Day 10 – Friday 18 June 2021:
I’m up early before anyone else as usual, I need to get my head right after yesterday’s $hit show. The weather is awful as I step outside with my coffee, heavy fog. Not good for trying to spot an eland at long range. Adrian walks up from the house and we are talking about the fog and decide to wait a few minutes to let it lift before heading back up the mountain to look for the eland.
Adrian’s phone rings and I hear a one-sided conversation. A couple of guys waterfowl hunting down on the valley floor have spotted a lone eland moving slow on the side of the mountain, very close to where we lost the track yesterday evening. The eland would walk towards the stone fence row but wouldn’t jump it and had bedded down. We race off thinking there’s a good chance this is our eland!
We find the waterfowl hunters and they point up the hill, sure enough, there’s a big bull eland up there. We watch him for a bit and he doesn’t look to be going anywhere and with the sun coming out, may just bed down and soak up the sun. He’s too far to make out if he is our eland or any bullet impacts. We mark a couple of scraggly trees at the top of the hill, one of those is familiar and we know where to go and make a plan. We thank the fellas and head around the hill and begin the climb as we did yesterday.
We are able to drive the cruiser to the fence line that would lead us down the hill and come above the eland.
Heading towards the Eland
We cross the fence and begin a slow walk over the crest of the hill and spot the eland the same time he spots us. He should have been one “bench” further down the hill but must have started walking up the hill along the fence line while we were bashing our way back up the mountain. I hear “that’s not him, that’s not our bull from yesterday, he’s a big bull but one horn is a bit crooked”. My heart sinks at the words.
Adrian asks, “Do you want to try for this one?”
I step a few paces forward for a better view and place the rifle on a fencepost, place my crosshairs on the bull following him, he goes to the right, then changes direction, takes a few steps downhill and circles to the left, never stopping.
On the new bull
My mind is racing, I have a wounded eland somewhere and I must continue looking for him. Another thought quickly surfaces, I might as well shoot this one as he’s a great bull and then continue looking for the other one. The bull never stops moving and I’ve lost faith in driving an Accubond through the bull except for a complete broadside standing shot behind the shoulder. I’m thinking maybe if he stops broadside before jumping the fence and I’ve got a great hold, but he never hesitates and is over in a bound without hesitation.
I follow him as he proceeds up the hill to our left as Adrian gives me yardage updates. No, I’m not going to shoot him moving and he continues trotting and eating up the yards. What a gorgeous mountain eland bull.
Eland bull trotting away
We continue the search for the wounded eland, covering many miles but without any sign. A group of vultures is circling on the other side of the hill and Adrian takes a quick walk, could it be our eland? The vultures are coming from all over and have formed a vortex of birds from low to the ground to as high as you can see.
Vulture vortex
Adrian returns, no, the birds are just riding the thermals as they break up and scatter. We’ve covered a lot of ground this morning and I’m pretty bummed. We drive the same path as we did the day before, maybe he’s holed back up in the nook they were in yesterday. We start heading that direction but nothing except some Vaal on a far ridge.
Vaal on next ridge
Vaal buck keeping an eye on us from behind a rock
Adrian’s glassing the opposite mountain, “there are mountain reedbuck on the front of the hill”. He and Michelle work on getting a photo with the camera to try and assess the ram but they are 1300 yards away, will need to get closer to tell if he’s a shooter.
On the way over to the Reedbuck hill, an Oribi ram makes an appearance.
Oribi Ram
We drive around towards the opposite hill and drive up the steep backside. Michelle’s foot is still tender from the day before and she stays in the truck while Adrian and I begin the walk out the long ridge. We reach the end but the Reedbuck have vanished. The wind is blowing pretty hard and we begin searching the down hill side. We don’t go more than 50 yards and they jump up and blow out, running down the hill as fast as they can go over the steep rocky ground. I’m up on the tripod as Adrian calls out the range, 160, 180, 200, 220 as I dial in additional elevation. “He’s a good one, just wait, they will stop…240 yards”. The buck slows to a stop but a doe is in the way, he turns and takes a few slow steps to the top edge of a steep drop heading severely away from me and comes in the clear. As this is going on my mind is telling me if he takes two more steps over the edge I won’t see him again until they come out on the flat below which will be 300 yards plus.
This will also be a good test for the Accubond as I send the round knowing there should be plenty of penetration from the 200 grain bullet. I may mess up the offside shoulder as it exits but the taxidermist will have to fix it. I can see the impact through the scope and the buck doesn’t go down. I’m shocked. He takes another step, wavers and goes down from the initial shot and is over the edge. I had placed the crosshairs at the junction of the right rear hip and body with a line to the opposite front shoulder.
Adrian radios Sukkie who brings the cruiser around the hill with Michelle who is still nursing her sore ankle. They were surprised at the call as they hadn’t heard the shot!
What a gorgeous little mountain antelope and I’ve taken the Reedbuck/Rhebok slam, last half of the last day. Bittersweet with not recovering the eland bull.
Mountain Reedbuck on last half of last day
Ruger photobombing again and watching to make sure I don’t make off with HIS Reedbuck!
Shot taken from the top of the hill, not a speck of cover!
View back up to the top of the hill from where I took the shot. The Mountain Reedbuck is a nice representative animal we worked very hard for, meeting the Roland Ward minimum of 6 7/8” with one horn and the other going 7 inches, will look great as a shoulder mount. The tips of the horns are surprisingly sharp!
On the way off the mountain, Adrian notifies the farmer we had taken a Mountain Reedbuck but couldn’t locate the eland. The farmer was going to send some of his farm workers into some of the ravines and lower level thickets to see if they could find him. One of the other farmers where we had hunted said he would also drive up over the weekend to see if he could locate the eland. One month later and the eland still hasn’t been found.
I have a suspicion the bullet pancaked upon entry and never entered the chest cavity. Take a look at the 200 grain Accubond recovered from the Mountain Reedbuck that had stopped at the far shoulder scapula without breaking it. Such a small lightly built animal without full penetration from a heavy for caliber bullet. The rapid expansion increases the frontal area and reduces the penetration, I wonder if they core is pure soft lead.
The performance is also erratic, from full angled penetration breaking the off shoulder on the Nyala at close to 2800 fps to not fully penetrating on a Mountain Reedbuck at 2575 fps. I may be done with Accubonds in Africa, I don’t like to be limited on shot angles. I would rather have full penetration at almost any angle and have them run a few yards versus the erratic performance. I’ve also included Nosler’s expansion profile for the Accubond below.
200 grain Accubond images, bullet retained 168 grains equaling 84% weight retention.
Not much shank left on the recovered 200 gr Accubond @ 2575 fps impact
Accubond expansion from Nosler’s website
Back at the farm, Adrian lets the hounds loose in the yard and they do laps burning off energy, until they noticed the open tailgate on the truck! In they go, thinking they are going hunting! Here’s a short video clip.
We had saved the backstraps out of the old fallow buck and prepared one of my venison dishes to share with Adrian and Shannah. Venison pepper steak (without a lot of peppers as Memory had used them for dinner the night before!), we may have all had seconds!
Michelle pouring herself some red wine before dinner!
Bon appetite!
Plated Venison Pepper Steak
Ruger was so exhausted from eight days of hunting he could hardly move, poor old man! Yes, that’s him wrapped up tight in the blanket with his nose sticking out!
Worn out Ruger
Final thoughts:
Adrian is an excellent young PH and I can highly recommend Adroda Safaris for any type of hunt in Southern Africa. From free range plains game to high fenced hunting he has it covered. He also hunts dangerous game to include Elephant, Hippo and Cape Buffalo from Zimbabwe to Mozambique as well as South Africa. He treats his hounds well and his specialty is running leopard with them, hopefully one day I can experience a leopard hound hunt!
His lovely fiancé, Shannah, was a wonderful host, Michelle and I enjoyed her company immensely! Memory, Sukkie and Patrick took very good care of us from having a fire going when we returned, taking great care in skinning/caping the trophies (I hung out in the skinning shed a bit!) to over feeding us with some wonderful dishes.
Well done Adroda Safaris! 
I’ll be posting Part 2 of our 2021 African adventure in the coming days, a cruise down the Zambezi River for 6 nights!
