On Day 6 two things of note happened. 1. My friends, all 8 of them left to go to Krueger National Park. I had always planned to stay and hunt but now had to decide what to go after. 2. I had to call my wife to wire more money. She took it very well. I wired the price of my original hunt package before I left Arkansas and now had gone 3 animals over. 3 expensive animals I might add.
We decided to go for Nyala. the guys had been seeing a big Nyala for a few years. I wasn't really aware of Nyala though I had read Jim Shockey's book where the Main character was named Nyala. They also had one full body mount in the lodge, and it was impressive.
The first day we hunted from dawn until dark and never saw a more than a couple Nyala females and a small bull. we did see a big Waterbuck but had no shot.
The second day was more of the same. lots of wildebeest, ostrich, waterbuck, Kudu, dozens of baboon's, sable, buffalo everything expect a trophy, Nyala.
By 1 pm I was done. It was getting hot, and we couldn't even turn up a track. We decided to go eat lunch and regroup. This thing was a ghost. We now had 2 trackers and Abel, the new tracker to our team decided to skip lunch and stay and sit on a waterhole. No one asked him to; it was his idea. We barely made it to the lodge when he called on the radio.
The big Nyala was at the waterhole drinking. Apparently, Abel had history with this bull.
We raced back and took up his track. We caught glimpses of him sneaking through the brush and finally caught him in the open. My first shot put him down and the celebration began. I still can't believe we got him or that he even existed. It took two trackers and a PH who never quit on me even with my poor attitude.
