The sixth day of Safari dawned with my attempting to sleep in after a very exciting and tiring day spent completing the Giraffe mission. The skinners had been up working very late, mainly with the preparation and salting of my Giraffe hide, which I had elected to have tanned as a full flat skin. After a late dinner we decided that we all would benefit from a late start the next day but try as I may, there would be no sleeping late for me, as the call of the Kalahari was beckoning. I couldnt seem to stand the thought of wasting good hunting time and we were soon going about the business at hand.
We had a good breakfast and then set out with a couple of particular animals in mind With the Giraffe down, our main focus would now be to find and harvest what we considered to be the most challenging two species to get within range of a shooter of. We had seen tons of nice Kudu bulls, but the really big guys had proven quite wary and always seemed to slip out the back door on us. Mature Eland bulls, while very plentiful on the property at Kanana, had simply seemed to most often have been in the places where we werent, as we had mostly seen young bulls and cows with their young. We had gotten very close to a group of very large bulls while stalking the old elusive Giraffe the day before, but we had only given them a quick look and then moved on. The next time things would be different.
Our hunting party was soon on the prowl once again, with a lot of ground being covered in the Land Cruiser, and the occasional stalk of game that was either spotted from the truck or discovered as we sneaked up to one of the abundant waterholes found at Kanana. Many times we would only catch a glimpse of an animal as it disappeared into the brush, and if it had shooter potential, we would often go after it in search of a better look.
One of these such encounters paid off with my being able to harvest my first Jackal. I had actually missed one due to a rushed shot very early on my first day of hunting, as it unexpectedly appeared, trotting right at me when I stepped out into a small clearing during a walk around a waterhole looking at game tracks. I cleanly missed the now or never shot and the Jackal made his escape. As this one ran into the brush upon seeing us approach, I thought that it had escaped as well, but it made the mistake of turning and running parallel to us. As it hit an opening, I touched off a shot at the running canine and had the immediate satisfaction of seeing it fold up on the spot. It was a good way to start the day and resulted in a nice mature male Black-backed Jackal to have a flat skin made from.
With so much time during the traditional Safari type hunting being spent in the hunt vehicle covering ground on the massive properties found in Africa it is important that a PH have comfortable and reliable vehicles from which to hunt. This is certainly the case at Kanana, as the Toyotas being utilized there are top notch in every way and are always kept clean and hunt ready. As a truck loving guy I really appreciated the versatile set up of both the Toyota Land Cruiser pickup truck
And the Toyota Land Cruiser GX Station Wagon used for client pickup and return at the airport.
Towards the end of the day, we returned to a favorite watering hole where we had previously observed sizeable herds of Blue Wildebeest present. We had watched the comical animals as they would suddenly stampede away from the waterhole only to stop in the distance and then make their way back in again. There was always a decent bull or two in the crowd but never anything that excited us too much. With little trigger time under my belt for the day, I was hoping that we would see something we liked on this trip to the waterhole. As we crawled our way into a good position from which to view the action at the waterhole, a nice Blue Wildebeest bull spotted us at the same time we saw him, and turned to face us. With Jason looking at him through his binoculars, I anxiously awaited his judgement call. "Hes a good bull," he said, "but he wont hang around long. I think you should take him." I immediately placed a shot in front of the shoulder that quartered slightly towards us and he was off in a cloud of dust. With darkness falling swiftly, we briskly walked in the direction he had taken away from the scene and found him piled up just a few steps away from the shot site. He was a handsome, brindled specimen that I was very proud to have taken on yet another fine day on the awesome Kalahari.
The next day found us headed into the Southern section of the property for some new scenery. Although the area we had been hunting was huge, I had only seen a small part of half of the vast property that is owned by Kanana Safaris. Many times in the past few days Jason had mentioned that we would eventually hunt our way into the Southern half of the property and now I was seeing the difference in the terrain and habitat for the first time. Being more developed, in the sense of basically having much of the blackthorn removed, this section of the ranch property offers a different view in the form of being more open and grassy. It was a very nice change from the thicker, more brushy type land that we had spent the last several days observing. With Kudu and Eland once again at the forefront of our expedition, we searched on.
Not too long into the hunt I was fortunate enough to experience my second Caracal sighting of the trip. The first one had come as Jason and I had bounced out onto a road after a long stalk on some Kudu bulls that I had chosen to pass on. The cat was a couple hundred yards away and exited the scene before I could get set up for a shot. This time I never even made it off the truck as the cat jumped off into the bush from where he was spotted just a few steps away from us. I had hoped to possibly see and take one of these Lynx like creatures while at Kanana, knowing full well that even catching a glimpse of one is a rare occurrence. I was grateful just to get to see one, much less two of them.
Riding along and looking around in an effort to see something of interest, I was alerted to the fact that Happy and Morlen had seen something that excited them. Although they were once again speaking in Afrikaans, which left me to rely solely on my imagination as to what exactly was seen, I knew enough to get ready when they became animated about a sighting of game. As Jason grew serious about the situation and motioned for me to follow him from the vehicle, I enthusiastically exited the truck with Kudu on the brain. We began our stalk in the direction that the game had been seen and I continued to look for the Kudu that I expected to come into view at any moment. All of a sudden a huge Eland bull caught my eye off to the left and I quickly squatted and alerted Jason and Morlen of my sighting by excitedly whispering that there were Eland over there. Come to find out, that was exactly what we had been stalking the whole time! After laughing at myself for a few seconds, I got serious about trying to get a good look at the Eland bulls. As we continued to maneuver into the wind in a circle around the feeding bulls I never could get a decent look at the horns of the largest bodied bull. We moved and then moved some more, setting up the sticks each time only to move them again, until finally Jason gave me the nod to take the big bull with his head still stuck in the brush and hidden from my view. Having learned to totally trust Jasons call, I put a round into the big Eland as he appeared almost unaffected by the shot. I followed the shot with another and then another until the beast finally lay still. Now, I would finally get to walk up on a big Eland bull-something that I had looked forward to since learning that I would be hunting one. Upon approaching the animal, I was just as impressed with his size and stature as I had expected to be.
With a major goal achieved of taking a mature Eland bull, I now had plenty of time to devote to the hunting of a really good Kudu. After loading the massive Eland into the Land Cruiser, we happily went along our way, knowing that some great steaks were now on the future menu. I had heard a lot about how great Eland was to eat and looked forward to finding out for myself.
We soon came upon a totally unexpected opportunity as a large Porcupine was seen and I immediately made the decision to take him. I had considered this situation while viewing photos and reading stories on Africa hunting and thought it would be a cool trophy to take if the chance came up. As we looked the unique critter over Jason mentioned how the meat was considered a delicacy by the natives and that it would certainly be utilized. While viewing the largest rodent of Africa firsthand, I knew that a full body mount was the order of the day for me on this species.
Then there is the Springbok. Along with the Impala, the Springbok is in my mind the very epitome of African game animals. It is pure joy for me to witness a nice buck as it engages in the act of pronking across the plains. Although not on my package list, this animal was very much on my to-take list, if I was lucky enough to see a very good trophy specimen.
I had seen them everyday, from the ones outside of my tent each morning, to the many herds scattered all across the hunting property that we crisscrossed each day. So far, although we had seen some definite shooters by most standards, we had not seen a buck that had really stood out from the rest. Driving down a long straightaway road, we saw a large group of the dainty little animals several hundred yards in the distance. As we stopped and glassed, and then inched closer and closer to them, one of the Springbok bucks stood out as being a bit different from the others. Although not noticeably any larger in body size, his seemingly splayed out horns appeared to be much more massive that the rest of the bucks that I had seen. As I contemplated taking the buck, they moved off into the brush and I decided to go after the obviously more mature animal with the heavy horns. After following along for quite some time as we tried to get a good visual on our buck, we finally got a break and I was able to identify the right Springbok and put him down with a shot from the .223.
I was actually in shock as I walked up on the ancient giant Springbok! I did not realize what kind of trophy I had run across until I saw him up close, but as Jason became more impressed and excited by the minute, even a first time Springbok hunter like me could see that I had been extremely blessed with a truly great Springbok!
This place is a hunters wet dream
