Chamois of my life

Mountain Range: Pyrenees
Area: Prepirineo catalán, Berguedá
Altitude: 1501 - 2000
Organizer: Yo mismo

Rafael Sánchez Pérez de Villaamil

On Friday I set out to begin my traditional trip after the Catalan chamois or isards. I have been hunting in the same two hunting grounds in the Catalan pre-Pyrenees in the Berguedá area for 6 years now. I usually keep two permits for males and one for females, but due to bureaucratic problems this year I only had one permit in one of the hunting grounds, the most complicated one because it is a forested hunting ground with little density but, according to what everyone told me, with large and old chamois that appear from time to time. As soon as we left we went to a balcony where a wooded hillside is monitored where we had known for years that one of these old isards lived. From time to time it showed its face in wild boar drives and my hunting partner shot it last year in poor visibility conditions due to fog. I myself had been looking for it more than five times.

Once the sun came out and the first rays began to warm the peaks of this shady slope, we located two animals, one impossible to distinguish due to the distance and because it was lying in the woods, you could only see its backside. And another that came out to a cliff to look out turned out to be a female. After a few minutes the female moved and right in the same place a good male appeared behind her. I hurried to shoot the male because although it was 320 m away it made a good figure. With the nerves of thinking that it could go into the woods at any moment and stop being seen, I rushed into the shot and missed.

With the desperation of the failure, we immediately remembered the other animal that we had seen and that would probably have moved with the shot. Indeed now, although very far away 350 m, we could see it and judge it. As soon as I put on my binoculars I realised that it was a very old animal, with a white face, and as soon as it turned its head I saw the trophy so exaggeratedly open. It didn't take me a second to tell my adventure buddy, Jose, that it was the biggest chamois I had ever seen.

I looked for a good support, waited about 10 minutes for it to be in an ideal and clean position to shoot it and pulled the trigger. I fired with the Blaser K95 257 Wby single shot at 360 m, 330 m offset. It barely felt the shot and remained motionless, just in case I repeated it and its reaction was identical. It took both shots in the centre of its body and remained curled up for a few eternal seconds. Finally it took a few steps to its right to get into a bush and after a couple of minutes it fell about 50 m in free fall bouncing off the wall. Great joy because we knew it was going to be a great trophy.

The collection was really complicated due to the thickness of the beech, boxwood and pine forest and the slope. We found it using the wall where it fell as a reference and when we reached the chamois I realised the size of the trophy, the chamois of a lifetime!!

I clearly told him that it was 16 years old, 25.5 cm long, 7.8 mm thick, 17.5 mm wide... In short, it was amazing. The only pity is that the left hook broke during the fall and I was unable to find it. It must be 4 cm short of the length of that antler, but although it is a pity, it is something else to remember.

After spending many years following these wonderful mountain animals, I never thought I would be lucky enough to shoot down such an exceptional chamois, so I was very happy.

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