SOUTH AFRICA: LJ SAFARIS - Excellent Hunt In All Aspects

[npm352]

Country: South Africa, June 2023
Outfitter: @LJ SAFARIS
PH: Juan and Lauren Stander
Areas: Eastern Cape Province- Stormberg Mountains Concession and Coastal Concessions (we hunted several, including Juan and Lauren's farm, and one day passed through 8-9 different properties chasing hounds that were chasing a bushpig boar...more on that adventure later)
This trip was a couple's trip with a buddy and our spouses.
Animals pursued: vaal rhebuck, blue duiker, bushpig, caracal, impala, zebra, mountain reedbuck, warthog, springbok, nyala, bushbuck. (My buddy 's bag was different but I'm focusing on mine for this review)

As an intro, I'll say a little about myself and my frame of reference. This was my eighth African safari, and perhaps my 20th overseas hunt. I've had a enough experience to have a good view, but certainly not as much as some on this forum. I am a writer for a few magazines as a side job, and this hunt will produce several interesting stories. For this review, I'll go into more detail in later posts, but this first post will show my overall impressions.

LJ Safaris was just excellent in all aspects.

Juan and Lauren are not only great hunters, but they were just pleasant people to spend a week with.

This was my wife's first African hunt with me. She loved the trip. Some days, the wives would join us hunting, other times they would read, drink coffee, and enjoy the lodging or go for a jog. When we were in the coastal concession, they even slipped away for a massage and later a game drive...and we snuck in a walk on the beach between morning and evening hunts.

Juan and Lauren's set up was perfect for hunting with two hunters. My buddy and I were able to hunt together when we wanted, but when we pursued specialized animals like blue duiker, caracal or bushpig, for instance, we split up and each of us had either Juan or Lauren as our PH.

Juan has a very aggressive hunting style, which is exactly how my buddy and I like to hunt. He was excellent at quickly planning and executing successful stalks.

Both my friend and I used Juan and Lauren's firearms. They had matching .300 win mags with suppressors. They were both accurate and functioned well. I also borrowed a side-by-side shotgun from Lauren for some hunts. They only charged us for ammo, which we thought was more than fair. When we return to hunt with them again, we will likely borrow their firearms again as they performed well for us.

Food: I'll be the first to admit that if the hunting is good, I am fine eating PBJs and drinking water. I have never had a bad meal on any safari. I don't think I've had a meal that wasn't good. However, I rate the food and cooking on this safari as the best in variety and taste.

I used AH.com for a few references before booking. They had great things to say, but they really communicated that LJ Safaris was a special operation. I have to agree. Juan and Lauren really did everything possible to make the hunt enjoyable.

I told Juan that I really like hunting behind hounds...so he was able to arrange hounds for blue duiker, caracal and bushpig. These was awesome hunts.

We spent some time on Juan and Lauren's farm. The trophy quality was good with a high amount of mature animals. They manage it conservatively, which showed.

However, the hunt began with the pursuit of vaal rhebuck in the Stormberg Mountains. After chasing those critters, I rate them as probably the neatest plains game animal I've pursued.

I'll continue later. I have a scouting trip for a western US tag I drew, then I'll continue.

Much more to come...

 

[Smitty]

Looking forward to your report . I love to read everyone's experiences. You are off to a good start, thank you!

 

[npm352]

Thanks!

 

[BRICKBURN]

Good luck scouting.
Thanks for the report thus far. Keep it coming.

 

[Firebird]

Good luck scouting, eager to read more on this report. Have researched this ph duo in the past and found nothing but good even from other another ph I spoke with. Look forward to your stories.

 

[gillettehunter]

Great start. I, too enjoy Vaahl Rhebuck hunting. I've taken 2 and and have enjoyed hunting them a great deal. Interesting and shy animals. Looking forward to reading more.
Bruce

 

[npm352]

Good luck scouting.
Thanks for the report thus far. Keep it coming.

Thank you

 

[npm352]

Good luck scouting, eager to read more on this report. Have researched this ph duo in the past and found nothing but good even from other another ph I spoke with. Look forward to your stories.

Similar experience before, and having experienced them I see why. Truly a special operation.

 

[Mekaniks]

Awesome so far! Thank you for taking us along, can't wait for the rest!

 

[npm352]

Great start. I, too enjoy Vaahl Rhebuck hunting. I've taken 2 and and have enjoyed hunting them a great deal. Interesting and shy animals. Looking forward to reading more.
Bruce

Thanks Bruce. They quickly became one of, if not my favorite plains game animal.

 

[jpr9954]

I am really interested in hearing all the details of your hunt with Juan and Lauren. I have booked a hunt with them for June 2024. What I'm reading so far is really confirming my choice to go with them.

 

[Tally-Ho HUNTING SAFARIS]

Great outfitter and phs
They know their skills and are extrememly professional

 

[FallowJaeger]

Great report, can’t wait to see more of your hunt and pictures.

 

[FallowJaeger]

This is fantastic, what a great hunt. Glad your wife got to enjoy it. What made you pick LJ Hunting Safaris this time over other outfits?

 

[npm352]

This is fantastic, what a great hunt. Glad your wife got to enjoy it. What made you pick LJ Hunting Safaris this time over other outfits?

Great question. He offered a hunt for animals I was really interested in at a very good price. Often, there aren't packages for some of the less common, more obscure species.

I checked with a couple guys on hear who said exceptional things about Juan and Lauren. They had been on a good amount of hunts as well, and I noticed that they though the outfit was a special one.

It worked out well.

 

[npm352]

We flew into JNB. We stayed in Johannesburg at Afton Guest House. I hadn't been there since my first safari in 2005. Place was great then, and even better now. My wife was like, "we should just stay here another day and rest?"

"Haha, no. Let's go hunting," I said.

I eyeballed the vaal rhebuck on the left of the picture and went to bed.

We flew to Port Elizabeth early the next morning.

 

[npm352]

Juan picked us up, and we met up with Lauren and headed towards the Stormberg Mountains.

It was nice having access to two vehicles and PHs throughout the hunt.

We wanted to hunt together when possible, but knew it wasn't practical for every species.

On the way, we stopped a neat restaurant in the mountains and had a nice meal in a cool setting.

We figured it was a travel day. But at lunch, Juan mentioned the possibility of hunting that evening.

Me and my buddy grinned and we headed out.

 

[npm352]

Mountain camp was simple and clean, just as Juan described. We loved it. Anything more would have been out of place in this remote and rustic setting.

We checked our rifles, matching .300 win mags with suppressors. They were both on.

 

[npm352]

We left camp and set up to glass on a mountain top. We saw animals going in, but were looking for vaalies and and mountain reedbuck.

My buddy is outer-worldly behind glass. He spotted two herds of animals quickly after setting up. One were vaal rhebuck on the next mountain. The other appeared to also be vaalies, but they were on the next planet.

We made our way to the adjacent mountain, got within range but the ram was small.
We headed towards the other herd.
They had shifted positions. I tapped on the roof when I saw what I thought was the back of a grey animal just over a rise.
"I think I saw them. Not sure what it was, but I think they were from the herd we spotted from the top. Maybe we can pull up and we can hike over to check," I told Juan. He agreed.

We made our move, crested the ridge, and they were right there.

I put my binos up and was looking at a giant vaalie.
He was close and on high alert.
Juan put the sticks up.

 

[npm352]

I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I wounded a nine-inch rhebuck on the first evening (day zero, because we hunted the afternoon of travel day). I was standing on the sticks in the wind, but made a bad shot at an alert, quartering-to ram. He ran over the rise at the shot. We ran over and he was laying down, but got up, ran 20 yards, fell over, got up and ran another 40 yards and laid in the grass. His shoulder was covered in blood and his front leg was dangling and flapping. We could see his horns and the top of his head and ears in the grass. We watched him a while, but weren’t sure where his body was. We moved closer slowly, hoping he’d just stand up and I could hit him again. Well, eventually he got up, but was running hard and fast, his front leg still dangling. After initially falling down three times within the first 100 yards of the shot, the damn thing got up and ran over 800 yards in a dead sprint over this big mesa and dropped off the other side. We looked the rest of that evening and the first half of the next day without finding any blood or an animal. The area it went was so thick you’d pretty much have to trip over it to find it if it was laying dead. I’ve made a couple less than stellar shots in Africa, but this was the first animal I was unable to recover, and I think the first rifle-shot animal I’ve hit and not been able to find. I felt sick about it.


Juan offered the opportunity to hunt another at a significantly reduced price, which was very nice of him. I did eventually get a mature male. I would rate the Vaal Rhebuck as one of the greatest, most challenging game animals I have ever hunted.