SOUTH AFRICA: KMG Hunting Safaris : Cull Hunt April 2024

[cpr0312]

Looks like a great time and a successful hunt! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Dudders]

Summary
I thought i might add a few things about this hunt
The accomadation is was good more of a self catering style perfectly suitable for what we were doing clean and tidy. The food was great rustic home cooking springs to mind and plenty of it.
It was a rugged but beautiful landscape it is hard going at times and a reasonable level of fitness is required. Good knees and ankles a requirement and elbow pads and an ability to lie in the most uncomfortable positions for extended periods of time. There is also a lot more conversation happening about the animal you are targeting mainly because of targeting animals in herds and also you tend to be looking through a scope most of the time( the trackers spent more time using my bino's they were hardly used by me and were more of a pain to carry when crawing) with a narrow field of view it is easy to miss animals on the extremes of the herd.

chicken dinner
Would i do this hunt again absolutely had a great time it was a little rough around the edges but i love that kind of thing every day was like a mini adventure.

 

[Dudders]

So wednesday morning we were up early to head back to the main lodge, T man and the farm tracker had taken the truck to load up the ten carcasses as we would drop them off at a butchers on the way back hence the early start hoping to get there before it started to warm up. The skins were also onboard as they were off to make flat skins somewhere else with a bit of a squeeze we got everything on board and headed off. We stopped by the butchers to off load the carcases in the main street not something you see anymore back home let alone washing the blood out of the truck. Marius grabbed us all some biltong and we head on. I had mentioned looking for a common reedbuck and Marius had manged to arrange us to head to the next door farm to look but we would only have that afternoon as someone else had booked to hunt the property for the next to days. We aarrive back at the main lodge and get settled in and sorted. After lunch we head out to an area we had seen a good male two years earlier we pick up a local guide on our way. We arrive at the spot it looks different than i remebered but it was two years ago so maybe i am wrong. We spent the afternoon looking only seeing some duiker and warthogs we finaly spot some reedbuck but as we begin to work closer a bank of fog rolls in and with the onset of night and visability dropping fast we call it and head back to the truck and on to the lodge and our way back Marius gets a call from the owners. The people booked for tomorrow would not make it so we could hunt there the next if we liked Marius agreed so we had a plan for the next day.

 

[Dudders]

We head out to the same area the next morning, today we have the main tracker for the area we went over the same area again but no luck. Marius was talking to the tracker and disscussed the ram we had seen 2 years previous he remembered that incounter and said we were in the wrong place that was the next block over Marius turned to me and said "were in the wrong place" when i told him i knew and pointed to where we should of been looking. Marius was "why didn't you say " my reply was " it was two years ago and am i going to tell you that your looking in the wrong place." We laughed and headed off to where we should of been looking as we left Marius stopped to look over the fields before we left he spotted a reedbuck ram lying down in the grass the spotting scope came out and Marius said it looked ok and said i should take a look but i could not make anything out Marius rechecked the spotting scope and said its center of the image again i looked and could not make out anything Marius looked again its right there look again, again i looked Marius " you see it " as i replied again " no" while still looking Marius began to beat me with his cap in frustation apparently it was to knock the stupid out of me funnily enough it worked and what i thought was a small thorn bush was the ram. After the trackers had finished laughing it was decided to go have a closer look. We would walk down across the cattle paddock through the scrub and up the slope to get above the ram who was laying down in the tall grass, the wind was working in our favour as we quietly approched we climed through the cattle fence and loaded the rifle we had a position check from T man who was watching from the opposite side of the valley and we slowly began to move forward we ended up 18 yards from the reed buck when Marius said "no still soft at the bases " we slowly crept back out and left the ram lying in the grass none the wiser. T man drove round to collect us and we had drive around but only saw young males and females for the rest of the morning he headed back to the lodge and would try again that afternoon

 

[Dudders]

We head out again that afternoon park up scan the fields ahead of us we put in a stalk on some warthogs but it turned out to be a female so we continued on. We had just driven into a new paddock when the tracker spotted a reedbuck on the opposite side of the valley in another paddock after a quick look through the spotting scope we were off, the grass in this paddock was quite tall and gave us plenty of cover our initial plan was scuppered by a big kudu bull who had spotted us and we were worried would take off and spook the reed buck. So we back tracked and took a wide swing out away from him. Using the available vegitation we made it to a spot opposite the reedbuck on our side of the valley another quick check and Marius comfirmed it was old enough we set up to make the shot across the valley we were ready we waited for the ram to turn broadside and clear some bushes as he stepped out clear of the cover Marius said when you are ready shoot just as i was about to squeeze the trigger the reedbuck dropped to the floor all we could see were the tops of his horns. Marius told me to stay on him if he stands up shoot. I have the two trackers to my left sat in the grass and marius stood to my right with the spotting scope after a couple of minutes i see movement through the scope and the reedbuck begins to stand as he stands fully i fire and the reedbuck jolts takes off and then drops into the grass. At that point i notice the laughter coming from my left i look and the two trackers can hardly contain themselves a bit puzzled i look at marius who has his really i can believe you just did that face on, then i notice he was still holding the phone over the scope he had be trying to take photos of the ram through the scope, he thought he would get a nice one when it stood up no chance now.

Marius did manage to get some picture of the kudu though

By the time we extracted the reedbuck and dropped it off at the chiller it was late we dropped the tracker off at his house as it was to late for him to catch the bus home and called it a day

 

[Dudders]

On friday having spent the morning looking for bushbuck with no luck Marius sugested we look for a cull blue wildebest cow. we drove out to an area that then had been hanging around recently parked up and began our stalk slowly working our way through clearings and light scrub we found some very fresh dung so knew we were not far from them we carried on a fair distance but never saw anymore signs we decided to head lower down the hill and work our way back to the truck as we worked down the hill we looke dback and could see the blues grazing on an open area below where we had seen the fresh dung we picked up the pace moving through the scrub untill we found a clearing 200 meters away looking across a small valley we quickly got set up as the wind was blowing towards the heard we had picked out a cow and were waiting for her to clear the herd when they caught the wind and the group took off into the thick thorns we thought that was it but than had stopped not far into the wcrub and were just milling around so we sent T man around to see if he could push them back towards us while we waited it was not to long before the herd reappeared we waited for them to move lower down the hill away from the tracker as they did they moved down hill they stopped behind some more cover only offering the odd glimpse Marius did manage to locate an old cow again we hoped she would offer a shot if we just took our time. Mean while the bull in the herd this whole time stood full broadside in the open, there was some movement and marius sugested that i move more to the left which may give a better angle for a shot after crawling around and setting back up in the new postion i was locating the bull and trying to find the old cow again on rechecking the location of the bull something did not look correct perhaps it wad the change of postion but that looks like a cow not a bull, i began to ask marius if the bull was last one on the right and he confirmed it was still as i was thinking this still not right marius move towards me and then spotted what i was looking at it was a cow it had been hidden from his view and must of come out while i was moving postion w quick look from marius and he said "ok shoot it " at the shot it took off heading to the rest of the herd and piled up just as it reached the scrub.

 

[Dudders]

we spent the next day looking for bush buck with no sucess but did see some very nice kudu bulls with the kudu rut just starting it was looking good those wanting a nice bull. With that my trip was done and i would be heading home again.

 

[Nyati]

Congrats, seems like you had a great time !

 

[Justhunt]

Awesome report, nice shooting!