September 13, 2015
This morning would be my first time hunting bushbuck. We headed to a property along the river. At this time, the river is dry at this location and is a wide sandy bed. We still hunted all morning looking for a good ram. We saw two shooters and quite a few females and young ones. But the mature rams offered no shot. The amazing thing though, was the barking sound they made when alarmed. It truly sounded like a dog barking to me. It was a fantastic sound to witness.
Since I was way ahead of schedule with six animals in the salt, I decided to take the afternoon off and relax around camp.
September 14, 2015
Today we will be hunting a mountain property that hasn’t been hunted in approximately 5 months. An additional Kudu came up on quota, so today we will try our luck on Kudu. We left early 0530 hours, the location is approximately 45 minutes away and we must stop and pick up a game scout named Kaiszer. He will be accompanying us today during the hunt, as he knows the property and the few animals that are off limits. The trip to the location was beautiful, Sarel had told me that it is his favorite property to hunt, due to its location and beauty.
Once Kaiszer was in the vehicle, he and Sarel discussed the plan for the day. Kaiszer told Sarel of some good Bushbuck in the area along the river. So a call was made to Pieter to see if we could also hunt Bushbuck. Pieter confirmed that it was fine to hunt Bushbuck, so the plans changed, we would hunt Bushbuck early and transition to Kudu around 1000. While driving the road along the river, the first animal we saw a beautiful shooter Kudu, we drove past hoping not to spook him. Once about 100 meters past, we dismounted and stalked back to where he had been last seen. But, not to our surprise he had vanished into the bush. We continued on with the bushbuck hunt, walking the river on both sides. We had seen approximately seven Bushbuck and one Shooter ram, but they were very spooky and no shot opportunity was offered. Still hunting Bushbuck to me was very much like still hunting White Tailed Deer or Mule Deer, it was great fun!
At approximately 1030, we began the transition to hunting Kudu. The property was beautiful. From the lush river bottom (some of the reeds appeared to be over 14 feet high), we moved higher into the mountains. The vegetation changed dramatically over the next few hours. Large cacti, yucca, and aloe plants filled the landscape, it was beautiful. During this time the game seemed to be hunkered down due to the cool and overcast weather, but it did seem like the sun would make an appearance shortly. Once the sun came out, our hopes and spirits shined with it. We were now seeing some Kudu cows and hopes were high. At a little after noon Sarel mentioned that he was surprised that we had not seen any Blue Wildebeest yet, as the property also had a good population of them and they liked the area we were hunting. About 5 minutes later everything would change! We came around a corner and there were five Wildebeest crossing the road about 60 meters away. Sarel signaled to Samuel to stop the vehicle, one of the Wildebeest was one that Sarel had seen twice before but on the other side of the property and a previous client had passed on, he was a huge old bull that had a drop horn. We dismounted and after a short stalk we were on them and Sarel told me to shoot. I don’t even remember the rifle coming up or going off. But at the shot the Wildebeest ran off but the bull appeared to be hit well. We approached where the bull had been standing and to my dismay, there was no blood! All I could think was another bad shot on a Blue Wildebeest. We knew he was hit good, so we waited a few minutes and then split up, Sarel and I covered the right, Samuel, took the center and Kaiszer went to the left. Within 5 minutes Kaiszer yelled something in Afrikanns. Sarel said that he was down, I couldn’t believe it, so I asked him to ask Kaiszer again, and again he said the bull was down. We were so excited and I was very relieved.
Upon walking up to the bull we all knew that it was something special! I would never see a wildebeest like this again in my life, I had just truly taken an animal of a lifetime. The bull had a huge drop horn on its right side, making him look a lot like a crazy Cape Buffalo cow on that side. On his left, he had what turned out to be a massive and long horn in the normal position. Everyone was so happy, I shook everyone’s hand and thanked them for the opportunity and for their assistance. Photos were taken and everyone was still in disbelief of what had just happened. Sarel, said that he would score very high in the SCI record book and that we would never see a bull like that again. He requested that I send him any of the photos of the bull, so he too could keep the memory of such a fantastic animal. After taking the photos and loading the bull into the back of the vehicle, we had some lunch before continuing the hunt for Kudu. During lunch, we talked about the hunt and the amazing luck we were having. I was still in disbelief of the trophy I had just taken and I would feel like it was a dream for days.
Once lunch was finished, we loaded up and began the process of scanning the mountain side for Kudu and within 10 minutes, Sarel had spotted a fantastic old bull Kudu on the mountain side approximately 160 meters away. We dismounted and Samuel continued down the road with the truck, hoping that the Kudu would think we had all departed the area. Sarel took a good look at the Kudu that was now behind some thick brush. He was still visible since his horns were shining in the sun. The sticks were set up and I took my position behind the rifle. At first I could not find him behind the brush, but then he came into focus. First the horns, then the line of his back and a part of his face. We waited for what felt like hours, but was really only 20 minutes for him to move from cover. He started to move to his right and when he broke cover he turned a bit up hill, giving me a hard quartering away shot. I settled the reticle in front of his right hip and squeezed. The bull lunged at the sound of a solid hit. The bull slowly moved down the mountain, Sarel told me to wait and see if he kept moving towards the road, as it would ease the recovery. So the plan worked, about ten minutes later that bull crossed the road and within 60 meters of the road, it was over. A few quick running shots (one went through an 8 inch tree and grazed the top of his back, the other was right in the boiler room) and the Kudu was down (The first shot had found its mark and ended up under the skin of the left front shoulder) he was a beautiful old bull with heavily worn thick ivory tips. Not only were his tips ivory, but he had worn the fronts of his horns on the top curl to a cream color.
What a great day! We had two incredible animals down and were able to get photos of them together before taking them back to camp for processing.
