Slovenia

[Muskox]

Not going to get into a play-by-play. But it’s the first day and it’s 7 o’clock in the morning already taken a nice roebuck and a chamois.

 

[Datchew]

Watching.
Slovenia is on the list!

Looks like you shot them while they were having lunch.

 

[quandary]

Slovenia is a great country. We did a non-hunting spouse vacation there. Great times. Awesome wine country as well.

 

[Muskox]

Well, that was a wonderful trip. Absolute brutal drive. I think it’s probably the last time I will drive in the southern Alps in the summertime. There’s just too much construction and too much rerouting with the navigation system. On the way down there I drove from where I live in Rheinland Pfalz to Slovenia. I started at 7 AM and I got there at 1830. Which is typically about three or four hours longer than it normally takes when I come down there to Hunt. On the way home on Sunday with no truck traffic I left at 9 AM. I did not use any of the tunnels, but I had to go to the taxidermist in Spittal. And I got home at 11:30 at night so 14 hours coming home and 11 hours getting there. On the way home because of all the construction in the tunnels and all the construction on the Austrian Audubon I drove over Balzano pass in Italy. The drive home was an absolute shit show of how bad European driving can be. But I did not spend three hours waiting for my turn to drive through one of the tunnels between Salzburg and spittle so I guess that’s OK. I personally prefer to move and not sit there and maybe the NAV said it was faster. Maybe it lied to me. You never know enough of that for now.



The hunting was pretty fantastic. We started at 4:30. I met him at his house and we left my car in an instantaneously where you were on wildlife. There was a fox and a red deer hind right within two or 300 yards of his house. we saw them in the thermal then about 20 minutes later we were on a big red stag and found some roe deer. A buck and a doe. But there was not a safe shot as the buck was standing up against a backdrop where the Village was. Interestingly, in German and Slovenia, the same word is used for the back stop; kugelfang.

Eventually, we figured out that we or maybe not gonna have a good chance there so the guy decides to use the roe deer butelo call. This is a commercially available deer call here in Europe and it makes the sound of a female deer. So he blows on the call and the buck steps out away and eventually we have a safe Schott and lung heart lung dead. The buck runs down the hill about 50m but it was a textbook perfect shot. The rifle was a 30-06 browning a-bolt. It is the Guide rifle. I did not feel like dealing with firearm transfer through Europe. So this is 5 AM and we’re done with a buck.


We call the Forrester for the area. He comes and picks up the buck and we go up the hill a little bit to go check another spot. I had actually been in the same Hunting area the year before in June. My wife had a family issue and we had to go back to Germany, but I knew the roads and knew the area a little bit so when I got there I knew where we were going to be and the walk and of course perfect perfectly. There is a beautiful. Chamois buck sleeping on the side of the hill. We get into position in a ravine and get a good shooting position. Oh my God just checks him out with the spotting scope and shoots a little bit of video of the goat and and the Schott. It is determined that the buck is not small, but not huge but because of the low quality image from the cheap spotting scope, we aren’t 100% sure of course the scope on the rifle is only 12 power so even then we’re still not sure. I decide the risk is probably worth it and it’s either going to be the one humongous. Chamois I take in my life or it’s going to be cheap cheaper. I pull the trigger. We hike up to the chamois. And we could see he needs another shot. I gave him another shot and he dies and it’s over. I had rolled my ankle over a couple of days prior and it’s been really stiff. The guy is about 40. He’s a very a very fit guy and he’s a mountain climber when he’s not guiding hunters. He’s also about 7 inches taller than I am so he goes up the mountains like a gazelle. He runs up and grabs the chamois. And brings him back down. As soon as I see it, I’m instantly relieved. I know it is a beautiful animal but not something crazy super expensive we later find out it was 88 score with C. I. C. So he was pretty reasonably priced. We go to a mountain hut of a friend of the guides and have a couple of beers and four shots of schnapps. Then we come down the hill, a bit to another guide and have another beer and at least a coffee. We go back down the hill, grab the cars and then go to the cabin. The cabin is on the top of the mountain almost to the summit. It’s a big guest house with for summer hikers, and they have food and beer. I am done drinking for the day. I have not had any alcohol since the last time I was in Slovenia. Drinking is part of Hunting unfortunately.

I take a nap in a chair outside. It’s too hot to sleep in the cabin and in the shade have lunch, which was wonderful roast pork, pork rib, ribs, potatoes, sauerkraut. Wash that down with a big 3 L bottle of water and take another nap. I get up at 6 PM and we decide to go look for a red stag. You can hunt red stag spikes, and female red deer during the August 1 opener, I’m not sure when they close probably December 31. That seems to be the seasons in Slovenia. No red deer were seen. A crazy old roe deer deer buck and a female are seen at the top of a very, very steep. We sit in the high seat, which is a pretty comfortable high seat by comparison to some of the other ones have been in and it was made very well so you could shoot straight uphill. And I shot the buck in the shoulder and he fell over. He slid about halfway down the mountain and stopped about 150 yards from the high seat. We still had to climb almost vertically to get him. I took some photos of the buck and he’s beautiful. He actually ended up being over 10 years old. It’s the oldest deer I’ve ever taken.

Ammunition was RWS 30-06 lead free hit. My guy tells me that if you shoot lead free ammunition, shoot them in the shoulder. As Slovenian guys like to say “ this is it” .

Sunday morning we hunted again at 4:30 and did not see much of anything and then everything happened to all at once. We were driving mountain roads and stopping to glass when we came a spot that has a salt lick on it. There were two chamois sitting near it and laying down, and there was a red stag all right there within about 50 yards of each. The red stag is what we call a super spike in Europe. This is a stag that is probably two years old and has two or three points with his spike. Not really what we would call a rag horns bull elk in America something in between a spike and a Raghorn. Anyway, he’s off-limits and he didn’t give us any time at all to shoot him so he was safe but we had about 30 minutes of sitting there trying to figure out whether we should shoot these two chamois or not. I wasn’t 100% sure what my total bill was at the time I knew I was getting toward the top of my budget and I did not want to get home and then you know have an issue so I decided that I should just stop Hunting and hit the road. The Guide was kind of sick. He wasn’t feeling very well. So I decided to go home early. The guide is actually on baby leave his wife had a child in October of last year. She was not working prior to the birth so he gets to use her baby leave for a year. Pretty amazing system that they have not really into socialism, but there are some aspects that would be nice for our society. If I own a company, I would probably not like that at all. One of my German coworkers had a kid two years ago and I have not seen her since. And she has another year left. I believed of home leave kind of amazing for a family but challenging for a business owner.

I I have now hunted in Slovenia five times. I personally feel like it is a good Hunting place. For the right kind of a person. If you need gigantic trophies, Slovenia is not going to work for you if you want representative trophies, and people that like to hunt you’re going to like it. The food is good. The people are nice. Their language sounds like something you’ve never heard before in your entire life. It sounds Balkan and it is, but it is totally different than anything else you’ve seen. I will say this one negative aspect of Slovenia. I do not love the beer.