 | | Sidge got an Impala on Day 3! |
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| Safari Day 3
We got an early start. Met at the breakfast area at about 5:45 am. We ate very lightly as our stomachs were still feeling off. We headed out to our hunting area, loaded our rifles, and started looking for game.
We saw a few animals in the distance, but nothing great for the first few hours. But finally at about 9:00 am, Elijah had a chance at an impala. It was probably 400 yards away initially. Way too far for a definitive shot, so we started stalking it. Fortunately, there was a large morula tree that we were able to keep between us to block his view of our approach. The impala walked to the side, and we were now exposed. Mossie got Elijah on the sticks. The impala was about 150 yards away and turned to face us. A broadside shot gives a little bit more room for error compared to a facing frontal shot, but Elijah is quite a marksman. He is using his .30-06 rifle that he has used to take a number of whitetail deer back home in Tennessee. So he knows this rifle very well. Elijah lined up his shot and pulled the trigger. But nothing happened. In the excitement, he forgot to click off the safety. He rolled his eyes at himself, clicked off the safety, and lined up his shot again. This time, when he pulled the trigger, the rifle shot. And it was a great shot. He hit the impala just a fraction of an inch lower than where he was aiming. The impala jumped, turned in the air, and disappeared into the brush. We got to the spot where the impala was hit, and we could see where it had dig it’s hooves in the sand before running off. Klaasie casually walked through the bushes and grass and trees and then whistled.
Mossie and Elijah ran ahead and there was his impala. Klaasie turned to me and said, “Dat boy, his face dis morning…” and he made a sick looking face implying Elijah seemed very nervous. “Now he look like…” and Klassie made another face of relief. Then Klassie started chuckling. Handshakes all around. Took some photos, and loaded the impala on the truck.
It was only a few minutes later when we bumped a small herd of blue wildebeest, and Mossie and I started stalking them. After a few times getting on the sticks, things lined up and I took the shot. Mossie looked at me. “Feel good?” I thought the shot felt good. But I had no idea if it was a good shot or not. Now we had to wait.
We always wait after the shot. After an animal is shot, it doesn’t really know what happened. It knows it is injured and runs for a bit. If it feels safe enough, it will not run fast or far until the animal dies from its wounds. Hopefully, with a well-placed shot, this is only a few seconds to less than a minute. But if that animal feels in danger, especially if it hears people chasing it, it will get a surge of adrenaline and run. Sometimes, a wounded animal can run quite a long distance, and we are talking miles, with a mortal wound before finally collapsing. If the shot is not immediately mortal, and the animal gets spooked, you may never see that animal again.
Wildebeest are notorious for taking a hit and disappearing, never to be found again. Shot placement matters a lot for all animals, but especially with wildebeest. Shane shot a blue wildebeest on the morning of day one, and they tracked it for the rest of that day and most of the second day before giving up. Jacob shot a blue wildebeest on the second day, and they spent the rest of the day looking for his without finding it. They were spending this morning going to look for it again. So this is what was running though my head as we waited before the tracking started. After what seemed a very long time, but was probably no more than about ten minutes, Klaasie started tracking.
He was only on the trail for a few minutes when he pointed ahead. There was my wildebeest! My shot was perfect. Right through both shoulders. My .338 WinMag is a powerful rifle.
My blue wildebeest was not a massive old, bull, but he was a good animal… a “representative specimen” as they like to say. I was happy with him. Honestly, I’ve never been a large trophy hunter. I won’t turn down an opportunity to take a very large animal, but that has never really been my goal. Of course, the trophy chasers will say that this is just my excuse for not being able to get a bigger animal. I’m okay with that. What I do know is that as we were leaving camp this morning, we saw a lady driving up in a small truck. Mossie waved at her and said she was from the local orphanage picking up extra meat to feed the kids.
My wildebeest will provide 180-200 lbs of meat to people at camp and kids at the orphanage who need it.
That makes me more happy than getting on a record list.
But the day was not over. Mossie drove into his village on the way back to camp. He ordered us some cheeseburgers from a little shop. He said he didn’t know what kind of meat it was. That always changes, but it was some sort of venison. They were delicious. We dropped the animals back at camp and took about a break for a few hours before heading out for the afternoon.
We drove around quite a bit looking for animals and tracks. We didn’t find much, and the sun was starting to set. We got out of the truck and started walking. Walking through the bushveld savanna as the sun is setting… big open sky, orange and bluish-purple with large puffy clouds. The wind blowing the yellow grass. Patches of shrubby acacia trees blocking your view… never knowing what might pop out around the next one. Absolutely beautiful.
As we got to the edge of the bushveld, the acacia trees got larger and more and more of the larger morula trees started appearing. Suddenly, Mossie said, “Waterbuck!”
Elijah was up again. And, once again, a large morula tree blocked our approach. And, once again, as we got close enough for a shot, the waterbuck turned to face us. Another straight on shot. This time at 175 yards.
As Mossie was getting Elijah on the sticks, he told me to take a follow-up shot because it was getting dark. I didn’t have another set of shooting sticks, so I just held up my rifle for an offhand shot and waited.
Mossie whispered urgently, “shoot him now!” Elijah squeezed the trigger. The large waterbuck jumped straight up, turned, and started running into the bushes. I aimed for center mass and squeezed my trigger as well. We didn’t wait very long this time because it was getting dark fast. The sun feels like it sets faster in South Africa. Klaasie once again lead the way and a few minutes later we all sighed with relief as we heard his whistle. We followed into the bush and found a very large, old waterbuck. The waterbuck is the 7th largest antelope in Africa. A mature bull like this one could easily weigh over 600 lbs, maybe even 700 lbs. And we had to drag him close to 50 yards to an open spot where we could load him onto the truck. |
Safari Day 4
Missed a shot on a red hartebeest this morning. Completely missed. Not wounded. Missing is way better that injuring an animal and not being able to find it. But we still tried to get the red hartebeest again. Spent all day trying to find them. We walked and walked and walked. Walked over 10 miles without seeing them again.
(I measured part of the stalking on my phone, so that’s not exaggerating.)
But still got to see some beautiful places.
Saw warthogs, impala, blue wildebeests, kudu, steenbok, duiker, and giraffes!
And picked up a few new birds…
Kori Bustard
Little Bee-Eater
Souther Anteater Chat
White Crowned Shrike
African Firefinch
Elijah stalked some blue wildebeest multiple times. Finally had a decent shot at an old bull. We were walking a bit closer to get a good shot lined up. Mossie had told me that if it was after 5:00 pm, then I should take a follow-up shot to ensure we didn’t have to track it too far.
Well, Elijah was just about on the sticks when I took one step to the side so I could get my follow-up shot lined up… and I stepped on a branch and caused the wildebeest to run off. Mossie was not happy. He glared at me and cursed loudly. He stormed off a bit, and walked right up to the wildebeest again. The big, old bull hadn’t run far at all. But with Mossie stomping all over the place, the wildebeest took off for good that time.
We didn’t talk a whole lot, but walked back to the truck and climbed in and headed back to the lodge.
As we were driving, I felt fairly low.
First, I missed the shot on the red hartebeest. When you’ve got all these people here depending on you making the shot, and you miss it, it effects you. I honestly think you’ve got to be a fairly arrogant or oblivious person for it not to effect you at least a little. If I would have practiced more. I would have taken my time on the shot more. If I wouldn’t have pulled my shot. All that’s going through your head.
Then I spooked the wildebeest right before Elijah’s shot. That one felt even worse than missing the shot.
We talked about it on the drive back. Mossie apologized for losing his cool. He said if he would have just kept his calm, and he would have just stalked a few more steps, we would have a fantastic bull in the truck.
We got back to the lodge, took showers, and had a relatively quiet dinner before heading to bed and hoping for a better day tomorrow. Safari Day 5
Slow start to the day. Yesterday’s long day with no success was sort of hanging over everyone.
Saw a few animals in the morning but the wind was swirling. The animals were all edgy.
Elijah stalked at least a dozen Blue Wildebeest before breaking our drought right after lunch by getting a really big, old bull. It’s a great specimen and much larger than mine. Klaasie’s tracking is incredible and seems effortless to him.
We went back out after dropping off the wildebeest in the shade.
We spotted a very large (but tiny!) Steenbok. This was one Elijah really wanted, so he took the shot. It was about 120 yards.
His first shot when right over his back. The little antelope didn’t know what happened. It looked in the other direction, behind it where the bullet hit, and didn’t run. This gave Elijah enough time to chamber another round, adjust his aim, and take another shot. The second shot was true, and the Steenbok dropped.
Mossie was thrilled. He said it’s larger than the one hanging in the dining hall. Elijah was thrilled!
We went back to pick up the wildebeest as it was starting to get dark. Elijah saw a small flock of Guinea fowl roosting in a nearby tree and joked I should shoot one since I didn’t get anything today. Mossie said no, because the trajectory was too high, but told me to see if I could shoot a Guinea in another flock on the ground about 80 yards away. They were in and out of the bushes and tall grass. I took a shot.
Mossie said, “Well, poor Klaasie isn’t going to get dinner tonight.”
We loaded the wildebeest and headed out passing the spot where the Guineas had been. Mossie slammed on the breaks and yells, “Klaasie’s got dinner!”
There was my guinea on the ground. Shot mostly through the neck, so there was plenty of meat left to eat!
We drove back to the lodge all very happy.
Safari Day 6 Very windy this morning. Temperatures dropped quite a bit overnight. Maybe in the upper 40’s.
Big gusts of wind. Not really a great hunting day.
We went back to the area where we had seen the red hartebeests two days ago. We walked back and forth across the bushveld, but didn’t see anything at all. Too much wind makes the animals antsy. Everything sounds like a predator. So they go deeper into the thornveld where the dense thorny trees and bushes block the wind. But that is a lot harder to get into to hunt. So we circled around the thornveld areas after looking for the red hartebeests. Mossie said he was pretty sure the blesboks were going to be in there. Sure enough they were.
We headed into the wind and came across a couple of small herds. Elijah and I each got a blesbok this morning. Of course, Elijah’s is much larger than mine.
As the weather was so bad this morning, we decided to head back to camp early. We dropped the animals off and I asked for an extended lunch break. Today is Mossie’s son’s third birthday, and his wife was having a little party for him today at lunch with some friends. Mossie was planning on missing the party, because he had to work, so he was absolutely thrilled to get a couple extra hours off to run home for the party.
After our extended lunch break, we went back out hunting. I noticed that the weather was going to be rainy tomorrow morning. I told Mossie that in the US, when there is bad weather coming the next day, the animals know it. It’s like they have a barometer inside that senses the dropping pressure from the incoming front, and they will graze heavy in the afternoon, because they may not be able to the next morning. Mossie agreed with me, and sure enough, the animals were way more active this afternoon.
Our mission this afternoon was primarily zebra. If we saw anything else that was on our list or super impressive, then maybe we would change plans. We saw lots of animals… kudu, impala, waterbuck, nyala, blue wildebeest, steenbok, giraffe, springbok. Sidge got his first look at the Black Death… the Cape buffalo. It was just from a distance, but these animals are big… and dangerous.
Finally, we got a glimpse of a zebra. We jumped off the truck and tracked them for a while, but they disappeared. This happened a few more times. It’s incredible how an animal, the size of a small horse with large white and black stripes can just disappear into the bush in seconds!
Finally, as Mossie and I made our way back to the truck yet again, Klaussie started pointing excitedly down the road in front of us. We eased out of the shrubs and there they were at about 200 yards away.
Mossie got me on the sticks. “The one on the left, far left. Quartering to us. Hit that shoulder. The shoulder. You got it?”
I settled to the scope and took aim. Got the shoulder in the crosshairs and gently squeezed the trigger. I got a glimpse of his jump back and then it was a blue of white and black stripes disappearing into the bush.
“How’d that feel?”
“I think it felt good.”
“You aim for the shoulder?”
“I did. Did you see it hit?”
“Ja… I think you hit low. Maybe took the leg.”
Elijah came up behind me. “I saw it… definitely a hit. It was limping as it was running off. How far was that shot?”
“Maybe 200 yards? Not too bad,” said Mossie.
No… I thought. I didn’t compensate. My rifle is zeroed for 75 yards, Ugh… that’s a 5 inch drop at 200 yards. In the excitement, I forgot to adjust.
My “perfect” shoulder shot, if it was indeed perfect, would have hit him in the upper leg. But I was pretty sure I hit him too low.
We walked to the spot where the zebra was standing, and Klaasie started scanning the ground. He immediately found some blood, but not a lot. Another few steps, more blood, but less than before. Another few steps, just a few sprinkles of blood. Not good. And it was getting dark.
We followed Klaasie for a few minutes watching him scan the ground for tracks. He pointed. There was a large pool of blood. That was good. But still not enough. We followed along occasionally seeing splatters of blood, occasionally seeing a hoof print, but most of the time not seeing anything, but Klaasie kept moving on. Little nods to himself, an occasional point to the ground. The light was almost gone. Mossie and Klaasie conferred for a few minutes.
“Okay gents,” said Mossie. “Here’s the deal. Klaasie thinks you shot him low but good enough. But the zebra is still moving. If we keep tracking, we are just going to keep bumping him. We need to stop now and come back at first light. He will bed down somewhere close. He may die in the night, and we will find him. If not, he will be moving very slow in the morning. So let’s call it a night, go back to camp, get some dinner, and try to sleep.”
My heart sank. I’ve never wounded an animal I’ve hunted and left it for the night. This felt terrible.
Klaasie must have seen my face. “No, no, Mr. John. Have a good attitude. You must stay positive. I promise you, we will find this zebra in the morning.”
Mossie turned to me and added, “Klaasie never promises. So keep your chin up.”
We drove back to camp, showered, and got dinner. On the way back to our cabin, it started raining. Not heavy, but the raindrops echoed loud on the metal roof of the little cabin. I went to sleep wondering if the rain would wash away all prints and blood the trackers needed in the morning. |
