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Don't know if the world needs to read about my most recent hunt, but since I was suffering from insomnia when I began to write it, I thought maybe someone else suffering from the same might want to read it! so here goes.
Day -1: Arrival
After a grueling hunt for bongo and forest sitatunga in 2013, I was looking for a more relaxing hunt in 2014. This was going to be a hunt for a few of the smaller plains game trophies I didn’t already have, as well as a (repeat) cape buffalo, followed by a hippo/croc hunt in southern Zimbabwe. Having said that, I clearly got carried away, as you will see!
I brought two rifles. The first – a Kilimanjaro African in .404 Jeffery – a lovely gun, on its maiden voyage, wearing a Swarovski Z6i scope in 1-6x. The second was an old Browning A-bolt in .300 Win Mag – been along on all six of my previous African hunts and never let me down. Not as pretty as the Kilimanjaro, but reliable as the day is long.
After a long and, happily, uneventful series of flights starting in western Canada, and ending in Port Elizabeth, South Africa I arrived feeling about as refreshed as one could after nearly two days of flying! While the hunt was starting in the Eastern Cape, I was planning to move around a fair bit to get the animals I was looking for; fortunately my luggage showed up as well as my guns and a small Pelican case holding my ammo.
I had met up with Dean Stobbs, a Zimbabwean PH, outfitter and friend, in Jo’burg. Dean would double as a cameraman for this portion of the hunt. We were met at the PE airport by PH John Tinley (of Wintershoek Safaris), with whom I’d hunted twice before. John and I get along great; he puts up with my antics, and only occasionally gets “cross” – usually when I’m not paying enough attention (easy enough to do when everything around you is endlessly fascinating).
After a quick stop at the Spar supermarket for beer, Coke and a few other necessities, we hit the road for our first destination – Blue Cliff Hunting Safaris lodge, about an hour from the airport. The lodge is beautiful and very well appointed, in the midst of typical Eastern Cape country – lots of unbelievably thick brush interspaced with (small!) open areas. Hunting here would be interesting.
Once we settled in, we sighted in the rifles. It was around 4 pm, so I assumed that since my hunt officially started tomorrow, I could get a start on a good night’s sleep. John had other ideas.
We drove some distance to an area where orange farmers dumped rotten or otherwise unwanted oranges. Apparently this attracts Cape kudu just before dark. We stopped more than a half-mile from the place, and began a slow walk in, not expecting to see anything since we were early. I’ve shot a number of kudu before, but had never seen a Cape kudu. Turns out the horns are about the same length as a greater kudu, but the body is smaller. The smaller body seems to make the horns look bigger, so each one seems like a monster!
As the sun was beginning to set over the hills, turning everything a soft yellow and orange, we saw what seemed to be an old kudu alone, eating oranges. A short stalk, a few mis-steps as we tried to find the best angle, and I took my first shot of the hunt. It was about 200 yards, and while I hit him reasonably well, it wasn’t enough to put him down – I like to think it was the jet lag! He ran about a hundred yards, and at that point was about 200 yards away. I put a second shot into him, and down he went. He turned out to be an ancient specimen, not only on his last legs, but also on his last teeth! John figured he was early to the oranges because he was too weak to fight the younger, stronger kudu for a share of the oranges at dusk. A great first trophy.
We headed back to Blue Cliff for dinner and a good nights’ sleep. Well, still not batting .1000. We did have the great dinner, and then John announced that the moon was perfect for grysbok hunting. I muttered something about sleep, which seemed only to provoke laughter all around.
So off we went, driving about an hour to a large property nearby, in an area John said was known for both the quality but especially the quantity of grysbok. I was a bit concerned about the ethics of shooting at night, but John was pretty clear – not only was it legal, and the traditional way these were hunted in the Eastern Cape, but it was about the only way to hunt grysbok, other than opportunistically coming across one while hunting something else. My concerns mollified (somewhat – old habits die hard), we arrived at a property that was also the site of a feedlot and slaughterhouse. The smell was overpowering – happy not to stay too long. We picked up the landowner’s son, who knew the property and could find his way around in the dark. And so began our grysbok hunt.
And it was certainly not as easy as I had assumed a night hunt with a spotlight would be. We drove for some hours, and each time we spotted a grysbok – and we spotted a few – they wouldn’t stand still long enough for us to decide if they were male or female. These were not animals paralyzed by the spotlight! Each time the spotlight would land on an animal I would try to get it in my sights, but the call to shoot never came. Until it did. I was ready, took the shot, and fortunately dropped it on the spot. I would not have wanted to try to track a wounded animal in the thick brush during the day, let alone in the dark. We went up to it, with Dean holding the light on the spot where it had been to guide us, and there was my lovely grysbok. Quite a pretty little animal, with a brown coat interspersed with white hairs, giving him a bit of a grizzled look. Horns were fine, but that was never the goal of the exercise, even if we had been able to properly judge them in the time and light available.
The goofy look comes from it being a lot later in Canada! So at this point I didn’t ask if I could go back to the camp for sleep, I just did it!
Day -1: Arrival
After a grueling hunt for bongo and forest sitatunga in 2013, I was looking for a more relaxing hunt in 2014. This was going to be a hunt for a few of the smaller plains game trophies I didn’t already have, as well as a (repeat) cape buffalo, followed by a hippo/croc hunt in southern Zimbabwe. Having said that, I clearly got carried away, as you will see!
I brought two rifles. The first – a Kilimanjaro African in .404 Jeffery – a lovely gun, on its maiden voyage, wearing a Swarovski Z6i scope in 1-6x. The second was an old Browning A-bolt in .300 Win Mag – been along on all six of my previous African hunts and never let me down. Not as pretty as the Kilimanjaro, but reliable as the day is long.
After a long and, happily, uneventful series of flights starting in western Canada, and ending in Port Elizabeth, South Africa I arrived feeling about as refreshed as one could after nearly two days of flying! While the hunt was starting in the Eastern Cape, I was planning to move around a fair bit to get the animals I was looking for; fortunately my luggage showed up as well as my guns and a small Pelican case holding my ammo.
I had met up with Dean Stobbs, a Zimbabwean PH, outfitter and friend, in Jo’burg. Dean would double as a cameraman for this portion of the hunt. We were met at the PE airport by PH John Tinley (of Wintershoek Safaris), with whom I’d hunted twice before. John and I get along great; he puts up with my antics, and only occasionally gets “cross” – usually when I’m not paying enough attention (easy enough to do when everything around you is endlessly fascinating).
After a quick stop at the Spar supermarket for beer, Coke and a few other necessities, we hit the road for our first destination – Blue Cliff Hunting Safaris lodge, about an hour from the airport. The lodge is beautiful and very well appointed, in the midst of typical Eastern Cape country – lots of unbelievably thick brush interspaced with (small!) open areas. Hunting here would be interesting.
Once we settled in, we sighted in the rifles. It was around 4 pm, so I assumed that since my hunt officially started tomorrow, I could get a start on a good night’s sleep. John had other ideas.
We drove some distance to an area where orange farmers dumped rotten or otherwise unwanted oranges. Apparently this attracts Cape kudu just before dark. We stopped more than a half-mile from the place, and began a slow walk in, not expecting to see anything since we were early. I’ve shot a number of kudu before, but had never seen a Cape kudu. Turns out the horns are about the same length as a greater kudu, but the body is smaller. The smaller body seems to make the horns look bigger, so each one seems like a monster!
As the sun was beginning to set over the hills, turning everything a soft yellow and orange, we saw what seemed to be an old kudu alone, eating oranges. A short stalk, a few mis-steps as we tried to find the best angle, and I took my first shot of the hunt. It was about 200 yards, and while I hit him reasonably well, it wasn’t enough to put him down – I like to think it was the jet lag! He ran about a hundred yards, and at that point was about 200 yards away. I put a second shot into him, and down he went. He turned out to be an ancient specimen, not only on his last legs, but also on his last teeth! John figured he was early to the oranges because he was too weak to fight the younger, stronger kudu for a share of the oranges at dusk. A great first trophy.
We headed back to Blue Cliff for dinner and a good nights’ sleep. Well, still not batting .1000. We did have the great dinner, and then John announced that the moon was perfect for grysbok hunting. I muttered something about sleep, which seemed only to provoke laughter all around.
So off we went, driving about an hour to a large property nearby, in an area John said was known for both the quality but especially the quantity of grysbok. I was a bit concerned about the ethics of shooting at night, but John was pretty clear – not only was it legal, and the traditional way these were hunted in the Eastern Cape, but it was about the only way to hunt grysbok, other than opportunistically coming across one while hunting something else. My concerns mollified (somewhat – old habits die hard), we arrived at a property that was also the site of a feedlot and slaughterhouse. The smell was overpowering – happy not to stay too long. We picked up the landowner’s son, who knew the property and could find his way around in the dark. And so began our grysbok hunt.
And it was certainly not as easy as I had assumed a night hunt with a spotlight would be. We drove for some hours, and each time we spotted a grysbok – and we spotted a few – they wouldn’t stand still long enough for us to decide if they were male or female. These were not animals paralyzed by the spotlight! Each time the spotlight would land on an animal I would try to get it in my sights, but the call to shoot never came. Until it did. I was ready, took the shot, and fortunately dropped it on the spot. I would not have wanted to try to track a wounded animal in the thick brush during the day, let alone in the dark. We went up to it, with Dean holding the light on the spot where it had been to guide us, and there was my lovely grysbok. Quite a pretty little animal, with a brown coat interspersed with white hairs, giving him a bit of a grizzled look. Horns were fine, but that was never the goal of the exercise, even if we had been able to properly judge them in the time and light available.
The goofy look comes from it being a lot later in Canada! So at this point I didn’t ask if I could go back to the camp for sleep, I just did it!