Day 6: Karoo
We had a quick breakfast in a warm room, and set out for a new location, with the usual high hopes that you have every new day on the hunt. We stopped at a farmhouse to speak to a young farmer on whose property we would be hunting. He said he saw vaal rhebok most days he was out, and gave us a general idea of where he’d last seen some. We took one of his workers with us, and off we went. I should mention here that Dean continued to try to make those of us in first class feel bad about his being cold. I’ll give him this, the man certainly can go on.
Once I got out of the truck, I had to admit it did seem a mite chilly. The farmer had asked us, if we say any frozen water tanks, to break the ice, but we found the ice to be over a half inch thick – it was minus 18 degrees Celsius that morning! I later found it that it set a new record for cold!
We did find a small herd of Rhebok, and given the cold, John wanted to take no chances. He studied the terrain, trying to guess where they would go if they were to run in our direction. Now why would they do that? Because we sent our tracker and our guide the long way around about a mile away from us, and then told them to walk slowly towards us. We were sitting in some small bushes, waitng.
I really thought this plan had very little hope of success, but apparently John can think like a vaal rhebok – at least sort of. The herd, led by the male, did come towards us, but not quite the way we expected. As a result, I was forced to quickly change my position and take a shot which would have been right at Dean if he hadn’t quickly hit the dirt. (A fact which, by the way, he used as an excuse for not getting the shot on tape). I was so surprised by this turn of events that I completely missed the shot! Fortunately though, in the mountainous area we were in, the rhebok seemed to have some trouble figuring out where the noise came from, because he stood just long enough for me to get a second shot off, and this one brought him down. Diana smiles on us all - even me - from time to time.
Notwithstanding the cold, I sat with the rhebok for a while on my own. I had wanted this animal for some time, and unlike the ostrich, this was a trophy indeed. When I finally felt at peace with the hunt, I got back into the warm cab of the truck, and we headed to the farmhouse to skin the animal. Trophy for me, meat for the farmer. Circle of life.
We got back to Harry’s camp, and had a warm and satisfying lunch, and a well earned (and needed) shower (the pipes having been repaired). During lunch John, Dean and I discussed what we should do next, given that we couldn’t arrive at our next destination until the following day. Harry said there was a nearby property which he had hunting rights on, which hadn’t been hunted in some time. We could go there and try for zebra. And so we had a plan.
When we got to the property we saw a herd of red lechwe and the zebra were quickly forgotten. We chased them around for a bit, but for a property that hadn’t been hunted much recently, the animals were more than a little skittish. Finally John announced that he had to excuse himself to go to the bathroom. Now you need to know that John gets some of his best ideas when he squats somewhere, and the higher up he squats, generally the better the idea. This time he took his roll of toilet paper and climbed a pretty steep hill. When he came back about 10 minutes later he told me to get my rifle, we had no time to lose.
I (sometimes) know better than to ask too many questions, so the stalk began. Apparently he had seen a nice pair of horns from the top of the hill, and thought that the owner might still be resting. We moved pretty quickly for about 500 yards, then began to slow down. All of a sudden John said ‘freeze”. The lechwe had gotten up and was looking in our direction. This was the first time I’d seen him, but he was about 300 yards away over some pretty tough terrain – a bit of a long shot for me, and one I wouldn’t normally take. Over the next 15 minutes, we moved slowly, when he wasn’t looking, and spent as much time still as moving. We eventually got close enough where I felt comfortable with the shot. The sticks went up, and ever so slowly, so did I.
I took the shot, and the lechwe took off. I couldn’t tell how well he’d been hit, given the recoil, but John said it looked OK, not better than that, but that he’d joined a group, and we had to hurry to catch up or we might lose him. We began to walk, bent over, at a pretty fast clip, with me worried that we might just lose this guy. Never a good feeling. We were still walking quickly when I almost fell over a beautiful, and very dead, lechwe, causing John and Dean to break out in what I thought was wholly unnecessary laughter.
I’d shot a lechwe once before but due to some ‘challenges’ in the taxidermy process, I didn’t have a trophy to show for it (other than some nice pictures), so this was a wonderful addition to the collection.
Another great finish to a great day. Off to another delicious dinner and night of sleep, only slightly warmer than the last.
Day 8: Travel and Wintershoek
We started off early for the drive to Wintershoek Safaris main camp, just outside of Kimberley. And once again, Dean asked if there was any way he could sit in the cab. Can you imagine how crowded that would be? No. Actually, John said no. I of course had said sure, why not, who needs to be able to change gears?
So off we went. Our goal at Wintershoek was to try for a few plains game species, and a cape buffalo. I hadn’t hunted Cape buffalo since my first safari over 7 years ago, and was looking forward to this hunt. My first was hunted in Zimbabwe, in the traditional find-the-tracks-early-and-follow-them style. I know that you can hunt Cape buffalo many ways in South Africa, including from a truck, but I had told John I wanted to do it the old fashioned way, the right way, on foot. This buffalo hunt would also be the first hunt with my new Kilimanjaro .404 Jeffery. John wasn't sure that firing the first shot through a new rifle at an animal should involve a Cape buffalo, so he decided we needed to find a cull impala or some other cull animal to get at least one real practice shot in. I needed no convincing.
We arrived at Wintershoek after a nice drive, punctuated by a punctured tire. Always amazed how easily tires get changed in Africa – just don’t seem to get much practice back home.
Had a great lunch, and re-connected with the gang at Wintershoek – I’d hunted here for plains game a few years ago, and some years before that. Always good to see old friends again. We also met up with Hannes Pienaar, who would take over the video duties from Dean, much to his delight. Hannes has filmed hunts for me in the past, and is the consummate professional. He’s a former captain in the South African police, and apart from filming my hunts, has given me great advice on my shooting. In fact, as you’ll see, I doubted – a bit – that he was as good a shot, notwithstanding the great advice, as others said he was (Hannes is pretty humble for such a loud guy!).
We had a late lunch at the main lodge, and then the whole team piled onto the back of the truck for the last few hours of the afternoon. While we were supposed to be looking for buffalo, I had little doubt we were actually looking for impala, and I was right. After about an hour of walking looking for tracks, John found a pretty scrubby-looking impala, and decided the time had come to christen the .404.
I got up on the sticks, focused on the right spot, and pulled the trigger. John whispered that it might go better if I took the safety off, and wouldn’t you know it, he was right! Impala down. As an aside, the .300 is the only rifle I have with a Remington-type safety. The others all have Mauser or Winchester-type three position safeties on the side, but I use the .300 more than all of the others combined. I have a new .300 on the way that will make all of them uniform. As John pointed out, you shouldn’t be playing with safeties when you’ve got a buffalo in your sights.
I’m not sure how many impala are hunted with a .404, but I’d guess not many. Sort of felt sorry for the poor guy – the only good thing about living with lousy horns is that no one shoots at you, and then some guy comes along who just wants to try out a new gun. Lousy luck.
That was it for the day. Time to get serious about buffalo tomorrow.
