Stalking Spain’s Sierra Machos
T
he Nissan truck crept along the winding dirt road as it ascended the mountains in the Cazorla National Park in southern Spain. The truck seemed to drive itself as Nito Mariano Franco, the gamekeeper, kept his eyes peeled to the cliffs on either side of the road. Nito is one of only a few gamekeepers that cruise this 520,000-acre park. He knows under which rocks the southern Spanish ibex live, even with the fog and rain that was clouding our view. The hour-long trip was quiet. I wanted Nito to open up to me but he just kept gazing. I tried a little TexMex. Nothing. He stopped at a trailhead and we unloaded, walked up a small hill and started glassing the side of a mountain. My professional hunter, Jose Manuel Castillo, has been here before with Nito. They whispered in Spanish to each other. “They are sleeping, see the orange colored rock up there? They are in the cave under it,” Jose whispered to me. There were two females lying down out of the rain. As I watched through my binos, I heard a dog shake. It was right behind my leg. When I looked down there were two of them, both shaking the rain off their coats. Sheep dogs. Where did they come from? “Must be lost,” Jose explained. As I took a few photos, the dogs looked at the camera like they had never seen such a device. I coined them Dos Loco Peros (two crazy dogs), which brought the first smile to my guide’s face. “Let’s go, we must get higher up above all this fog.” Jose said. I had heard stories about hunting ibex in Spain, that the gamekeeper knows exactly were every animal is at all times. “So they have these two ibex tied up in the cave just so they can show off,” I wondered. Over the next four days I would learn how untrue the stories were. We climbed and took logging roads behind locked gates. There is something about being able to go behind locked gates in a national park. We saw ibex during breaks in the fog but they were all small.
“This next walk will be maybe one hour,” Jose informed me. This was OK with me — I came to hike. Near another canyon, Nito stopped in his tracks. He was on point. Not 40 yards in front of him was an ibex looking right at him. I peered around his head and saw my first ibex up close. He was a young, small male — they call them machetes. After a stare-down, the machete took off along with five females. Every area we looked at held ibex — just none of stalking quality. The weather conditions were tough. The whispering Spanish was getting to me — I couldn’t understand it. “The rut has not started yet, the big machos (mature males) are not moving,” Jose interpreted. We found a place to eat. We entered and the owner started a generator so we could have lights and the 48-inch TV would work. That’s remote. “I hope you like what we have because that is all we have,” they said in Spanish. Lunch was great. The next day was Saturday and the hotel filled with tourists and other hunters. My half-million acres were filling up. At the bar, I learned the hunters were doing a driven hunt so that would not affect me. But what about all these tourists? The rain came down twice as hard, and we kept passing tourists at every turnout and every point of view. Late in the day we found a macho. Jose went crazy. “Macho, macho, macho,” he yelled. An Ibex stood about 60 yards away. Nito looked at him. So did I, and I could tell Nito knew he was too small. The ibex was about 6 years old. I got out in the pouring rain to take some photos. Jose told me that he was old enough to shoot. “Jose, I’m not going to shoot an ibex in front of all those tourists,” I responded. He agreed. I think he was so focused on the hunting he lost track of his surroundings. We rolled on past another point of view and stopped to look for ibex with the tourists. I wondered if this was the way they hunt here, right next to all these tourists? This could never happen in the U.S. The sun broke the horizon on the third day and the mountain valleys filled with warmth.
The walk will be one hour but it is very steep,” Nito said in broken English. “Let’s go,” I replied in Tex-Mex. We were starting to communicate. The 1,000foot ascent wasn’t too bad. I just took my time, sweated and drank my water. Nito never stopped, never caught his breath and never shed a drop of sweat. I could tell the 49-year-old hiked these mountains all the time. For 20 years, he pushed game for the driven hunts. Then five years ago they made him gamekeeper. I could tell he was proud of this. We spent all morning looking at a large area of limestone cliff faces. I watched a female lunge her body out over a huge rock catching her front feet on a bush and holding on. She fed on the bush for 15 minutes with only her rear toes balancing on the rock. Nito was mad. He knew where the big ibex lived. He was looking in their living room, but they still were not showing themselves. I was loving it, but the Spanish are not patient people. One the fourth day, we spied a good macho way at the top of a peak, but Jose said there was no way to get to him. I learned that the ibex population was between 1,500-2,000 in Spain’s largest park. Its open range makes it one of only a few places to hunt freeranging ibex. I also learned that the government only allowed a harvest of 10 ibex this year. My PH had three permits. We were communicating now; I was learning a bunch. We unlocked another gate and climbed to the top of a 6,500-foot peak. We started a two-hour walk, but it was downhill. A quarter-mile into the walk, Nito went on point. “Macho” was whispered back down the line. We sat and watched. Through my glass I could see a band of five young males rising to their back legs and smashing their heads together. At 80 yards, the sound got to us quickly. They took turns
This hunt was donated by Verdera & Vicente Outfitters and purchased at last year’s Dallas Safari Club convention.
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doing what the big machos had taught them. I was smiling. My gamekeeper and PH were not. Nito tried speaking in English; he couldn’t understand my Tex-Mex. He finally cracked a joke at lunch. Later, we came across the area of the first macho sighting two days before. “Macho, macho, macho,” Jose screamed. There were two of them across a river with a deep ravine. “You can shoot if you want,” Jose said. I looked at him and said, “Jose, I think he is the same one I saw before. I’ll pass.” We glassed from another hilltop and Jose complimented me on my hunting ethics. He said he and Nito had been talking and they both thought anyone else would have shot that ibex. I told Jose that I was perfectly fine going home without harvesting an ibex. I’d had a great hunt. “I have never had a hunter not shoot,” Jose said. I reassured him that we had two more hours of daylight. Nito drove to another spot that we had visited a few days before. A windswept pine tree was at the point. I had taken some images of it in the dull grey fog. I picked up my Nikon and took a few photos of the tree in some beautiful light.
I could see the two Spaniards talking. I walked over to them and found the macho they had spotted in my glasses. “He is the largest one we have seen. Can we get to him?” I asked Nito. He nodded. We drove down the mountain and through another locked gate and started the stalk. Nito was in front and finally got a good look at him. He motioned that we would walk around to the right and get higher because of the wind. I made my way to the limestone rest that Nito had found and took a look. The macho was in some green grass looking straight away. Three females were feeding below me along with a small macho like the ones we had been seeing. The bowl they were in was tranquil. Only the westerly wind made any sound. I asked Nito about the animal’s size, but he would not answer. It was Jose’s job. Nito had done his. “He is 10 years old, but he might not score real high,” Jose whispered. I looked again and then asked for the gun. In a moment the tranquil bowl was bursting with running hoofs. As Nito walked down the mountain with the cape and horns on his back, I thought about how lucky that young macho was. He had a full moon that night and five females all to himself. I was smiling. By David J. Sams LSONews.com
Dallas Safari Club 2013 Convention & Sporting Expo • Official Day Program