Free Hunt for Two Hunters from HartzView Hunting Safaris for 2011

I drew a once in a lifetime Dall Sheep tag last year for a hunt in the Alaska Range. The area is walk-in only with no motorized or aircraft use permitted, which keeps it a trophy area but reduces the success rate to less than 50%. My partner and I were committed to hunting hard and finding a good ram, 4 days and 31.2 miles on our boots later I took this ram at 97 yards and 6200ft elevation. We spent a total of 7 days up in the mountains and hiked a total of 56.7 miles in and out. He measured out at 37" x 14" and is a trophy of a lifetime.

Last September I embarked on a float hunting adventure 150 miles north of Kotzebue, Alaska in the Brooks Range. After 3 days of floating in some of the most beautiful country imaginable seeing moose, grizzly & small groups of caribou, the entire migration seemed to come over the hill and a group of 70 caribou crossed the river right in front of our raft. We were definitely in the right place at the right time and feel fornutate to have captured a few photos.

The Northern Lights above an Alaskan Moose camp.

Everything on this picture reflects africa hunting....nice wide open savanah area, huge mature bull eland trophey, lots of walks&stalks after it, finally I got it, win the battle between it´s senses and mine´s. Notice how eland´s skin is same colour than sand around, looking like a mountain itself, no suffer&pain on trophey´s picture...

On my third safari, I hunted a ranch in northern Namibia with a couple of friends from the States. We were invited over by a friend from college that now lives in Namibia with his family. We were hunting in the mountains for klippie when a troup of baboons kept busting us. After the second alert from the sentry, we decided that we would try to take a baboon. On the third attempt, we got busted again. It was then that we decided to see if we were indeed smarter than the baboons. The sentry was watching us, me and my ph decided to hide behind a tree and the two other guys started making noise as they walked away. The baboon was watching the commotion and me and my ph snuck around the other side of the mountain. After about 30 minutes the other guys started walking back to where the baboons were. The baboons started running down the mountain right where we were. A single shot from the 375 dropped the big male in his tracks. It was a perfect plan. And yes, I am smarter than a baboon.

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Later on during the safari, I was luck enough to take a beautiful Hartman's Zebra. It was a great stalk and a perfect hunt. We tracked the zebra, spotted it on the side of the mountain and then had to belly crawl for what seemed like a mile across a dry stream bed. After a fair amount of climbing and maneuvering thru the rocks, I took the shot. I had to borrow a rifle since I was hunting dik dik and only had solids. Of all of my years of hunting, I ignored a fundamental rule of hunting: NEVER use someone elses rifle. My shot was off and I had to take 2 followup shots to bag my trophy.

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My second safari was a trip to the Limpopo Province, RSA. My #1 trophy was a bushbuck. I booked a 10 day hunt and was told that the hunt would be hard since the rainy season had just ended and the bush was thick. It was 9 days before I saw my first bushbuck. In my excitement, I rushed the shot and missed completely. I had hunted hard and thought that I would be going home without my trophy. The outfitter told me that as a consolation that I could take a white blesbok (they normally don't hunt the white ones on this ranch). So on the last day of the hunt we decided to go back to where I had missed the bushbuck the day before. Luck was on my side and I spotted the same bushbuck out in the tall grass at 300+ yards. I took the shot and when I recovered from the recoil the animal was gone. My ph said that he heard a thump, he was more excited than me. After we recovered the trophy, I asked about my consolation white blesbok. On the way back to the lodge this nice tusker presented himself. The back of the Landcruiser was full. It was a good day.

Duck hunting in Central Texas.

We were out hunting blueballs,(vervet monkey) when one of them didnt fell down, took aim with the .375 ruger and shot down the entire branch with the monkey on it.
Part of the branch has a place on the wall in my trophy room

Cloudy cruddy day but got close to this bull anyway! The wildebeest was #1 on my list on my first trip to RSA - what a thrill!

This Black Wildebeest I took in South Africa in 2006 was the dream of a lifetime. I had dreamt of going to Africa since I was five years old.
The actual stalk was fantastic, after spooking the herd we had to circle the mountain to get the wind right. Once we peaked over the top of the ridge we saw the herd looking back at where we had been. Giving me a perfect broadside at the herd bull. I had to lay my cowboy hat on a low lying bush for a rest, and made a one shot kill at 165 yards with my Remington 700 in 8MM Magnum. The 200 grain Swift A Frame dropped him in his tracks. The pounding of my back by my PH was icing on the cake. Everyone who looked at my trophy said it would make Roland Ward. One of these days I'll have to find someone who can measure him. Thanks for letting me relive the moment.

In my last week in Texas waiting for the movers I decided to go bowhunting. This was the result of my Texas hunt in with the heat and mosquitos.

Our family took our first trip to Africa in 2008. This is a picture of our 3-horn Limpopo Bushbuck taken in the Limpopo province in South Africa during the trip with my wife and 2 young daughters. My oldest daughter (14 at the time) and I were actually trying to get on another good-sized (but slightly smaller) bushbuck with our PH when the buck eluded us at the last minute, slipping into the brush. Thinking we'd been bested, we were about to give up when we saw our assistant PH pointing frantically to the brush over to the right. This bushbuck had been standing, frozen, behind a larger sized tree almost totally obscured while we tried to get on the first bushbuck. Then thinking he'd gotten away cleanly he was slipping through the brush almost directly away at the last minute. I managed to get a shot in behind his front right shoulder and he went down in about 30 feet as he attempted to make it back down towards the crocodile-infested river.

The "floating horn" (not connected to the skull) on the nose of this bush buck is occasionally seen in it's cousin, the Kudu, but to our knowledge this is the first one ever reported on a bush buck. The floating horn has been groomed down from rubbing and the end of this broken horn was polished smooth.

It was a wonderful bonding experience for our family and over 12 days my daughters and I took 16 animals in all across 9 species. All in all it was an excellent family hunt!

Below is a picture of a mule deer buck I took back in 2004. He's definitely not my biggest but it was one of the most memorable hunts of my life.

I made the hunt with my Dad and we decided to try a totally new area. The lake that you see in the background is called Lake Sakakawea and is the 3rd largest man-made lake in the U.S. It is named for the Shoshone-Hidatsa Native American who acted as the guide/interpreter for the Lewis and Clark expedition from 1804 to 1806.

As I said the area was totally new to us and even though it is "public land" we saw no other hunters. The reason is that this area is only accessible by boat from the lake (which would take a couple hours to get here from the nearest boat landing) or by foot. Since it is public land, you can not drive on it, only foot traffic is allowed. Meaning if you take an animal, you need to drag it out or bone it out on the spot and pack it back to your vehicle.

After hunting here for several days, I had the opportunity to take this fine deer. The shot wasn't anything spectacular, nor was the stalk. But the look on my Dad's face when I told him I wanted to drag the buck to the top of a very tall, very steep hill 300 yards in the opposite direction from the truck to get this picture was priceless. He looked at me with wide eyes and said, "Son are you cracked?" I said "No, but I really want that picture." I wanted to remember the view of that lake and how beautiful this day was, and I could think of no better way than this picture. Even though he hesitated, he finally agreed and helped me drag the deer up there. He took the picture and when we were done and getting ready to drag the buck back to the truck about 2 miles away, he said, "It sure is pretty up here." My Dad is a man of VERY few words, and the meaning behind that sentence and how he looked at me just after he said it, was what makes this one of the greatest hunts of my life. It was, as they say in the commercials, "priceless".

Hope you enjoy the picture.

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First pic is MY trophy wife and I in the Colorado mountains, next is a longbow hunt in Nebraska, followed by a Colorado Bison taken with my longbow.








I have dreamed of hunting Africa since I was a young boy, but with five kids and a wife, I don't think it will ever happen. It sure is nice to dream though. Who knows, maybe I'll win this contest and be able to go!
thanks for looking,
Sammy

My 1st whitetail buck. I shot this deer in McAlister, OK. I had a solid rest from inside a "shooting house". I ranged him at 420 yards, fired 1 shot from my Browning A-Bolt in 7mm Rem Ma, and he dropped without taking a step. He green scored 150 3/8.

Cliff Garstka, Sr.

A great 6x7 Bull Elk scoring approximately 432 SCI. The bull was taken near the Canadian-Michigan border with a Steyr Model M 30.06 and 2.5x10x56 Schmidt & Bender Scope in September. After 2 days of glassing and stalking think forest and wetlands, the bull was spotted at about 200 yards and dropped with one round of 180 grain Winchester XP3. It was a massive bull weighing over 1100 pounds with extreme mass for a 6x7. At the time of entry into SCI Record Book, it ranked No. 9 in the world.

My father always dreamed of going to Africa, and as a child I was well versed in the exploits of Selous, Bell, and Patterson and tales of adventure in the "tall grass" of Africa. Although my Dad never made the trip in his life-time, I made a vow to live this adventure for him, and this dream finally came true in the hills of Kwa Zulu Natal. After six days of hard hunting, the old Dugga Boy fell to a .375 H&H win Barnes 300 grain TXS bullets. He didn't go easy, eventually take 6 shots and two foiled ambushes on his part before he went down. It was a massice 42 inch bull and the trophy of a lifetime in a REAL dangerous game. Shortly after he met his end, two trophy wart hogs and a great Impala followed. It was a fantastic hunt and one which I hope to reexperience someday.

This trip to New zealand was done by myself and my new hunting buddy Peter. I took this photo at minus 15 celsius. It took me nearly 5 years to convince Pete to get into international hunting and he hasn't stopped bragging about the adventure yet.

I went to Africa in 2002 and shot the smallest Warthog on the planet. When I went back in 2005 my main goal was to shoot a Warthog with 12 inch tusks. I hung out for two weeks and finally shot this one two hours before we left on the last day, talk about struck up the proverbial with a rainbow. It measures 16.5 inches. Yes I am pleased with it.

This is my youngest son Jonathan and we went to Zimbabwe for his eighth birthday. He and his older brother love the outdoors and hunting and they are dying to get back to Africa. Jonathan says "I hope you like my picture of my Impala." Jonathan is also a very good shot with his crossbow and wants to take that hunting.