After three days and 1,500 miles of driving, we have finally made it to
Hungary and this means we are finally getting out into the field.
Weeks of practice and preparation have finally led to today.
Starting with our equipment selection and set up.
A a visit to WMS firearms training
and onto the shooting cinema at the Blazer and Sauer Factory.
Steve waits patiently as I gather and prepare my equipment.
I typically use the same equipment for most hunting
activities, just switching out the barrel of my Sauer 404 to the appropriate
caliber and changing the scope depending on the species. Over the years I've
developed a well-rehearsed system when getting my gear together, which means I
rarely leave any important items of equipment behind.
Steve's setup is very similar to mine. Although, he prefers his own rifle,
backpack and shooting sticks. Once again it's a finely honed ritual that's been
developed over time. One of the things we've learnt over many years of hunting
travel, is that it's essential to keep things organised in the truck, everything
has its place and must be returned once we've finished with it. With two hunters
and two cameraman things can get very messy very quickly.
Before we begin our stalk it's important to test-fire our rifles to ensure they're still on zero following a lengthy journey.
A slight shift on my
sticks sees the shot go a little high. High a little right, inch high. But, it's pretty
much bang online.
Firing.
No such trouble for Steven who is bang on the money.
So, first things first we need to check the zero. So off my knees here we're about two inches high
about an inch out to the right so that was probably due to a little bit of
drift as all on the sticks but to be honest with you, I'm quite happy at that.
Once we stand up and we get shooting over 100, 150 yards and then
hopefully that'll come back down onto it aim point. But, yep so far happy with that.
Ready to go.
So, just before we go out and got a check of zeros. That's my
shot there, just below bull and a little bit off to the right as well quite happy
with that hundred yards stood off sticks they'll do me good to go. Lets go find some wild
boar. It's now time for us both to depart and begin our hunts Steve and I will be
hunting in different areas and we'll be looking for different quarry. I'd like to
take a fallow day for meat and Steve is looking for a mouflon ram or wild boar.
We've arrived where we are going to be stalking. The test shot is absolutely fine, the
rifles have travelled all the way over from England to Hungry. Spot on, no
problems whatsoever and we're going to go and have a walk and a stalk down in
this wood here. Now, we'll get on with it and see what we can see.
Okay, we've reached the highseat. We're overlooking where the pigs have been feeding. Today
I'm using my Hawke Endurance 10x56 binos. These are my go to binos. Iv'e used these
in Alaska and hunting in the UK and across Europe.
Absolutely fantastic binos, love them to bits. I've got my trusty old Blaser R8
Professional Success in 300 Win Mag this time and on top I've got my Hawke
Endurance 31-6x24 scape. So, now it's just a waiting game, we're gonna sit
here and hopefully the pigs will come out and feed. You can see where they've been
rooting on the ground in front and up looks pretty much like a plaid
field so hopefully we'll get lucky and you'd be able to bag a nice Kyler.
So, it's a beautiful sunny afternoon here in early February in Hungary and we're
out stalking. Now, we're here for a couple of days driven wild boar hunting
tomorrow and the day after. But, because we stopped off early we thought we'd come and
have a bit of a wonder around this stunningly beautiful Hungarian
countryside. This area of Europe is very, very game rich. Great management
practices, beautiful woodlands lots of wild boars also plenty of food a wild game to
feed on. It's a bit warm this afternoon I wasn't quite expecting this temperature
is about six or seven degrees say my Deerhunter Mouflon winter jacket
probably a bit tough this hill climbing a wandering, but there's a fabulous
afternoon looking forward to seeing what we're going to see and you never know
something appropriate might step out. So, looking forward to it.
At this time year the effectiveness of Realtree Max 5 camo is demonstrated perfectly,
blending seamlessly against the dull yellows and Browns of the decaying vegetation.
This rich Hungarian countryside is perfect for supporting healthy
populations of wild game. A sound of wild boar steps out in front of us an old
saw staring curiously at us before moving on the younger fresh ling at
disappearing behind it into the undergrowth. It's great to see so many
animals this early into a stalk and it's also good news for our driven hunt tomorrow.
Steve however, is not faring so well.
Okay, we've been sat here in the highseat for about an hour, hour and ten minutes.
We've not seen anything apart from the yellow hammers, the Jays, the buzzards
the ravens. There's has been loads of been loads of wildlife activity. But, at the minute we've not see any
pigs at all. Our stalker seems to think if we stop here there's a good chance,
we'll just wait it out and see how we're going on. The temperatures starting to drop and say
so I glad I've got my Mouflon jacket on. I thought it was going to be a bit hot here
earlier but it's keeping me nice and toasty at the minute.
We approach a clearing pausing, occasionally to glass the area hoping to spot any game that may be lurking in the shadows.
We decide to wait a while in the
high seat, we've covered quite a lot of ground and the game will be moving
around. Sometimes it's best to let things around you settle and allow the
opportunity for animals to appear.
But whilst I've been enjoying a leisurely stroll in the countryside,
Steve does not seem to be enjoying his very static hunting experience.
We've been sat now nearly five and
half hours. The light is just starting to drop, you can see the cars in a very far
distance the headlights are starting to twinkle. So if anything gonna show
itself I reckon it's gonna be in the next half hour
so, fingers crossed.
Positive thinking perhaps, but he doesn't seem all that confident.
As the light begins to fade another sounder of boar crosses the field at pace.
They are sky lined on the ridge not offering a safe shot but we're seeing
plenty of animals.
We hear some movement in the plantation to our right and decide to investigate on foot.
These rows of trees offer a very narrow arc of fire so I deployed my
rifle from the vorn links backpack ready to take the shot.
There's plenty of fresh sign, but also plenty of places to hide.
As the light begins to fade, more games starts to emerge from the cover.
We spot two roe doe feeding up ahead, but unfortunately they're not on the tableau tonight.
It's a shame as they would make perfect
animals for meat but still it's wonderful just to observe such beautiful creatures.
As the light closes in around us an army of wild boar emerges from the
surrounding forests this is one of the areas we'll be hunting with the team
tomorrow so I'm not going to ruin the day by disturbing the pigs now.
But this is a very promising sign for the driven days to come.
Steve on the other hand is philosophical about his comparatively quiet evening.
Well, that's it As you can see, night is upon us. We haven't seen anything tonight,
we've just had bad luck. Hopefully Ian's had better luck in the other spot
for now I reckon that's about it and we'd better look next time.
In much the same way we have a system when the gear comes out so do we have a
system to get everything back in again. Gear goes away, coffee comes out and we
prepare to share our experiences of the day.
So then mate,
how's your evening been?
Quiet
to say the least. I think were in the wrong place completely. There was a bit of sign and slots when we walk
into the highseat, but we walked straight into the highseat and we've sat there ever since and
we went out really we do any stalking whatsoever. We're just in the wrong place,
I think never saw a thing. Well, as it happens I think we might have been in
the right place. But, just didn't get the opportunity we were looking for. Had a little
bit of a stalk around, a lot of sign out there walk through a plantation and lots
of different types of slots as well. There's clearly a lot of pigs in there, roe deer
slots follow deer slots. So, I was pretty sure that we're gonna bump into
something but it happened we just didn't get enough time or the right shot.
Problem with stalking through plantations
if the bushes can be quite thick together, there's a lot of small branches,
there's a lot of potential obstacles in the way of a clear shot and I could
definitely hear a lot of pigs in the undergrowth someone at some distance
kind of snorting and growling and came across a couple of Sounders with two sowers
and a load of fish link so there's a healthy population of game here. Of
course we were looking for something a little bit more mature so he continued
on but you know nice wood, we've kind of stalked around back down a ride so
pretty high banks on both sides and I say shots and then another sounder of wild
boar came in front of us literally 30 yards away and then just couple of free
slings to dare looked at us and then skipped off for once again you know
that's not quite we're looking for at that time of the afternoon you made a
way up through up until high sea it was overlooking quite a wide area of ground
plenty of bore damage there as well so they've clearly rooting around and
snorting around in there. We saw some sounder crop once again two
females four or five freshly disappeared off into the woods it sat there for a
little while then can hear some noise some commotion in the plantation got
down went to have a look but once again just too thick to be able to take a shot
or to be able to see this is the sort of environment I really do think that
having a thermal would give you a much better idea of what's in there because
sometimes you just got a little narrow window and you need to be ready and half
the time the pigs have come across there in the window before you get your rifle
out they're gone again. You need to see them on the way in and
then be ready for them. But, as the light started to fade came down walked across
an open meadow and lo and behold there's pigs everywhere but it's just that sort
of time really, really last knockings had we have probably had a little bit more
light in the sky and a brighter day then they're maybe looking about a shot but
unfortunately not but one thing's for sure with our driven wild boar hunt
tomorrow I have no doubt there's gonna be plenty of pigs here I
hope so, Yeah. I'm sorry it hasn't gone as well for you.
That's hunting, right? You can't have everything all the time
there'd be no point in doing it with it. But, the great thing is we managed to yep
no the jetboil here managed to get ourselves a little coffee. Job done and
actually enjoy yourself so pretty early in the evening, about 630 in the
evening here is still quite dark but head off to the lodge meet up with the
rest of the guys have a few beers tell a few tall stories and early to bed maybe
I don't know about. We'll see how we get on.
Anyway mate. Whitemanshiel and sorry to work out for you mate, but enjoy your coffee.
Bloody hot as well, I know that's the way you like it.
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