SOUTH AFRICA: KMG Safaris Hunt & Victoria Falls Trip

[Trap123]

My wife and I, along with another friend booked a 9 day hunt 3 days in Victoria Falls.
Our journey from upstate NY began on May 11th. We took the Delta flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg which was of course was not much fun but it got us there quickly.
We opted to stay at tha Afton Safari Lodge and use their rifle permit service which is worth every penny and then some!
We decided to do the Victoria Falls part of the trip first because we were traveling with rifles and Afton allowed us to leave our rifles and some luggage in their safe for the duration of our trip,free of charge I might add!
KMG handled all of the details of this part of the trip and we could not have been happier.
In short the entire experience was spectacular.

 

[Trap123]

We stayed at the A’Zambezi River Lodge.

We spent quite a bit of time (and money) here

This guy showed up under our balcony every night at about 11 o’ clock

 

[Trap123]

After 3 days in Victoria Falls we went back to Afton for the night and the next morning we collected our rifles and luggage and off to the Eastern Cape we go!
When we get to the airport Mr.X asked for our return flight information so he could meet us on our way home to make sure our connection back to the US went smoothly and low and behold he noticed that the flight I had booked from Port Elizabeth back to Johannesburg would have been on Mango and they won’t transport firearms.So off to the South African Airways ticket counter to straighten out that mess we go.
Great save Mr.X........ extra nice tip for you!!!!

 

[Edge]

My Wife and I took Marius up on this same offer, was our Honeymoon back in 2017. We had a wonderful time.

Ahh, the bar at the A’Zambezi lodge, great memories and we also left some cash there!

Great photos and looking forward to more!

 

[Areaonereal]

My experience with Mr X.....priceless....I have used his services on four trips...great service and a great individual to walk you thru the process coming and going.

 

[Trap123]

The flight to Port Elizabeth was pleasant and of course anticipation was running high!
We were met by a nice older gentleman who helped us through the process of collecting our rifles and gave us a very nice 2 hour ride to Mpunzi Lodge where we would call home for the next ten days.
The accommodations more than met our expectations.
On a side note..... the atmosphere there is surreal...... sitting on the deck at night chatting with great people and listening to so sounds of the bush is not something that will soon leave me.Man I miss that place.
When we arrived we were met by Nick(who was to be my PH),Loew(who was my friends’ PH) and Nicole( who was our chef and a lovely person that we would come to be very fond of)
In actuality we quickly became very fond of everyone there but more about that later!
Sometime after dark Marius and his hunters showed up(@wipartimer and @ JustGina)after a successful eland hunt!
We had a nice dinner, a few beers and some great conversation which would be the theme for every evening that we were there.
After things wound down it was off to bed so we could be up ready to go bright and early to begin our hunt!

 

[Pheroze]

We were met by a nice older gentleman

hmmm, never heard Marius being described that way. I guess it's been a long time...

Nice pictures and looking forward to the rest of the report!

 

[cpr0312]

Looking forward to more! The falls are amazing, I have been lucky enough to see them from both sides of the border!

 

[Firebird]

Loved those pictures! Thanks for posting them-enjoying your report so far and eagerly awaiting more, more moaar!

 

[BRICKBURN]

Keep it coming.

 

[gillettehunter]

More please. Knowing Marius you had a great hunt.
Bruce

 

[Trap123]

Up at 6 o’clock for a light breakfast and off we go. This was my the first trip to Africa for my friend Dan and he was just about ready to come out of his skin!!
We were after Kafue Lechwe today and Nick said we were looking for one specific male that had been spotted on a previous hunt.
We were glassing the creek bottoms and it took us awhile to find any Lechwe.
Finally we spotted a couple and went to get a closer look and after a couple of minutes determined that they weren’t what we were looking for so we went back to searching.
It didn’t take us very long and we could see 2 different groups and one of them had what looked to be a nice ram so after a fairly lengthy walk and a lot of glassing Nick says that he was a very nice ram but not the one we were after but let’s go have a look at the other group,maybe there were more that we couldn’t see.
After another long walk and then what seemed like 10 miles of crouch walking ( which is not nearly as comfortable as it sounds)we get to a bush where we could look over the group undetected.After a few minutes all of a sudden there was some excited chattering between Nick and our tracker.
I was looking at a ram that was bedded that looked pretty good to me but was clearly a little smaller than the one we had already passed on so I wasn’t sure what they were looking at.
Nick said he thought the one we were looking for was behind a bush to the left of the bedded ram so we had to back out and get to another bush with a better angle.
As soon as we get to the bush and Nick looked through the binoculars the sticks went up.
I still haven’t seen the ram yet but the second I moved from behind Nick I could see that he was much bigger that the ones we had already seen.
The shot was only 125 yards so no great story there,and he dropped where he stood.
This was the first animal that I had taken with my new custom 308 Norma Mag and I am new to handloading so I was pretty pumped up about that.

 

[Trap123]

My Wife and I took Marius up on this same offer, was our Honeymoon back in 2017. We had a wonderful time.

Ahh, the bar at the A’Zambezi lodge, great memories and we also left some cash there!

Great photos and looking forward to more!

We had a great time there.
I’m pretty sure they have what could only be described as bodyguards to look after you in case you spend a little too much money at the bar and decide to try to ride a hippo

 

[flatwater bill]

Great start, great Lechwe.......................Not many 308 Norma Mags around now that the new 300 Norma is so popular.......but it is still a fine choice............hoping you put more trophies in the salt with it.......waitin to see......FWB

 

[Pheroze]

Great choice in calibers, especially to handload! Nice animal!

 

[cpr0312]

Nice lechwe!!

 

[gesch]

Thank you for this report. I’m not familiar with the caliber you are using. Could you tell a bit about it? Sounds like it works well! I’m looking forward to the rest. (I’m in Golden BC Canada on Canada Day! I love my neighbors to the north)

 

[Trap123]

Thank you for this report. I’m not familiar with the caliber you are using. Could you tell a bit about it? Sounds like it works well! I’m looking forward to the rest. (I’m in Golden BC Canada on Canada Day! I love my neighbors to the north)

The 308 Norma is very similar to the 300 Win Mag but the neck is a bit longer so I think it handles the heavier bullets a little better.
I am shooting 200 gr Accubonds at about 2800 FPS with plenty of room to increase velocity but my load is grouping .810 at 200 yds so I decided to leave well enough alone.

 

[Trap123]

Days 2 and 3 would end without anything in the salt for me but were 2 of my best days hunting to date.
Day 2 was spent in its entirety chasing a huge Kudu we had seen early in the day to no avail but not for lack of trying!!!
This day would also see Dan put down his first African trophy and seal his fate as an African hunting addict!
And what a trophy it was.
Eastern Cape Kudu that would measure just a hair short of 52in!!

 

[Ridgewalker]

Absolutely awesome Cape Kudu!