I went on my first hunting safari this spring outside of Douglas, South Africa (not too terribly far from Kimberley) with Katzke Safaris. And I had a blast.
I had originally planned to hunt with Johann Fourie, a member of the South African Palma team, who was killed in a car accident shortly before the trip. Another member of the South African team got me in touch with Eduard Katzke to schedule a hunt. (I was traveling with the US team to shoot the South African target rifle (SABU) championship.)
Eduard and I figured out the details, and, as it turned out, a few folks I knew from rifle shooting in the US had hunted with him and raved about it. So, that was good enough for me, and I booked the trip.
The match was great. The De Brug range is very challenging, but honest (meaning if you know what you're doing, you can put up a very good score, but the range will make you pay for mistakes) and it's my favorite range in the world to shoot on.
The range even has a resident hartebeest:
On the line...
On to the hunt...
The PH I hunted with was Prieur du Plessis, and he drove out to Bloemfontein to pick me up while the rest of the team loaded up a bus for the ride back to JNB for the flight home. The drive was an enjoyable one, chatting with Prieur about the hunt and all the things I didn't know, the rifle match I had shot, and my attempts to learn some Afrikaans.
We met up with Eduard Katzke ('Katte') at a restaurant in Douglas for a rather nice lunch, chatted for a bit about logistics (my wife was flying in the next day) and then Prieur and I headed for camp. ('Sunset Private Reserve')
Day 0.5 (Sunday afternoon)
I wasn't expecting to do any hunting that afternoon, but we stopped by the range, I shot a few shots with the loaner rifle (a Remington 700 in .308 with a suppressor), including, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit, were my first shots off shooting sticks. I did a ton of practice leading up to the trip, but it was all with my target rifle. In any event, the rifle shot well, and after a few questions about technique and some dry firing, I felt comfortable with the sticks, and off we went.
First, a little back story. Ten years ago, my wife and I were in Nairobi, and we went on a photo safari. We saw all the usual critters, and I discovered the Waterbuck. I'd never seen one, never seen a picture of one, and never even heard of one. But here's this majestic creature that, depending on the light, is gray, brown, purple, silver, or blue. I decided I'd have to go hunt waterbuck sometime. I wasn't sure when, or how, but someday, I was going to hunt waterbuck. So the whole trip was focused on hunting waterbuck.
As we set off in the truck, everything I saw was a waterbuck until confirmed otherwise. I'm sure Prieur was getting a bit tired of the newbie's questions, but he didn't show it.
After a bit, we saw a herd of blesbok, and started a stalk. All my hunting has been for deer and squirrel, so an active stalk was new and much more entertaining than sitting in a deer blind. After a while, we got to 160m, and I took a shot from the sticks. I broke the shot a hair higher than I was meaning to (used to deer vitals) but it took out the top of the heart, and the blesbok ran about 10 yards, and collapsed. My first African animal:
We saw some zebras later that afternoon, but we decided to wait on the zebras (more on that later).
Day 1 (Monday)
The next morning, after a couple brief stalks on a herd of springbok (females and juveniles, but it was good practice) and another up a rocky hill for some impala, we spent most of the morning stalking a herd of Gemsbok through some fairly thick brush. After we made it through the brush, we came out to a big clearing with hundreds of animals. It was beautiful. At that point, Prieur called for Johannes (the tracker) to meet us with the truck, and we drove the long way back to camp for lunch.
After lunch, we decided to sit in a blind by a waterhole to try to get a springbok. After a while, up walks a male, and I take what was the first of two bad shots on the trip. In target rifle shooting, it's not uncommon for (especially in the less stable positions like standing) for the sights to settle nearly perfectly still--but not on the center. For some reason, you take the shot anyway, because the sights came to a stop. Resulting in a 9 or worse. Well, the same thing happened. I had a bit of an awkward firing position, and I was following the walking springbok. When he stopped, the crosshairs sat perfectly still right on his head, and *BANG*. Followed by thinking "I just shot a springbok in the head. Why did I shoot the springbok in the head?!!?" Prieur said I got him, which I knew... since I just shot him in the head. We walk up to him, I'm expecting to have a ruined trophy. But, bad shot #1 of the trip worked out. Entered right between the eyes, but the TTSX didn't expand as violently as a cup-and-core would have, and the damage wasn't catastrophic. There was the entrance hole, a slightly larger exit behind the ear, and one of the horns had a distinct wobble to it, but Prieur said (and the taxidermist later confirmed) that it was completely repairable. The eye stuck out a bit in the pictures, though.
After that, we picked up my wife, and we met my wife at camp, and went back out. I can't remember what exactly we did, but we ended up seeing a nice waterbuck at about 50 yards. I had a nice, steady rest, but he was standing in some tall grass. I asked Prieur if I could shoot through the top of the grass, and he whispered that I could, but to avoid the bushes. With two things in the back of my mind, the need to shoot lower than I'm used to on deer and the bad shot on the springbok, I hesitated, not knowing where to hold on what I could see. I could have placed the bullet as well as I could have stuck a target paster, but I wasn't sure where to hold. He then turned slightly after quite a while, and that presented a shot, briefly. He kept moving, and we followed him into the brush. We caught a quick glance, but then he was gone. We'd look for him in that area for the next few days.
The day of the Zebra (Tuesday)
The next morning, we went back to the area, saw him at 500+ meters as we drove up, but when we got out to track him, we never caught up to him.
Later, we spotted some zebra in the distance, and got out and stalked up to about 300m. Prieur asked if I was comfortable with the shot, and I told him we'd get on the sticks, and I'd see how my hold looked on the zebra, and make up my mind. The zebra was quartering toward us, and looking at us, so getting closer wasn't going to be an option on this stalk. I got ready, and my hold looked good. I came up with a ballpark hold for elevation (using the 2700fps approximation of ~8" low with a 200 yard zero at 300, and at this distance, yards and meters are close enough to equivalent). I took the shot, and this was bad shot #2, but I didn't know it yet. I broke the shot a little right (maybe about a minute's worth, so 3 inches or so, and there's a decent amount of left-to-right wind which I had discounted, until I broke the shot right, then started to wonder about it) We hear a good hit, and the zebra reacts like he's hit in the lungs. So we start tracking. And tracking. This was at not long after 8:00. By about 10:00, we catch up to him, but he's on the far side of a clearing, about 550m (ranged) away, walking away from us. Prieur sets up the sticks, and tells me to shoot. Lest I wait for a perfect shot (he's walking away), he tells me to "Shoot! Shoot him in the @$$!" He ranges again, and he's at 600m. I think he gives me a bit too much credit for shooting .308s in my very specialized discipline... but I give it a go. My thought process goes like this... at 500 yards, the bullet will drop about 48" below the point of aim... he's about 650 yards, so I'll need to aim another 3+ minutes, with is another 18", but we're at higher elevation... so... one and a half zebra bodies above his back. I'm about to break the shot, and notice heavy mirage running left to right, so I think that's a few minutes' worth, and hold one and a half zebra widths off the left side of the zebra and shoot. Being sure I've missed, but not knowing what direction I'm wrong, I ask Prieur if he saw the trace. By the time I finish asking, we hear a *THWACK!*, and the zebra jumps.
We walk briskly to where he was, and we find some droppings and now we have a blood trail. Or, at least, occasional drops that confirm we're on the right track. And by that I mean, Johannes and Prieur could point it out to me; they were already knew which track they were following. We followed the trail for a while longer, but the zebra is walking gingerly, and not leaving much track. He walked into a well-trod section about the time the blood trail fell off and we lost the trail. However, he was walking more-or-less toward a waterhole. So Johannes walked back to the truck (which was now a good ways back) and met us, and we drove to the waterhole. Sure enough, we found a good amount of blood at the waterhole. We decide to go have lunch and come back to try to pick up the trail.
We have lunch (I can't remember which was this day, it might have been the fanciest pig-in-a-blanket I've ever had: ground gemsbok (might have been sausage, might have just been seasoned ground meat) in a flakey pastry shell, cooked over coals. It was delicious.) and then go back out to find the zebra. We head for the waterhole, and Prieur and Johannes try to find which way he's headed. They look for quite a while, and then decide to get back in the truck and drive around and try to find the track that way. While we're doing that, we see a herd of gemsbok. I think Prieur is probably thinking it'd be good to get my mind off the zebra, and probably my wife's, too. (An aside... when we were figuring out what I'd hunt, other than waterbuck, which was a given, priority was given to things she'd like to have on the wall in the family room. She had said something like "if you get a zebra, definitely get the hide, not a shoulder mount." which I took to mean "she wants a zebra". But what she meant was, "I'd rather not see a zebra die, but if you must, don't make me look at a horse's head!" There are some critters, squirrels being another one, that she does *not* like the idea of hunting. Deer? Sure, she'll help butcher. Rabbits? Of course! But squirrel? (and, as I learned) zebra? nope.) So, Prieur and I get out (my wife stays in the truck), and we stalk the herd for a good while, several mile's worth. Finally, we get a shot on what Prieur says is not the best gemsbok we'll see, but a good one (certainly the biggest I've ever had my crosshairs on), and it's up to me if I want to shoot him or try for a bigger one some other time. Given the situation with the herd, the cover, and the blesbok herds that are on either side of us, we won't have a chance this stalk to get a better animal. I think the gemsbok looks wonderful, so I take the shot from the sticks at about 200m. The shot goes right where I aimed it, which was a bit higher than I should have (I was fighting my deer-vitals instinct the whole time), but it hit at the base of the neck and the gemsbok dropped. We walk up to him, and I end up putting another round in his chest to finish the job.
Johannes and my wife drive up, but the gemsbok, though dead (touching the eye got no response), is twitching a bit. Between that and the unaccounted-for zebra, my wife, whom we had convinced to try for a white blesbok, no longer wants to risk wounding an animal.
I had originally planned to hunt with Johann Fourie, a member of the South African Palma team, who was killed in a car accident shortly before the trip. Another member of the South African team got me in touch with Eduard Katzke to schedule a hunt. (I was traveling with the US team to shoot the South African target rifle (SABU) championship.)
Eduard and I figured out the details, and, as it turned out, a few folks I knew from rifle shooting in the US had hunted with him and raved about it. So, that was good enough for me, and I booked the trip.
The match was great. The De Brug range is very challenging, but honest (meaning if you know what you're doing, you can put up a very good score, but the range will make you pay for mistakes) and it's my favorite range in the world to shoot on.
The range even has a resident hartebeest:
On the line...
On to the hunt...
The PH I hunted with was Prieur du Plessis, and he drove out to Bloemfontein to pick me up while the rest of the team loaded up a bus for the ride back to JNB for the flight home. The drive was an enjoyable one, chatting with Prieur about the hunt and all the things I didn't know, the rifle match I had shot, and my attempts to learn some Afrikaans.
We met up with Eduard Katzke ('Katte') at a restaurant in Douglas for a rather nice lunch, chatted for a bit about logistics (my wife was flying in the next day) and then Prieur and I headed for camp. ('Sunset Private Reserve')
Day 0.5 (Sunday afternoon)
I wasn't expecting to do any hunting that afternoon, but we stopped by the range, I shot a few shots with the loaner rifle (a Remington 700 in .308 with a suppressor), including, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit, were my first shots off shooting sticks. I did a ton of practice leading up to the trip, but it was all with my target rifle. In any event, the rifle shot well, and after a few questions about technique and some dry firing, I felt comfortable with the sticks, and off we went.
First, a little back story. Ten years ago, my wife and I were in Nairobi, and we went on a photo safari. We saw all the usual critters, and I discovered the Waterbuck. I'd never seen one, never seen a picture of one, and never even heard of one. But here's this majestic creature that, depending on the light, is gray, brown, purple, silver, or blue. I decided I'd have to go hunt waterbuck sometime. I wasn't sure when, or how, but someday, I was going to hunt waterbuck. So the whole trip was focused on hunting waterbuck.
As we set off in the truck, everything I saw was a waterbuck until confirmed otherwise. I'm sure Prieur was getting a bit tired of the newbie's questions, but he didn't show it.
After a bit, we saw a herd of blesbok, and started a stalk. All my hunting has been for deer and squirrel, so an active stalk was new and much more entertaining than sitting in a deer blind. After a while, we got to 160m, and I took a shot from the sticks. I broke the shot a hair higher than I was meaning to (used to deer vitals) but it took out the top of the heart, and the blesbok ran about 10 yards, and collapsed. My first African animal:
We saw some zebras later that afternoon, but we decided to wait on the zebras (more on that later).
Day 1 (Monday)
The next morning, after a couple brief stalks on a herd of springbok (females and juveniles, but it was good practice) and another up a rocky hill for some impala, we spent most of the morning stalking a herd of Gemsbok through some fairly thick brush. After we made it through the brush, we came out to a big clearing with hundreds of animals. It was beautiful. At that point, Prieur called for Johannes (the tracker) to meet us with the truck, and we drove the long way back to camp for lunch.
After lunch, we decided to sit in a blind by a waterhole to try to get a springbok. After a while, up walks a male, and I take what was the first of two bad shots on the trip. In target rifle shooting, it's not uncommon for (especially in the less stable positions like standing) for the sights to settle nearly perfectly still--but not on the center. For some reason, you take the shot anyway, because the sights came to a stop. Resulting in a 9 or worse. Well, the same thing happened. I had a bit of an awkward firing position, and I was following the walking springbok. When he stopped, the crosshairs sat perfectly still right on his head, and *BANG*. Followed by thinking "I just shot a springbok in the head. Why did I shoot the springbok in the head?!!?" Prieur said I got him, which I knew... since I just shot him in the head. We walk up to him, I'm expecting to have a ruined trophy. But, bad shot #1 of the trip worked out. Entered right between the eyes, but the TTSX didn't expand as violently as a cup-and-core would have, and the damage wasn't catastrophic. There was the entrance hole, a slightly larger exit behind the ear, and one of the horns had a distinct wobble to it, but Prieur said (and the taxidermist later confirmed) that it was completely repairable. The eye stuck out a bit in the pictures, though.
After that, we picked up my wife, and we met my wife at camp, and went back out. I can't remember what exactly we did, but we ended up seeing a nice waterbuck at about 50 yards. I had a nice, steady rest, but he was standing in some tall grass. I asked Prieur if I could shoot through the top of the grass, and he whispered that I could, but to avoid the bushes. With two things in the back of my mind, the need to shoot lower than I'm used to on deer and the bad shot on the springbok, I hesitated, not knowing where to hold on what I could see. I could have placed the bullet as well as I could have stuck a target paster, but I wasn't sure where to hold. He then turned slightly after quite a while, and that presented a shot, briefly. He kept moving, and we followed him into the brush. We caught a quick glance, but then he was gone. We'd look for him in that area for the next few days.
The day of the Zebra (Tuesday)
The next morning, we went back to the area, saw him at 500+ meters as we drove up, but when we got out to track him, we never caught up to him.
Later, we spotted some zebra in the distance, and got out and stalked up to about 300m. Prieur asked if I was comfortable with the shot, and I told him we'd get on the sticks, and I'd see how my hold looked on the zebra, and make up my mind. The zebra was quartering toward us, and looking at us, so getting closer wasn't going to be an option on this stalk. I got ready, and my hold looked good. I came up with a ballpark hold for elevation (using the 2700fps approximation of ~8" low with a 200 yard zero at 300, and at this distance, yards and meters are close enough to equivalent). I took the shot, and this was bad shot #2, but I didn't know it yet. I broke the shot a little right (maybe about a minute's worth, so 3 inches or so, and there's a decent amount of left-to-right wind which I had discounted, until I broke the shot right, then started to wonder about it) We hear a good hit, and the zebra reacts like he's hit in the lungs. So we start tracking. And tracking. This was at not long after 8:00. By about 10:00, we catch up to him, but he's on the far side of a clearing, about 550m (ranged) away, walking away from us. Prieur sets up the sticks, and tells me to shoot. Lest I wait for a perfect shot (he's walking away), he tells me to "Shoot! Shoot him in the @$$!" He ranges again, and he's at 600m. I think he gives me a bit too much credit for shooting .308s in my very specialized discipline... but I give it a go. My thought process goes like this... at 500 yards, the bullet will drop about 48" below the point of aim... he's about 650 yards, so I'll need to aim another 3+ minutes, with is another 18", but we're at higher elevation... so... one and a half zebra bodies above his back. I'm about to break the shot, and notice heavy mirage running left to right, so I think that's a few minutes' worth, and hold one and a half zebra widths off the left side of the zebra and shoot. Being sure I've missed, but not knowing what direction I'm wrong, I ask Prieur if he saw the trace. By the time I finish asking, we hear a *THWACK!*, and the zebra jumps.
We walk briskly to where he was, and we find some droppings and now we have a blood trail. Or, at least, occasional drops that confirm we're on the right track. And by that I mean, Johannes and Prieur could point it out to me; they were already knew which track they were following. We followed the trail for a while longer, but the zebra is walking gingerly, and not leaving much track. He walked into a well-trod section about the time the blood trail fell off and we lost the trail. However, he was walking more-or-less toward a waterhole. So Johannes walked back to the truck (which was now a good ways back) and met us, and we drove to the waterhole. Sure enough, we found a good amount of blood at the waterhole. We decide to go have lunch and come back to try to pick up the trail.
We have lunch (I can't remember which was this day, it might have been the fanciest pig-in-a-blanket I've ever had: ground gemsbok (might have been sausage, might have just been seasoned ground meat) in a flakey pastry shell, cooked over coals. It was delicious.) and then go back out to find the zebra. We head for the waterhole, and Prieur and Johannes try to find which way he's headed. They look for quite a while, and then decide to get back in the truck and drive around and try to find the track that way. While we're doing that, we see a herd of gemsbok. I think Prieur is probably thinking it'd be good to get my mind off the zebra, and probably my wife's, too. (An aside... when we were figuring out what I'd hunt, other than waterbuck, which was a given, priority was given to things she'd like to have on the wall in the family room. She had said something like "if you get a zebra, definitely get the hide, not a shoulder mount." which I took to mean "she wants a zebra". But what she meant was, "I'd rather not see a zebra die, but if you must, don't make me look at a horse's head!" There are some critters, squirrels being another one, that she does *not* like the idea of hunting. Deer? Sure, she'll help butcher. Rabbits? Of course! But squirrel? (and, as I learned) zebra? nope.) So, Prieur and I get out (my wife stays in the truck), and we stalk the herd for a good while, several mile's worth. Finally, we get a shot on what Prieur says is not the best gemsbok we'll see, but a good one (certainly the biggest I've ever had my crosshairs on), and it's up to me if I want to shoot him or try for a bigger one some other time. Given the situation with the herd, the cover, and the blesbok herds that are on either side of us, we won't have a chance this stalk to get a better animal. I think the gemsbok looks wonderful, so I take the shot from the sticks at about 200m. The shot goes right where I aimed it, which was a bit higher than I should have (I was fighting my deer-vitals instinct the whole time), but it hit at the base of the neck and the gemsbok dropped. We walk up to him, and I end up putting another round in his chest to finish the job.
Johannes and my wife drive up, but the gemsbok, though dead (touching the eye got no response), is twitching a bit. Between that and the unaccounted-for zebra, my wife, whom we had convinced to try for a white blesbok, no longer wants to risk wounding an animal.
