Day 9:
The plan today was to hunt the Sandveld Nature Reserve, but I still hadn't had eyes on a proper Black Wildebeest so we passed on the reserve as that wasn’t an option there.
After looking everything over that we could find on the property here, we went about 45 minutes to another area that Somerby had access to, the Christiana All Seasons Resort. The Black Wildebeest were wild and wound up there! The closest we could get on our stalk ended up being 250 yards, thankfully I decided to use the 6.5 and took my shot. Impact was just a little low, but it was over quickly.
This old guy was well worth the multiple days in the rain we had spent after a suitable Bull.
After lunch and dry pants/socks, we were off to see about a Gemsbok as a late addition. The Gemsbok that I saw here at The Sanctuary were impressive over the last few days, it was now time to make my bid! This time I took the 404 as I had been neglecting it since the Buff. After two busted stalks, we ended up crawling to the security of a lone tree to reassess, and it turned out that the buzzing I had been ignoring wasn't flys any more…. Bees. I pointed, and proceeded to make my exit without blowing the stalk a third time…
Success, and nobody got stung. My PH and Tracker were WAY to comfy with the bees!!!
We got to 190 yards and had remained undetected, I got on the sticks and waited for our Gems to walk into the lane… nothing, more waiting. Finally she did, and then promptly laid down…. More waiting!
Finally she stood up, turned broadside and I made my shot. 1824 FPS and 3326 ft-lbs was sufficient and she was down. This most challenging stalk took 2 hours and is probably my favorite stalk ever. What a beautiful animal.
That concludes the hunting for this trip, tonight is Gemsbok fillets on the Braai, and then back to Pretoria mid-day tomorrow to start the wind-down process
