SOUTH AFRICA: ZIMBABWE: 2014 Hunt

Great report cannot wait to read the rest
 
Day 5: Travel

Day 5 dawned clear and cold. We were leaving today for the Karoo, where I was looking for a vaal rhebok. But first, there was some unfinished business . . .

When we first arrived at Fort D’Acre, we were met at the parking area by a large and clearly bad-tempered male ostrich. He was there every morning, making mock charges and coming far closer to us that was normal or natural. John and Dean found it amusing. I found it a public nuisance. I mentioned it to our cook, Lamy, and she said he’d been around for months if not longer, and in fact had chased her a few times as she walked from her room to the lodge in the morning. She also mentioned that he had knocked a guest over once. I think. In any event, here was a public service waiting to be done. Not one to shrink from a challenge, I told John we had work to do before we left.

After breakfast, we began loading the truck, and there he was. At this point, like Mark Sullivan, I told him it was up to him how he was going to die. Unlike Mark Sullivan, I told him he didn’t have to die, if he left us alone. I don’t think he was listening, at least not to that part.

The deal I made with John was that he would wait behind a bush to film the death of one or the other of us, and I would stand out in the open, daring the ostrich to attack me. If he did, one of us was going down. If he didn’t, then we were on our way, and he was the cook’s problem!

I took John’s shotgun, made sure both barrels were loaded, and walked out into the open from behind a bush. The ostrich was about 250 meters away. I began walking slowly towards him. He looked at me without moving for a bit, then began to walk towards me. I kept walking towards him, and he began to pick up speed. When he was about 40 yards from me, John yelled “shoot”. I kept walking. John kept yelling. The bird kept coming. I could hear a bit of panic creeping into John’s voice – this is how you get a PH for his jokes – make him worry that he’ll have a dead or wounded client on his hands! By this time, though, I was starting to think that I might just be dead or wounded, and then the joke would be on me!

The ostrich was about 10 yards away when I raised the gun and told him to stop To his regret and my delight he took one more step towards me, and I gave him a full load of buckshot in the head. He dropped as if hit by lightning. A very satisfactory conclusion to something I can’t really call a hunt. Let’s just settle for calling it what it was, a public service.

Before:

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And after:

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This was my last animal at Fort D’Acre. Can’t say enough about the place. Though perhaps they’d rather I said nothing at all. I see from Trip Advisor that people use it as a nature reserve, for game viewing. Oops.

So off we went, John and I in the front of his truck, and Dean in the back. It was brutally cold – below 0 degrees Celsius. Dean tried once to open the small window from the back to the cab, so he could put his head or his hands in the cab to warm them, but we quickly closed it – too much cold air coming in. Some people are really babies when it comes to these things.

For those of us in the front (or first class, as I liked to call it), it was an interesting drive. We drove through Grahamstown, a university centre for South Africa, and stopped for lunch in the very pretty town of Graaff-Reinet. After lunch – took a bit longer than really necessary because Dean insisted he had to warm up – we drove on through the Karoo – a stark high plateau with mountainous terrain and reputedly the most extreme weather in South Africa.

By about 3 in the afternoon we reached our destination – a farm where we were going to begin our hunt for the elusive vaal rhebok. We picked up a couple of guides, and off we went into the high country – and I do mean high. We drove for some time looking for animals, and saw a few, but at very long distances. John drove to the top of a mountain where we had seen some rhebok and he and I jumped out to continue the hunt on foot. Dean drove to the bottom of the mountain where he would wait for us (likely with the heater on full blast). John and I waited for things to settle and then began a slow walk over a ridge and down the mountain. We did find the small group of rhebok, but not before they saw us. Unlike sable, or kudu, these things don’t stop once they start running, so we ended the day cold, and without success.

We drove through very dark countryside to our home for the next couple of days, a safari lodge owned by Harry Sparks, a PH in his own right. The lodge doubles as his home, and we ate a very nice dinner with his wife and children. Then it was off to bed. And the coldest night I have spent in many years, and coming from Western Canada, that’s saying something. There was not much heat in my room, and I ended up sleeping in almost every piece of clothing that I had. Morning came none too soon. Although when I tried to turn on the shower, no water came out – the pipes had frozen overnight and had burst. Not an auspicious start!
 
ROFL............may have to add ostrich to the BIG 5.


"How do you want to die"..........Enjoying your writing style Hank.(y)
 
The ostrich story may be the best ever posted on AH! !!!
 
Royal, my wife has confirmed that you are too kind. She says there must be far better stories on AH!
 
Royal, my wife has confirmed that you are too kind. She says there must be far better stories on AH!

Not in my book!

Plus I have this whole vision of a back and forth video with you and the ostrich facing off with The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly theme song playing in the backgroumd going on in my mimd!
 
I bet everyone had a smile on their face as they ate that ostrich. Big bird is down.
 
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.

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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.

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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.
 
A couple more great days.

Any photos of the lechwe?
 
Sorry, thought it was there. Here he is (because of the angle you don't really get the full sweep of the horns, but he looks pretty good nonetheless - I hope!):

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Sweet!(y)
 
............
In any event, here was a public service waiting to be done. Not one to shrink from a challenge, I told John we had work to do before we left.

Chivalry is not dead!
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The ostrich was about 10 yards away when I raised the gun and told him to stop
..................

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Nice Vaalie. They certainly deserve some alone time.
 
Got a name for the ostrich video: Feathered Death
 
Now THAT is funny.
 
I know why the ostrich did not stop, he could only understand Afrikaans. If you ever get into a situation like that again, shout the following at the ostrich " STOP JOU BLIKSEM OF EK SKIET "
 
Loving the story! I suspect the ostrich was rather surprised by the turn of events. Love the Rhebuck. On my list for my next trip to Africa. Keep writing. Bruce
 
I know why the ostrich did not stop, he could only understand Afrikaans. If you ever get into a situation like that again, shout the following at the ostrich " STOP JOU BLIKSEM OF EK SKIET "

That's a very good point, one I hadn't thought of. Now I feel terrible.

But it also brings to mind three other things. What if his parents were married? What if he only spoke Xhosa? and, most importantly, what do you mean "if you ever get into a situation like that again?!
 

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