SOUTH AFRICA: Postoak - Limpopo - 2021 - Trip Report Tally-Ho HUNTING SAFARIS & DAVE FREEBURN SAFARIS

[postoak]

I was very quiet pre-trip this year because I really wasn't confident it would happen until I got my good Covid-19 test a couple of days before I took off on Saturday 7/31. As it happens everything went pretty well. But post trip I've been quiet because as soon as I arrived back in the East Texas Piney Woods, I suffered a bad allergy attack that had me incapacitated for several days. It's only when I've been away a couple of weeks that I realize what a soupy, moldy environment I live in!

Trip details:

Since I missed my trip to Tallyho in 2020, I decided to double up this year and scheduled a follow-on 5 day hunt for a white rhino with Dave Freeburn. I hunted Tallyho for 8 days.

Animals on my menu:

Cape Buf
Greater Kudu
Gray Duiker
Tsessebe
White Rhino

Other animals I took:

A second kudu
Roan
Warthog
Nyala
Waterbuck
Eland

Rifles and Calibers:

Weatherby Vanguard S2 .300 Win Mag with 3x9 Meopta
Load 180 grain Barnes TTSX at 3050 fps

Winchester Model 70 .416 Rem. Mag with 2x7 Redfield
Load 400 grain Hornady DGX (revised type) at 2400 fps

Outfitters/locations

Tallyho Hunting Safaris outside Alldays in north-central Limpopo about 20 miles from the Zimbabwe border.
Owner/ head PH Stuart Williams
Asst. PH Rudi Nels
Tracker/Spotter/Driver: Masilo
Tracker/Spotter/Driver/head Skinner Chedwick
Chef Kharen (sp?) (male)
Also with us was Stuarts' 19 y/o daughter Caitlin who went out with us on most trips and also videoed.
Dogs along, Quattro, Blaser, and Remington

Dave Freeburn Hunting Safaris outside Dwalboom in north-west Limpopo actually backing on to the Botswana border.
Owner/head PH Dave Freeburn
Asst. PH 1 Reinhardt
Asst. PH 2 Paul
Tracker 1 John
Tracker 2 a different John
Dogs along Ruger and Kimber
Cook Sidney (male)

Flights: Via Quatar Airways from Houston to Doha with an 8 hour layover and then on to JNB. The first leg was about 15 hours and the second about 8 hours. I flew business class which is equal to first class in other airlines I've flown and I can't stress enough how important this was in making the travel part non-fatiguing.

To be continued...

 

[BRICKBURN]

Glad you have recovered from your soup allergy. I am looking forward to the next instalment.

 

[postoak]

I had one issue at the beginning. When I arrived at the Qatar desk in Houston, they had no record of my travel agent having sent them paperwork on firearms. I thought I might have to have my wife turn around and come pick them up but the Qatar people hustled and after about 40 minutes I was able to check the rifles in with TSA. I was sweating it for a brief while though. I'm not sure what went wrong as my travel agent assured me she had filed the relevant documentation.

 

[postoak]

I'm still struggling with uploading videos and photos.

I had a 9 hour layover in Doha. I took a shower and got a foot massage at a "Be Relax" franchise in the airport and found my way to the Business lounge. It is huge and super-nice. It is on its own floor and I think it is larger than the entire international terminal in Houston. It has a large reflection pool with fountains and I was very impressed. I had a book to read and time went by fast.

Arriving in JNB I was met in arrivals by a Rifle Permits lady whose name I didn't catch along with her side kick, Marius, who used to drive for the Afton House, and, of course Stuart Williams. Getting firearms through was no problem and we took the bags out to the bakkie. Inside it was Stuart's daughter Caitlin and her dog, a young springer spaniel female, named Remington.

The 4 hour drive to Alldays was uneventful with me dozing part of the way. We stopped to eat and I also bought a wristwatch because I had left mine at home. I am idiotically pleased with this cheap wristwatch because it is so thin and light and easy to read. I've never owned a black dial/white hands watch before. Aesthetically they aren't pleasing to me but they are very practical.

It was pretty late at the lodge when we arrived so that first day we just got my rifles sighted-in and made an early night of it. Actually, every night was an early night. We usually retired at 8:30 for a 6 AM wakeup and 6:30 departure.

 

[kdenn]

Keep it coming, these reports are great for us waiting for our own opportunity to hunt in Africa.

 

[postoak]

I was very excited the next morning as we headed out in the bakkie at 6:30. August is their January so I was a bit cold all day and I don't think I ever took off my jacket. On the menu was buffalo. We drove around for a while and came across some fresh dung in the road so we piled out and Masilo began tracking. We went along the trail for about 3/4 mile and then after Rudi and Masilo consulted we gave that up and returned to the truck. Next we came upon a herd of about a dozen animals but no mature bulls at about 50 meters in the bush. This was my first look at buffalo on this trip although I had seen them before.

We drove back to the lodge for lunch and a nap and then headed back out around 2 PM. About an hour later Stuart stopped the truck. The crew could see a buffalo bull in the dipping and rising road about 1000 meters ahead. I saw nothing, but a stalk was quickly planned. Rudi, I, and Caitlin would approach about 5 meters off the side of the road to get closer. Every so often Rudi would sneak a look onto the road to make sure the bull was still in place. As we got closer we began crawling with Caitlin manning the video camera and duckwalking (ah the flexibility of youth!). Eventually we got to about 100 meters and Rudi was preparing to move the sticks into the road when I asked if we could closer so we crawled another 20 meters up. I asked if we could get still closer (twice) but Rudi said the bull would go, so he lowered the sticks for a sitting position and pushed them into the road and slowly got alongside them and then I slid on my side in behind them.

At this point I still hadn't seen the bull but once I looked through the scope it was obviously very clear at 7x. I aimed and fired -- and blew the shot! How, I'll never know but the shot went high and to the left striking the bull in the neck just in front of the shoulder and dropping it instantly. Closing the distance, I put in three more killing shots. And so it was done. I've watched dozens of buffalo stalks and never imagined my first stalk would be a crawling one but it was okay. The Hornady DGX went cleanly through the neck. The follow-up shots flattened against the underside of the spine.

So ended day one.

 

[postoak]

 

[postoak]

At Doha air terminal.

 

[postoak]

Around the lodge:

 

[postoak]

 

[postoak]

I forgot to mention that Rudi and Caitlin are dating.

 

[postoak]

Blaser.

 

[postoak]

Remmy and Quattro.

 

[BRICKBURN]

View attachment 419759

They can't be all bad... they own a Springer.

 

[postoak]

I really like Springers. If I were to get a dog I'd seriously consider getting one.

 

[postoak]

I wanted to talk a bit about Limpopo flora. I really like the area around Alldays. Imagine mostly, but not quite, flat land covered with grass 2 feet tall. Then dot it with shrubs and bushes from 2 to 5 feet tall. Next, scrub trees up to 15 feet, and finally Marula trees up to 30 feet. There are constant openings with only the grass from 10 meters to 300 meters length (that big being uncommon, though) and 10 meters width. So, you can always wind your way forward and when you pass from one clearing to the next you just have to push aside a few thorn branches. It's excellent for stalking.

At Dwalboom, 4 1/2 hours to the west we hunted three different properties and it wasn't as much to my liking but okay. One property consisted of acacia thickets which really couldn't be pushed through or seen through. You have to shoot on the road in an area like this or on a watering hole. It looked to me like some areas had been cleared out a couple of hundred yards on each side of the roads with no acacia thickets. A second area was even worse. It consisted of shrubs and bushes up to 8 feet with the only means of passage being game trails. This was hopeless to hunt, except maybe for elephant, which were there. The third property was somewhere in between the other two.

I'd be interested to know what the eastern side of the Limpopo is like.

 

[postoak]

I also want to talk about a subject that is somewhat unpleasant for outfitters and the industry in general. This is that game farm hunting has a certain artificiality to it, more so in South Africa than Namibia, but there too. If you are experienced you'll see pastures where animals are raised and then released into larger areas, or "hunting" areas of a few hundred hectares (actually, if the bush is thick these areas can be somewhat difficult to hunt), and areas where there are sort of earthen unloading docks for animals. Also, on a large property where certain species are released, some of them are used to man and will stand 20 - 50 meters off the side of the road and just watch as the bakkie rolls by. But this is species specific. Sable, for instance can be pretty "tame" whereas roan tend to be pretty cautious even when raised and released.

I've been to RSA four times and Namibia twice and not one of the properties didn't show some signs of these things going on, but this is customer driven, I suppose. Hunters want one stop shopping where they can get many species on one trip.

I will say that the property that had the least of these things was Ozondjahe in northern Namibia which is owned by Jerome's father. But again, it doesn't have the wide variety of species that other places have.

None of the above is complaining, just pointing out how things are now.

 

[postoak]

On day 2 of hunting, with the buffalo in the salt, my hunting became considerably easier, although kudu and tsessebe and duiker were my most desired species. We started the day driving along the roads but around 9:30 or so Rudi got us out of the vehicle about a Km from a watering hole to do a stalk. He would check ahead every once in a while whereas I was just trying to keep up (we were walking about 3 1/2 mph for some reason). At one stop he stiffened and whispered "kudu bull" and we lowered our pace considerably. When it gets like this I am mainly struggling to not step on anything that will make noise. Eventually he set the sticks up in the road and signaled for me to get set up, wich I did. I could see the bull facing left and not in a hurry to go anywhere. I asked the distance and he range-finded it as 154 meters. I aimed for the shoulder and half way up and squeezed the trigger -- and the bull dropped dead, just as the buffalo the day before had. As we walked up I could see I had hit on the shoulder alright, but up higher. Still, as most of you will know will usually bring an animal for good. I am asking that you experts throw out some numbers as far as length is concerned. I'll wait 24 hours to give an answer.

 

[postoak]

Wednesday, day 2, continued

We made the two or three mile drive to the "main house" where the animals are skinned, caped, etc. to drop off my kudu and then picked up the hunt. (Tallyho used to be two ranches. One ranch house is now the lodge and the other ranch house is the headquarters, I guess). Only about 1 or 2 km down the road and we came across a nice mature roan bull. Remember, this place has a 300 acre heavily bushed up "pen" where they raise roan and springbuck. At one time, they sold the roan but after that market crashed they just release them into the main body of the place. Why, I don't know, as this place has a ton of roan wandering around. But they are skittish, even so. This animal wasn't however and stood about 50 meters away looking at us. Even so, I was afraid to chance getting down and setting up the sticks so I fired offhand standing in the truck bed. For some reason, my feet weren't right and I almost fell down after the shot. The bull ran about 30 meters and came crashing down. I reloaded and was covering him -- as much of him as I could see anyway -- when he jumped up and took off too quickly for me to feel comfortable throwing a shot after him.

I jumped down and Stuart and I went after him. After about 75 meters, Stuart set up the sticks and I could see him on the other side of some screening bushes. I could not tell anything about which way he was standing, or anything, really but felt it was important to get another bullet into him so fired and he came down for good. This second shot was a forward gut shot, or possibly liver. It did the trick though. I put a finishing shot behind the shoulder into him and this bullet was recovered.

My first shot was a low neck shot, but apparently it shocked its nervous system enough to bring him down temporarily.

 

[postoak]

We spent the afternoon driving around but saw nothing I was after.