SOUTH AFRICA: Lioness Hunt With KMG Safaris

[adgunner]

I have now completed my fifth hunt with Marius and KMG and as usual I had a fantastic time, I already booked dates for next year! After this many times hunting together it is like going out hunting with family. This includes all the good natured jabs between hunting buddies (more on that later ).

As we were starting out hunting lioness, we flew into Johannesburg and rented a vehicle and headed down to Bloemfontein for a couple of days before we would meet up with Marius and Kim who would drive up to meet us in Kimberly. Now I know that Bloemfontein isn’t the normal tourist destination but being a bit of a history buff and still in the Army I checked out a monument to the Canadians, the Anglo-Boer War museum and a few other historical places. I must say that I wasn’t too happy at the state of the monument and have since seen other problems online with other Canadian sites. Time to talk to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

We also went to the local cheetah experience and normally these types of places are filled with anti-hunting sentiment and yet I was pleasantly surprised that our young guide both understood and supported both sides of the conservation argument. In addition, she was very knowledgeable and passed on some excellent information about the animals in her charge.

We next met up with Kim and Marius and took the time to visit the Diamond mining in Kimberly and the “Big Hole”, reminded me a lot of our own Yukon and Alaskan gold rushes. My better half also found a 1957 hardcover edition of J.A. Hunter’s “Hunter’s Tracks” inside a box of used books in a little store just outside the tourist attraction.

Next on the agenda was sighting in the rifle and a quick tour around the area. I had borrowed Marius’ CZ 550 .375 H&H for the hunt (I have the exact same rifle at home … wonder how that happened).

We saw quite a few different critters including Rhino and a jackal that knew I was away from the bakkie and just had to let my wife know he was there! We also spotted a corker of a warthog and resolved to come back tomorrow to see if we could find him.

 

[cpr0312]

Nice, look forward to more!!

 

[Pheroze]

Nice start to the adventure

 

[BRICKBURN]

I think you saw something a little more special buddy:

Me thinks it is an Aardwolf

 

[huntaholic]

Yup agreed, looks like an aardwolf to me. We had one that was hanging out with us at the lodge my first trip. Very cool animals. Good thing you didn't shoot it thinking it was a jackal. Did Marius see it?

 

[Ridgewalker]

"JA Hunter"...good find!
Looking forward to more of your report!

 

[CAustin]

Keep it coming sir! That big open pit mine had to be interesting to see!

 

[adgunner]

I think you saw something a little more special buddy:

Me thinks it is an Aardwolf
View attachment 199024
View attachment 199023

Yup, you are most definitely right, I must look closer in the future before I accept verbatim my camera crew interpretation, aka the girls!

 

[adgunner]

Yup agreed, looks like an aardwolf to me. We had one that was hanging out with us at the lodge my first trip. Very cool animals. Good thing you didn't shoot it thinking it was a jackal. Did Marius see it?

No, we were not there at all just the girls, should have looked closer at the pic before I posted there pic
Kinda wish I had been there to see it, that would have been a first for me.

 

[BRICKBURN]

Yup, you are most definitely right, I must look closer in the future before I accept verbatim my camera crew interpretation, aka the girls!

Just have them scream "Dog" and sort it out later.

 

[BRICKBURN]

No, we were not there at all just the girls, should have looked closer at the pic before I posted there pic
Kinda wish I had been there to see it, that would have been a first for me.

My encounter with an Aardwolf has been the closest I have stalked in on a sleeping critter in Africa. They are pretty cool critters.

 

[rinehart0050]

Great report so far. Looking forward to the rest

 

[RogerHeintzman]

Aardwolf on quota shall we come across one. Checked with USFW and they are importable. Fingers crossed.

 

[Royal27]

Marius is the man.

And that Aardwolf pic really is cool. That's an animal that I haven't seen and would love to.

 

[adgunner]

The next day began with a steep climb where we hoped to spot the warthog we had seen the day before. Sure enough, Marius picked him up and we were on our way down the hill to commence the stalk.

Now having spent most of my life in the Army I have seen some serious obstacles to movement and some wicked barbed wire, but nothing compares to blackthorns, they go in and hook you so that you can’t pull them out (and I thought the East Cape was bad). We continued on after clearing the obstacle and got downwind of the Warthog. We stalked in closely and up went the sticks. We waited for him to turn broadside and I pulled the trigger and the shot rang out. I look up and see a very large Warthog looking confused and unharmed and let fly again. The Warthog trots off seemingly none the worse for wear, although Marius isn’t quite convinced and we do conduct a search but to no avail. A trip to the range confirms I was shooting high and we readjust the scope. Marius cuts me some slack on this shot and only mildly comments on my shooting ability to start out this trip. I’ll give him more reasons to doubt my marksmanship later

The next morning we are up early and head out in pursuit of a lioness.

We start out by trying to cut some fresh spoor with the bakkie, but to no avail. We next head up into some hills that lead to a sheltered valley hoping to spot lions below, but are instead treated to mountain reedbuck and rhino tracks as we continue our search from on high.

 

[adgunner]

Thwarted in our efforts to spot a lioness we head back down and resume the search with the bakkie looking for fresh spoor. We spot the tracks and our tracker quickly indicates three lionesses that are lying up after likely having fed on a giraffe kill they had found earlier. We come up to them quickly and realize that there are indeed three lionesses in this group and we expect that they will run as we approach. Nothing doing, these three stand their ground immediately. The sticks go up and I hear a comment between the PHs that this is as close as we get, that lioness will be here in a second and a half if she wants to charge.

As if the adrenaline wasn’t at full throttle already it was certainly flowing now at that comment. The lioness now moves to the left towards her two companions and when she stops I fire. The shot hits high and she goes down, but not out. Almost immediately, the other two lions attack her, it takes the sound of our approaching bakkie (summoned after the shot) to drive the other two lions away and I follow up with another shot. My emotions are all over the place as we approach, upset at my shooting, non-believing that I had taken a lioness, amazed at the reaction of the other lionesses to name but a few.

As I approached, it started to hit home that I had taken my lioness and I was glad of the necessity to quickly load her as the rest of the lionesses had not moved off too far, as unashamedly my emotions were overflowing and I could now focus on the task at hand.

 

[Wheels]

Looking forward to the rest of the report adgunner.

The history and old photos of the kimberly mine are pretty amazing to see and read about. Glad you were able to visit the big hole. Trips are much more meaningful if you can fit in a few days to visit battlefield and historical sites of the country you are in. Glad you were able to do this with Marius.

 

[Nyati]

Congrats for your lioness !

The big hole is really something to experience, they have a platform from which you can look into it, and it is much larger than you can imagine from the pictures.

 

[Pheroze]

Wow, it certainly unfolded quickly! Is it unusual for the other two to attack like that?

 

[Redruff]

Congratulations on your lioness. Sure gets the blood flowing and the adrenaline going eh!!!

R.