Well here it is, we had a few chances at baboons, saw a lot of them, and some real big buggers, but all them eyes made them a little skittish. Well we decided to go have a look after a rain for some baboons, all the animals on my list were in the salt and was nice to go out for a drive. Went to one spot and a family of baboons were at the top end of the field, but moving into the veld or bush as i know it, mind you after this trip its more a leg gashing, thorny poking, impassible, cactus filled fortress for critters. Well one baboon decided to hang around and was sitting on a fence post, was about 200 yards away, but for this story lets make it 500 yards, because even at that distance they are little in the scope. Up on the sticks, crank the scope, deep breaths, slow squeeze of the trigger and that baboon had no clue what shattered the post he was sitting on, dang it just a bit too low, but damn close.
Well off to the next field we knew that held some baboons, and sure enough, so the stalk was on. Crept along the back side of the ridge and were able to get to within 150 yards before being spotted. There had to be 40 in this family unit so real tough even getting that close.
Up on the sticks and waited just a few seconds for them to slow down, and pick out a big male, there he sat 3' from the fence watching all the others go through and over the fence. Same routine, sticks, scope, breath, squeeze and up he jumped and went through the fence, the shot felt good so had to walk on over. Well looking at the grass and leaves for a bit of blood i didn't see any, then Lammie says, well you hit him. started looking at the bush he was looking at for blood but couldn't see any (blaming that a bit on being color blind), he says no right there, and low and behold clear evidence i hit that baboon. Sitting on the top of the bush was a nut, just a single testicle, appears i castrated a baboon.
After a long track following the blood, we had a torrential downpour and made things real tough, couldn't believe how far he had gone and the ground he covered. Ended up having to call it a day after the rain, so no pictures of me and a baboon and out of respect for the baboon we took no pictures of his nut
Have to upload more pictures so hope to that this week while at work, Addo safari park and the Born free park were amazing, well actually down right funny when you see the stalking pose of a leopard that was eyeing up my PH, sure makes the hair stand on the back of your neck