I've just arrived home from my first Safari with Somerby Safaris in South Africa and all I can say is Wow! What an experience. I was lucky enough to share this Safari with my wife and my 15 month old son. Hats off to Somerby for the way they were able to cater to a 15 month old and I can't recommend them highly enough if you're travelling with a family.
My main goal on this trip was a Kudu so with my PH (thankyou so much Schalk) we decided to hunt Kudu non stop until we managed to tick that box unless we came across something exceptional along the way. The Kudu hunting blew my expectations out of the water and the respect I now have for these animals is off the charts. The first thing that surprised me was just how difficult it is to see an animal of that size. I'm sure without my the PH there I wouldn't have seen a quarter of the Kudu we did. After a failed stalk on the afternoon of the second day we got the job done on the afternoon of the third day. We spotted a group of three bulls travelling together through some thickish scrub and decided to make a play on the biggest of the three. We got to a point where we couldn't see the big bull and had to make an assumption on the direction and speed he was travelling. Schalk set me up on the sticks pointing towards a 5 meter gap in the scrub around 150 meters away. "Our only real hope here is that he pops out into that gap"..... This didn't exactly sound like a bullet proof plan to me but with no other option I got set up and waited. No more than 30 seconds had passed when the huge grey body appeared. As the gap was so small I had to take a relatively quick shot while he was on the move. The shot looked and sounded good and the nervous walk began. When we rounded the corner to where we'd last seen my Kudu we saw him still standing but not happy around 20 meters away. A quick follow up shot put him down instantly and the animal of my dreams was on the deck. An amazing animal to open my African hunting account!
With the pressure of the Kudu now off we were able to relax a little and went in search of more critters. I wasn't locked into a set list but loosely made plans to chase a Blue Wildebeest, a Zebra and an Impala.
The following morning we set out and after turning down dozens of Wildebeest that all looked perfectly acceptable to me, my PH finally said "that's a good Bull". We were cursing along in the in the hunting truck and the Wildebeest was walking straight up the road towards us. We got off the truck 500 meters away from the beast and sent the car off on it's way. We found some cover and set up with the hope that the bull would continue on his path straight up the road. The plan worked. After a minute or so he appeared but not quite as we expected. Luckily for us, he'd decided to turn off the road but he'd left his turn late enough that he was still visible from our cover. What this meant though was that instead of a quartering chest shot that I was expecting, I had a broadside shot that was again, a shot on the walk before he disappeared into the cover on the other side of the road. The hit sounded good again but the animal ran. He'd only made it around 50 meters and a follow up decked him there and then. It turned out that because he'd been on the walk I'd managed to hit him just too far back to drop him on the first shot.
After this I gave myself the nickname 2 shot Matt much to the entertainment of my hunting party!
From here we drove on and things were very quiet. As we weren't seeing much from the vehicle, we decided to get away from the road and took off into the bush on foot. Something I'd wanted to do desperately since the hunting started.
After 45 minutes or so of dodging Wildebeest , Steenbock and small Impala we came across a group of Zebra. For an hour and a half we crept and inched towards the Zebra trying to work out the Stallion in the group. The longer the stalk went on, the more suspect the Zebra became and eventually they spooked. They took off to our left and ran in an ark. By some sort of sixth sense, the PH set up the sticks pointing towards where he thought they might pull up and once again he was right on the money. In this time he'd also worked out the Stallion of the group and pointed him out. I was very keen to put a stop to the 2 shot routine so the adrenaline was pumping. When they stopped, there was two Zebra directly behind the Stallion so I had to wait for what felt like minutes for the other two to clear (after watching the video back, it turned out to be around 3 seconds). Once those two stepped out I sent the shot and again there was a solid Whack! the Stallion ran to the right and the rest of the Zebra ran left which the PH said was a very good sign. After 15 minutes of blood trailing I was convinced that once again I'd failed to execute a kill shot on the first attempt but suddenly a dead Zebra appeared in the scrub. As it turns out, this fella was just extremely tough. the 286 grain Nosler Partition entered in the left chest and was later found sitting against the right hip bone. With this much internal damage the Zebra was able to run for a good 500 meters on pure adrenaline. A very impressive effort.
From here we were left with 2 and a half days of hunting remaining and only an Impala left on the target list. We drove past hundreds of Impala during this time and much to my PH's credit he didn't let me shoot any as we had discussed exactly what I was after at the start of the week and he assured me that we hadn't seen the "correct" Impala. As we headed out for the last morning of hunting I figured it was down to a 50% chance of heading home with an Impala. I was fine with missing out on one if the right animal didn't present itself and I was very appreciative of Schalk that he didn't let me jump the gun. After a failed stalk that morning we found another great looking Impala. We got in nice and close and the easiest shot of the trip presented itself with the very nice animal standing broadside at 50 meters. From this position I somehow clean missed.... I honestly have no idea how this happened as in my minds eye, the crosshairs never left the body of the Impala, even with the recoil of the shot. I was stumped but didn't have time to think about it too much as evidentially I'd missed him by so much that he only ran around 50 meters before stopping again. This time, the shot was true and hit exactly where I was aiming, making the previous miss even more perplexing... Regardless, a fantastic Impala was on the ground. The only conjecture was if this counted as one shot or added to the two shot tally
Either way I was very happy.
And that was the end of my first African Safari. Obviously I've only covered the successful stalks and hunt in this report and I couldn't even begin to try and cover all of the memories that were made on this trip outside of this. The best I can do is share a picture of my son loving life with this group of Wildebeest.
Thankyou so much to Schalk, Ansa and Somerby Safaris for their hospitality and making our family Safari an unforgettable experience.
My main goal on this trip was a Kudu so with my PH (thankyou so much Schalk) we decided to hunt Kudu non stop until we managed to tick that box unless we came across something exceptional along the way. The Kudu hunting blew my expectations out of the water and the respect I now have for these animals is off the charts. The first thing that surprised me was just how difficult it is to see an animal of that size. I'm sure without my the PH there I wouldn't have seen a quarter of the Kudu we did. After a failed stalk on the afternoon of the second day we got the job done on the afternoon of the third day. We spotted a group of three bulls travelling together through some thickish scrub and decided to make a play on the biggest of the three. We got to a point where we couldn't see the big bull and had to make an assumption on the direction and speed he was travelling. Schalk set me up on the sticks pointing towards a 5 meter gap in the scrub around 150 meters away. "Our only real hope here is that he pops out into that gap"..... This didn't exactly sound like a bullet proof plan to me but with no other option I got set up and waited. No more than 30 seconds had passed when the huge grey body appeared. As the gap was so small I had to take a relatively quick shot while he was on the move. The shot looked and sounded good and the nervous walk began. When we rounded the corner to where we'd last seen my Kudu we saw him still standing but not happy around 20 meters away. A quick follow up shot put him down instantly and the animal of my dreams was on the deck. An amazing animal to open my African hunting account!
With the pressure of the Kudu now off we were able to relax a little and went in search of more critters. I wasn't locked into a set list but loosely made plans to chase a Blue Wildebeest, a Zebra and an Impala.
The following morning we set out and after turning down dozens of Wildebeest that all looked perfectly acceptable to me, my PH finally said "that's a good Bull". We were cursing along in the in the hunting truck and the Wildebeest was walking straight up the road towards us. We got off the truck 500 meters away from the beast and sent the car off on it's way. We found some cover and set up with the hope that the bull would continue on his path straight up the road. The plan worked. After a minute or so he appeared but not quite as we expected. Luckily for us, he'd decided to turn off the road but he'd left his turn late enough that he was still visible from our cover. What this meant though was that instead of a quartering chest shot that I was expecting, I had a broadside shot that was again, a shot on the walk before he disappeared into the cover on the other side of the road. The hit sounded good again but the animal ran. He'd only made it around 50 meters and a follow up decked him there and then. It turned out that because he'd been on the walk I'd managed to hit him just too far back to drop him on the first shot.
After this I gave myself the nickname 2 shot Matt much to the entertainment of my hunting party!
From here we drove on and things were very quiet. As we weren't seeing much from the vehicle, we decided to get away from the road and took off into the bush on foot. Something I'd wanted to do desperately since the hunting started.
After 45 minutes or so of dodging Wildebeest , Steenbock and small Impala we came across a group of Zebra. For an hour and a half we crept and inched towards the Zebra trying to work out the Stallion in the group. The longer the stalk went on, the more suspect the Zebra became and eventually they spooked. They took off to our left and ran in an ark. By some sort of sixth sense, the PH set up the sticks pointing towards where he thought they might pull up and once again he was right on the money. In this time he'd also worked out the Stallion of the group and pointed him out. I was very keen to put a stop to the 2 shot routine so the adrenaline was pumping. When they stopped, there was two Zebra directly behind the Stallion so I had to wait for what felt like minutes for the other two to clear (after watching the video back, it turned out to be around 3 seconds). Once those two stepped out I sent the shot and again there was a solid Whack! the Stallion ran to the right and the rest of the Zebra ran left which the PH said was a very good sign. After 15 minutes of blood trailing I was convinced that once again I'd failed to execute a kill shot on the first attempt but suddenly a dead Zebra appeared in the scrub. As it turns out, this fella was just extremely tough. the 286 grain Nosler Partition entered in the left chest and was later found sitting against the right hip bone. With this much internal damage the Zebra was able to run for a good 500 meters on pure adrenaline. A very impressive effort.
From here we were left with 2 and a half days of hunting remaining and only an Impala left on the target list. We drove past hundreds of Impala during this time and much to my PH's credit he didn't let me shoot any as we had discussed exactly what I was after at the start of the week and he assured me that we hadn't seen the "correct" Impala. As we headed out for the last morning of hunting I figured it was down to a 50% chance of heading home with an Impala. I was fine with missing out on one if the right animal didn't present itself and I was very appreciative of Schalk that he didn't let me jump the gun. After a failed stalk that morning we found another great looking Impala. We got in nice and close and the easiest shot of the trip presented itself with the very nice animal standing broadside at 50 meters. From this position I somehow clean missed.... I honestly have no idea how this happened as in my minds eye, the crosshairs never left the body of the Impala, even with the recoil of the shot. I was stumped but didn't have time to think about it too much as evidentially I'd missed him by so much that he only ran around 50 meters before stopping again. This time, the shot was true and hit exactly where I was aiming, making the previous miss even more perplexing... Regardless, a fantastic Impala was on the ground. The only conjecture was if this counted as one shot or added to the two shot tally
Either way I was very happy.And that was the end of my first African Safari. Obviously I've only covered the successful stalks and hunt in this report and I couldn't even begin to try and cover all of the memories that were made on this trip outside of this. The best I can do is share a picture of my son loving life with this group of Wildebeest.
Thankyou so much to Schalk, Ansa and Somerby Safaris for their hospitality and making our family Safari an unforgettable experience.
There just wasn't any Wildebeest there then 
I hope you realize your wife is a saint. Congratulations on a successful first hunt in Africa.
