Chasing The Tiny 10 South Africa - The Journey Begins

@Green Chile thanks for the report!
Looking forward to many more future hunts my friend!!
 
Anxiously waiting.....
Oh, here ya go...

 
First night of hunting…part 2

After getting the grysbok so quickly, we decided to look around in the dark and see what we could find. Those avocado and nut farms are so beautiful and full of life, especially at night.

The landowner/neighbor made an interesting comment as we looked around for night critters. He said sometimes you see a few but then there are some nights that they seem to all be walking around at the same time. His statement turned out to be very accurate that night.

I had several of the night critters on my wish list and we saw most of them that night. First to go down was the large spotted genet. There are quite a few in this area and they are beautiful little night creatures. On this one, the little 22 Hornet ripped him up a bit on the exit as they have thin skin. I couldn’t tell before the shot but we were fortunate to take a nice male of the species.

View attachment 643682

We kept cruising around slowly and saw a mongoose but he was not sitting still for anyone and he moved out like a streak. I also think this was the time when I reached into my pocket and then tried to load the break action Hornet with an EMPTY shell casing in the dark. Huh…that doesn’t work out well. We laughed about that.

As we came around another corner, there was a huge civet. This one was in a very awkward angle for a right handed shooter and I took a quick shot and immediately said it was too far back. The civet was anchored though and I got another shot into him quickly. Interestingly, the civet was the only animal shot with a 22 Hornet on this trip that didn’t exit…and in this case, neither bullet exited. They are pretty dense. Here again, a great male example and pretty large.

View attachment 643683

Woah! We need to put your pic beside the definition of "lucky hunter" :E Rofl:

I am only starting to read this thread, and the answer may have already been given (in which case, I apologize for the repeat), but what load / bullet did you use with the .22 Hornet?
 
I'm not really a user of the .243 in particular but the 22 Hornet and 416 barrels were not going to work for this application. I could have brought a 3rd barrel and probably should have done so. That's one of the lessons learned as you transition among so many different types of hunting for a T10 specific trip. Nothing really covers all ofd the applications. Yes you could use a 257 Wby or 300 win mag for all of it but on the close shots you would have little steenboks and duikers raining down in pieces.

I predict a .257 Wby R8 barrel in your future :A Gathering:
 
Here is the 22 Hornet ammo along with the only 2 bullets recovered from it...both were in the body of the chunky civet. Everything else exited.

IMG_8925.jpg


IMG_8842.JPG
 

Forum statistics

Threads
57,983
Messages
1,244,630
Members
102,451
Latest member
AmyPickett
 

 

 

Latest posts

Latest profile posts

Grz63 wrote on Werty's profile.
(cont'd)
Rockies museum,
CM Russel museum and lewis and Clark interpretative center
Horseback riding in Summer star ranch
Charlo bison range and Garnet ghost town
Flathead lake, road to the sun and hiking in Glacier NP
and back to SLC (via Ogden and Logan)
Grz63 wrote on Werty's profile.
Good Morning,
I plan to visit MT next Sept.
May I ask you to give me your comments; do I forget something ? are my choices worthy ? Thank you in advance
Philippe (France)

Start in Billings, Then visit little big horn battlefield,
MT grizzly encounter,
a hot springs (do you have good spots ?)
Looking to buy a 375 H&H or .416 Rem Mag if anyone has anything they want to let go of
 
Top