Day 16
Sunrise greets us in the Free State, it is about 29 degrees and windy, the terrain looks allot like NE Wyoming's rolling grassland with rock outcropping's and is very beautiful. This property is huge and you can see for miles. So can the animals. Went out and got acquainted with the area and started working on Sonya's springbuck slam. A number of stalks are tried, a good bit of time spent either in the low crawl of butt scoot position but never go a decent shot.
The morning was spent learning and observation. We saw a ton of animals with all 4 versions of springbuck, black, blue and Golden wildebeest, Eland, red heartebeest, big blesbok, and one monster red lechway. Have a nice relaxing lunch beside the fireplace and get a chance to thaw out a bit.
Right after we headed out after lunch we spotted a old blesbok that a meat hunter had shot in the jaw a couple weeks ago that was in really bad shape so we change plans to track the poor guy down and put him out of his misery. He comes up out of a bottom when there is a chain of water ponds and easy 160 meter shot and he will provide some good meat to the farm workers. We spot a old bachelor herd of spring buck that has a white, black, 2 common and 2 copper rams all running together. We decide to concentrate on this group. We get close several times and find them in a really hard to reach area that they have at least 650meter view in every direction. So we back out and based on where they are there is a natural choke point in a natural travel corridor so we head out and wait and see if they are going to bed there for the night or move to a couple fields with grass and water.
About an hour before dark they start moving so Pieter gets Sonya setup at the choke point with the sun behind us. The Bakkie with PC and our tracker head out and park on a hilltop about 3 klicks away. PC radio's that they are headed our way with about 15 minutes of shooting light left the white springbuck comes up over the little rise first, Pieter gives Sonya the green light and her 338 drops him right in his tracks. At 100 meters. The two copper go left about 20 meters and stop, the 2 common go right about 20 meters and stop trying to figure out where the noise came from. A quick cycle of the bolt and 3 seconds later the biggest common is also on the ground. At this the black on common take off to a fence line about 250 meters away and stop. Bolt is cycled and Sonya is just settling the crosshairs and he takes off up the hill. If he had held still for another 2 seconds she would have had a 3fer in under 15 seconds. Set the white and common up for pictures as the bakkie get there.
