SOUTH AFRICA: BOWHUNT: Amazing Bow Hunt In The Free State

[dargo]

Bow hunted in The Free State area with Blackthorn Safaris and Outfitter Alex Goss. The best walk, spot, stalk, crawl, sneak, and peak hunting of my life. I am a hunter. Bow, gun, long range, etc. This Ranch has opportunities for it all. I harvested this old bull, a 43+ inch Sable, a magical Eland, a Waterbuck, and a couple cute warthogs. I focused on bow hunting until the last day when it started raining. I switched to a rifle and sneaked within 180 yards of a huge Black wildebeest. The accommodations, the food, the staff all were amazing. We had an absolutely a flawless trip. Thank you to Alex Goss who basically walked me through every part of the entire process: pretravel, travel, paperwork, flight plans, overnights, transportation, etc. As the outfitter Alex guided others but set me up with the perfect PH, Vella Brink. Vella was amazing. He asked me the first day not only what species I wanted to hunt, but also how I wanted to hunt. He ask specific questions about trophy size, situational hunting, archery, gun, back up, etc. The great thing is he listened and a couple times during our hunt he called me off saying, "that's not what you said you are looking for", or "that's not the way you want to harvest that animal, let's keep looking." Amazing!

 

[dargo]

Here are the other animals. Thank you to Alex and Vella!

 

[Gerry Addison]

It was an amazing hunt! Couldn't have been any better.

 

[shotgungibbs]

Looks and sounds like you had a wonderful adventure! Good for you!

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

@dargo congratulations on some very impressive animals and with a bow no less. Please give us more details! What bow, draw weight, arrows, broadheads, etc. Thanks!

 

[Nyati]

Congrats on your hunt and thanks for sharing !

 

[Firebird]

Looks like a great hunt with many great archery trophies-congratulations!

 

[Buffalo1]

You had a great hunt and took some beautiful trophies. Congrats !!!~

 

[dargo]

I carried and used two separate set ups on my bow. One for the buffalo and one for the Plains Game animals. I shoot a Mathews Vertix set at 70 lb. pull. Roughly 300 FPS.

Cape set up: Arrows total weight of 800 grn. , Easton Full Metal Jacket Dangerous Game 5mm arrows with 4 inch vanes. The Broadhead is Steel Force African Premium 190 grn 2 blade 1.0" cut. This set up penetrated near side rib and stopped at but didn't exit far side rib. Double lung broadside shot.

Plains Game set up: (This is my standard whitetail set up.) Same bow. Arrows total weight of 400 grn., Gold Tip Kinetic Pierce 340 Platinum arrows GPI 8.3, The broadhead is a QAD 100 grn., Exodus 3 fixed blades, 2 inch vanes. This went completely through the warthogs, through and out the far side on the Eland by about 10 inches, through the shoulder and into the chest up to the fletch in the waterbuck. This set up in my opinion is incredibly accurate, fast, and deadly for non dangerous game.

The pins were exactly 20 yards different between the heavy arrows and the light arrows. Meaning the 20 yard pin for the heavy arrow was a 40 yard pin with the light arrow. (see pictures)

 

[cpr0312]

Congrats and thanks for sharing!

 

[flatwater bill]

You have all first rate trophies in the fotos….sounds like a great time. Awesome post. Thnx….FWB