sheephunterab
AH fanatic
- Joined
- May 5, 2016
- Messages
- 815
- Reaction score
- 982
- Location
- Alberta, Canada
- Website
- www.outdoorquesttv.com
- Media
- 52
- Member of
- SCI, Wild Sheep Foundation, AFGA
- Hunted
- Tanzania, Namibia, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Argentina, Canada, USA, Russia
This was our fourth trip to Africa and the fifth different outfitter we'd hunted with so needless to say we were looking for something a little different than your typical South African plains game safari. We met Raymond Kemp and Edward Wilson at the Africa Hunting Show in Calgary and a small picture of a hunter with a Barbary sheep in their display caught our attention. After chatting with them for a while, it became obvious that the Eastern Cape was the perfect destination for an "off-the-wall" type safari and that Lalapa Safaris really specialized in both free-range and indigenous species. We booked a hunt for April 2016 that was to include vaal rhebuck, mountain reedbuck, barbary sheep, blue duiker, caracal, bushbuck and bush pig. We were to start out at Ray's main lodge near Cathcart and then move down closer to Grahamstown to finish out the hunt.
We flew Calgary to London to Johannesburg to East London and used Air 2000 t clear our firearms The trip went without a hitch. We spent one night in the City Lodge Hotel and would recommend it for a quick overnight stay.
Upon our arrival in East London, Edward picked us up and drove us the two hours to the lodge. After getting settled in and sighting in our .338WM, we headed out on Ray's main property for a look around. We saw loads of animals and did a stalk on a mountain reedbuck but decided to pass in the end. I almost took a monster impala, but he decided to run right at the last minute.
The following morning we drove about two hours to hunt vaal rhebuck. We started seeing them almost immediately but there was nothing Ray felt was worthy. We did see a monster mountain reedbuck but decided to continue after the vallies instead. We checked out a couple other properties and finally located a big male. After a couple hours of stalking, I put him down at 150 yards. He was magnificent. This was my first exposure to vallies and I really gained an appreciation for how tough they are to hunt and what a unique animal they are.
After returning to the main lodge, we headed out with Edward and just before dark we found a good reedbuck. We stalked to within 234 yards and I managed to put him down on the spot. It was a pretty amazing start to our Eastern Cape Adventure.
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