This is to give you a glimpse of what its like to walk, stalk and truely HUNT in all aspects of the word…
We were fortunate enough to go on a hunt recently in the Northern parts of Gauteng Province (RSA) bordering on the Limpopo Province (Ex-Northern Transvaal).
We were 3 Hunters accompanied by our wives, Thys/Elsabé, David/Christine and myself/Nandi. Quite a historic event in itself. We arrived on the Thursday early afternoon after which we unpacked and headed for the shooting range to ensure our rifles were still throwing the lead where they should… Common practice at any established and respected game farm.
Thereafter we headed into the bush, mainly looking for Impala, Kudu, Blue Wildebeest and Warthog.
There are many ways of Hunting game, you can drive around and look for game and then shoot from the vehicle however this is frowned upon as it is unethical unless the hunter is disabled of course. Then you can walk and stalk from camp or you can drive to a specified place on the farm and walk back to camp… We prefer the last.
Walking back to camp gives you a much better sense of direction and you can do it in such a way that you use the sun in your advantage depending on time of day and wind direction.
We drove a while, spotting many Impala but by this time of year they know that when the vehicle comes round they have to run like hell! So after a while we stopped and dropped Thys(Father to Neil, Braam and myself) off and he started his walk as we drove away…
It was not long after while we were still driving away that we heard that unmistakable .375 H&H Magnum let one loose with the recognisable return sound of the bullet hitting the animal. Almost like hitting a punching bag only with a wrecking ball traveling at about 2300fps!
We stopped turned off the vehicle and waited for the call over the 2way, not long and there it was “kom maar weer terug die kant toe” meaning that we should turn around.
There he was standing proudly next to his Blue Wildebeest Cow, perfect shot placement in the boiler house as we call it (heart/lung area). We headed back to camp so that the carcass could be placed in cold storage. By this time it was getting dark and we turned in for the night.
Early the next morning we headed out again this time Thys handed the reigns over to my uncle and me. We dropped David off and made our way to the top of the mountain where there is a vast open grass land hosting the Blesbuck, Springbuck, Rhino, Tsessebe (Africa’s fastest antelope) and 2 Oryx (Gemsbok). The Oryx is not indigenous to this part of South Africa and they had to be removed according to Nature Conservation. We looked for them but to no avail… Whilst on their track we(myself and the tracker) came across a bachelors heard (male only – waiting for the rutting season to fight other dominant males) of Impala. We stopped walking and just watched them move around totally unaware of us, this way we could pick the one we wanted, or so we thought… They moved into dense brush about 80m away and we could risk moving again but leopard crawling was going to be the only way to go undetected… As we moved they did too until we got to a small Bush willow from where we could watch them again… They were still about 80m away but in thicker bush now only being able to see movement at the back, I lifted up my 7×57 and had a look through the scope, at this distance with this caliber it would be irresponsible to take the shot having leaves and twigs in the line of sight.
I waited a while keeping a close eye on them with the cross hairs desperately searching for something to grab a hold of. At last one male stuck his head out of the bush, I drew the cross hairs behind his eye to just in front of his ear he turned and looked to his mates, away from me, my aim now at the back of his head, naturally he fell then and there, a 139gr Hornady doesn’t’ really fool around at 2850fps.
We headed back to camp to drop off the Impala so that we could get back to it, we had not reached our quota yet and those Oryx were still grazing in the back of my mind.
We got to the top and entered the grass plains, we saw many antelope, unfortunately the Oryx were as ghostly as only they can be.
Not too long after we came across another heard of Blue Wildebeest, walking and stalking at its best, leopard crawling stopping resting, crawling again until we were about 160m away… They stood still, looking in our direction definitely aware of us but not being able to see us as we were flat in between the hip height Savanna grass… I stood up against the Camel thorn and lifted my trusty rifle again and placed the cross hairs on the shoulder, and that was that… Shot was placed a bit high due to overcompensation for the distance nevertheless she also fell there and then with almost zero damage to the meat!
When we reached camp again we learned that David had also shot a Blue Wildebeest which meant that we were in a bit of trouble as a Blue Wildebeest produces about 140kg of usable meat, you can do the math…
This was an exceptionally successful hunt as it has occurred many times that one goes on a hunt like this and walk for days without even finding fresh tracks! The rest of the trip was consequently just for relaxation and a shooting competition with the .22 LR which was won by my wife, Nandi she really is quite the natural!
Even if you walk for days on end unsuccessful in finding your antelope there still is nothing quite like African Skies, being in the bush, surrounded by 100% of nature’s best, testing your skills and nerve, being able to be involved in the whole process from creating your own specific round to tracking, stalking and squeezing the trigger just as the right point in time, magic!
