Morning one: We arrive at Martin's place just on first light. It's a horrible windy day, blowing a gale and it's rained on and off for most of the drive, although happily most seems to have cleared. We drop some gear off for our overnight stay and split our hunting gear and crew between the two Landcruisers. Then we head out to the property not far away. It's a huge place, with no shortage of steep hills, some huge bluffs and river valleys, and thick bush covering the majority of it! Nothing at all like I'd experienced in Africa before and I could tell it was going to be challenging.
With local manager Mike on board as well, we start driving a few ridgelines and putting the binos to good use. That is, if you can hold them still long enough! We drive a few miles and glass a lot before the first Nyala are spotted. The sun has now broken though so the PH's knew we would find them sunning themselves in sheltered gullies out of the horrific wind.
Finally, in some typically very steep and thick country. My eagle-eyed PH spotted an old Nyala bull sunning himself, three-quarters of the way up the hill, in a tiny clearing 2km away. Out with the spotting scope, and a closer look revealed a mature bull that was certainly worth of further effort. Mark generously said that I could have the first crack - well, I pretty much pushed him aside as I can run a little bit faster than him
Moving the cruiser around the top of the mountain to circle around the bull, we closed in on foot to an area we hoped to get a look within range and downwind. After wearing a little boot leather and bashing downhill through some thorns, we managed to get down on the opposite face level with him, on a small shelf just like his, where we could set up the sticks. Marius ranged him at 260 yards, not really what I wanted first morning with a borrowed rifle, but I took a look through the scope on Marius' Ruger. I would the Leupold up to 10x, Martin gave me a shoulder to support the rear of the rifle, and I felt good, as I did on the range the night prior. Talking it through with both PH's, we agreed on allowing for a couple of inches of drop and the same in wind drift. I held on the spot and squeezed the trigger, and the bull jumped with a good hit, quickly disappearing into the thick stuff. We stayed put to mark the spot, and Marius called in the trackers with the dogs to find him. It didn't take long for Lloyd, along with JRT's Flex and Rigby, to find him stone dead; and we made our way around the gully head. I had nailed him right through the heart with a 260 yard cross gully shot. A beautiful wide old trophy, with broomed-off horns and teeth worn right down to the gums, just what I like! What a way to start!
It was a difficult recovery to lift him out whole on a tarpaulin but we all pitched in and soon had him ready for photos then butchering. An amazing start to the hunt and I couldn't be happier with my Nyala!
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TBC...
