SOUTH AFRICA: June 19-25th Hunt Report With HUNTERSHILL safaris Eastern Cape SA

[MontanaPat]

Hi all, thought I would post my first hunt report on the forum since I joined after I did my first Safari in 2021 in Limpopo with Motsomi Safaris. May have to go back and post some pics from that hunt.

Like many folks I got the Africa bug in 2021 following my first hunt and decided on one of those long cold January days in Montana that I had to get back soon so I booked this hunt for June 2022. I’m sitting in the United Polaris lounge in Newark this morning waiting for my connection so thought I would start this report below, enjoy.

Outfitter: @HUNTERSHILL safaris, Eastern Cape

PH: Don Laaks, Don is an independent contract PH based out of East London who hunts with Huntershill, Game 4 Africa and some other outfitters, all around great PH that I would highly recommend. I was rifle hunting but he is a big bow hunter himself and guides bow hunters often.

Areas hunted: we started for the first few days staying at the Comre Ranch property and then transferred over to the main Huntershill lodge mid week so hunted both large properties.

Weapon used: I used my PH’s bolt action .308 with a suppressor, not sure of the make as he said it was an Austrian rifle but very similar to a Remington 700.

Ammo used: I used a few custom hand loads that Don loads specifically for his rifle using a Hornady 168gr ELDM match grade bullet that shot wonderfully. However, the outfitter wanted the PHs to all use factory ammo so they supplied Don with a couple of boxes of what they could get which was a Sellier & Beloit 150gr, soft point partition style bullet. Little more on the challenges this posed later in the report.

Game species targeted: I had booked the hunt with a package HH put together for me going after a springbuck slam, black wildebeest, Roan and a Cape Bushbuck. I ended up adding a Red Lechwe while there.

Flights: United airlines from Bozeman MT to Denver to Newark and Johannesburg. Overnighted at Aston Safari Lodge then flew down to East London the following morning where my PH picked me up for the drive to Queenstown and Huntershill. Flew the same route in reverse on my return.

Let’s get started - flights started out fine from Bozeman on the morning of June 16th, ran into a little snag in Denver with a late flight that then had maintenance issues and had to be taken out of service. No worries, I have a 6 hour layover in Newark I thought. Finally got us a new plane out of Denver but due to bad weather in Newark in the morning that place was screwed up all day apparently. We are 30 minutes out of landing in Newark when they come on the intercom and tell us that Newark is shut down and we are diverting to Cincinnati, bummer. Pilot says that they are having trouble getting flights out of Newark and so no place to park incoming flights, therefore the diversion but no worries we’ll just refuel and get back in the air. I still have time if we get going. Pilot pulls up to the gate in Cincinnati (big mistake) and you guessed it, once the flight door is opened our crew is over hours now and required to get off, we are delayed now to depart Cincinnati at 2AM the next day when they get a new crew flown in. Well there goes my making that connection to JNB. We finally depart the next morning get all rebooked for that day to JNB. Long story short I made it but running one day behind and one day of hunting lost.

Day 1: so I’ve arrived now in East London on Sunday morning one day behind schedule, picked up by my PH and we head off to Huntershill picking up our tracker on the drive north. Get to Comre campground noon, change clothes and grab a quick bite to eat and off we go to get in an afternoon hunt. Head to the range first to sight the rifle (but using Don’s hand loads), make a couple of minor adjustments and we are good out to 200yds. The plan is to look for black wildebeest this afternoon. We drive up into the rocky hills towards the back of the property where Don has been told a couple of really good bulls have been hanging out by themselves. Glassing the hills we see big herds of blesbuck, some zebra, kudu bulls and a nice herd of red hartebeest. Around 4PM we stop short of a ridge line to talk another walk and see what we can find in the basin over the ridge. As we top out our tracker, Akona, spots a nice black wildebeest bull just down the hill from us. Don takes a look saws this is an old bull with good horns and mass, so up go the sticks. Don ranges him at about 185 yards and I put a shot into the chest, he goes about 20 yards and keels over, black wildebeest in the salt on day one! Late flight, no problem we are making up for lost time.


Black wildebeest bull

 

[BeeMaa]

Beauty of a Black Wildebeest. Keep it coming!

 

[MontanaPat]

Day 2: So we started off day one with a bang, let’s go see if we can find a common springbuck this morning to start my springbuck slam off. After breakfast, we head out in another direction to some valleys on Comre, but before we leave we decide to run over to the range. Don has been given two boxes of Sellier & Beloit 150 grain soft point ammo that HH wants us to use instead of Don’s hand loads which is what I used on the black wildebeest. So we go to the range to try out the new bullets. Since they are a 150gr versus his 168gr hand loads and they are a lower velocity than his hand loads we’re not sure where they will hit. We fire three rounds at 100 yards and they are 1.5” high just where we want them to be so we mistakenly think they should be on target at 200 yards. Off we go hunting, we scout and glass from high points most of the morning and see tons of black wildebeest, blesbuck and a few eland and gemsbok but no springbuck until closer to midday. Finally we find a heard out in the flats with blesbuck, black wildebeest and giraffe all around making an approach hard. We see two springbuck bedded a few hundred yards up the hill from the bigger group and determine they are rams off on their own so we formulate a plan to stalk in above them. All goes to plan, we get in about 75 yards and slightly uphill however the bigger of the two rams spots a little movement and starts watching us. As we get the sticks up and the rifle on and as I move into place slowly he stands for a couple of seconds and then walks into the thorn bush, couple of seconds longer and I could have gotten a shot. No problem they trot downhill to the herd 300 - 400 yards away and they all start moving off. Formulate a new plan to go beyond and intercept them now. We get back into the Bakkie, drive around them to a new vantage point and take a hike. We see the group of 30 to 40 animals with a couple of shooter rams and work our way into range and set up, they are uphill slightly from us and present a clear shot at around 240 yards. The gun feels good on the sticks and I shoot but it goes just low and off they go. They stop now about 260 yards out and I shoot again and a miss, stop at 300 yards and a third shot cleanly misses, crap I know I can shoot better than this off sticks. Is hoot a lot of gophers back home and feel I have real good form so now I’m second guessing myself. We let them move off to settle down, go back to the Bakkie to drive around the ridge they went over and see what happens. As we drive up a little valley a nice ram jumps up and takes off thru the brush not 50 yards away. We watch where he goes park the Bakkie and go for a walk. We finally spot him across the little valley on another hillside and it begins to rain lightly. We stand there and watch him for about 15 minutes as he stands behind a thorn bush and we decide to work downhill a ways and set up behind a tree to get a shot. He is about 250 yds out, up on the sticks and shoot, another miss. With the silencer he isn’t sure where the shot is coming from and the rain comes down a little steadier now. I shoot 3 more time across the valley at ranges from 250 to 325 yards and never come close to him. He runs back down the ridge line to the bottom and circles around us headed back to where we first saw him. We are on his tail walking about 3 miles and never get. Lose enough for a shot and he is clearly not hit from the previous shots. So we decide to back off, we think we know where he is headed and we’ll come back after lunch or go find some others. After lunch Don says we had seen a nice ram very close to camp the evening before after we got the black wildebeest back to the skinning shed. We decide to take a quick look in the area before going back to our morning spot. As we drive over our tracker taps on the truck roof and says he sees a ram bedded up a small wash a few hundred yards away. We glass and Don thinks it is the ram he saw the evening before. The ram is bedded all by himself in a good spot for a stalk as we can use the thorn scrub in the was area to work our way into range. Off we go up the wash and we get to around 160 yards before we run out of cover. We setup the sticks and rifle and wait now as he is bedded. Don tells me they will bed for about 20 minutes before they stand to stretch and lay back down. At almost 20 minutes on the nose he stands, stretches, takes a pee and turns broadside. One shot thru the heart and my common springbuck ram is down. I feel redeemed on my shooting and tell Don I think he just needs to get me in under 200 yards!! We take some pics as day 2 comes to an end.

He is a really old ram, teeth are worn down to the guns, his horns are almost polished smooth and the ends are rounded off. He had scars across his nose from battling other rams and Don says he is a perfect ram to take as he is an old warrior with not much time left.

 

[slam8031]

Two fantastic animals! Sorry for your travel troubles!

 

[MontanaPat]

Day 3: it is now Tuesday of my week long hunt so Don decides this is a good day to drive over to the main Huntershill property and see if we can get a Roan this morning and whatever else we can find. The main Huntershill property has a lot of springbuck in the color phases so we will focus getting a white, copper and black springbuck there during the week. Don’s brother Andy who is also a PH and hunting the same area this week gives Don some intel on two very nice lechwe rams he saw earlier so those may be on today’s agenda as well. We get over to Huntershill around 9AM to begin our hunt. Most of their Roan bulls are found in one large area of pasture and thorn scrub of I’m guessing around 15,000+ acres as it stretches for a few miles long by about 1.5 miles wide. We go to a high point lookout to glass the bottom grass lands and see tons of animals but no roan so Don says let,s head up to the other end of the area. We get up there and see 4 roan bulls intermixed with eland and sable and a bunch of bontebuck but one roan bull is standing all alone a couple hundred yards away from the group and looks to be a bigger bull as we glass them. They are all out in a large grassland where they can see a long way and are grouped close by a water tank with many of them bedded down in the morning sun. We decide to make our way out slowly to the tank and see if we are in range of the one bigger roan bull. We get there and he is about two hundred yards out watching us. As we discuss the shot he starts moving away at a steady pace. Don has given me some of his hand load bullets today as he isn’t confident that the factory 150 gr soft point loads are up to the job of putting the roan down quickly so I’m going to use his 168gr ELDM bullets for a better impact. We stay hidden behind the stock tank and watch as the roan moves away to well over 400 yards and is headed for a far tree line of thorn scrub that circles down below us. We decide he is better than any of the other bulls we see bedded in the tall grass and formulate a plan to work down into the thorn scrub and try to cut him off and get a shot. We get back into the Bakkie, drive back the way we came for a half mile or more and then down to the edge of the scrub where Don and I get out and send the tracker back with the Bakkie out into the field to watch and see where the roan heads and hopefully keep him down into the trees, there is also a sizable herd of Cape buffalo out at the edge of the trees where the roan headed. We get into the thorn scrub and star slowly stalking our way towards where we think the roan is headed and immediately start finding fresh buffalo dung in the thick thorn scrub which makes us a little nervous. I dial the scope down to 3X to get a better sight picture in the thick brush. It takes us about 30 minutes of slow stalking in the thorn brush silently watching for movement or the roan and see nothing. We’re thinking there is no way he moved down thru this thick thorn brush fast enough to have gotten past us so he has either stopped in the edge of the brush where he went in or turned and went back out into the grassland area but we felt he wouldn’t do that with the Bakkie parked at the far end of the field. We are about to the end of the brush and we kneel down to see under the thick stuff for a few minutes whenI suddenly spot movement a little ahead and to my right, I pull up my binos and can see the legs of the roan moving thru the thorn scrub in our direction and I whisper to Don that I see him and he is moving towards us about 50 yards away. No time to get the sticks up, they would be too tall anyway so I shoulder the rifle and wait for an opening in the thorn scrub for a shot. Right in from of us is a mud hole type wallow and he is headed right towards it. I finally get an opening and take my shot while he walks slowly thru the gap in the brush, he is only about 20 yards away. That 168 gr ELDM bullet rips into him and he rears up and bellows loudly and starts bucking, crashing thru the brush as I reload for a second shot but can’t get one of quickly. Don says to wait, he goes about 30 yards and falls over kicking and is finished. Wow, that was some serious excitement, would have been a perfect bow shot opportunity! Our hearts are both racing and we high five and question what the heck just happened so quickly. But I have a beautiful 26” heavy horned roan bull on the ground.

 

[MontanaPat]

Day 3 continued: After getting the roan loaded and back to the skinning shed we grab a bite of lunch and head out to see if we can find those big lechwe that Andy had told Don about seeing. He we head back into the thorn scrub trees towards the big mountain and after a short way we come to a small dam. As soon as we drive up within 75 yards of the dam we see a nice red lechwe bull begin walking away from the far side of the dam. We stop the Bakkie and back up, turn around and drive about a half mile from the dam and get out to make a stalk. We get back up to the dam and start glassing the brush and moving slowly. Within a couple hundred yards from the dam Don and Akona spot the lechwe bull lying in the thorn scrub napping. We slowly move into position about 70 yards away and set up the sticks and wait for him to stand. After about 15 minutes, Don says he is going to clap his hands once and see if he will stand and turn broadside to look our way. Don claps, the bull stands and turns broadside giving me a shot and I fire off a round, but just as I do it looks like he takes a step forward. We heard the load kawhop of the hit and the bull takes off running. Don asks how I felt about the shot and I say I think he stepped forward just as I shot but it felt good overall. Akona takes the lead slowly tracking the lechwe and we see no blood at all. Don had switched me back to the 150 gr soft points after the roan hunt in the morning but we felt these bullets should adequately do the job needed. We tracked the lechwe for about 200 yards when Akona spotted him bedded in the brush about 50 yards away, as I get set on the sticks he gets up and starts very slowly walking straight away from us giving no shot opportunity, however we can tell he is hit badly as he moves very slowly and doesn’t look well. We keep on his track, there is zero blood where he was bedded when we found him. After another 75 yards or so we spot him again bedded and he jumps up to move away and I have a decent quartering away shot and put another round in him, he goes about 30 feet and is down. My first shot hit him in the liver/diaphragm area and he is barely bleeding out of it but the second shot takes him thru the lungs and heart. I’m stunned at how beautiful the red lechwe is up close, just a gorgeous antelope. We set up for pics and by the time we get him loaded into the Bakkie it is about an hour before dark so we still have time for a springbuck stalk.

 

[MontanaPat]

 

[MontanaPat]

Time for a quick springbuck stalk before darkness falls, we had seen several sizable herds of white springbuck earlier when looking for the roan so we head back over to that area, see some promising groups and head out on a stalk. The first big bunch busts us moving thru the brush as they are all out in the open and they move off to the East moving steadily. We see two white springbuck by themselves down in a bottom field by some thorn brush and so we make a quick stalk to check them out. As we get close we see one is a ram and so we move in and get set up on the sticks, shooting the 150 gr soft point factory ammo. Don ranges the ram at around 230 yards and tells me where he wants me to hold on his body. I take a shot and off the two animals go at a dead run but they only go about 60 yards and we lose them behind some brush and they don’t come out the other side. As we move in we see one white animal move off in the fading light and when we come closer we see the ram down in the grass. We get set up and take a few quick photos before dark. My shot looks like it was low but it took outa slice of his brisket area and thru the lower heart with the bullet fragments. What a day, three animals down, all incredible in one days time. Springbuck slam is half done, can I get them all in the week I’m there?

 

[MontanaPat]

Day 4: After the big day we had yesterday, we decide today is the day to try for a cape bushbuck. I took a nice 17” Limpopo bushbuck in 2021 so I wanted to see if I could get the cape bushbuck variety on this hunt. Don raises some cattle on a farm outside of East London and his vet had told him about a dairy farm that he serviced that had tons of nice bushbuck. Don’s friend made a call and got us set up to drive a couple hours away over to the Somerset East area to this big dairy farm to hunt. We left before sunup and had a beautiful sunrise below on the way.

We got to the farm about 8:45 that morning and met with the dairy owners about where to hunt. They gave us some good intel and we headed down into some alfalfa fields along the river bottom to glass. There was a bunch of ground fog and misty rain that morning so we weren’t seeing anything coming out of the river bottoms. The dairy farmer came by to see if we were seeing anything and invited the PHto jump in his truck to show him several areas to glass while Akona and I waited at the Bakkie and glassed the bottoms.

Don came back shortly and said they had spotted a ram across the river in one of the alfalfa fields on that side and we should go glass and stalk him. The farmer asked if his teen daughter could go with us to video the hunt. We said sure and picked her up as we drove over to the other side of the river bottom. We got out and stalked to some higher ground to look for the bushbuck and found him in the same place they had seen him. We slowly stalked into range as he fed with no realm concern we were around. Up went the sticks at about 230 yards again, I had a steady hold and took the shot. The bushbuck jumped but didn’t act hit and didn’t seem to know where the shot came from with the suppressor. He trotted off about 20 yards further and I took a second shot, same effect, he trotted over to the fence line separating the pivot field from the river bottom and I took a third shot at 250 yards and off he went into the river bottom brush. We went down and no blood sign anywhere. Since we had the guy’s daughter with us filming we took a look at the screen and could tell the shots were all hitting below him in the grass heavy with water as water spray would fly in the air. I told Don I didn’t think the rifle is shooting this 150 gr factory ammo where we thought at 200+ yards because I barely got the springbuck the night before with a very low hit even though I was holding higher for the yardage. He agreed with me and we went to a range the farmer had to check the rifle. We put up a target at 200 yards and the factory ammo was about 6 inches low! We adjusted the scope to get it hitting on point at 200 hundred yards and felt better about it. The lower velocity of this 150 gr factory ammo was causing the bullet to drop off much quicker than his 168 gr hand loads that had a higher velocity by about 250fps that we were equating them to when we went to the range earlier in the week. Now I think I have a better idea of why I was missing the springbuck on day 2 by such a margin giving they were all shots at 230 yards+.

Feeling better now about the rifle we went back to hunt the fields in the evening for that bushbuck thinking the one from the morning was real spooked and may come back out. We never saw him and drove back around to the other side of the river where we had started the day. The farmer came by and see he wasn’t seeing anything driving around the fields either and thought the cold day and rains showers may have had an effect to keep them bedded in the river bottom. We had about 30 minutes of shooting time left when I spotted two rams coming out to feed. They were about 275 yards out so we tried to see if we could stalk within range but the wind swirled and they busted us and headed back into the bush. We got in closer to the river / alfalfa field edge and set up beside some stock tanks, suddenly bushbuck began coming out of the river bottom but they were all females, the we saw one of the earlier rams come out a ways down the field and all of a sudden a ram appears straight across from us jumping over the four strand wire fence and walks out into the alfalfa 185 yards away. I’m up on the sticks and one shot takes him down immediately without hardly a kick. Finally we have the bushbuck I was hoping for on the ground and get a few quick photos before dark and a long ride back to Comre camp.

Time to go board my flight to Denver. Will send more later on the search for the springbuck slam.

 

[Jaegger]

@MontanaPat …

Hi: I was born/raised in N. Dakota & spent many Summers plus afew Falls hunting Montana - what a big, beautiful State & quality people!

Thx for your Huntershill Trip Report to date … I have this Outfitter on a short-list for Blesbuck Slam.

I must comment, odd the operation would ask a PH to change rounds from what he knows is accurate to his rifle to a huh, mystery round not time/tested on the range w/ his rifle!? I can only conclude, they were worried about pass through the extended distance of the PH selected rounds …

WOW,
1) United - flight/schedule setback & failures again.
2) Newark, NJ - continual problems In/Out.
3) Kodak Moment … another Hunter stranded on United & flying into Newark for JNB has become a reoccurring pattern of disaster.

Glad to see you persevered through the initial setbacks & catching your stride on Eastern Cape Hunt … Excited to hear the rest of your HH Safari!

Happy Trails

 

[MontanaPat]

@Jaegger

Huntershill would be a great place to go after a blesbuck slam, never have I seen so many blesbuck herds. I think they must have more blesbuck on their property than any other animal species!

The PH felt they wanted us to use factory ammo so they could charge for it easier versus him charging me for his ammo used. Worked out ok once we figured out the bullet drop off issue beyond 100 yards was so much greater than his loads.

United is not my preferred airline but pricing was very good from Bozeman MT even for their business class ticket I bought. I’m a 4 million + frequent flyer on Delta so that status helps tremendously when I run into issues on Delta, but I’m a lonely peon with United, was just lucky to get on the next days flight. The flight from Newark to Johannesburg was very comfortable in the Polaris business class seating.

 

[MontanaPat]

Day 5: We moved from the Comre camp over to the main Huntershill lodge this morning for the remainder of my trip and planned to hunt there for the next two days to try and get a black and copper springbuck. Lots of springbuck on the property but finding mature rams was looking like a challenge. Big herds made for lots of eyes watching every stalk we attempted and busted us several times. Made a great stalk on a group up high on a hillside in a little plateau area by coming up the back side of a ridge and popping over to glass them only 75 yards away but no shooter rams in the group! As we made a stalk around the back side of the hill we are on top of we see four young rams with one shooter black springbuck in the group. The wind is howling though and they are watching us from 240 yards out, We crawl a little closer and I lie down prone using and old anthill as a rest for the rifle and take a shot but feel myself pull the shot right and down a bit as I’m unsteady in the wind. Off they go like shot out of a cannon and they run towards where we had sent the tracker with the Bakkie. They see the truck and turn and start back our way at a fast run, don’t think they knew where the shot came from. They come by us at about 100 yards at a fast trot and I try to make a running shot (dumb idea) but it is pretty good but I led the ram too much and hit a foot in front of him and off they go never to be seen again. We hunt hard all afternoon and stalk groups but no good shooter rams anywhere. Finally late that afternoon we have a large herd with a bunch of coppers on a hillside across the valley with thorn brush in the bottom to hide our approach, this might work we think so off we go walking a mile or more to get into position. Everything is lining up nicely, we are hidden down in a small wash and the group is feeding our way slowly. We have several white springbuck in range but just need the group of coppers to come further when suddenly the wind must have swirled, they get our scent and the whole groups turns and starts trotting off, the hillside is covered with blesbuck and gemsbok as well and so everything takes off at a fast trot moving away from us, damn busted again. We try one more quick stalk on them and get to within about 300 yards before we run out of cover but there is a real nice copper ram standing around out there. We start calculating the shot, how much holdover to use etc but he is steadily walking further away. I’m nice and steady on the sticks but he is now 413 yards out but the shot is broadside with him standing still. I hold over and shoot as we calculated and the shot is perfect on the height but I forgot to compensate for the strong wind and the shot goes about a foot right in front of him. No more wasting bullets this evening. We have one more day and feel confident we can get it done.

Day 5: Don gets intel overnight that there are a lot of black springbuck on the opposite side of the mountain from the lodge so the plan is to head over there first thing this morning and see if we can find a group that hasn’t been hunted as much lately. We get there and find several big groups of black springbuck and scattered small groups as well. We make a plan for a stalk to get after it walking thru the thorn brush for a quarter mile to the edge of the grass lands where they are hanging our feeding but they are all still several hundred yards away. We have a herd of zebra and black wildebeest milling around 150 yards in front of us with no cares, so we set up in a small rock kopje and send Alina the tracker on a round about circuit walk to where the springbuck will see him and slowly start walking our way. All seems to be going as planned and after 20 minutes we have a herd of blacks moving toward us but the are going at a pretty steady trot. There is one shooter ram in the group it looks like and they are going to pass in front of us about 200 yards out. I’m sitting down in the rocks and we have shortened the sticks but they keep moving and I can’t get a shot off. I move over to some more rocks a few yards away and decide to scrap the sticks since I can’t keep adjusting them quick enough so I use a big rock as a rest. Finally the black ram pauses for a second and I take the shot and he drops in his tracks.



We head back to the lodge for lunch and make a plan to go back to where we had seen some copper rams the previous day for the afternoon hunt, the weather is kind of rough but I’m confident we can get it done. We drive around a bit glassing several groups when we see a group of copper springbuck heading into the thorn brush in a good position for a stalk but not sure if there are any shooter rams or all females. We drive the bakkie around to the other side of the thick brush area and park about a half mile away or more and start a stalk thru the brush towards them. Everything is looking good but we have a big herd of golden wildebeest over by them that we have to be careful and not spook. Fortunately there is a dry wash running thru the brush right up to the edge where we had last seen them and we use this to hide our approach. We get to where we are pretty sure they should be and as we pop our heads up over the dry bank we see several copper springbuck milling around feeding 75 to 100 yards away. We spot a couple of smaller rams in the group and then out comes a shooter ram who was the dominant guy chasing the other rams away from the females and he has no idea we are any where around. I raise up on the sticks while he is chasing a common ram and take a shot at 75 yards and drop him right there. It all came together quick and we have our copper ram down and the slam is complete. High fives all around and congrats to the Ph and tracker for getting me into a great position to get the ram just as it starts to rain.



Overall it has been a great trip, I got all of the animals I wanted. I liked the topography of the Huntershill property, reminded me of hunting out west at home.

 

[Jaegger]

@Jaegger

Huntershill would be a great place to go after a blesbuck slam, never have I seen so many blesbuck herds. I think they must have more blesbuck on their property than any other animal species!

Hi @MontanaPat,

Thanks for the feedback on Huntershill & their Blesbuck population - a Hunter cannot get any better Intel than another hunters ‘boots on the ground’ perspective - nice!

Got it on the Outfitter vs. PH provided rounds …

Safe Travels home!

 

[cpr0312]

Congrats and thanks for sharing!

 

[Nyati]

Congrats for a great hunt, and thanks for sharing !