This next post is very challenging for me. Let’s call it what to do with a bad day in the field.
We went back to the big mountains where the klippies were and this time we were going to grab one of the farm workers to help us find them. We drove in early and picked him up and headed back to the big hills to find them. Before we could get very far, there comes the sound you want to hear…the tracker is tapping on the roof and has seen something. There just on the hill to our right are 3 klippies in the rocks.
We bail out of the truck quickly and I grab the borrowed .243 rifle. I setup on the sticks while Dieter is glassing the rocks and he says there is a male and 2 females. He ranges and says 173. The scope is at full magnification and I roll it back a bit and try to get steady. I find the male standing on his toes looking down at us and I get the reticle on him. I’m not feeling very steady and the reticle is moving in little circles. I know there isn’t much time and I try to slow my breathing…then squeeze the trigger. In the recoil I see the klippie going down and I reload. Oddly, I didn’t hear the hit very well. I look at Dieter and the tracker and say did he fall? They say he jumped. Oh crap…
The 2 females are still on their rock and staring down below them at something we can’t see. I say they must be looking at the male. I stay on the sticks to see if he climbs back up to them and after 5 minutes there is nothing. We agree that if the females move and he is mobile, he will follow them. So we wait longer…nothing. I look at Dieter and he says, “I didn’t see the puff of hair behind him after the shot like normal.” At this point, I’m praying for a clean miss.
We go forward and find the smallest drops of blood…crap. We track the drops up into the rocks above where he was standing when I shot. He is mobile and not bleeding much. We lose the trail off and on again in the rocks. The trackers scour the side of the mountain and find bits and pieces of sign in the rocky hillside. This isn’t good. I’m actually feeling a little sick. Some time goes by and the trackers find the sign that the male has rejoined the females and now they have climbed below us and actually walked past the truck to leave the area. My heart drops.
We backtracked a bit and called a couple of times to see if they will raise their heads to look at us. Nothing happens. Dieter looks at me and says he’s gone…and I know he’s right. He says what do you want to do? I’m silent for a long time…and then I say this was a big goal on this trip…I’ve wounded him but thankfully he’s back with his females and mobile…I can’t feel good right now and I can’t continue hunting for another klippie…I had my shot and blew it. We are done with klippies on this trip and I don’t deserve another shot…plus I just paid for the wounded one. We load and drive back to the lodge and it’s a long drive in silence.
I tell you the truth…I had tears in my eyes as we left the property because it felt so bad to have wounded a special creature like a klippie. I could make excuses about the miss but it’s my responsibility and I took the shot even though I was unsteady on the sticks. I realized afterwards that I didn’t hold high enough for the distance of the shot. I’ve had a lot of success in 40 years of hunting and it cut me that I had failed on this shot. That night I had to retell the story around the fire and that was hard too. It’s a miserable feeling and still hurts when I think about it and write these words…but I have always told the truth in my hunt reports and I’m always learning from the good, the bad and the ugly.
