Day 8
Up to the alarm, I must've been tired from the road trip. A light breakfast of toast, coffee and we were off as the sun broke the horizon. We went back to the same area as last evening and almost immediately found a good bull. He had everything I was looking but lacked width. His horns had very nice shape and long curling tips but he bedded back down at 250 yards so we chose to leave him and carry on. He was certainly a candidate but I wanted to look for the perfect Kob.
Over the next half hour we saw over 250 Kob! It was an amazing sight to see all of the activity. At one point I counted 41 bulls amongst a large group of female and young.
We stopped to glass a hillside from about 300 yards and worked through the group of more than 70 Kob. Suddenly, a group of young rams appeared out of the bottom and were walking towards the others - about 16 rams. All of the sudden, I spotted a big ram in with the youngsters. I said to Paul, "look at the ram in the middle of that group, he's got a wide bell and excellent mass. As Paul looked the ram turned profile to carry on and I saw the length and quickly said "that is the ram I want to take".
We made a plan to drop out of sight and move closer using some brush to obstruct their view. At the final approach I ranged them at 202 yards and Paul pointed and said "lets move up to that ant mound there" pointing 50 or so yards ahead. We approached unseen and eased out the side to locate the bull. As we did, some females broke and ran to our left and the entire group followed - a hunderd plus Kob in a gallop!
They had covered too much ground to pursue on foot so we got in the cruiser and made our way around. Within 10 minutes we had located the herd again and started glassing. He was not in the group so we moved slowly forward constantly on the watch. As we approached the bottom where he had originally been spotted, a handful of rams were coming up on the other side. I finally spotted him half way up on the hill, facing off with another really nice ram. They were well over 300 and Paul said "let's move towards that large shade tree in the bottom". Slowly we made our way and ultimately got into position at about 144 yards. The rams were watching us but not spooked. I set the sticks up but could only see his head and horns from the elevation difference. The ram started slowly walking in our direction and now I had a frontal shot. He stopped, frozen looking at us. I studied him in the scope and eased the safety off and waited for him to move.
My mind went to the activity we have seen and I thought at any moment he could bolt if another ram prod's him. As he moved, he began to offer a slight quartering towards me shot and I felt very steady so I put the crosshairs on the lower crease between the neck and shoulder and squeezed off. The ram jumped, ran in a semi-circle and fell over dead.
A beautiful ram, 23" long with 7" bases! An awesome Uganda Kob and exactly what I was looking for.
After the photo session we were back in camp for an early lunch and packed up to head north. The Kob is the only specie left on quota in this area so we are moving to Karamoja.
In Karamoja we will hunt Nile Buffalo, East African Defassa Waterbuck and Guenthers Dik Dik.
