SLOVENIA: You Have To Be Quick

[Muskox]

Just returned early from a mixed-family and hunting trip. We drove down from western Germany. We spent Wednesday driving with a stop in Munich at the Hofbrau Haus and more importantly, had the schweinhaxxe! While in Munich we visited the gun shop Oberhammer, very pretty hunting store, but a bit different compared with what I had thought it was. A friend of mine has a similar store (not quite as pretty) in Bad Durkheim Waffen Walther. So I can't see driving 4 or 5 hours to Munich to buy anything from Oberhammer.

I wish I would have taken a photo of the schweinhaxxe, what a super meal we had at the Hofbrauhaus. The wife had the roasted chicken, which I didn't try but she said was ok. The 3 kids had currywurst, cheese noodles (casespaetzle), and soup. Everyone was full and happy. We ended up staying closer to the Austrian border. Families of 5 people in Europe are hard to make work into a hotel. The hotels often make any family members beyond 4 stay in another room. We were able to find a nice hotel in Bavaria in Rohrdorf that was really beautiful. We were there during the religious holiday Corpus Christi, so we got to see the professional of Dirndl and Trachten dressed Bavarians headed to the morning service on Thursday morning. Breakfast was typical of the small country hotels in Germany, a really solid spread of what I felt like was home made bread, cold cuts, boiled eggs, cereal, yogurt, and the normal German breakfast in a hotel.

This is first time we have done a family and hunting outing combined. Girls are 9, 12, and 13. The 12 year old is interested in hunting. She did her hunter safety and I am hopeful next year she can hunt in New Mexico when we move home. It wasn't an epic failure, but we won't mix family and hunting again.

On to Austria

After breakfast we made it to Salzburg in about an hour. We found our way down to the old town and visited the Mozart birth place house. Wonderful small museum, I think it was 30 Euros so kind of expensive, but small and it was over quickly. Like I said earlier this was a federal or state holiday, and most shops were closed. After the museum we walked through the old town near it and got to witness the Corpus Christi processional with more dirndls, trachten, monks, priest and nuns. Was very "Sound of Music". Maybe even the same church.

After the Church and a quick walk through what shops were open we headed to Ferlach. On the left side of the road we noticed that the entire northbound road was a parking lot of a classical Austro-German roadblock. Worried about the future we soldiered on and made it to Ferlach 30 minutes before the Hunting Museum Closed.

If you have ever been to the Werner wildlife museum in Casper, Wyoming the taxidermy display is similar, but there are more species represented. Things I had never seen like Great Bustard, Goral and Serow. Of course this is a gunmaking town and that is why we were there.

 

[Muskox]

We then drove over the mountain to Tzerzc, Slovenia. My guide had booked us in to a family apartment at the bottom of the hill from the hunting area, we made a stop to unload and my wife instantly noticed that it had been freshly painted. It was completely refurbished apartment from the ground up in a 300 year old barn that had been converted. It was beautiful.

But the paint was tough to live with. We opened all the windows and she decided to make it work. With one of those, you will pay for this kind of looks on her face. The kids loved it, there were rabbits, sheep, a trampoline, and chickens. She told me she would try to tough it out. So I knew my days were numbered and I had to try and connect quickly.

My guide met us at 7pm and we drove up the mountain. Instantly we met a fat badger on the road, and bumped a roe deer doe in the forest. We got to the top of the mountain and saw a red deer hind in a clearing that was too old to shoot, and a couple of roe deer does that barked at us. On the way back down to the apartment that evening we made a plan for 4 am.

4 am came, and I am not sure I slept. The bed was a made out of granite, some kind of insect was flying around the room and kept landing on my legs. Eventually I made it to 4am and my guide was outside. Of course no air conditioning in the apartment.

Back up the mountain we went and another badger in another section of the road about 2km from the first one. 2 red stags not quite grown out, but down low fat and still fully in velvet. Ok great, we finally made it to another area and bumped another red deer hind, and had a couple of roe deer hinds and finally a buck within range and I couldn't get into a good position as the guide was laying where I needed to be to shoot. Of course the buck ran off, he threw a guide hissy fit like they do when they think it is the clients fault and it was. I apologized because I don't actually care that much and we walked do the mountain to find a young chamois about 400 meters from the area we screwed up the buck near this hochsitz.

Back down the mountain and we sat a field hoping for something to come in. Of course nothing did. We called it a morning at 8 am

We spent the day in Bled, we wanted to do the boat to the island, but they wanted 100 Euros for the 5 of us. So we decided to just walk around the lake a bit. My wife got called for a job interview so she decided Slovenia was for shopping so we spent the the rest of the day shopping for an interview outfit. Slovenia shopping was good for her I guess.

I met up with the guide at 6 pm. Back up the mountain. We checked the same spots, tried some new tactics and bushwhacked a pretty good sized mountain, but no roe bucks were found. We spent the last light in a big meadow in a high seat and 3 red deer hinds came in and a stag. The stag was too old as only spikers are open in June, and the hinds we were not sure the age of. We knew one was legal as yearling but it was too dark to shoot.

Before leaving for the hunt, we knew we needed to be back home on Saturday so she could prepare.

We finished at the local gamekeepers house and I paid the hunting fees and we got on the autobahn in the morning. Left the apartment at 9 am, as we had to clean it to spotless as it was new and no one else had stayed there before to blame. Then she saw another dress shop and we spent some time and Euros there. 11 am crossed the border into Austria from Bled on the autobahn. 5pm fully 6 hours later we finally crossed back into Germany, to make it home at midnight.

Yes 5 hours stuck in traffic in Austria. For some reason I saw about 30 supercars this weekend. Including a Mclaren.

 

[Hogpatrol]

Good writeup and photos. That treestand looked a little sketchy, like it would wobble in the wind.

 

[Muskox]

Good writeup and photos. That treestand looked a little sketchy, like it would wobble in the wind.

It's on top of a 8000 foot mountain. So you might be right about that.

I would say that the Slovenian hunting blinds (hochsitz or kanzel in German) are well made. Here in Germany the forest service does a good job, but most private hunting areas do not.

Hungary they look like they were built by a chicken. Scary!

 

[Mekaniks]

Thanks for sharing!! You are in a part of the world many of us never see