So on to the good stuff.
I left Salt Lake City on the 23rd of July headed to Jo'burg. Armed with Ambien, I climbed back into the flying tin can that would hold me captive for the next 20 odd hours or so. I'm 6'5, I don't fit in those seats. All the economy comfort seats were taken on the 200 flight and I refuse to pay $10K or 500,000 Skymiles. Did I mention I hate that flight? A few years ago my wife did it with me. She asks me every trip why I do it. My answer is always the same. I know what is on the other side. I will endure a day or so of pure nonsense for the 10 days of adventure.
This time, for the first time, I brought a fellow hunter with me. I use the term "hunter" very loosely here. In fact, to be very specific, up until 2 months ago my fellow hunter had never fired a rifle let alone fired a rifle at an animal. I was nervous for him. Would he like it? Would he appreciate and love Africa and its animals as much as I do? He had talked about reading Wilbur Smith's books and said he loved it. He wanted to know what a bushbuck really looked like. Like everyone, he wanted to see a lion. I told him I would see what I could do..... I was originally going to hunt the bushveld with Jakes and HuntSafari but after Jakes and I discussed it, we both felt like taking a first time hunter to something that may require a significant amount of tracking depending on the shot and potential disappoint for my fellow hunter, we decided on the Free State. We figured if he wounded something we could quickly correct the problem if necessary. All of the worrying and discussion was ultimately a waste. He shot like a seasoned vet.
So we landed. I use Adele as my SAPS, skip the immigration line service. She took care of it all and soon we were in the car headed to the Free State. Before we left Jakes sent me the weather report. It was not good. We were not in a hurry to drive late into the night to reach our hunting camp. Monday was going to be nothing but cold and wet and miserable. So we arranged a little surprise for my friend.
After a few hours of driving we stopped at a place called Rhino's Rest. It's an amazing little B&B. After climbing into bed and settling into my drug induced coma, we woke up the next morning to the predicted weather. It was wet and cold. As we sat down to breakfast, we made a plan. The plan was hit the grocery store and get to camp. Not very exciting and I'm sure my friend was fairly disappointed until the door to the garage opened. As we all turned to the door, out trotted 4 little lion cubs. 3 weeks old they trotted around like they owned the place.
I don't really want to get into a discussion of whether it's right or wrong to hand raise young lions but for anyone who has had the opportunity to see them up close, hold them and pet them, they are truly amazing. I think my friend nearly fell out of his chair. We spent the rest of the morning touring a bit of the "back 40" with the owner of Rhino's Rest. And while he didn't have Rhino's on display, he did have multiple 6 acre enclosures with plenty of lions. It was definitely something to remember. The lions all seemed to be in good condition despite the ridiculous freezing cold rain.
The place we were going to be hunting was located near Boshof in the Free State but since it was ridiculously cold and wet we decided to take a little detour. We drove to Bloemfontein and went to Riaan vd Merwe's new shop. Riaan owns African Artistry and the Tinashe Game Reserve (with his brother I think). Riaan is a fantastic guy. Super nice and an overall great guy to be around. After getting the tour of his new facility and meeting the staff, my friend (Ross) and I spent a few hours walking around getting taxidermy ideas. Lizzy, his office manager, was just awesome and patient in answering all of our mundane questions.
As you know, US F&W has decided that they are the police of the world now and know better than anyone else the state of the lion and have closed importation. This has been fairly difficult I would imagine for Tinashe and Riaan. Last year in June I hunted a lioness with Riaan and Jakes. The lion was actually purchased from a National Reserve in SA and then relocated to Tinashe for the hunt. That lioness is pictured above. An interesting sidenote here. I have hunted 10 times with Jakes and HuntSafari. He has become not only my PH and Outfitter but he is a dear family friend. I have hunted with Jakes at other places with other Outfitters. I get really mad fairly quickly when the Outfitter we are hunting with tries to "poach" me as a client. Riaan is NONE of that. He is a true professional. Hell, we had to drag it out of him that he owned a taxidermy. I ultimately did decide to use Riaan and as you can see above, he didn't disappoint at all. In the end, Riaan decided to join us in Boshof for the hunt and just hang out. I am so glad he did.
We arrived at farm in Boshof and cooked up some fantastic kudu sausage and bushbuck steaks. As we sat around the fire and caught up on life, politics, business and what not, we discussed the rules. Drink a beer, you're done hunting. Don't listen to the PH, you're done hunting. We discussed shot placement and showed pictures of what Ross would be hunting. Then Ross and I popped Ambien and went to bed.
