Last night was Impala steaks and chicken wings for supper and the fixings. Chocolate desert with cream. Every desert is call pudin no matter what it is.LOL
up at 6 for breakfast Christine comes along we drive 20 miles to the main road and then another 5 down it to the ranch we will hunt Impala on pick up Neil the ranch owers son inlaw. head into the ranch . Spot some Impala start stalking but the wind is wrong so we back out and circle around and try again i'm on the sticks they are about 150 out Pete istrying to get another look at him when he lifts his head Pete dicides he isn't big enough. We do this 4 more times each time they aren't what we want.
So we are on our 5th stalk I haven,t seen the Impala yet when Pete puts up the sticks and says shoot him I put the gun on the sticks and see 4 Impalas at about 80 yrds in the scope he again say shoot I ask which one he tells me the one I'm pointed at and the biggest one I ask which way is it facing he tells me to the right and to shoot quick as they are getting nervous so I put the crosshairs on its shoulder but my years of shooting whitetails kicks in and I call the shot behind the shoulder it is going to be hard for me to break that habit from 40+ years of my dad telling me to shoot them behind the shoulder so as not to wreck as much meat. At she shot they all scatter. We make our way down to where they were and start looking for blood Pete says he went to the right so we are all looking that way nothing I'm start to think could I have missed but I saw him hump up at the shot. Go back to where they were and start over but we split up each of us looking a different way I'm starting to think this isn't the best way to start off Christine me not putting it right down hoping we don't find it still alive and she has to watch us put it down. When Erik yells he found it we all make our way over to him it only went about 30 yrds from the shot but died in a small gully under some brush.
We take pictures load him on the truck as we hop in Christine say that was cool What do we get to shoot next. Pete says they have some nice Blue wildebeest on this property and I had mentioned I my want one. I said I do but I want one that is huge in the body and has great markings the horns aren't as important to me as Christine wants to cover my easy chair in it. He asks Neil if its ok if we take one and he say yes. We are driving around looking over herds of them mostly cows and calfs. See one nice male that has huge horns but Pete says for what I want it is small in the body. So he decides that he knows a place that has huge body ones we can hunt later in the hunt. We start driving out when we come across a huge Blesboc hope out of the truck and try to stalk it but it keep circling to keep the wind in its favor try to work him for about an hour before we give up and head back to the farm house to drop Neil off. To my surprise they hang the impala up and Erik starts skinning it Pete tells me that the meat stays on the farm to either use or be sold different.
We head back to Kubusi to get into the salt and have lunch.
After lunch we head to Matola.
The country here is almost straight up and down Pete says there are some good Kudu here so we start driving the roads in this place are terrible we get to the end of the road Pete suggest we go glass the valley Christine stays with the truck. We get to the edge of the cliff and he puts me on a rock tells me to glass down bellow and up the other side he and Erik head out to glass from different positions..
After about a half and hour I see Erik waving at me to come over I work my way over to him as I pass the truck I tell Christine they have spotted something and I'm headed down to them.
Erik points me in the direction that Pete is in when I get up to him he tells me that there are warthogs bellow him and one is really nice he has the sticks set up before I get there so I get on them as I look through the scope i see 1 but he informs that isn't the one we want that the big one just went in the brush but to wait it will be back out and he is right it comes back out i ask him how far he says 220 it is almost straight down I get comfortable he asks me to tell him before the shot so I do and squeeze the trigger I see the bullet hit just above his back Pete confirms i shot over I forgot to hold low for the steep angle. They have run off so we head back to the truck. On our way out of the property Erik starts tapping on the roof Pete stops the truck and says Kudu. we get out and Erik takes us to the edge of the clif and points out a nice Kudu laying under a tree about 1000 yrds away with 5 females around him we sit down and try to figure out how to get to him Pete has found away but doesn't think we will be able to get him out if we do shoot him. He makes a couple of calls to see if any packers are available but no luck it is easter weekend so we are on our own He decides its not worth it to lose the animal if we can't get him out so we watch him a while longer then head back to Kubusi. For dinner. We didn't hunt on Kubusi as they keep it for bow hunters. After Dinner we pack up as we are headed to tusker lodge the next day. While packing Christine mentions that Pete Is really quiet thought he would be more talkative I had noticed that too.