SOUTH AFRICA: First Time Hunting Africa With Bos en Dal SAFARIS

[pattesonfamily]

Well, thanks to @mdwest for getting my wife and I addicted. And thanks to Gerrit and Louie at @Bos en Dal SAFARIS for solidifying it.

Dave captured most of our trip report, but I will share some of our specific experiences here.

It is worth noting that my wife has Early Onset AD, but still functions super well (she's 54). So when the chance to go to Africa came up, we jumped on it, because, well, you never know. So we grabbed some non-hunting friends and set up a 3 week trip that would basically start in SA, head to Zimbabwe, then time in Botswana and Namibia before splitting off from them to head to Bos en Dal for our last week with Dave and crew.

Not wanting to waste any time recovering from travel, we flew BA business class from BOS to LHR, and then overnight LHR to JNB. Flight was uneventful. Those lay flat seats are nice and allowed us to basically avoid jet lag. We did not travel with rifles given the rest of our travel plans. We spent our first night with Rondekop Safaris near Parys and had a wonderful time, including unsuccessful stalks on a blesbok and a springbok by one of our other travelers. I did get my shooting cobwebs out with a couple of long (300M) shots on vervets, with one wounded but not recovered.

I'll leave the sight seeing portion of the trip off this report, but, it was a great intro to learning how to gauge African game. A completely new skill for me.

Back to SA. We landed back in JNB, Louie picked us up and off to Bos we went.

 

[pattesonfamily]

First morning came and the others had arrived so we all headed to the range and then headed out.

My list was impala, warthog and wildebeest. And maybe either a gemsbok or kudu if the bush provided.

Our first spot and stalk of the morning was on a group of wildebeest. We ultimately got busted, but stayed on foot to see what else we might come across. It was def off contrasting our previous game drives where we basically weren’t allowed out of the vehicles, to now, where we were a mile or more from the vehicle. Lots of buffalo were in the general area, but, as they weren’t on the list, we stayed fairly clear of them.

After about an hour or moving through the bush, we were looping back towards the bakkie, when Louie (our PH) looked up a track to our right and saw a group of impala slowly feeding across from right to left. He glassed and declared the one in the back to be “a monster” at about 250 m away.

And this is where words matter.

So I put gun to the sticks and eye to the scope, I sighted in on a male at the back. He didn’t look quite like a monster to me, but I was still new at this. Louie told me where to place the crosshairs high on the neck ( I should have asked why since it was broadside to me), so I did and pulled the trigger on the camp’s BRNO 30-06. Piel in die sand, as they say.

Louie looks at me and says, “What happened?”. I respond, “What do you mean?”

You missed

No I didn’t

Oh…You shot the wrong ram.

The one in the back was a MONSTER

I shot the one in the back. At the back of the herd as they were moving.

Louie said “I meant at the back, furthest away from us. F***ing great shot though.”

I was crushed, embarrassed, upset, all the emotions you can imagine. I had just taken my first African game animal, and pooched it.

Louie got the truck and my wife and I made the long walk up to the animal. He had dropped where he stood. So there was that.

Louie tried his best to get me to smile for photos and all I could think of was how badly I had just screwed up. Not only not following my PH’s directions, but shooting a ram really that was too young. I was dejected and ready to catch a ration of s**t from the rest of the crew back at camp.
Louie and I had a good chat about communication and he did his best to bring my spirits back up.

 

[pattesonfamily]

As we headed back to camp for lunch, Louie spotted another ram and asked, “Do you want to redeem yourself?” I wasn’t sure even though I knew that success was the best killer of self doubt and the longer I would stew, the worse it would get. He was a nice ram, though something was off about him to my eye. With encouragement from my wife though, we decided to put a stalk on him, using the wind and cover to our advantage, before closing to about 60 m and I put him down - again with another neck shot, a theme that would continue over the week.

As we approached him, it became readily apparent that something was indeed off. His coat looked like a mangy dog, with lot of hairless patches. His horns had tons of character though, and were super worn down at the bases.

As we turned his head over, we saw the source of the problem. He had been previously shot in the jaw. The bullet’s travel across the right side of face took out teeth and left a gaping wound full of rotting flesh and maggots. He was on his last legs and we helped alleviate his suffering.

How fast your spirits can change? Redemption was at hand. I still owned my mistake on the first ram. And it was my mistake. Lots of learning occurred in a short time span. But it felt really good to have made a good clean shot and put down a suffering animal.

Smiles for this photo were far easier.

 

[pattesonfamily]

More later this evening

 

[mdwest]

And this is where words matter.

I belly laughed when you first sent over the pic on whatsapp.. and knew you were only half as embarrassed as I was when I missed an impala 3x times (while he just stood and stared at me for 2 or 3 minutes) at less than 120 yards.. for no explainable reason at all (the 4th shot finally connected and dropped him lol)..

 

[pattesonfamily]

Day two dawned and we headed out to see what the bush would provide. We had a good stalk on a big wildebeest. Wind was definitely favorable, and cover was good up to about 120 m from him. He knew something was there but couldn’t figure out what we were. We could hear him snorting as we stared at us. On the sticks, I had the crosshairs on his front right shoulder, low. But about 25 meters in front of him was a bush. No leaves on but I could see a web of branches reflecting the morning sunlight. Worried about a deflection, I held off and he ultimately moved off.

We connected with another hunter and his PH and they told us about a big kudu they had seen on another parcel not too far away. So off we went. We drove one edge of the area to get the best wind position and then set off on foot. We did see a small heard of wildebeest and a few kudu cows but no bull.

As we headed back to the bakkie, we came across a lone bachelor bull drinking. I had great cover, and about an 8 inch window to shoot through the bush. Louie said “Remember, with wildebeest, if you think you are low enough, go lower.” He was head on to me, and I split the difference between the two front legs. My shot still wasn’t as low as Louie would have liked, but the bullet did its job, the bull reared up, kicked back 3 steps and expired 15 feet from where he’d stood. We recovered the bullet later and it came home with me.

Two days, 3 animals down. Still had a warthog on my list and by now, I had dropped the gemsbok from the list in favor of a kudu should a shooter present itself.

 

[pattesonfamily]

The next couple of days involved a series of game drives, spot and stalks and waterhole ambush set ups looking for either a good warthog or kudu. Neither of which wanted to turn up. Loads of nyala and kudu cows, zebra, ostrich, blesbok and impala were constantly around. Flies buzzing, guineas and francolins squawking and calling and the ever present goaway birds were the soundtrack of the weeks.

The evening of day 2, we had spent time up in the high hills of the property watching a lone shooter gemsbok (really testing my resolve) and several kudu but no shooters. We decided to go back the morning of day 3 at sun up, as there was a lot of sign and it was good kudu country.

First light found us unloading and about to head to our ambush site overlooking a neighboring hilltop about 200-300 meters away. I was at the back of the truck with my rifle slung, my wife having just climbed down, when I heard a twig snap in the bush behind me. I turned and look and about 5 meters away stood a mature buff cow. I whispered softly but urgently, “Louie, Buffalo!” “Where?” “There” as I swung my arm to show him the 15-20 buffalo all now still staring/smelling us from the edge of the bush.

“Doug, get Susan in the cab.” “Louie, you need me to hand you your rifle?” Louie was in the bed, his .375 in the cab. “No, just get her in there and climb up here with me.”

That safely accomplished, Louie and I had a Mexican standoff with the herd of buffalo looking at us curiously. The light was growing and our hopes of beating the kudu were rapidly diminishing and the buffalo were not inclined to heed our vocal requests to move on.

Louie climbed down from the bed of the truck, picked up a couple of stones and climbed back up. Some well placed shots to the rumps with stones finally convinced them they needed to move on. Which they did in a thundering stampede down the 200 m hillside right through our prime kudu hunting area. We hunted out the hand we were dealt but needless to say, we saw no shooters.

 

[pattesonfamily]

As we sat on a waterhole on the evening of day 3, little was moving. This particular waterhole is near the edge of the property, so you have 180 degrees of visibility that you don’t have permission to hunt. So you mostly ignore that sector. About an hour before dusk, we saw a nice kudu bull present himself. Only two problems: he was still a year or two from being a shooter, and he was on the wrong side of the property line. As we watched him, I marveled at his size and beauty. I had truly grown to love this Grey Ghost of Africa over these three weeks. Louie commented, “wouldn’t it be just our luck if a big shooter bull came out of the bush on that side too?”

It wasn’t 10 min later when that is exactly what happened. A huge (almost certainly mid-50’s) bull stepped out of the bush and began grazing on tree leaves above him. He was about 220 meters away and I had him in my scope the entire time, we just didn’t have permission to hunt that property. And while we mightily tried to will him to cross the property line, that just didn’t happen. We watched him for 10-15 min as the light faded; he was oblivious to our presence.

Day 4 passed likewise, similarly fruitless, while I dreamed of monster kudu. And the rest of the crew continue to put horns in the salt shed.

At dinner that night, Louie told me that Gerrit had managed to get permission to hunt the neighboring property and we would give it a shot in the morning.

 

[pattesonfamily]

Up early we headed to the new property and met the tracker at the gate. He led us to where to park the vehicle and said, yes, he knew about a big kudu and he would help us find if. And we set off on foot. Now for the rest of the week, all of our walks through the bush had been slow and stealthy. This man was quiet, but moved fast through the brush. We clearly spooked game a couple of times and the crashing of fleeing animals receded, each time he would listen and then look at us and say “That was not the big one”. Ultimately, we climbed higher up in the hills and he began to move more slowly. But still no luck. We took a break and moved the truck up to a higher part of the property.

As we parked, we saw a kudu cow cross a track and then moments later, we saw a nice bull follow her and then they both disappeared. We tried several times to cut their track to no avail. As we were trying to decide which way to go, I looked down a long track below us, maybe 7 meters wide but 400 meters long downhill. As I watched the big bull stepped out and start walking down the track away from us, without a clue we were there. I pointed him out to Louie and he and I were off to the races down the track to get in to a good shooting position. The hillside was almost terraced, and we would have short stretches where he couldn’t have seen us, and then we would set up. 3 or 4 times we set up in the sticks but he was always walking slowly away straight downhill from us. I could see how far back his horns came on his back, but still had no idea how big he was.

He stepped off the track, about 230 m from us and Louie said, stay on the sticks, he’ll come back out. I stood there, ready for what felt like forever but was probably 2 minutes when a wildebeest poked his head out, looked straight up the track at us, pawed, snorted and bolted, taking 4 or 5 of his brethren with him. Louie said, “Be ready”, and the kudu bolted across the track. In two strides he was gone.

By now it was nearly lunch, and we had walked 5 miles trying to find and get a shot on this bull. He truly was a ghost. We made a plan for the afternoon with the tracker and began to head back towards Bos. Heading down a dirt road, we approached an old cattle kraal and on the far side of it were two kudu, a cow and a bull. And he was a monster, the same one we had been looking for all day long.

He had just jumped a 4 strand barb wire fence and taken two steps when Louie said “take him if you can.”

In the end, the final shot was almost anticlimactic in the sense that it was flat, 70 yards and pretty wide open. But I had a wicked case of buck fever and my shot was high, again in the neck. But it broke his spin and again he dropped where he stood and we made our way to him.

He was magnificent. It would take a few hours before how magnificent would sink in. Louie was truly emotional over what an animal he was. As others showed up to help, they were all stunned. Gerrit brought out his tape on the horns. It stopped at 60 inches with still more horn to go. Unofficially he was 62.25. We will see what he measures when the drying period is through later this month.

I’m still in awe of the kudu. I’d grown up reading Capstick and Ruark and Hemingway. And I’d never dreamed I’d get to hunt kudu in Africa, much less take an animal like this in the wild. We had worked for this animal, and other than the tracker, no one had seen him before we had those few days before. Who knows where he would have gone next.

I never did get a warthog though I spent something like 28 hours over waterholes that week trying for one. And I still want a gemsbok too. So I have a reason to go back. Many reasons actually. The people. The animals. The sunsets. The soil. It all gets in your soul. We will be back.

 

[Mark Biggerstaff]

Congrats on a Monster Kudu. I have been patiently waiting for this report ever since Gerrit sent me the picture of your Kudu.
Congratulations on a once in a lifetime Kudu.
Now have have to go back and take my record back

 

[cls]

Thanks for posting, that is a kudu dreams are made of. Congratulations.

 

[BnC 04]

Hell of a kudu, well done!

 

[BRICKBURN]

Well done. You made it count in the end.

 

[pattesonfamily]

Congrats on a Monster Kudu. I have been patiently waiting for this report ever since Gerrit sent me the picture of your Kudu.
Congratulations on a once in a lifetime Kudu.
Now have have to go back and take my record back

Nobody would celebrate that more than me! I’ve got my fingers crossed for you.

 

[cpr0312]

Once in a lifetime kudu, congrats! Look forward to the rest of the report!

 

[buck wild]

Truly amazing kudu

 

[AZDAVE]

Very special Kudu, thank you for sharing your adventure.

 

[Trogon]

Incredible Kudu, congrats on a successful trip! Thanks for sharing your story and photos.

 

[mdwest]

FWIW, we (my hunt party) was about 6 or 7 miles away on another property when @pattesonfamily made the shot on the kudu... We got the call from @pattesonfamily 's PH once the animal was down and were asked to come over to help with loading it onto the trailer..

The pics just don't do the animal justice.. Ive seen some big kudu over the years.. @Bos en Dal SAFARIS and I had what we thought was probably a 57" beast stare us down for about 10 minutes while we were trying to set up a warthog ambush back in 2019.. and have at this point seen dozens that are 55" or bigger... but, I have never in my life seen anything like @pattesonfamily's kudu.. I was completely blown away...

Just being able to help pick that monster up and get it onto the trailer was a privilege... Of the 19 animals taken by 4.5 hunters on this trip, it was beyond a shadow of a doubt the "best of show"...

 

[Nyati]

That is a great Kudu, you just don´t see many like it.

Congrats