Winkabeast
AH member
Just returned home from a great multi-location safari in South Africa with PH Rudolph Stephan and Duduma Safaris.
The Duduma home property is located near Port Elizabeth, but when Rudy picked me up at P.E. we headed out straight from the airport up to the northern Karoo, maybe a 4 hour drive, to a camp called Little Africa where we were going to hunt the Buffalo and the Golden Wildebeest.
Got there in time for a late supper and bed. Shot rifles in the morning. Hunted all day.
I had heard that the Karoo was flat and thick, but this area was beautiful and mountainous. We walked almost 11 miles on day one !
We tracked one buffalo, but never caught up to him.
Stalked several groups of Goldens, but we either blew the stalks or weren't satisfied with the bull when we got on him.
We actually stalked the big one I shot 3 times unsuccessfully over the course of the day, until I finally got an opportunity at 5:30 PM.
He was slowly walking, and never really stood for us, but at only 75 yards or so, so I was still able to put a good shot on him with my .404 Jeffery off the sticks.
Next morning we went looking for Buffalo again, but we came into a giant open plain with lots of Springbok and Impala.
They were spooky AF of course, but we finally spotted a beautiful Black Springbok ram alone, on a high ridge, feeding and unaware of us. At 330 yards, it was a long shot for a small animal off the sticks, but I got steady and took him through both front shoulders with my second rifle, a Bergara Crest chambered in the zippy little SixFive PRC.
Went out in the afternoon again looking for Buff and found a smoke-show of a bull, but we had practically bumped into him, and he was aggressive and in a tight spot near a waterhole with no shot really, unless we got crazy close. We decided to back off, wait for him to move off, then ride the truck through the tight spot and up onto a hill to try to glass him up again. Buff was still in the brush and charged the truck ! Near miss, but we got up the hill and off a ways and stalked back on foot.
Spotted him down in there. He offered a quartering to shot, and I banged him with a good, probably lethal shot on the point of the shoulder. But it didn't drop him. Maybe he was still adrenalized up from our previous encounter, or...?
Soon as he stood in another clear spot, I hit him again, maybe 4 inches from the first shot but he stayed up.
In the thick now, but coming towards us, not away... Rudolph says "he's gonna come, but he's hurt and it's uphill, so it will be slow, shoot him right between the eyes when his head comes out". I do. But whether I jerked my shot, or whether he jerked his head, the bullet takes him in the snout, too low for the brain shot.
It turns him, but he still doesn't go down ! When he emerges into another gap in the brush, I shoot him again, this time on the opposite shoulder and he finally goes down. He's making the right death moan sounds, but he's still not dead. We wait, but eventually I shoot him again, to be sure, before we walked up on him. No blood came out of either of the last two bullet holes ! That's how "dead" this still alive bull was !
The next day is a drive day down to Rudolph's place in the eastern Cape, probably four hours if we went straight, but we detour off into a mountainous Hartman's Zebra conservancy trying for a Mountain Zebra. Bad weather, cold and rain and fog zero's us on this one though.
That evening we arrive at Rudolph's home and Duduma Safari's HQ lodge. And it is spectacular !
In my mind Rudolph has always been kind of a "hired gun" type of PH, hunting on government conservancies or on other properties. But he has been saving, and with his wife, working hard on his own place, and I was blown away at what a nice job he has done when I saw his home farm and lodge !
Over the next couple days, we hunt some coastal plains game there, like Bushbuck, Bushpig, and in between I ride around with Rudolph doing the regular farm stuff, baiting for the Bushpigs, shooting at problem Baboons, culling a crippled Blesbok, fixing fences and game cams and such that have been torn up, etc. I slam a big Bushpig at night over bait with the .404, and a day or two later take a really beautiful Bushbuck, which is one of my all-time fave African animals.
Then we went back north to the Kirkwood area, the southern Karoo, for Warthog.
The farm we hunted on was Brakkefontein, the one-time home, (around the turn of the last century), of Cecil Rhodes, the man who started DeBeers diamonds, and later on founded Rhodesia. He was English of course, so Rudolph and the other guys, even Dian, the man who now owns the farm, are definitely not fans, since they are all of Boer descent, lol, but the house was still crazily interesting.
More or less completely historically intact, including a basement, now a bar and trophy room, but once a fighting pit, with firing ports for riflemen cut just above ground level, most of the original furniture, the original giant central kitchen as well as an outdoor summer kitchen where we make our lunch of Kudu sausage bread and fruit, and cold Castle Lites.
The property is beautiful, and I shoot a small meat pig, miss a bigger meat pig, and then kill a nice tusker.
And so the safari wound down. Really enjoyable. The hunting was more like an old school safari, where there’s a couple hunting days, than a travel day or two, then a hunting day or two, etc. In between, it was really cool to live the farm life and see the whole picture this time, instead of just being a paying client.
A great safari.
Rudolph is a top-notch man, with a wonderful, welcoming family, a beautiful home lodge, and connections to amazing hunting territories all over southern Africa. I cannot recommend him highly enough !
Enjoy the pics !
The Duduma home property is located near Port Elizabeth, but when Rudy picked me up at P.E. we headed out straight from the airport up to the northern Karoo, maybe a 4 hour drive, to a camp called Little Africa where we were going to hunt the Buffalo and the Golden Wildebeest.
Got there in time for a late supper and bed. Shot rifles in the morning. Hunted all day.
I had heard that the Karoo was flat and thick, but this area was beautiful and mountainous. We walked almost 11 miles on day one !
We tracked one buffalo, but never caught up to him.
Stalked several groups of Goldens, but we either blew the stalks or weren't satisfied with the bull when we got on him.
We actually stalked the big one I shot 3 times unsuccessfully over the course of the day, until I finally got an opportunity at 5:30 PM.
He was slowly walking, and never really stood for us, but at only 75 yards or so, so I was still able to put a good shot on him with my .404 Jeffery off the sticks.
Next morning we went looking for Buffalo again, but we came into a giant open plain with lots of Springbok and Impala.
They were spooky AF of course, but we finally spotted a beautiful Black Springbok ram alone, on a high ridge, feeding and unaware of us. At 330 yards, it was a long shot for a small animal off the sticks, but I got steady and took him through both front shoulders with my second rifle, a Bergara Crest chambered in the zippy little SixFive PRC.
Went out in the afternoon again looking for Buff and found a smoke-show of a bull, but we had practically bumped into him, and he was aggressive and in a tight spot near a waterhole with no shot really, unless we got crazy close. We decided to back off, wait for him to move off, then ride the truck through the tight spot and up onto a hill to try to glass him up again. Buff was still in the brush and charged the truck ! Near miss, but we got up the hill and off a ways and stalked back on foot.
Spotted him down in there. He offered a quartering to shot, and I banged him with a good, probably lethal shot on the point of the shoulder. But it didn't drop him. Maybe he was still adrenalized up from our previous encounter, or...?
Soon as he stood in another clear spot, I hit him again, maybe 4 inches from the first shot but he stayed up.
In the thick now, but coming towards us, not away... Rudolph says "he's gonna come, but he's hurt and it's uphill, so it will be slow, shoot him right between the eyes when his head comes out". I do. But whether I jerked my shot, or whether he jerked his head, the bullet takes him in the snout, too low for the brain shot.
It turns him, but he still doesn't go down ! When he emerges into another gap in the brush, I shoot him again, this time on the opposite shoulder and he finally goes down. He's making the right death moan sounds, but he's still not dead. We wait, but eventually I shoot him again, to be sure, before we walked up on him. No blood came out of either of the last two bullet holes ! That's how "dead" this still alive bull was !
The next day is a drive day down to Rudolph's place in the eastern Cape, probably four hours if we went straight, but we detour off into a mountainous Hartman's Zebra conservancy trying for a Mountain Zebra. Bad weather, cold and rain and fog zero's us on this one though.
That evening we arrive at Rudolph's home and Duduma Safari's HQ lodge. And it is spectacular !
In my mind Rudolph has always been kind of a "hired gun" type of PH, hunting on government conservancies or on other properties. But he has been saving, and with his wife, working hard on his own place, and I was blown away at what a nice job he has done when I saw his home farm and lodge !
Over the next couple days, we hunt some coastal plains game there, like Bushbuck, Bushpig, and in between I ride around with Rudolph doing the regular farm stuff, baiting for the Bushpigs, shooting at problem Baboons, culling a crippled Blesbok, fixing fences and game cams and such that have been torn up, etc. I slam a big Bushpig at night over bait with the .404, and a day or two later take a really beautiful Bushbuck, which is one of my all-time fave African animals.
Then we went back north to the Kirkwood area, the southern Karoo, for Warthog.
The farm we hunted on was Brakkefontein, the one-time home, (around the turn of the last century), of Cecil Rhodes, the man who started DeBeers diamonds, and later on founded Rhodesia. He was English of course, so Rudolph and the other guys, even Dian, the man who now owns the farm, are definitely not fans, since they are all of Boer descent, lol, but the house was still crazily interesting.
More or less completely historically intact, including a basement, now a bar and trophy room, but once a fighting pit, with firing ports for riflemen cut just above ground level, most of the original furniture, the original giant central kitchen as well as an outdoor summer kitchen where we make our lunch of Kudu sausage bread and fruit, and cold Castle Lites.
The property is beautiful, and I shoot a small meat pig, miss a bigger meat pig, and then kill a nice tusker.
And so the safari wound down. Really enjoyable. The hunting was more like an old school safari, where there’s a couple hunting days, than a travel day or two, then a hunting day or two, etc. In between, it was really cool to live the farm life and see the whole picture this time, instead of just being a paying client.
A great safari.
Rudolph is a top-notch man, with a wonderful, welcoming family, a beautiful home lodge, and connections to amazing hunting territories all over southern Africa. I cannot recommend him highly enough !
Enjoy the pics !
