Gday 8th May Day 2 hunting
Up @5
Quick breaks & for me became the a bit of a ritual of a cuppa tea which washed my tablets down followed by a cuppa coffee & banana with a muesli husk biscuit thing although if Rouan was late getting up lol ( joking ) I could squeeze another cuppa in
first water pans showed no tracks of interest to the guys so moved on till they found a suitable set in amongst the elephant tracks ( oh plenty of those guys) & a other species
So now it was game on again & once again marvelled @ the tracker’s ability
we were getting closer to the buff every km we went & closing the gap after the 2nd time we found where the bedding up had occurred to then the very little colour difference of the dung when you put your foot in it & smeared it to see how much variance there was between the 2 colours
I’ve found it a useful tool to use but trackers way ahead of my skillset
But today wasn’t going to be our day as after 12.6 km we pulled the pin as the zim boarder had one the day over us
Spirits were still high but this taswegian was melting in the very high 20’s very low 30’s heat & layed down in the shade @ a pan after devouring another water bottle ( I may have grabbed a cat nap lol )
Rouan & Daniel went to grab the Ute ( that’s the hilux for some who don’t know what us aussies call them) then Dylan asked rusty if he wanted to go for a walk & Rusty’s look of “took your time “ appeared ( joking) was met with a why not so off we went looking for pretty well anything that was fitting his likes ( ha there was only going to be one requirement really of a good representation of the species with age what one didn’t matter lol ) & after about 2 k a small mob of zebra were spotted for which we had to double back on ourselves to get better wind for our approach & then proceeded to gain ground till Lawrence ( tracker we had ) come to a abrupt stop & then we worked out why as in the shade we saw the big bull that his picture is posted previously in other posts so it was a quick pic & time to backtrack out of there ( other elephant’s were with him )
So now it was a zig zag of positioning as not to give our position away to the zebra while keeping the elephants in eyes view & eventually we made it to within the range of the zebra & this was the shot that presented @103 yards
Now the shot itself was not on the money as it hit the front off leg & the pills shank itself didn’t enter the chest cavity & why it’s important in my belief of a pill that covers multiple bases is better than a pill that covers only a few but I’ll not bore people with that
The scope was still on 1.7 & although rusty had practiced a lot of the sticks on request the moment of truth had arrived
At impact of the 256 gr pill the stallion showed a pretty good hurt reaction but no Brocken leg as pill went between the ribs & main leg bone grazing that , coming out the back of the offside leg
For reference if that shot was towards the onside front leg more by about 2 &1/2 in the ribs would’ve been impacted & a vastly different outcome would’ve occurred but it was what it was & a major lesson learned from all & so glad on this prototype pill was used as the previous best pill I’d found would’ve struggled to secure this critter as quickly as it did for the follow up shots to occur & those occurred after about a 800 to km tracking job from Lawrence who over some very hard ground didn’t wavier on what one he was following despite the stallion joining the mob on impact of the pill which later we found out he was following a crack on one hoof
The mob had left him as he couldn’t keep up & dropped off standing & slightly wobbling which Dylan tried to get rusty into a better position for a follow up & as they went to the left
Lawrence & I stayed in behind the bit of bush waiting for the finisher & then the zebra started moving off & about to drop into a bit of a gully which it was advised for rusty to take a rear end shot as we knew we were close to the zim boarder & we couldn’t get it once it crossed that line & once I heard that shot I went to the right & put a 500 Jeffery 467 gr ceb solid through him as he went down that bit of a gully which stopped him in his tracks followed by another from rusty as the insurance shot
We ended up only 80 meters from the zim boarder
Man that was way to close for comfort but definitely one rusty won’t forget for his first African critter I guarantee
Took our pics loaded him up once Rouan arrived & off to skin butcher & a complete analysis of what had occurred with the pill & this is was what I love doing
Once all cleaned up
Had a great tea
washed down with a few celebrity drinks after we gave Dylan his reward for guiding rusty on his zebra
For which a bottle of bundy was his reward & you’ll have to use your imagination as I’m having trouble attaching pictures for some reason but if you look @ Rouan lining his bottles up you’ll get the idea lol but unlike Rouan he couldn’t finish his whole bottle that night lol
In bed around 9 ready for another day tomorrow
I tried attaching other pics but after 2 hrs I just needed some zzz so another day for those
Cheers
