Do take note of the delay between the first post and this one.
My initial wish list that I had written down before this trip was:
Nyala, Kudu, Bushbuck, Eland, Cape Buffalo, Impala and Springbok.
The reason to come to KwaZulu Natal (KZN) was that most of the species were endemic. The most significant were the Nyala.
Springbok used to migrate through the area is large herds ages ago. That of course does not happen any longer.
Eland and Springbok are not found on the Pongola reserve. You have to go to another concession some few hours away to hunt them.
I have to stop and back up the story here just a little bit. I had already been in Southern Africa for more than three weeks before this part of the Safari started. I just finished passing/qualifying the Professional hunting certification in RSA and learned a lot, to say the least. Just prior to attending PH school for a couple of weeks I hunted for a week in Namibia near Otavi on a small farm with low fences. The PH/Outfitter was the farm owner and also accessed conservancy land in the neighbourhood. This farm is part of the largest conservancy with the largest free ranging Eland herd in Namibia. As a further aside, the World Record Eland, I later discovered, was taken just down the road a few miles this same year. If only....
I had studied Kudu pictures and done quite a bit of reading so that I would have a clue about trophy size, etc. My primary target was a Kudu, with Gemsbok, Eland, Warthog being secondary.
This was not a game spotting encounter. It was an open cattle farm that is either covered in bush or seed crop, where the critters come and go at will. Suffice to say the game numbers are not huge.
I hunted from blinds and did some walk and stalk where it was possible.
It turned out that I would pass on two Kudu bulls that were encountered. The first because of size and the other very nice trophy because I was not sure of the shot, although he was certainly big enough I was not going to risk wounding this incredible beast shooting through that very thick bush.
My first Kudu bull sighting in Africa. He just melted into sight. What great camouflage.
During the walk and stalk I came around a corner on a trail I spotted three Eland bulls.
I immediately started backed down the trail from whence I had just come and made my return to the Bakkie to get a camera. Yes in the middle of a stalk I went and got a camera, because I HAD to have a picture.
Can you imagine the look on the PH's face? Incredulity would describe it well.
The Eland had not seen us and the wind was right so why not.
I made my way back very slowly stalking back down the trail and got this picture.
Impressive picture hey! It impressed me because I saw the Eland before the PH. I was struck by the Elands size and colour and even more so, by the fact we had managed to get so close in the thick bush to this band of bachelors after not seeing much.
The PH did not think we were hunting Eland and just followed me in no real panic.
This was the corner in the trail where I spotted my "sticks". I was going to make my way to the tree and get a good rest and have a better look.
When we arrived at the tree I got to see the PH's next incredulous look when I asked, "Is it Gold Medal?" (Size did matter to me.) I truly had
zero idea what a big Eland looked like. They were monstrous. There was a long pause, this obviously to comprehend the fact that I was thinking about taking an Eland.
It does take a significant mental shift when a client moves from passing up a good specimen of the primary species that morning (Kudu) to actually being interested in taking a totally different animal. The next pause came while he looked through the binoculars and sized up the Eland. To also help preface the mood of this situation a little better, my PH, Wolfgang, was feeling so bad after the first day of us not seeing anything but Warthogs that he was going to have me shoot one for camp meat to feed his workers. Apparently "Rations" were 3kg per week. This was the mood we were stalking under at this point. We were on a Warthog hunt in his mind.
We had been checking trail cam pictures each day at the various watering points and this bachelor group had been immortalized doing a typical skirmish at a waterhole/salt, so I knew that little bit about them. I had seen their tracks, dung and other sign the day before.
I finally heard the word yes.
You know those shot placement pictures? The ones you should study before you go to Africa! The ones I did not study for an Eland.
It might have helped but I don't think it would have helped me because my excitement had taken hold and I had reverted to age old habit. Half way up the body, just behind the crease in the shoulder. Works on every Mule Deer, Whitetail and Elk I have ever taken.
For those interested in Caliber I was using a rented "
The rifle is a 8x68S fitted with a Schmit& Bender telescope. The bullets we
are using Are from Sako and are Hammerheads with 200 grains. I do my reloading myself and at the moment i use 71 grain of medium burning powder from Sonchem ( S365). The rifle is fitted with a heavi 8quare barrel with 70cm length"
We were at about 100 meters and I had the perfect rest aiming at an animal that had not really registered what we were. He was finally looking at us and had moved near the edge of the thick bush and was standing broadside facing to my left. I noticed the low bush he was standing in and I think that had me holding my shot a little higher. I did not want a deflection. This wounding thing really was in my mind. The rules are pretty simple: It bleeds, you bought it.
I slowly squeezed the trigger and almost immediately
don't hear the wallop of the hit. There is no real reaction from the Eland. Now, I'm nervous.
We move up and now I am using two metals sticks to rest on. this should be interesting. I have practiced to no end on sticks at home, with quick (under three seconds) accurate shots out to two hundred yards.
The Eland has trotted off about eighty plus meters and stops facing to my right looking back at us. No way an animal that is hit can be stopping like that! Right?
I steady myself and take the second shot at about 180 meters. This time the Eland left like he was shot out of a cannon. He is in the bush and gone.
We very slowly walk up to the area of the first shot to search for any sign. We can't find anything in the low knee high scrub bush. Wolfgang circles left into the higher bush and I slowly make my way along edge in the direction where the second shot was taken.
At this point Wolfgang and I have a conflab and I find out that indeed Wolfgang had heard both shots hit. That's a relief. However, I still don't see an Eland on the ground. (Why I'm expecting this large animal to expire instantaneously is beyond my comprehension as I write this)
He agreed after the second hit, we both heard the wallop of that shot that if we saw him again and he was not down to let loose and get him down. I had no qualms about getting the animals on the ground as soon as possible.
Wolfgang to the left myself to the right and we are slowly moving in the direction of the bulls egress. . I have the GPS on so I have zero worry about being lost but I have not studied the property boundaries and and not totally sure where I am, legally speaking.
I bump the Eland within 50 meters of starting to follow him.
#$%^&*(! No shot.
He clears a fence and I am not following him without knowing it is legal.
I call Wolfgang and we immediately cross the fence and I am tracking the blood trail now. It is obvious, even to me. I'll tell you though, that red soil sure is a game changer. White snow is a lot easier.
Apparently that second shot is leaking on the right side for sure.
I catch up quickly again and have a shot. I lay down prone and he is walking away slowly down this trail. I can't shoot him in the ass. It's a simple shot but I can't make myself waste the meat. This family eats everything that is hunted on this farm. Ruining some of the best meat is something I can't make myself do.
More tracking. I caught up again and took an offhand shot and hit him in the shoulder again. He moves off into the thick stuff.
This cover is so thick it is amazing we can get a shot at all.
I come up again and he starts to trot at fifty meters and I swing with him and watch a tree explode half way between me and the Eland and he is hit again by an almost ricochet. Bloody hell.
I finally come up on him and he is down but not done. I shoot him again, through the chest, without the result I am hoping for; the end.
I am now so shaken by the lack of performance from these hits I ask the PH to finish him as I am feeling totally lost.
The PH shot him in then heart and he still took time to die.
I wrote in my notes at the time:
These are the toughest animals on the planet.
1200 Grains plus the PH's shot. Five into the boiler room.
This whole experience took place over a 250 meter track that was perhaps 350 meters in total from the very first shot.
Wolfgang presented me a German tradition of a blooded branch that was placed in the hole where it was first hit. It is special to me.
I now know it is called Weidmannsheil. Then it was a ritual that was brand new and just another part of this incredible experience in Africa.
I was left alone with this magnificent Eland and just sat in wonder. I have an immense respect for this incredible animal that the San hold in such reverence. I am so thrilled that the Eland is my first Namibian trophy. Not a bush meat Warthog.
Eventually, I slowly walked back to the Bakkie following my GPS as Wolfgang had gone ahead. Slowly wandering through this bushveld in northern Namibia. It is so different to home.
Fires are everywhere. Huge fires jumping roads. The one we saw today south of here made the smoke look like huge thunderheads
Absolutely amazing.
With these huge fires burning in the area you have to be on the constant lookout in this bush. You have to follow fences and roads there is no cross country here. You can be caught and occasionally entire herds of cattle are killed when trapped by a bush fire. It gives you pause when you see the size of these wild fires.
When we arrived at the Bakkie Wolfgang climbed onto the Bakkie's roof to get some mobile reception and call the farm staff to come and do the extraction.
I grabbed my headlamp to assist, it would be dark before we were done.
The fence was taken down to facilitate crossing into the field where the Eland lay. The strands are just wired to metals posts. You unwrap the wire and drop the fence. Wooden posts here are boiled in oil to try to stop termites
I then followed the blood trail and took pictures all the way back to the Eland and then took the obligatory trophy pictures.
Four in the boiler room and one ricochet up in the loins.
(Today, I wonder about the bullet performance. I did not do the forensics. (Later Eland I have taken with TTSx, shot in the same spot were down in one shot)
The recovery team building a road into the Eland. Literally chopping it out of the bush. I have never seen that one before. I chop things up and or drag them out myself. Africa must be different!
They were swinging axe, pangas and hoes in the dark. How the hell no one got a foot chopped off I'll never know.
I used my headlamp to try and assist.
It took the electric winch and the whole team to get this big bull into the Bakkie.
Loaded.
Holding the fence strands down to allow the Bakkie over.
The first shot was at about 15:30 and we were finally out here at the camp at 19:33.
Hanging in the yard.
It is the next evening at dinner time that I get to try Eland for the first time. For context you have to understand a few things: This is a family meal time and I am joining people at the table in their home. My momma taught me to be polite when you are in someone else's home and you eat what is put in front of you. I am served Eland liver.
I HATE LIVER. I was tortured with over cooked dry ratty tasty garbage as a child. Imagine my face! Can you?
Juanita has cooked this for me and the family has also been served. I tucked in and I took this picture because another miracle happened, I liked it.
It was not over cooked and tasteless, it was a magnificent meal.
On reflection, I had ended up with exactly the kind of experience I was looking for. It was a pleasure to do the tracking work in concert with my PH,
not behind him and also to spot the game and participate in scat id, track id and generally, actually to hunt the animal.
I was really hunting in Africa. It can't get better.
