Birkhühner in den Alpen! The worlds second most expensive chicken dinner.

[Mojave]

Country: Austria, near the Italian border (300 yards) in the Carnic Alps and LIenz Dolomites.
Game sought: Blackgrouse and a 3 year old chamois buck.
Game taken: Blackgrouse
Game not hunted but seen: Red deer, roe deer, European thrush, fox.
Clothing: Kuiu jacket Kenai, Tru-Spec pants (they are the same color as my Kuiu Tiburons and I grabbed them by mistake), Firstlight wool undershirt, boots Hoka (a huge mistake).
Gear: In my haste to depart Germany, I forgot damn near everything I had packed. I had no daypack, no camera, nothing. Somehow my chest pack with my Leupold BRX 1600 and Swarovski EL 8x42 TA made it in my duffelbag. I knew I forgot my trekking poles and I stopped at ALDI SUD in Ulm (same as your Aldi stores in America) and they had trekking poles. I knew this because I had bought 2 pairs from my ALDI in my German town a few weeks before. They are single piece made of fiberglass and fairly lightweight and nice for $17 a pair. So I bought another 2 pairs and gave both of them to my guide.
Rifle: Steyr-Mannlicher Jagdmatch 222 Remington with a Leupold "Vari-X" 4-20. Ammo was handloaded by the hunting area manager with Italian made Dolomite bullets, Remington brass, Norma powder and primers. Dolomite is similar to an X-Bullet.

Backstory:

I have been a fairly voracious reader of hunting books, magazines and everything else since I figured out there was a hunting section at the Casper library as a child. Two books I must have checked out time and time again were a collection of magazine stories from True Magazine in the 1960's called True Hunts and a book about hunting the world that I believe was written at the same time. I dreamed some day that I would go on to hunt the great game fields of the world. To some extent I have, as I have hunted once in Namibia, multiple times in Australia when I lived there, and all over the United States, a couple unsuccessful tries in Spain when I lived there and here in Germany.

Life and finances change, as you go through life. I am finally at a point where I am able to do more and this year is starting out amazing. As I have other hunts in Europe that I am booked for.

I developed a friendship and semi-business partnership with a young agent from Austria. I had chamois (gams) hunts booked with him in Slovenia in November of this year and a roe deer hunt in Hungary. He called me to check in and pick my brain about some tags he had put in for in the United States. We had a sideline conversation about grouse in Austria specifically capercaillie and black grouse, with me thinking I would never be able to do it, as the quotas are very limited, and the hunts are very expensive. He had an extra tag and offered to guide me personally in May and I booked it with him.

 

[Mojave]

The game is afoot!
Fast forward to last Friday the 18th of May, and I was on my way down the Autobahn only to find a variety of versions of what German call a "stau" or traffic jam. I got held up near Stuttgart, Ulm, Munich, Garmisch and on the Italian border on the Autostrada (Italian Autobahn). Eventually a 7 hour drive that became a 12 hour drive with a stop at Frankonia Gunshop in Ulm (home of Krieghoff). I eventually pulled into the hotel at 7pm and we went to shoot a couple shots with the "revier hahner waffe" or hunting area chicken gun. It was a 1980's era Steyr Mannlicher in 222 with a big 4-20 Leupold on it. The rifle shot great with the set trigger, and I pulled the shot quite a bit without it so "set trigger" it was.

Over a super dinner at the hotel we made a good plan for an early departure, and I asked him about boots. I never realized it was a " mountain hunt", I thought it was a walk 50 yards to the truck and I was having problems with my feet. So I put on my Gore-Tex Hokas instead of my actual leather mountain boots Whites Owyhee. Like I said earlier huge mistake.

My friend said I will meet you in the parking lot at 2 am of the hotel. He departed after dinner, and sure enough he was outside at 0145. We drove to the hunting area about 4 miles from the hotel and straight up the mountain, to what would eventually be 300 yards from Italy in the Dolomites. About 5-6 miles in we found the spot we would walk "45 minutes" to the grouse lek. He said it is partially steep and there is an ice field. 2 hours later in the dark I can make out what looks like a "kanzel" or hunting box blind. As it has been black dark for an hour and half. We get into the blind at about 0400 and we start hearing birds calling immediately. Within about 20-30 minutes we can start seeing birds with the binoculars (we could see them earlier with the thermal (legal in Austria). But you can't shoot them before 45 minutes before sunrise. One bird was displaying similar to a turkey or a peacock about 27 yards (measured Leupold 1600 BTX) to the left. A couple others were singing their little song back and forth to one another. From the thermal we can tell that all of them are rooster birds.

Time clicks away and we decide to make a move on a bird that is on covered by a bald larch tree 150 yards to the far right of the blind. As I had no idea that we were at the top of the mountain when I stepped out the blind I almost fell down the hill. We were within 100 yards from the top of the mountain (vertical was about 200 yards. I had no idea my 50 year old Fatty McFatterson body made it up the hill. I think in the daytime I would have chickened out.

Anyway back to the bird to the right. He stops dancing and calling and decides we are up to no good and flew away. So back in the blind we go. This time sitting in reverse order of where we sat last time. With me on the left. We sat there for about 30 minutes and are doing the thermal and glassing dance and my friend says "there are 3 birds in that pine tree". Just then one hopped down to rock and decided it was time to take a nap.

I have to tell you something, and I am not proud of this. For about an hour, I was questioning whether or not my fat ass was going to be able to repeat this process on Sunday morning. I was worried that my hunt was over, I had pushed really hard, and I didn't want to make my friend lose faith in his fat American hunter. I didn't deserve the bird, in my mind as I had gained about 30 pounds since we got to Germany (the beer, bread, schnitzel and candy is out of this world). I stopped walking to work, and I now drive 20 minutes to work and even though we bought a treadmill I have struggled to get on it.

We sat there quietly talking and "Mr. Napping on a Rock" finally wakes up and starts moving around a bit. His buddies in the tree start moving around and my friend can finally see the tail feathers. At this point I start to realize there is a difference between a liebenhahner BOL (Bird-of-a-lifetime) and a small one. Even though all of them are the same size, the BOL has more tailfeathers. Who would have thought that was the measure of a big one. Old birds have 3-6 tail feathers on each side of their tail. Yearlings only have 1. So you can imagine that there is a desire to take a "bigger bird". Even though they are all the same size. The rock-napper finally shows his rear end and there is only 2 tailfeathers on each side.

My friend directs me to the one in the tree, and tells me to shoot him when I able stable. We set the rifle up with a rear rest of my jacket rolled up, and a front rest of a guncase and my friend says shoot when you are "BANG". I center punched him and he falls out of the tree. This is when I realize I had just shot the most second most expensive chicken dinner in the world (only the capercailie is more expensive) and my hunt was over.

As we walked up to the bird again I am awestruck by the fact that I am standing on this Sound of Music mountain in Austria with a blackgrouse. Awestruck became terror as I realized that I was going to have to hike back down the mountain, but it went quickly I only twisted my knee a couple of times, like I said wrong boots.

When we got down the mountain another member of the area hunting team and his family had gone to the Lek across from us and watched the show. They met us about half way down the mountain in a big park, and had some mountain breakfast of cheese, Austrian bread, and a salami. Wonderful as always. I said something about going to breakfast at the hotel and the guide told me that we would go to the hunters bar and have breakfast. So we did. As is typical of Europe, celebratory drinking normally takes the place of food. We started with schnapps, and had 4 beers. No food was served! The best news was the outfitter had a spare 1-3 year old chamois available. So it was worth drinking all that stuff.

Somehow we made it to the hotel, and I was told to get some sleep and be outside at 4 pm to look for a chamois. Before the guide departed another local hunter showed up and said he had wounded a roe deer doe in the area we would be hunting chamois.

At 4 pm I was outside with my Whites on correctly. I missed the closing of the only store in town, but luckily the hotel had a small cold display case with local mountain cheese, salami and water bottled in the area. I spent $15 on 4 liters of water and a pair of local "landjagers" or hunter sausage that was lunch. I tried to sleep in the room, but I was cold and eventually, I got 2 hours, enough I guess. I was tired enough that I forgot to put on my CPAP and woke myself up a couple of times snoring.

4 pm came and my friend was outside. Up the mountain, we went and almost immediately we ran into a problem. It had been raining rather torrentially and there was a landslide in the area we were supposed to be hunting on the Alps side. This closed off the area, and we backed out and went up another drainage. About a mile back we noticed a roe deer doe that was limping. The guide jumped out and shot her thinking it was the same deer. It was not, it was another doe with a scraped up shoulder! He did the normal call the game warden thing, and sorted it out with the area manager and when he got back to the truck with her. She was heavily gut shot, and we both got covered in bile getting her up the hill and in the truck. We stopped to wash her in a spring and gut her out.

Up the mountain we went in search of a chamois. The mountain did not dissapoint, there were chamois around every corner. They were all in varying size from old pregnant females to massive old bucks. We found an old female that had 2 yearlings with her. Neither one was deemed to be a shooter. We saw a ton of red deer, roe deer and chamois and made it back to the hotel by 7:30 to get dinner. The previous night we got back late, and got a tongue lashing from the lady that runs the joint. So we made sure to follow orders and be there on time.

As we were eating I was pretty wrecked from the day and headed to bed. My friend went back to his village and we parted ways. I could have stayed and hunted the next day, but I had to be at work on Monday as I had professional obligations that had come up before I left town on Thursday.

 

[Mojave]

 

[wavygravy]

Cool trip, sounds like you're living not too far from where I am currently. I'll be interested to hear how your other hunts turn out.

 

[Mojave]

The 8th photo down the bird was shot in the far right pine tree. There is a black spot on the lichen covered rock dead center in the photo. That is where his buddy the sleeper was at.

 

[green river]

very nice!

 

[bluemaroon]

Sounds like a great time in the mountains especially with the extra Alps culture added to the hunting experience. My wife and I hiked next door through Triglav National Park in Slovenia last fall where we saw a ton of Ibex and Chamois. After hiking through those mountains and seeing those animals which were so different from what we have in North America, I’d really like to go hunting over there one day.