this was a terrible idea and bailed out. Though sometimes a little unnerving, we got down without issue, and the PH came around with the truck. As we were doing some cleaning, he mentioned that if I did want a Mouflon, he saw two headed down as he was driving over and thought he knew where they were going.

So we hopped in the truck and drove further down the mountain. Once we got there we did a quick little stalk, maybe 100 yards, to another shooting shack, and within minutes we spotted the 2 rams bedded about 185 yards away. As I was getting set up, the bigger of the two stood up and just stood there giving me a quartering away shot. I got steady with the ram in crosshairs. I focused on my breathing and with a gentle squeeze, the Blaser broke the silence. The ram was down.

View attachment 577161

This has been a productive 2 hours. I was beyond ecstatic. We decided to wait for the other ram to wander off on his own to ensure they didn’t get spook by people or to at least minimize the possible education of this young ram. In waiting, fog moved in, if we had been about 15 to 20 minutes later we would have never seen the rams as the fog was thick and we couldn’t see more than 50 yards.

View attachment 577162

We took a few more pictures, celebrated a little, and then loaded them both up and took them down the mountain. It was at this point, we told hunting stories and just enjoyed the moment. It wasn’t even noon but my Day 2 hunt was done and pretty much the hunting portion of my trip!

Wonderful animals. Austria is a very special place to hunt. You were very fortunate that fog did not shut you down completely.

 

[LivingTheDream]

Wonderful animals. Austria is a very special place to hunt. You were very fortunate that fog did not shut you down completely.

It is very special, I plan to go again. I really took time to ask about traditions and get a better understanding of their hunting culture because they have a very deep and strong culture around hunting. That is partially why I mentioned there were guns stores less than a block away from a Louis Vuitton store in their shopping district, to me it was a bit reminiscent of reading stories of how hunters would go to NYC to shop at Abercrombie to gear up before their African Safari. In one store, I could understand enough to hear two guys arguing on what cartridge would be sufficient for Cape Buffalo, it made me smile and it was a pretty passionate conversation.

We got really lucky with fog, it was rolling in and out, I couldn't believe how quickly it would go from clear to total whiteout.

 

[Nyati]

Congrats for a great hunt and very good trophies

 

[Altitude sickness]

Thanks for posting your hunt re cap. The cultures between. Italy, France, Spain, Bavaria and Eastern Europe are unique but similar in many ways. And it’s nice to see and read people’s experiences there.

 

[WAB]

Wonderful hunt, congrats! Did you get a chance to head over to Salzburg while you were there?

 

[LivingTheDream]

Wonderful hunt, congrats! Did you get a chance to head over to Salzburg while you were there?

I didn't unfortunately, I have gone through there in a train, and hope to make it back there to actual experience the city. This trip was just a little compressed for time.

 

[MontanaPat]

Congratulations on a great hunt and some nice trophies, beautiful Ibex! I appreciate your sharing the details of the hunt, I'm trying to plan a couple of European hunts myself and that is my focus for DSC this year to try and nail down who I want to hunt with in Europe. Thanks for the lead on St Hubertus, will have to check into them.

 

[WAB]

I didn't unfortunately, I have gone through there in a train, and hope to make it back there to actual experience the city. This trip was just a little compressed for time.

It’s definitely worth it. The Christmas market was second only to Prague. The museum in the castle is definitely worth visiting.

 

[375Fox]

Congratulations that’s a beautiful ibex

 

[LivingTheDream]

Congratulations that’s a beautiful ibex

Thanks brother, I need to follow in your footsteps and get some more European hunts in.

 

[wesheltonj]

Congratulations on your hunt. That’s a hunt on my list too. Austria is a great country to visit. I’ve been all over but never hunting there. What was the closest town?

 

[cpr0312]

Congrats and thanks for sharing!

 

[Fatback]

Looks like you had a wonderful hunt. Those are both awesome animals. Appreciate you sharing the experience with us. Congrats.

 

[gillettehunter]

Great report and good shooting. A rented rifle just isn't the same as your own. Beautiful animals. Nice to read your report even after talking on the phone with you about it. Congrats
Bruce

 

[Arañuel]

Congrats for the trophy, alpine ibex is very beautiful, the fog sometimes can ruin your hunt but finally you were lucky.