Day 1 August 8
We got in late so there wasn’t a set time to get up my alarm was for 6 but I got moving about 6:30 to great the day we had some tea ate a nice breakfast than headed to the range to check the rifles after checking the rifles we did a quick drive around than went back to hang out at camp ate a lunch at 1pm than took a nap till a quarter to 4 we than went and sat for some ducks and geese no such luck with them we ate a nice dinner of chicken schnitzel rice and some salad. We got ready to go out hunting for the night. The night started off fast paced when we turned up a jackal but I missed him 3 times with the thermal 243 I haven’t shot with a thermal before so it was a learning experience but something very cool.
We turned up what we thought was another jackal that I again missed but this time we filmed the thermal and found out it was a Serval and I had just shot in front of him
We kept driving around with no luck and about 11pm we headed for another propertry
We got to the other property and soon found a set of eye’s we drove closer and I confirmed it was a serval cat we got to about 100 meters where I got setup and shot, I hit the cat with the 22 hornet and he was off to the races running he stopped a brief moment then disappeared through a small fence and over a rise we got the jack Russel Jabo out and soon got on the trail jabo found the cat and bayed him up some what but as we crawled through the last cattle fence towards the two the cat took off and as he passed me I was squeezing the trigger to the point I was jerking it, I hadn’t set the set trigger yet. The cat disappeared and left the dog we search around to find his tracks and blood but it was to no avail we found that conclusion, I barely nicked the cat as we only found one small drop of blood, and he was running perfectly fine
away from the dog. We were driving around in the direction the serval was last seen when we had a big Cape Porcupine come arose our path I got the 22 hornet and with two shots we finally had a night animal in the salt.
We than got a call some other hunters needed the dog so we loaded up and drove that way. We shortly got there, unloaded the dog, and he went out to help them look for the civic cat they had hit. They returned empty handed we again split up and hunted the last little bit of the early morning darkness by this time it was already 3:30 we rolled into camp at 4:45 showed had some early morning tea at 7am before I finally laid down to get a little sleep.
During the night hunt we seen loads of duikers, house cats, and common reeebuck.
Ready to see what day 2 will bring.
Day 2 August 9
After getting a little bit of sleep I woke up at 8:30 went to the sitting area to wait for everyone to show up for breakfast, everyone was moving slow and by 11 we had everyone up and had breakfast at noon after eating we all went back to our rooms to take a nap before having dinner at 5pm and heading out at 6pm for another night of hunting. We had steak and chips (fries) for dinner and were soon on the way. We pulled into the first property we started seeing game right off the bat lots of Duikers it had just got dark so we were thinking it might be a little before we seen any of the cat activity but we’re hoping for a bush pig when we glanced the light off a Caracal. I quickly got the 243 with the thermal scope and got setup after a few short seconds I had the cat in the cross hairs and touched one off it felt good and everyone heard what sounded like a hot but after searching around and letting the dog out we turned up nothing. We spent the next two hours driving around without seeing a Serval cat or anything else we wanted we did see an ain’t bear (ardvark) but I hadn’t planned for one this trip. We than moved back over to the last location we stopped at this morning where I missed the Serval. We spotted a Serval acrosss a valley on an opposite ride Matt moved the truck closer and I got setup he was over 120 yards so I held on his back when I squeezed the 22 hornet the cat dropped with a thwacking report, we drove up to the base of the hill the cat was on and began to climb it when Jabo the Jack Russell, started barking so Matt, Berrie and my self began to ran up to where the dog was barking soon Matt was yelling shot shoot but I couldn’t see the cat, the cat had ran right to me and Matt in the long grass and I was looking on the other side of the dog. The cat turned and ran but in the heat of the chase it managed to give the dog a few licks and he soon stopped following it and in result we spent 30 minutes trying to turn the cat up with no luck. Hein who was still in the truck and had watched the cat run and could see blood running down his shoulder couldn’t believe how the cat was running. That called an end to our night hunt. We got back to camp had a beer and a shower before getting just a few hours of sleep. We are heading to Zululand today in search of red duiker and other antelope species I told Matt we need to get on something this evening to break the ice of the night hunting misses I have never struggled this badly so luck needs to change today.
