Day 7 (April 15)
With the serval and brown hyena out of the way, most of the pressure was off. We still had a genet and a wildcat to find, but that was pretty much it for the nocturnal animals. Which meant horizons had to be expanded.
I have taken a Chobe bushbuck as well as a Cape bushbuck, so when I heard there was a Limpopo bushbuck, it seemed that I had an obligation to look for one.
Richard has access to an old dairy property not far from his farm, which has ideal bushbuck habitat. Water and riverine cover, with lots of tall grass and reeds. We decided to go there and see if we could find a Limpopo bushbuck.
We arrived at the property in the late afternoon, and immediately began to see bushbuck. Females, young males, and the odd older male. Really, this was prime bushbuck country, and we could afford to be selective. At one point, Jimmy, our skinner, said he’d seen a male bushbuck in the grass, not far from the truck. We couldn’t see anything, but he kept insisting it was there. Suddenly we saw grass move, and looking down closely, we saw a male bushbuck actually crawling close to the ground! We followed him for a bit, until he was someway in front of us, at which point he jumped up and ran off. Really interesting to see the strategy to avoid us.
Not long after, we spotted a beautiful old male, with quite impressive horns. He had seen us, but seemed to think that if he stood perfectly still, we wouldn’t see him. Not a great survival strategy, especially when there is still shooting light. I grabbed my .300, and the triple shock on the shoulder dropped him within five yards of where he was standing. A really delightful trophy.
After bagging the bushbuck, we decided to stay at the Dairy and spotlight there. We found a nice open spot and had our dinner, and waited for the sun to go down. Sunset is really a lovely time in Africa.
Once it was suitably dark, we began by calling, but after an hour of no success, we began to drive and spotlight. We found lots of animals, but we weren’t hunting impala, nyala or any other antelope at night! At one point, around 10 pm, we passed some trees that opened to my left, down towards a pond (a “dam” in African parlance). Suddenly I was told to grab my gun. “Bush pigs!" said John. John had moved the light off the pigs for an instant, but I quickly got the gun up, and he brought the light back on to them. One started to run, but two were still looking at me. I shot for center of mass on the “middle” one, and saw it drop on the spot!
When we got to the dead bush pig, we saw that is was a boar – again, a stroke of luck, because I didn’t have time to decide which one might have been the bore. The solid bullet had entered the skull and travelled the length of the body, exiting in the rear. Again, I have to say I felt luck had been with me. The shot was incredibly quick, the shooting rest wasn’t the best, the light wasn’t great, and yet the bullet went where I wanted it to go. I’ll take it.
We loaded up the bush pig. Both John and I were really pleased – again, we’d tried for so long to get a bush pig, and now we had two in the space of a couple of days. I did think it was interesting that there was never any doubt in John's mind that I would shoot a second bush pig. I think we've hunted together for too long (I did throw him for a loop by not shooting the leopard when I had it in my sights, but you have to keep these PH's on their toes).
We then decided it was time to start heading back to the house, so I pretty much put my rifle away. John kept spotlighting, because that’s what he does when he has a spotlight in his hand, I guess. Suddenly – it’s always suddenly – he said "get the shotgun! Quick!"
I grabbed his shotgun – a CZ over/under 12 gauge, which he had brought. Again, I had no idea why I should be grabbing a shotgun, but I do what I’m told without asking questions. My wife has trained me well. John pointed the spotlight at a small animal that was moving at a reasonable pace along the road. “Genet”. Say no more. I took the shot. And missed, more or less. I can hit a bush pig at 80 yards in the dark with a .375, and I miss a genet at 20 yards with a shotgun. What can you say?
The genet by now was off the road in some thick grass, and I gave him the other barrel. This time, a hit. He stopped where I shot. A relief after the first shot. John kept shining the light as Flippie and I got out of the truck to have a look at this thing, and at that moment, my dead genet came back to life, and began to move, not quickly, but with purpose, away from us.
You have to understand that outside of the beam of the light, it was pitch black. I didn’t have a flashlight because John had been shining the spotlight. But now the genet had gone where he couldn’t spotlight, and we couldn’t see anything. I ran back to the bakkie and got my headlamp, and Flippie got his flashlight, as did John. We ran back to where we had last seen the genet, and began to look around. Within a few seconds, Flippie saw it, and we all came over. As we shone the lights, it began to move again, and ran (well, walked quickly) into a thicket of thorns. A real thicket. Entirely made of thorn bushes. At this point, we circled the thicket, which was really more of a pile of thorns, about 5 feet wide by 10 feet long and about 5 feet high, with a tree in the middle. We could see the beady eyes of the genet in the pile, but we had no way to get in there.
John ran back to the truck to get the shooting sticks – why was a mystery to just then, because I had no gun, and I thought that shooting him with a .375 at a distance of four feet might just be overkill. I asked what he was going to with them, and he said, “Bash his skull in.” Right. Why didn’t I think of that? So John starts to poke the sticks into the thorns, trying to get the genet, which is clearly in some trouble, but not yet dead. This wasn’t working at all – all he was doing was making the animal move away from the sticks.
I won’t relate exactly how we brought this somewhat comical (if you weren’t the genet) standoff to an end, but we did, finally putting an end to the poor thing’s suffering. Thank you Flippie.
Now cane the unenviable task of retrieving the genet. We all looked at each other, and I finally said, “It’s my fault, I’ll go in there,” but much to my relief, John insisted he would do it. I was already suffering from assorted cuts caused by thorns, but I have to say John’s tolerance for pain impressed me. He was still pulling thorns from his arms and underneath his fingernails the next day. Thank you John.
Once we had the little critter out and I could get a good look at him, I said he appeared to be a bit small, but of course, what do I know about genets? This was the first one I’d seen up close. John thought it was a large spotted genet, while Flippie argued that it was a small spotted genet, the large spotted genet apparently being restricted to the Eastern Cape (in his opinion). This went back and forth for a bit, when I decided to settle the argument. He was a large, small spotted genet, simply because if he was a large spotted genet then he would be a small, large spotted genet, and I would much rather have shot a large version of the small spotted genet than a small version of the large spotted genet. Got it?
At this point we had a bushbuck, a bush pig and a large, small spotted genet on the truck. Well, you could be forgiven for missing the genet between the other two animals, but we did have three. Definitely time to head back, and so off we went.
A very productive visit to the Dairy.
