Hefty Jefe
New member
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2024
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- Texas
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- USA, Canada, Mexico, RSA
2024 South African Family Safari
Outfitter: Wild Wildebeest Safaris, Tony DeBruyn
PH: Dawie Jacobs
Tracker: Rasta
Last year, my wife and I decided to take our family on an African safari. I generally travel alone for hunting, so this would be my first time taking my wife and daughter. My wife is not a hunter and my 15 year old daughter thankfully humors me by doing some occasional local hunting with me. She has been lucky enough to harvest 5 deer on one day deer hunts. She has also done a 3-day New Mexico Pronghorn hunt with me that she still describes as “very long.” Given these unique circumstances, I knew that I had to put together a safari that ensured everyone had experiences that they found fun and exciting.
Since I believe the best references are ones given by trusted colleagues, I contacted several friends that are regulars to the Dark Continent. From these, I spoke with several outstanding outfitters who I am sure would have all done a great job. I finally settled on Wild Wildebeest Safaris (WWS) with outfitter Tony DeBruyn. I was able to speak to Tony at length during a local get together hosted by a friend before the SCI show. He had excellent answers to all my questions and understood that I wanted to combine hunting and non-hunting activities to maximize our family experience.
Although sleeping in a wall tent in Alaska sounds perfectly reasonable to me, my wife believes a Holiday Inn is roughing it. In addition to their home camp, WWS has several different ranches they use for different hunts around South Africa. Tony sent me pictures of several camps and my wife and I agreed the camp in Limpopo would be an excellent choice for both hunting accommodations and proximity to other activities we wanted to do.
Days 1-2
We flew from Atlanta to Johannesburg on Delta mainly because it had the fewest connections from our home airport. My family has done several European and Central American flights previously, but 16 hours is a long flight for anyone no matter how you do it. We upgraded to Comfort+ and the extra room certainly helped my long legs. I am not sure it helped my 5’3” wife and daughter but it gave them more room for their stuff. After we landed and got through passport control, we were met by Dawie our gregarious PH who walked us to City Lodge. After we checked in, we went down to the restaurant, got a great dinner, and went back to the room to sleep.
Day 3
The next morning, we loaded up our luggage and set out for the lodge. The three hour drive to the Limpopo region was easy, pleasant and supported with healthy doses of biltong and Fanta. During the trip we discussed what types of hunting experiences and non-hunting experiences we hoped to have over the next week. Dawie our PH paid close attention and helped us put together a great gameplan. I told him our top animals were a kudu and sable for me and a zebra and wildebeest for my daughter. Additional animals were gametime decisions. I told him that I wanted to spot and stalk as much as feasible and possibly use blinds if needed for specific critters. As we were finishing up the conversation, my lovely daughter told Dawie that getting a zebra was the most important part of our safari and is the main reason she was there. I think he got the hint. When we arrived, the lodge was beautiful with a large central building and smaller buildings for each family. We were the only people in camp at that time. We got our luggage to our rooms, unpacked and went to the lodge for a delicious lunch.
After lunch, we went to the range to shoot the rifle. Because we were going to be traveling to a national park after hunting, I decided to not bring my own rifles and just rent one there. We shot our PH’s rifle which was a suppressed 30-06. When he pulled it out of the case, I initially thought it was a Winchester Model 70. However, upon further inspection it was a Musgrave which is a South African firearm company. The ammo were handloaded 165 g Hornady SST. Both my daughter and I shot groups less than an inch apart at 100 yards. We both agreed that his camo tape used to hide the shine of barrel did not do justice to such a spectacular gun. After shooting it for a week, I wish we could easily get Musgrave rifles in the USA.
After we shot the rifle from the bench, we practice a couple shots off Viper Flex Sticks. My daughter and I had practiced off a Bog-Pod tripod for the last month so this new-fangled contraption looked like a disaster waiting to happen. We were very wrong. If you haven’t shot from these before, you owe it to yourself to try them. The stability that they produce is amazing.
After our shooting practice, we decided to drive around the ranch to “see what we could find.” From my understanding, the ranch is traditional bushveld with dense thorny brush and some open high grass areas. That first night, we found three Giraffe, several kinds of Wildebeest, and a group of impala. We got out of the truck to look at the impalas more closely. There were several young rams and one larger one. Dawie sized him up and said the ram was a great one and that I should take it. About that time, the impalas decided to exit stage left. We headed off hiking after them and 20 minutes later we caught back up to them. Viper Sticks went down, the gun went up with the ram quartering to me at 70 yards. I placed the crosshairs halfway up the body on the front of the shoulder and squeezed the trigger the second he gave me the go ahead. I heard the sound of the impact and the ram ran to the left. We walked in his direction and found the blood trail. He laid about 30 yards ahead. The tracker, my wife and daughter arrived several minutes later in the Land Cruiser. If you know the relationship I have with my daughter, we constantly tease each other. When she walked up and saw the exit would at the bottom of the ribs she told me I shot too far back. Dawie rolled the over the impala and showed her an entry wound on the front of the shoulder and told her it was perfect. It was fun having someone else make my daughter eat crow. I have to complement our PH and tracker on the effort they put into great pictures throughout the trip. I admit that my understanding of iPhone pictures was point and shoot. Our PH, showed me that iPhone photos can be modified in all sorts of ways to enhance photo quality.
On the way home, we saw a large blue wildebeest bull. We hopped off the Land Cruiser and set off on the stalk. My wife came with us because she wanted to capture this moment on camera. We caught the wildebeest walking into a water hole. We got my daughter set up on the sticks but a tree was between her and the wildebeest. My wife decided she didn’t have a good angle to capture the moment on her camera decided to walk to our right, fully alerting the Wildebeest of our presence. He stood behind the tree for about 5 minutes before bolting away. Good learning lesson for all of us. That evening we returned to the lodge and ate an incredible dinner. We were introduced to Malva Pudding for dessert which we all thought was incredible.
Outfitter: Wild Wildebeest Safaris, Tony DeBruyn
PH: Dawie Jacobs
Tracker: Rasta
Last year, my wife and I decided to take our family on an African safari. I generally travel alone for hunting, so this would be my first time taking my wife and daughter. My wife is not a hunter and my 15 year old daughter thankfully humors me by doing some occasional local hunting with me. She has been lucky enough to harvest 5 deer on one day deer hunts. She has also done a 3-day New Mexico Pronghorn hunt with me that she still describes as “very long.” Given these unique circumstances, I knew that I had to put together a safari that ensured everyone had experiences that they found fun and exciting.
Since I believe the best references are ones given by trusted colleagues, I contacted several friends that are regulars to the Dark Continent. From these, I spoke with several outstanding outfitters who I am sure would have all done a great job. I finally settled on Wild Wildebeest Safaris (WWS) with outfitter Tony DeBruyn. I was able to speak to Tony at length during a local get together hosted by a friend before the SCI show. He had excellent answers to all my questions and understood that I wanted to combine hunting and non-hunting activities to maximize our family experience.
Although sleeping in a wall tent in Alaska sounds perfectly reasonable to me, my wife believes a Holiday Inn is roughing it. In addition to their home camp, WWS has several different ranches they use for different hunts around South Africa. Tony sent me pictures of several camps and my wife and I agreed the camp in Limpopo would be an excellent choice for both hunting accommodations and proximity to other activities we wanted to do.
Days 1-2
We flew from Atlanta to Johannesburg on Delta mainly because it had the fewest connections from our home airport. My family has done several European and Central American flights previously, but 16 hours is a long flight for anyone no matter how you do it. We upgraded to Comfort+ and the extra room certainly helped my long legs. I am not sure it helped my 5’3” wife and daughter but it gave them more room for their stuff. After we landed and got through passport control, we were met by Dawie our gregarious PH who walked us to City Lodge. After we checked in, we went down to the restaurant, got a great dinner, and went back to the room to sleep.
Day 3
The next morning, we loaded up our luggage and set out for the lodge. The three hour drive to the Limpopo region was easy, pleasant and supported with healthy doses of biltong and Fanta. During the trip we discussed what types of hunting experiences and non-hunting experiences we hoped to have over the next week. Dawie our PH paid close attention and helped us put together a great gameplan. I told him our top animals were a kudu and sable for me and a zebra and wildebeest for my daughter. Additional animals were gametime decisions. I told him that I wanted to spot and stalk as much as feasible and possibly use blinds if needed for specific critters. As we were finishing up the conversation, my lovely daughter told Dawie that getting a zebra was the most important part of our safari and is the main reason she was there. I think he got the hint. When we arrived, the lodge was beautiful with a large central building and smaller buildings for each family. We were the only people in camp at that time. We got our luggage to our rooms, unpacked and went to the lodge for a delicious lunch.
After lunch, we went to the range to shoot the rifle. Because we were going to be traveling to a national park after hunting, I decided to not bring my own rifles and just rent one there. We shot our PH’s rifle which was a suppressed 30-06. When he pulled it out of the case, I initially thought it was a Winchester Model 70. However, upon further inspection it was a Musgrave which is a South African firearm company. The ammo were handloaded 165 g Hornady SST. Both my daughter and I shot groups less than an inch apart at 100 yards. We both agreed that his camo tape used to hide the shine of barrel did not do justice to such a spectacular gun. After shooting it for a week, I wish we could easily get Musgrave rifles in the USA.
After we shot the rifle from the bench, we practice a couple shots off Viper Flex Sticks. My daughter and I had practiced off a Bog-Pod tripod for the last month so this new-fangled contraption looked like a disaster waiting to happen. We were very wrong. If you haven’t shot from these before, you owe it to yourself to try them. The stability that they produce is amazing.
After our shooting practice, we decided to drive around the ranch to “see what we could find.” From my understanding, the ranch is traditional bushveld with dense thorny brush and some open high grass areas. That first night, we found three Giraffe, several kinds of Wildebeest, and a group of impala. We got out of the truck to look at the impalas more closely. There were several young rams and one larger one. Dawie sized him up and said the ram was a great one and that I should take it. About that time, the impalas decided to exit stage left. We headed off hiking after them and 20 minutes later we caught back up to them. Viper Sticks went down, the gun went up with the ram quartering to me at 70 yards. I placed the crosshairs halfway up the body on the front of the shoulder and squeezed the trigger the second he gave me the go ahead. I heard the sound of the impact and the ram ran to the left. We walked in his direction and found the blood trail. He laid about 30 yards ahead. The tracker, my wife and daughter arrived several minutes later in the Land Cruiser. If you know the relationship I have with my daughter, we constantly tease each other. When she walked up and saw the exit would at the bottom of the ribs she told me I shot too far back. Dawie rolled the over the impala and showed her an entry wound on the front of the shoulder and told her it was perfect. It was fun having someone else make my daughter eat crow. I have to complement our PH and tracker on the effort they put into great pictures throughout the trip. I admit that my understanding of iPhone pictures was point and shoot. Our PH, showed me that iPhone photos can be modified in all sorts of ways to enhance photo quality.
On the way home, we saw a large blue wildebeest bull. We hopped off the Land Cruiser and set off on the stalk. My wife came with us because she wanted to capture this moment on camera. We caught the wildebeest walking into a water hole. We got my daughter set up on the sticks but a tree was between her and the wildebeest. My wife decided she didn’t have a good angle to capture the moment on her camera decided to walk to our right, fully alerting the Wildebeest of our presence. He stood behind the tree for about 5 minutes before bolting away. Good learning lesson for all of us. That evening we returned to the lodge and ate an incredible dinner. We were introduced to Malva Pudding for dessert which we all thought was incredible.
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