Namibia Hunt Report - post-trip report

great story and pictures...

Originally Posted by 50lawman

Aloha Eric, well we (HPD) and i guess everyone else including feds, state department and community made it thru APEC. Took me a week or more to get my schedule and sleep pattern back in shape. Anyway got my H&S Precision 300 Win Mag scoped with a VX-3 Leupold and had our armourer go thru everything and give it a good cleaning. I picked up 50 rds of ammo (Nosler Partitions) from the guy i bought the rifle from. He reloads and worked up the round to where it was shooting half inch groups. I hate to mess with perfection but will have to work at it to make sure i can shoot close to that keeping in mind not to take five minutes to find the target in the scope hairs. Question Eric? What kind of ear protection did you use? I've seen all kinds of muffs, walker game ear tpyes and such on tv infact just watch a show this morning in Namibia, father daughter combo and she looked like she was only wearing foam inserts. I have tinnitis in my left ear so the higher tones i don't get but still would like some input. I would assume that muffs would not be pratical as they would probably be snatched off my head while going under or around the brush. Take care, i enjoyed reading the post story again. You need to get back out there so that you have another story to write.

Jeff

P.S. now that APEC is over, i'm going to call Geoff.

Jeff, glad to hear you survived APEC - must have been quite the Charlie Foxtrot Sounds like the rifle and ammo combo are dead on - I honestly wouldn't use his ammo too much for practice - just try it out a few times to get used to the recoil and to sight it in, and then use some cheaper practice ammo for your day-to-day range trips. I also found that a .22LR rifle with a similar scope was great for practicing off-hand and shooting stick shooting - make sure you make yourself or get yourself some shooting sticks - practicing with them will really help and most likely you will use them over there (almost all the PHs have them). As for hearing protection - I worried about that too and ended up taking some Peltor indoor/outdoor foam inserts - but you know what? I never used them! You will be outside, shooting during the day, and your adrenaline will be up and quite honesly you won't even hear the shot go off. I didn't believe this when I was told it, but it is true.

As for getting back over there - yeah, it would be nice but this coming year is going to be the year my wife and I finally get a boat and I think we'll get a lot more use out of it over the next few years than another 2 week trip to Africa.

Originally Posted by James.Grage

great story and pictures...

Thank you very much!

I was just wondering whether you got that new scope....hmmm maybe that new boat took care of that.
Good tale of your trip.

I experienced many of the same roller coaster emotions on my Namibia trip.
Going to "someone else's" farm can get you relegated to the "fun" places to hunt.
That picture of the mountain sure shows what a fun place they wanted to send you.
Glad the tracker took the initiative for you and got lost.

Originally Posted by BRICKBURN

I was just wondering whether you got that new scope....hmmm maybe that new boat took care of that.
Good tale of your trip.

I experienced many of the same roller coaster emotions on my Namibia trip.
Going to "someone else's" farm can get you relegated to the "fun" places to hunt.
That picture of the mountain sure shows what a fun place they wanted to send you.
Glad the tracker took the initiative for you and got lost.

That guy really was the cherry on top of my sundae. The emotions and frustrations of the 3 day quest for a zebra was really bringing me down. I know that hunters have down days or trips, and I should not have expected 100% success with all my species, but my wife, whom is the light of my life and my reason for living, was so keen on me getting a zebra, that I felt it was my "Holy Grail" - I HAD to get one! So when Rodney (my PH) told me that our tracker was defying his boss and taking us to "the good place" for a zebra, I just was overwhelmed. The kindness, generosity, and selflessness of almost every Namibian that I encountered was . . . . . well, it was life altering. I have never in my life truly understood the equanimity and kindness of people all over the world. My jingoisitic and quite honestly nationalistic biases over the years were really and truly shattered during this trip. It has allowed me to spend many hours in quiet and honest introspection regarding my opinions of various people, cultures, nations, etc. I hope that I am a better man for it in the future.

Man, I wish I had shot my Zebra where the truck could get to it. We decided to avoid the time zone jet lag and spend a week a Europe before heading to Namibia this summer. After a few days in the Austrian mountains, I was feeling pretty cocky and thought the Namibian mountains were a joke. That didn't last too long trying to keep up with a very fit PH in his mid twenties scrambling over loose rocks the size of softballs while wading through sticker bushes that must have been selectively bred by Satan's personal gardener. I'm not in bad shape for 43, but I'm not 25, I live in the flatlands near sea level, and work in a hospital, not as a PH. I kept up (barely), but I was respecting the terrain a lot more than when I started.

After running up and down the mountains for a few hours, we found our zebra standing broadside maybe 175 yards away, but apparently at that point my legs were borrowing energy from my brain and I shot it pretty much where the heart would have been if it were facing the other direction. So, my ass-shot zebra took off, perhaps a bit slower than it would have been otherwise and I managed to get another shot in him just as he crested a hill on the other side of the small valley I was shooting across.

So, now we were off at a sprint down the mountain and up the other side, trying to crest the hill before the zebra got to the next hill and we lost sight of him forever. We, or I should say my PH caught up to him due to the fact that I hit a femoral artery and bled him out pretty badly. He was chasing him down the mountain to try to get him closer to where the truck could get to. The zebra was pretty much out of energy by then, so I finished him off.

We broke him down to pieces and then carried him out to the truck piece by piece. My pride wouldn't let me not carry my fair share but by the third or fourth trip back to the truck, I was having a hard time understanding how it could possibly weigh as much as an elephant.

Can't wait to get back and do it again!!!

LOL - sounds like what I went through the first day we were after Zebra - my PH and tracker did NOT want to go through what you did, so we passed on some 300+ yard shots in very rough, truck-unfriendly terrain that day. Glad we had an easier time than you did, especially considering it was my last day and I was beat, even though I also am in fairly decent shape (but nothing like a PH!)

Originally Posted by Bert the Turtle

Man, I wish I had shot my Zebra where the truck could get to it. We decided to avoid the time zone jet lag and spend a week a Europe before heading to Namibia this summer. After a few days in the Austrian mountains, I was feeling pretty cocky and thought the Namibian mountains were a joke. That didn't last too long trying to keep up with a very fit PH in his mid twenties scrambling over loose rocks the size of softballs while wading through sticker bushes that must have been selectively bred by Satan's personal gardener. I'm not in bad shape for 43, but I'm not 25, I live in the flatlands near sea level, and work in a hospital, not as a PH. I kept up (barely), but I was respecting the terrain a lot more than when I started.

After running up and down the mountains for a few hours, we found our zebra standing broadside maybe 175 yards away, but apparently at that point my legs were borrowing energy from my brain and I shot it pretty much where the heart would have been if it were facing the other direction. So, my ass-shot zebra took off, perhaps a bit slower than it would have been otherwise and I managed to get another shot in him just as he crested a hill on the other side of the small valley I was shooting across.

So, now we were off at a sprint down the mountain and up the other side, trying to crest the hill before the zebra got to the next hill and we lost sight of him forever. We, or I should say my PH caught up to him due to the fact that I hit a femoral artery and bled him out pretty badly. He was chasing him down the mountain to try to get him closer to where the truck could get to. The zebra was pretty much out of energy by then, so I finished him off.

We broke him down to pieces and then carried him out to the truck piece by piece. My pride wouldn't let me not carry my fair share but by the third or fourth trip back to the truck, I was having a hard time understanding how it could possibly weigh as much as an elephant.

Can't wait to get back and do it again!!!

Great story, a classic. ALMOST enough to get the experience without going there!

Great story and brings back memories of my first trip. I can tell you that your next great feeling will be to go back and to take people who are experiencing their first trip. You get those feelings all over again by sharing someone else's first time.