SOUTH AFRICA: Aussies Invade KMG Hunting Safaris

[Tim Blackwell]

Hi all!
We are now inside a week from getting on the big Qantas flight back to the green hills of the Eastern Cape. We have 7 full hunting days planned, chasing a variety of plains game.

August 19 - 27, 2024
@KMG Hunting Safaris
Eastern Cape, South Africa

For me personally this will be my 5th African hunt, and my 4th with KMG. My target this time is a mature Sable bull, plus maybe one or two others...we'll see what Marius and I can scratch up.

But just as exciting is that I have 5 Australian first-timers with me; 4 hunters and one observer. I'm really looking forward to sharing in their experiences!

I'll keep this thread updated as best I can along the way!

Cheers for now,
Tim

 

[kevin masters]

Hi all!
We are now inside a week from getting on the big Qantas flight back to the green hills of the Eastern Cape. We have 7 full hunting days planned, chasing a variety of plains game.

August 19 - 27, 2024
KMG Hunting Safaris
Eastern Cape, South Africa

For me personally this will be my 5th African hunt, and my 4th with KMG. My target this time is a mature Sable bull, plus maybe one or two others...we'll see what Marius and I can scratch up.

But just as exciting is that I have 5 Australian first-timers with me; 4 hunters and one observer. I'm really looking forward to sharing in their experiences!

I'll keep this thread updated as best I can along the way!

Cheers for now,
Tim

View attachment 625566

That looks vaguely familiar!

 

[Tintin]

Nice one Tim and crew.

Love the excitement in the lead up to a trip.

Looking forward to the updates from another top notch KMG adventure.

 

[Mekaniks]

Excellent! Cant wait to follow along with you all

 

[BRICKBURN]

Enjoy

 

[Tim Blackwell]

We'll we've made the long haul to Africa Sky and their fantastic hospitality. As per usual I can't sleep, it's 3am currently....

One cancelled flight, and one lost bag to deal with thus far, we are hoping the latter may show up in East London later this morning! Looking forward to caching up with the KMG team very soon.

 

[Mark Biggerstaff]

Good luck! Jet lag can be tough, I was same way this past trip.

 

[Doug Hamilton]

Hi all!
We are now inside a week from getting on the big Qantas flight back to the green hills of the Eastern Cape. We have 7 full hunting days planned, chasing a variety of plains game.

August 19 - 27, 2024
@KMG Hunting Safaris
Eastern Cape, South Africa

For me personally this will be my 5th African hunt, and my 4th with KMG. My target this time is a mature Sable bull, plus maybe one or two others...we'll see what Marius and I can scratch up.

But just as exciting is that I have 5 Australian first-timers with me; 4 hunters and one observer. I'm really looking forward to sharing in their experiences!

I'll keep this thread updated as best I can along the way!

Cheers for now,
Tim

View attachment 625566

Good luck and keep us posted!

 

[Matt 72]

Good luck Tim and crew

 

[PCC600]

We'll we've made the long haul to Africa Sky and their fantastic hospitality. As per usual I can't sleep, it's 3am currently....

One cancelled flight, and one lost bag to deal with thus far, we are hoping the latter may show up in East London later this morning! Looking forward to caching up with the KMG team very soon.

View attachment 627433View attachment 627434View attachment 627435View attachment 627436View attachment 627437

Bundy rum and TimTams you beauty . As a good Queenslander Bundy has been my preferred tipple since I was a 13 in cattle mustering camps . With Coca Cola if it is hot and with milk if the weather is cold . Be careful with the Overproof . Enjoy your hunting .

 

[James Patsis]

Best of luck Tim…. Keep the updates coming. Can’t wait to see how you go!

 

[AlDahas]

Best of luck mate, keep us posted
Ahmad

 

[Tim Blackwell]

OK so we've had such a hectic week that I've had no time for updates! A combination of full moon, wildly fluctuating temperatures and heat have made going tough! We've been back after dark every day and only had one lunch back at the lodge. But the great trophies are stacking up! Lunch on Day 7 now and finally some downtime.....


DAY 1 saw us head an hour north of camp to hunt Kudu for Matt in some very big bluff country. I was feeling quite crook and slowing the boys down a bit. But we pressed on in the heat.
Late morning the guys found a big bull in a steep valley but lost him before they could get in range.

Changing tactics for the afternoon, we went to sit and wait over an area where we thought they'd move towards for water given the heat. We eventually found a bachelor mob of 7 bulls, but the only mature one was a big unicorn! One horn!

It was after 5.30pm and we were actually packed up and leaving the property when we spied another bull. The guys hastily got on the sticks, but a 270m frontal shot was all that he would offer. Matt squeezed the trigger on his HS Precision 300Wby, and it looked good, but the bull staggered off, following the others.

We gave chase and found blood, but unfortunately ran out of light to secure him. I felt for my mate, not how I wanted his first African experience to commence!

TBC....

 

[Mike B.]

Hope you guys had another great trip! I’ll be there in a few weeks to chase after whatever you left behind for me.

 

[Tim Blackwell]

Day 2 happened to be my birthday. We headed to a massive area close to home base to hunt Blue Wildebeest for Matt. A couple of other guys were hunting in the vicinity of our Kudu hunt, Mick and PH Jem, so we gave them all the details in the hope it would be found.

After covering some ground a report came through of a big old Warthog boar that had been seen coming off a dam close to a farmhouse, which was making a mess of their lawns. Matt generously offered me the shot as a birthday gift,and I'll never turn down a big pig!

Surely enough, a careful approach eventually located him feeding by his watering hole. With Marius' 300WM on the quad sticks, I had an easy 56 yard shot, and made no mistakes. He was an ancient old pig, I was thrilled. As was the farmers' wife who thanked us profusely!

We carried on and in short order found a nice Blue Wildebeest bull hanging off the fringe of a small mob. As we stalked closer the shot angle got more and more difficult as he snorted at us through the bush. Then, up hill to our right we noticed a second, larger bull in an opening. Our cover took us to around 150 metres and the sticks went up. Again, a frontal shot was all that was on offer for Matt, but this time his aim was perfect, taking out the heart for a rapid kill. A lovely old bull with teeth worn right down to the gums.

We took both animals to the skinning shed to process, and had some lunch. As we rested, some amazing news came through, the guys had found Matt's Kudu! His shot had been about 4 inches from being perfect but went a touch low. A tremendous bull and a fantastic way to cap off a memorable birthday!!

 

[Tim Blackwell]

Day 3
We hunted the morning on the home property, looking for Nyala bulls. Marius had seen a big bull on a particular ridge before, so we headed around the opposite side of the valley and walked in to a good glassing position.
Sure enough we located a very nice tall bull below us and further along the valley, feeding in and out of the thick thornbush.

We relocted further down the valley to a height where we last saw him. We had to wait while some Blue Wildebeest moved off, then relocated the Nyala. Dropping down further again, we had a chance for a shot at 130m across the gully, but Matt just couldn't get a comfortable prone rest in the window provided. The bull sensed something was up and moved back up hill into thicker cover.

We husted back uphill and stacked a couple of nice flat rocks for a rest with my jacket over top. Matt settled in again and eventually the bull gave an opportunity through the bush at 220m. The 300WBY spoke and the impact was resounding, the bull only staggering a few steps before rolling in the thick gully.

We drove around above the bull, and remarkably, T-Man was able to lead us straight to him. A tough uphill recovery ensued and Matt had a beautiful mature Nyala bull in the salt.

That afternoon we headed north to a property where we wanted to look for Impala. To shorten a long story, we climbed above a thick flat where we played cat & mouse with 3 or 4 bulls throughout the afternoon.

Right at last light Matt made a perfect shot on a magnificent old lone ram.

Two beautiful trophies for the day. We headed further north again that night where we would stay for a couple of days to focus on my main target, a Sable bull.

 

[Tim Blackwell]

At this point, I'll share some of a what the rest of our Aussie group hunted in the first few days with the KMG team

Steeley with PH Jem, hunters this tremendously heavy Gemsbok bull, topped off by a massive Bushpig boar!

John with PH Robin, shot a beautiful Impala ram, and a very nice Gemsbok also.

Mick meanwhile, with PH Lloyd, managed to kick off with a magnificent Nyala and massive Impala. A great start for everyone, but not without lots of hard climbing and hard work in hot, windy conditions and a full moon to boot!

To be continued

 

[Tim Blackwell]

Day 4
We were hunting some incredible open mountain country today. A simply massive area with amazing rock formation and views in every direction. Here there were a lot of Black Wildebeest, Springbok, blesbok, steenbok, Hartebeest, and more. As well as some Sable hopefully, and I also had a Black WB on my list.

The morning was spent covering a huge amount of ground and glassing. We made a great stalk, crawling to within 50 yards of a mob of Blacks, we could hear them snorting and carrying on, but non were quite what we were looking for.

We glassed over one Sable bull on a dam with a cow. He looked pretty impressive to me, but our PH called him as still a little young, so we continued on to look for more.

Later that afternoon a lone Black Wildebeest bull was spotted way up on a high saddle on his lonesome. Just what we were looking for, but a challenge to get close to in the open around 7000 feet ASL! From 2 km plus we planned our stalk, if we took a long loop around the back of the ridge and stayed undetected, we should be able to crawl over the top behind him and be in range.

It took quite some time but eventually, on our bellies we eased forward over the ridge and thankfully the bull was still there feeding, quartering-away. With Marius' custom 300WM over the bipod at 140m, I wasn't quite high enough to clear the vegetation. But with my right elbow resting on my PH's back, I felt comfortable enough. Just then a crow flew off noisily and the bull looked up. Not wanting to waste our hard work, I quickly found his left armpit in the Nightforce reticle and sent the shot, quartering up through both lungs.

The bull staggered about 20 metres and went down. I had reloaded but knew he was well-hit, with blood pumping from his nose. After a minute or two we stood to congratulate each other on a fantastic stalk. Then we noticed the bull standing again! Somehow he found the ability to be staggering along. I found him over the sticks, but before I could fire again he'd dropped, for good this time. Tough animals!

 

[Mark R]

Just caught up on this report Tim. Well done mate

 

[Tim Blackwell]

Day 5
Up early and back on the Sable trail...
We covered a lot of ground early and did some glassing. Eventually around 9am we spied Sable through the bushes at the base of a mountain. Two cows, tailed by a young bull.
Further on the same valley, the binos picked out more of the big black antelope, so we headed that way. Leaving a water point was a large mob of around a dozen animals, a mixed breeding herd, and not exactly what we were looking for. There were 3 semi-mature bulls with them, but all still a little brown and we could see they had more development in their future.

From there, the trail dried up for a couple of hours. Plenty of other game was seen, Blesbok, Roan, Kudu cows...but no mature Sable. We drove higher into a rocky gully and continued the search. Eventually as we topped a rise, a big Sable bull materialised out of the bush. Marius mentioned "this looks more like it", as he reversed the Cruiser back over the rise and into some shade.

From there, my PH opted to grab the spotting scope and scale a nearby hill for a better look at the surrounding area. 20 minutes or so later he reappeared. "Bad news", he said. That bull just isn't quite old enough. "But I've found another bull, his neck is massive and he's jet black". As always, he didn't need to mention the horns. Age will take care of the inches

We went back up the hill he'd just climbed, to come at the bull from above. We located him again, feeding on his own behind a bush, with 3 other bulls 200 metres or so behind him.
We made it half way down the slope, picking our way carefully amongst the boulders and trying to stay low. Then the bull lifted his head all of a sudden, looking edgy. I ranged him at 223 metres, and I nearly asked for the sticks right there. But we let him calm and edged slowly closer.

Just as we neared the bottom of the hill, all hell broke loose as an unseen Roan came running through the valley, spooking everything. My bull went into a run to our left. Marius and I dropped down onto a track below us and started paralleling him at a rapid jog/walk. Two or 3 times we closed to within 200 and considered a shot, when he ran again.
Eventually we were right back around past the Cruiser, when we topped a ridge with no Sable to be seen. We were hoping we'd finally overtaken them, and as 3 black & white heads poked over the hill, we quickly took cover behind a large bush.
Marius peeked out the left side of the bush, then slowly set the sticks to our right. I slid the 300 over the top. "He's the left one, quartering on, 170 metres", he said. I found the target bull in the scope, settled my crosshair on his shoulder and fired.

Straight away I felt the shot was good. Our bull tried to follow his two younger counterparts, but only staggered a few metres and fell. By the time we regained our composure and walked over, he was stone dead.

He was the bull of my dreams. Huge bodied with scars both old and fresh. Jet-black and old, with long, heavy horns sweeping back in perfect symmetry. A fantastic result from a fantastic hunt. I couldn't have been happier!