Spain Ibex Hunt Experience and Lesson Learned.

[TheCougar]

I tried to find the email with the cost but mustve deleted it. I think it was few hundred but that also included a clean skull that was good enough as a euro. Ive also put some animals in checked bags and heard a lot of people do this from NZ.


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Well if you remember the name of the importer and customs house, let me know. What I’ve been finding is cost prohibitive. Wouldn’t bringing back skulls in luggage be some kind of huge issue if caught? Like heroin balloons up the tailpipe kind of big deal…. I work in the airlines, so getting in trouble with CBP would be very very bad for this guy.

 

[whitecoyote]

What did you end up paying for the hunt?

 

[TXCO]

Well if you remember the name of the importer and customs house, let me know. What I’ve been finding is cost prohibitive. Wouldn’t bringing back skulls in luggage be some kind of huge issue if caught? Like heroin balloons up the tailpipe kind of big deal…. I work in the airlines, so getting in trouble with CBP would be very very bad for this guy.

No not at all. Just have to have a vet certificate and the skulls must be clean. Ive done it several times and know lots of people whove done it. Just like its legal to import them, you can do it yourself.


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[buffybr]

@TheCougar, Thanks for your very informative writeup. Like you, I was a DIY hunter (including solo DIY hunts for 7 of the required animals for the GSCO Super Ten Award) for many years before I went on my first guided hunt.

In the last 27 years I've gone on 12 guided hunts and only two of them were slightly similar to your story. I live in Montana where any sort of baiting is illegal.

In 2010 two friends and I went on an exotic hunt in Texas. The first property the guide took us to there was a flat fairly open 10 acre fenced square containing at least 100 various animals. You could sit on the porch of the house in the center of the property and easily shoot several species of animals. We said No Thanks! and had him take us to larger properties where we actually had to hunt the animals. Some of the other properties he took us to were baited if the brush was very thick and others were more spot and stalk in more open country.

Then last year my GF and went I to Hawaii to celebrate our 25th Anniversary and at the last minute I booked an Axis deer hunt. That was my first hunt where I didn't want to go through the Hawaii hassles on taking my own rifle, so I elected to use the guide's rifle. The hunt was also advertized as a trophy hunt, and when booking it I was told that there would be good opportunities for a buck with 30-32" plus antlers.

When I met my guide, one of the first things he said to me was that my boots were not good for that hunt. The same boots that I've worn here at home for deer, antelope, elk and bighorn sheep hunts. Then he insisted in carrying his rifle and set it up on it's bipod pointed at the deer before I could touch it. We also didn't see any trophy bucks and when my shot dropped but didn't instantly kill the buck that he said was as good as we could fine, he insisted on shooting the killing shot.

As for bringing parts of foreign animals home with you, it mainly depends on what country you are hunting in. Absolutely no meat from African animals can be brought back to the US. Capes and horns go through various processes and people and have become VERY EXPENSIVE to get shipped home. I have had very little problems bringing meat, capes, antlers or horns home with me as extra baggage from various Canadian hunts.

I was able to bring the cape and horns of my Dagestan Tur home with me from Azerbaijan as extra baggage if the cape was salted and dry and the skullcap was boiled clean and dry.

I've often thought of going to Spain for ibex or mouflan, and your info brings out some good points to find out about prior to going there. Many foreign countries look at all American hunters as millionaires that they can fleece.