SOUTH AFRICA: My First Safari With KMG Eastern Cape

[frog stealer]

Hey guys, I went on my first safari during the first week in May, but have been too busy to put together a hunting report. But, as the saying goes...better late than never! I'll start off by first by saying that Marius and all the guys at KMG safaris were great...Loew, my PH worked his ass (and mine) off trying to find the best trophies in the area. He also did a great job spotting animals and telling me what they were, which was always a nice learning experience.

I'll give a brief summary of each hunt, followed by a picture of the trophy. I'm not sure how much content we are limited to per post, so I'll post a summary of each hunt in separate replies.

Duiker

After landing in Port Elizabeth on Saturday afternoon, Marius picked me and two other hunters up from the airport, and took us to the hunting lodge. After I got settled in, we all went to the shooting range to make sure our rifles were sighted in, which was good, because both of my rifles were shooting way too high...so I lowered the point of impact a bit, and everything was fine. When we finished sighting in, Loew, my PH asked if I wanted to start hunting right away, because it was a beautiful afternoon, and he thought I'd rather do that then go back to the lodge and sit. We started walking down the side of a mountain and started seeing animals at the bottom of a valley. As we watched, sitting about 100 yards above the valley, I was amazed at all the game that continued to poor into it...at first we saw a few warthogs and a smaller bushbuck, and then eventually a nice duiker walked into the clearing, Loew threw up the sticks, and I shot once...the duiker ran to the left very fast, and I though I missed him at first, because I wasn't expecting this small animal to get up after being hit from a 7x57. But, turns out he only ran about 30 yds after taking a perfect hit to his chest. What a great first night! Eland is next...

 

[frog stealer]

Eland

The next morning, my first full day of hunting, Loew and I drove to another farm in search of a large bull eland he had been noticing in the previous weeks before my arrival. We parked the truck and started hiking up the side of a large hill. The brush on the side of this hill was fairly dense, but I'm pretty sure we were making it through by using the trails that these massive animals had already made. Loew spotted a herd of eland out in a field adjacent to the brush we were hiking through. We continued to use the brush as cover and tried to get closer to the heard to see if there was any bulls. After about an hour or so of stalking through the dense brush and popping out into the fields to glass the heard, I finally got my chance when the large bull made an appearance at about 75 yards right behind us, and we were glassing a heard in the opposite direction. Everything then happened so fast! I had a split second to make a shot, and being so excited about seeing this massive animal in front of me (and being a little out of breath from walking through the thick brush), I completely flubbed my shot, and hit him farther back in his lungs than I wanted. He took off at the shot, and I then took a shot at him as he was running away. I'm glad I did...I hit him with my .416 Rem in his right hip as he was running away, and that put him down. The 300 grain barnes TSX broke his right hip, and made it all the way into his chest cavity. The skinners eventually found that bullet lodged near his skin on the front of his chest. It showed a perfect "X" just like the barnes advertisements. What a huge animal! Loew estimated his weight to be around 1700 pounds, what a trophy! I'm glad I made the decision to go with a large rifle...I knew I wasn't going to get perfect broadside opportunities, and I'm glad I took a rifle with the ability to penetrate on those not so ideal shots. Had I been using a smaller rifle, that day probably would have been much longer!

 

[frog stealer]

Impala

On the second full day of hunting, we decided to go after an impala. We spent an entire morning of hiking through hilly terrain and glassing many heards, but we were only seeing immature males. I wanted to try and hold out for a more mature animal. At about 9 am, as we were hiking through the small openings and glassing around, I had this male impala just about jump into my lap. Loew threw up the sticks, and I had a split second to get the shot off. He was facing directly towards me at about maybe 20 yards, and my 140 grain barnes TSX out of my 7x57 hit him square in the chest. It was a perfect heart shot, and he went 10 yards and dropped. What a hunt! My advice to anyone preparing for hunting over here is to practice these quick snap shots, you just never know when an opportunity will present itself! Next up, kudu.

 

[frog stealer]

Kudu

After getting my impala in the morning, Loew and I set off to try and find a nice kudu bull. Little did I know that this would be by far the hardest species to hunt of my entire trip. Kudu hunting in the eastern cape consists of climbing to the top of a mountain, and glassing the valleys all day long. We did this numerous times, finding only immature bulls and cows. On the third day of doing this, we finally got our break. Loew and I were hiking on the side of a mountain trying to find a good vantage point to glass some valleys, when Loew all of the sudden stopped in his tracks, and told me to freeze...after about 2 minutes, and kudu calf walked past us, within about 7 yards. It was a very good thing it was a calf, because if it would have been an older animal, the hold heard would of been gone in an instant. Once the calf got out of earshot from us, we could hear more of them feeding on the side of the mountain below us. The brush there was so dense, I could only see about 10 feet on all sides of me. All of the sudden, Loew spotted a large bull within a heard of about 5 cows. We more or less ran to another vantage point so that we could ambush them as they fed towards us. Long story short, that didn't happen. They must have stopped and started to rest in the shade. Then, Loew had an idea to sneak over to the mountain side across the valley from where we were, to see if we could just wait them out until they started to move again. So we quickly started hiking to the far mountain side, and along the way, we bumped into a porcupine. Holy crap, those things are scary compared to what we have in the states! I'd say about twice the size, and much larger quills! After we made it up the other side of the mountain, we found a nice vantage point, and started to wait them out. Sure enough, after only about 5 minutes, my lungs still burning from the hike up, the large bull began to move. I made three horrible shots on him from about 200 yards, from the next mountain over...I'll take the blame for every one of them, seeing that big kudu, in combination with being out of breath, just didn't help my shooting. The first shot was low in the brisket area, the second (and I believe the one that put him down) was just under the top of his back, possibly into his spine, and the third shot hit him in the high should area. But, as luck would have it, I managed to get him down right away. What a beautiful animal! We had to call in four other guys to help carry him off the mountainside to an area where we had road access. What a great hunt, I worked my ass off for him, and with Loew's quick decision making, I ended up getting a very nice eastern cape kudu!

 

[BRICKBURN]

Always better late than never!
Enjoying the report thus far.

 

[billc]

That was a great report and some awesome trophy's taken with kmg.That eland is a dream bull by the way it looks in the picture.All the animals look top shelf to.

 

[frog stealer]

Thanks guys for your kind responses!

 

[Royal27]

Great animals, great story, and I love the Eland too. I've decided that no mop, no shoot, for me. That one has a MOP!!!

And my wife wants a full body mount porcupine, but for that Kudu she would have to wait!

 

[adgunner]

Congrats on a great hunt at KMG. Awesome animals, especially that Eland. 12 days till i head back to KMG. This time i will be hunting with Loew as well. Once again, congrats on some fine animals and thanks for taking the time to write it up and share.

 

[Nyati]

Beautiful eland, frog stealer, congrats for your hunt and thanks for sharing !

 

[frog stealer]

Congrats on a great hunt at KMG. Awesome animals, especially that Eland. 12 days till i head back to KMG. This time i will be hunting with Loew as well. Once again, congrats on some fine animals and thanks for taking the time to write it up and share.

Good luck adgunner...I'm sure Loew will do a good job finding the big ones! Hopefully their new lodge has utility power by now...we had to use diesel generators, which worked fine anyways.

 

[Wheels]

Congratulations on your first hunt.

Thanks for the report and photos.

All the best.

 

[enysse]

Thanks for the hunt report, I love your rifle choices! Hunting the East Cape is interesting for sure.

 

[tay50]

Frog Stealar,
I was hunting with Marius May 21 to 29 and about the third day or so the power was hooked up and no more generator noise. The boys at KMG do a great job at making hunters happy, looks like you had some good luck, as did I. I want an Eland like yours and most likely will be on my wish list my next trip.

 

[frog stealer]

Frog Stealar,
I was hunting with Marius May 21 to 29 and about the third day or so the power was hooked up and no more generator noise. The boys at KMG do a great job at making hunters happy, looks like you had some good luck, as did I. I want an Eland like yours and most likely will be on my wish list my next trip.

Tay, good to hear they got the power turned on...and an eland will make an excellent reason to go back there! If we needed them anyways!

 

[HuntingGold]

We want to hear a little more... I've been getting the itch to go back and look for an oribi with Marius.

 

[frog stealer]

We want to hear a little more... I've been getting the itch to go back and look for an oribi with Marius.

Hunting Gold, shoot me a pm, I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you have!

 

[ActionBob]

Thanks for the report. Great Trophies, I really like the Eland!

 

[Buff-Buster]

Great trip and hunt report Frog Stealer! Like everyone has noted ....that Eland is a "toad"!!!!! Well done.

 

[archer36]

Congrats on a great hunt!