SOUTH AFRICA: NAMIBIA: Wintershoek/Ozondjahe Hunt Report 2015

[Wheels]

Very unique boss.

Congratulations.

 

[gillettehunter]

Wonderful report. Looks,like,your,son has a great start to his safari. Well done with the buffalo. Nice to have a hunter ready to help out. Bruce

 

[sierraone]

Great report! Am glad you had the opportunity to hunt with your son before he is off to the cruel and dangerous world!

 

[Hank2211]

May 22 – Day 5

Day 5 of our hunt was a travel day. We loaded up John’s Land Cruiser and Hannes’ Ford Ranger, and off we went, at about 6 am, headed for Kwa-Zulu Natal. Hannes was not happy to be leaving Wintershoek without a couple of socks, but he had little choice. He did tell them he’d be back for another hunt in a month and expected to have his socks then. Petty, right?

We went pretty much west to east, with our first stop in Bloomfontein, where Hannes lives. We met Sonja, his lovely (and I must say, very patient) wife, who gave him some new socks. After that we continued east, skirting Lesotho, and heading into the Drakensberg mountains, going through Golden Gate National Park. Truly spectacular scenery, and made one think more of Switzerland than of South Africa.

We stopped along the way for gas, and burgers at Steers (good burgers, great fries, but they need to get ketchup). I noticed an “innovation” that I would be very unhappy to see make its way to North America – so-called “average speed traps”. These are cameras that take a picture of your plate as you pass, and then some miles down the road take another picture. The machine then calculates how fast you had to be going to get from one spot to the other, and if you exceeded the speed limit, a ticket arrives in the mail. I think from a South African government perspective, eliminating the policeman from the equation likely increases ticket revenue markedly!

We continued on through Ladysmith (don’t bother) and Dundee, passing a number of sites which were important in the Anglo-Zulu wars – Isandlwana, Rorke’s Drift, among others. By a little after 7 pm we arrived at the gates of Mkuzi (also spelled UmKhuze) National Park, not far from the Natal coast. That was interesting, because the park gates closed at 6 pm. After some phone calls, and some waiting, a not very happy Parks employee finally showed up and let us in.

Mkuzi is a large park, home to the big 5, including a substantial population of black and white rhinos. If you continue driving into the park you eventually come to a sign on the road which says “Access Prohibited”. That marks the start of the gun shooting rather than camera shooting area.

Gary Kelly Safaris, based in Natal, holds (some or all of) the quota for this area, and unless an animal is on quota, you can’t shoot it. This isn’t usually a problem, but there is apparently no quota for baboons or monkeys, with the result that these animals are pests around the camp, and will steal anything which isn’t inside a tent or tied down. However, they do have quota for nyala, and I wanted Peter to get a nice nyala in the area nyala came from. That, along with some Natal species like red duiker and suni for me, were our primary objectives in and around the park.

Accommodations were in tents, with bathrooms and showers. Always plenty of hot water, and usually electric power, except when Eskom was “load shedding”, but we managed with flashlights and fires when that happened. The food was reasonably good, and the beer was cold, so overall we did just fine. The only thing which I thought odd was that there were no mosquito nets in the tents, and on a couple of nights, I had to sleep with my bug mask to keep the things off my face and – more importantly for a good night’s sleep – out of my ears.

May 23 – Day 6

We headed out early the next morning. First order of business was to find that one great nyala. And boy, did we see nyala! Within the first hour, I am sure we saw a dozen or more, at least half of which would have made great trophies (better than either of the two I’ve taken!). But the “first day syndrome” was in full force – the local PH we were with (still with John, but also had someone who was familiar with the area) said, each time, “we can do better”. I get that on day 1, but if it’s an animal you would shoot any time on any day, holding out for a monster doesn’t always make sense . . .

After a few hours of looking for my son’s nyala, a good size warthog came into view about a hundred yards away in some bushes. Not having shot anything in some time (that would be a day or so), John knew my finger was itchy, so suggested we take him. Not expecting to shoot (get ready, here come the excuses . . .), I quickly got the gun out, and got up on the sticks. I took a quick shot, because (another excuse) at this point I didn’t think he’d just stand there forever waiting to be shot at.

At the shot, he squealed, and ran off. John immediately said “you shot him in the ass.” In the ass? I was aiming for the shoulder! Well, either he moved, or this was my worst shot of many safaris. We had a look at the shot on the video, and sure enough, in the rear end. I was hopeful that from there the bullet might have gone forward and taken out some vitals, but John just rolled his eyes. Grasping at straws. I was starting to get some comments about the ivory being on the other end, but one look from me silenced them – at least for a while. Too soon.

We went to where he had been standing, and there was some blood, enough to help with the tracking. John told me that if not for the fact that I was using a Triple Shock, he wouldn’t expect to find the animal. But with what John expected would be a good size exit wound on the off side, he might just be trailing his guts.

So off we went. When this sort of thing happens to me, and fortunately it doesn’t happen often, my emotions run the gamut. Pissed off at myself for blowing a straightforward shot, pissed off for causing an animal unnecessary suffering, convinced we won’t ever find the animal, and hoping every time we find a good bit of blood that we’ll find him dead in a few yards. I’ve found in these circumstances the best thing to do is to keep my mouth shut, let the trackers do their thing, and stay close in case I need to put in another shot, but swearing I'll do it right this time.

Our tracker was Richard, a game scout from the Park. The trail quickly took us down onto a dry riverbed and up the other side. Richard stopped at that point, and began talking into his radio. Our local PH told me that the other side of the riverbed was the photographic area, and Richard needed to get permission for us to follow the animal over there. The permission wouldn’t be granted unless the Parks people were sure there were no visitors anywhere in the area, so we had to wait a bit for the permission to finally come.

Once permission came, we were off up the other side, and following a good blood trail. After a few hundred yards of this, Richard quickly dropped to one knee and pointed. I looked behind some trees, and there was the warthog, stopped in an open area, still standing. I quickly got down on a knee as well, and put another round into him. He jumped, ran about 10 yards into some thick bushes, and piled dead into a tree. What a relief. Likely for both of us.

As it turns out, the initial bullet did cause a large exit wound, and his intestines were dangling through the hole. Moving through bush or lying down undoubtedly caused him pain, which is likely why we found him standing in an open area.

I tell myself I was lucky to have recovered the warthog, and promise myself that I’ll shoot the way I know how to shoot for the balance of the safari. And tell myself it was a useful lesson for the boy. I tell myself all sorts of things.

Well, the morning was pretty much lost after all of that fuss for a warthog, so we went back to camp for lunch and a quick nap. The afternoon was to be set aside for red duiker for me; we’d return to what seemed to be an easy task – the nyala – in a day or so.

After lunch, we headed out to a water hole in the mountains, based on our guide’s advice. Apparently the red duiker come there pretty early – before the bigger animals – in the afternoon. We found a comfortable enough place to sit, from where we could see both the waterhole and the ticks crawling on each other (bonus!), and sat and waited. And waited some more. Finally, at about 4.30, the guide says it looks like it won’t work today, so we walk back to the truck, and hope to find red duiker by driving through the thickets. And after an hour and half of fruitless driving – not really seeing anything, let alone duiker (or nyala – an omen!), we return to camp for the day.

I should add at this point that Hannes comes to dinner fuming. Another camp, and another sock missing. He goes to interrogate the laundry ladies, none of whom speak any of the languages he does (Hannes does not speak Zulu very well, but he does mad pretty well). If they don’t crack, this is going to cost me, but it will be worth it.

 

[bluey]

nice pig, hank

 

[BRICKBURN]

................ When this sort of thing happens to me, and fortunately it doesn’t happen often, my emotions run the gamut. Pissed off at myself for blowing a straightforward shot, pissed off for causing an animal unnecessary suffering, convinced we won’t ever find the animal, and hoping every time we find a good bit of blood that we’ll find him dead in a few yards. I’ve found in these circumstances the best thing to do is to keep my mouth shut, let the trackers do their thing, and stay close in case I need to put in another shot, but swearing I'll do it right this time.
.................

That about says it all right there.

 

[Hank2211]

nice pig, hank

Thanks Bluey.

 

[enysse]

Very nice cape buffalo, I have never seen pictures like that one.

 

[siml]

Hank, really enjoying your report. I have shots and seen 1000's of buff, but never seen one like yours. Little pissed you didn't stop for a beer!! You drove past one of our farms, near Golden Gate, and then also past the farm I live on in Harrismith.

 

[Hank2211]

Hank, really enjoying your report. I have shots and seen 1000's of buff, but never seen one like yours. Little pissed you didn't stop for a beer!! You drove past one of our farms, near Golden Gate, and then also past the farm I live on in Harrismith.

Consider me a lot pissed you didn't extend the invitation sooner! You live in beautiful country.

 

[Hank2211]

May 24 – Day 7

Today is suni day. I’ve never seen a suni outside of pictures, and I need one for the tiny 10. So far, I’m missing quite a few – apart from the suni, I need the red duiker, oribi, Sharpe’s grysbok and dik dik. I wasn’t really going for the tiny ten, but once I got the blue duiker and cape grysbok last year, I decided that having goals in life was a worthy objective, so I added that to my chase for the nine spiral-horned. My wife thinks I might consider setting goals outside of hunting, and I’ve actually reflected on that idea, but in the end dismissed it. Too many goals dilutes one’s productivity. I’ll have to remember to let her know once I get back home.

Anyway, today, as I say, is suni day. We get up around 4.30 am, since we have to drive to an area which actually isn’t too far away, but by road will take us about an hour and a half. Suni prefer thick sand forests, and there isn’t enough sand near camp. So off we go, around 5.30. We pass a pride of lions resting in the middle of the road. Our tracker tells us the male had been caught in a snare, but he pulled his head and shoulders through. The snare then caught around his belly and back legs, causing him some serious pain, and resulting in what was apparently a bad temper. A couple of days before, the parks people had used a helicopter to dart him, and had removed the snare. The scars are still visible, and I expect will be for some time to come. In any event, he seems calm now, and watches us closely as we drive slowly around the group.

After that, it’s driving as fast as bad roads and people dressed in dark clothes will allow. We eventually reach our spot, and pick up a tracker who knows the area well. As we’re getting ready, we notice an open game-viewing vehicle, and decide that would be more comfortable for everyone, so we change chariots, and we are off. We quickly see more red duiker than we saw all day at the Mkuzi camp, and since our permit is good here, we decide to try for that as well.

We see a number of male duikers, and we try to stalk them, but they are pretty skittish. Suddenly, as we cross a power right-of-way, we see some females about four hundred yards away. The tracker says he saw a male, but we can’t see him. We move forward out of the right-of-way so the duiker can’t see us, and John, Hannes and I get out. I should add that I’ve decided to try to get both the red duiker and the suni with the .416, shooting solids. I know what a .300 will do to such a small animal, and if I want any chance of a full mount, the .416 is what it has to be. That means, though, that a 300 yard shot is probably out of the question – I’m zeroed at 50 on this gun, and while I can adjust out to probably 200 yards, without more practice and the numbers beside me, I’m not comfortable past that, at least not on something this small. My scope is a 1-6 x 24, and that doesn’t help either. So closer it will have to be.

We begin stalking slowly, hugging the right hand side of the right-of-way. We can see the females feeding towards the left, and eventually, they go into the bushes. We can’t see the male, but have no reason to think he’s run off (the women didn’t seem to have spotted us), so we speed up a bit, trying not to make any noise. By the time we’re about 150 yards from where they were, a female comes out of the bushes to our right, and is feeding slowly across the right-of-way. We freeze, and when she turns her head away, John moves the sticks into position. I slowly get the gun into position, and now it’s a waiting game. She looks at us briefly, but we’re wearing camo and we’re not moving, and the wind is with us, so she goes back to feeding. Suddenly, John whispers “there”, as a male comes out. He tells me to wait, and takes a look through his binos. Through the scope I can barely see horns, but I wait. After a few seconds John says, “that’s a good male, let’s whack him.” Say no more, I’m thinking. I’m waiting for him to stop, but he isn’t, so I decide he isn’t moving very fast as he’s feeding slowly to our left. I hold the crosshairs just ahead of his shoulder, and squeeze the trigger.

He jumps right back into the bushes. I’m not sure (there’s enough recoil that I can’t be sure what happened), but I think it looked like a hit, and it seemed to sound like one. We give him a few minutes, and then start to walk slowly forward. When we get to where he was standing, we see nothing, so we begin looking to our right, in the bushes. Nothing. If he’d run too far in that direction, he’d have ended up going through a fence and crossing a road. Not a huge problem, except that we can’t go where he might have gone – these fences are to keep people out, not to keep small game like this in.

However, no need. Within a minute, our tracker, who had been watching from further back, finds a dead red duiker about 10 yards in front and to the left of where he was shot. He’d run right, but had turned around and come back to the right-of-way, but we hadn’t seen him. One clean hole through both front shoulders, and very little damage to the cape. Not a giant, but the horns, at a bit over 2 ¾ inches, apparently would make Rowland Ward. I couldn’t be happier – getting these tiny things is more of rush, at this point, than a bigger animal. It is sure more work!

After we take the pictures, we get back in the vehicle and start looking for the suni again. We see some, but they are amazingly skittish. By the time the PH has decided it’s a male, it’s gone, and I can’t get a shot. We decide to try different strategies.

First, we decide to sit in an area where we’d seen the same male a couple of times. We sit there for an hour, and nothing moves. John tries calling – suni won’t usually come to a call, but they are apparently curious, so will sometimes come by to see what’s going on. We succeed in calling a red duiker to about 15 yards, which was amazing, but no suni.

We take a quick stop for lunch, and then try stalking on foot in areas where we saw suni in the morning. No luck. Back on the game viewing vehicle. We suddenly come across one on the driver’s side of the road. John says “quick, get ready”, so I guess I’m going to do this from the vehicle. I push myself forward and sideways as far as I can, and point the gun past John, out what would be the driver’s window, if the vehicle had windows. I can’t see the suni, but John says, “it’s a male, shoot”. I say I can’t see it yet, and he pulls my barrel to the right to get me in line with the suni. Of course, as he does this, since I’m wedged between the dash and the seat and can’t move, the stock of the gun moves off my shoulder and now is resting just in front of my breastbone. I see the animal, and John again says, “shoot”, so I do, and then three things happen, all at the same time. First, and most importantly, I miss. It was a tough way to shoot, and I’m not terribly surprised that it was a miss. Second, the driver’s side mirror explodes, with glass flying everywhere. Clearly, you don’t want to be beside a .416 Rigby when it goes off (and I don’t even have a muzzle brake). Third, I howl in pain, and decide I’ve died. The gun was a bit in front of my breastbone, and when the shot goes off, I absorb all of the recoil in an area not made for it.

I could hear more than a few howls of laughter on the truck when all of these things happen. Once people can see I’m in more than a bit of pain, they calm down a bit, but then all claim they were laughing at the mirror. Right.

It takes me about 10 minutes to recover to the point where I say we can go on. But for the next 10 days, I have a hard time taking a deep breath, and coughing causes all sorts of pain in my chest. Once I was over the immediate pain, and the concern that my heart would give out, I could see some of the humour in what happened, but only some.

Bottom line, I would highly recommend not trying this at home.

We continue to look for suni for the rest of the afternoon, and while I’m disappointed we don’t get one, I’m more than a bit sore sore and secretly, I’m pretty happy I don’t have to pull the trigger again.

As we get ready to leave, our tracker says that 5 pm is the best time of day for suni, which is great, since we have to be on the road no later than 4.30 or we’ll be locked out of camp again (and this time won’t be able to plead ignorance).

So a very good day, but not a great day. One very nice red duiker down, and still a suni to go.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

Great warthog and very nice red!

 

[BRICKBURN]

I shot a 450 Rigby and did not have it solidly into my shoulder and the air was punched out of one lung.
Your stunt is crazy.
(Since I have recently seen you walking up right and still smiling, I'll throw my jab into the mix).

If you'd like powderless repeat at home grab a pair of these and give it a whirl.

By the way, Very nice trophy Red Duiker.

 

[Warbird782]

Great report Hank!

 

[Redruff]

Nice Red Duiker Hank! Keep it coming!

R.

 

[Hank2211]

May 25 – Day 8

Day 8 was to be the day we got the nyala, because if not today, when? We were leaving camp the next day and while we might have some hunting time, we’d rather not leave it to chance (or the last minute, which is the same thing).

We set out early, and unlike on our first day here, we saw nary a nyala as we retraced our route of that day. In fact, we saw hardly any animals, especially as compared to the first day, when we at times felt like we were in a zoo. The weather was being a bit funny, with cold fronts coming in, but perhaps it was the moon? We were just coming up to the full moon, but still had a few days . . .anyway, for whatever reason, animals were scarce.

After a full morning and only one stalk on a nyala that got away, we were heading back to camp, through the fever tree forests of Mkuze.

Suddenly someone on the truck whispered “nyala” and we came to a quick stop. After some glassing, John said this was a nyala we should take, but it was still some distance away, and in some very thick brush. John and Peter got out and moved forward with the sticks. When they were some hundred yards from the nyala – which I could barely see from the vehicle – the sticks went up and Peter took the shot. The nyala jumped backwards and was quickly lost from sight altogether in the thick brush.

Hannes said he thought the shot looked good, and we all watched it on the video. In slow motion it wasn’t as clear – there seemed to be more brush in front of the shoulder than everyone thought at first, and it seemed possible that the bullet might have been deflected somewhat. Nevertheless, there was some – though not much – blood, and we still had high hopes of recovering the nyala before too long.

Richard (game scout) and Dean (who is a great tracker in his own right) began to track, following both the tracks and the odd specks of blood. Before long, we came across some bits of bone, and not long after a very large piece of leg bone. That wasn’t good, and seemed to confirm that the shot wasn’t as good as we first thought.

And so the tracking began. Very quickly we came to the same dry riverbed I had come to two days previously, and once again, Richard had to get permission for us to cross. When that came, down and up we went – the banks being extremely steep here – and onward. Pretty soon an hour had passed, and we continued to track, but it was becoming difficult. Having said that, whenever I felt we were close to giving up, someone would find some blood, and off we would go again. At one point, after about an hour and half, we heard some movement in some thick brush and Richard said something in Zulu. John rushed forward, but only saw the tail end of the nyala. That was both reassuring – we were on the right track – and negative – now that we had bumped him, he could go a lot farther, and we might lose him.

We continued to track, and within about 20 minutes, we were almost back to the riverbed, only a few yards from where we had crossed over almost two hours before.

Suddenly some fingers snapped, and Dean was pointing to a bush at the top of the bank on our side – there he was! John wasted no time and fired a quick shot from his .416, which he carried whenever we left the vehicle (there was plenty of dangerous game in this park). I saw the nyala stumble and said “he’s down” but a moment later, he got up, raced down the riverbank and up the other side.

We all began to move down the riverbank, but Richard began going up the very steep bank on the other side, ahead of John, who told him to slow down. I don’t think Richard understood, because he kept going, and I saw him go over the top first, and then seconds later, come screaming back down. By that time, John was on top and I heard, but didn’t see, another shot. Within a few seconds, I too was over the top, and there was our nyala, quite dead, not five yards from the top of the bank.

Apparently, when Richard came over the top, he came face to face with the nyala, lying down under a tree not 3 yards from the top of the bank. John thought both were equally surprised, but the nyala had the better armaments at that point and had quickly gotten up and began to charge Richard (which is when I saw him run down the bank). Once Richard got out of the way, John could get a clear shot, and took it, ending our (and the nyala’s) long ordeal. Richard was a very lucky man, because had John not been there to distract and shoot the nyala, there is very little doubt that one of those horns would have found a home in Richard. I think the adrenalin was still flowing, because John lit into Richard, telling him how stupid he was to have come over the top, where he could see nothing, when he didn’t have a gun ready. John had told him to stop, and let him (John) go first. Richard’s failure to listen could have cost him his life.

All of this was an interesting lesson for Peter, who not only got to see some great tracking, but also the consequences and potential consequences of a bad shot. After lots of thanks all around, we took the pictures of a great nyala trophy, loaded him on the truck (he’d run to within a hundred yards of it!), and headed back to camp for a late lunch.

Peter’s original shot had either been low, or it had been deflected. He had broken one leg, and ripped the brisket, and while the animal was bleeding, it would have been some time before this wound killed it.

Another interesting lesson, of course, is perhaps you ought to take on the first day an animal you’d be happy to take on the last day. We did get a good trophy, but I have little doubt that the fact that we’d seen so few nyala today, combined with the need to get this done, meant that perhaps Peter took a shot that otherwise we might have waited on.

When we finally went back out after our late lunch, we were looking for zebra or blue wildebeest for Peter. Neither turned up, but since we had the morning, and if not then, we could get those animals elsewhere, I wasn’t too worried.

We didn't take a shot at this guy, nor at this little fellow:

We did though get to a local waterhole (more like a local lake). Some interesting activity. This bird, for instance, seems to have very long legs . . .

That is, until you see what he's standing on . . .

As the sun started to fall, we began to head back to camp.

At dinner, John told me that rather than leave straightaway in the morning, or hunt for wildebeest, he thought we would drive again, early, to the suni area, and give it one more try. We could hunt until 1 pm, by which time we had to be on the road if we were to make it to our next camp before dark.

Another 4.30 am wakeup call! And so many (single) socks to pack!

 

[Redruff]

Lovely Nyala. Good lessons learned by all.


R.

 

[BRICKBURN]

That Great White Egret on the Hippo's head is amazing.

The pointy end of that Nyala looks pretty darned sharp. Thanks for the very good reminder that wounded Bushbuck are not the only ones deserving some respect.
Glad Richard escaped with a tongue lashing.

John does not give up easily for sure...

 

[gillettehunter]

That is a lovely Nyala. Love the pic of the bird on the hippo. Bruce

 

[CAustin]

Great hunt report! Thank you for sharing with us!