Moving right along....I have always wanted a Nyala and that was my main quest for this hunt, I had decided that Saxon was going to get plenty of trigger time in on this hunt and I would sideline and let him have the time of his life, but I wanted to bring a Nyala home with me. We packed enough for a couple of days and drove a few hours to hunt at Andri's friends place.
We dropped our bags and headed right out looking for Nyala. The wind was blowing pretty hard and everything seemed to be down in the canyon bottoms to get out of the wind. We spent all mid day glassing and walking ridges, finding several Nyala. One in particular I thought was very nice, Andri said we would do better, Always listen to your PH! So I took a few pictures and we backed out.
This was the bull that we passed on, I thought he was gorgeous, but glad was glad I waited.
That afternoon we went to a very large conservancy and started walking a ridge line up into the canyon. We immediately spoted two kudu bulls and watched them for a good while.
Moving up, I was really enjoying the walk through this beautiful country when Andri got excited and I was on the sticks. I asked if this was good enough, he simply said "shoot". Now the Nyala was down and we were on top of a shear face, we carefully negotiated our way down and I got to lay my hands on the gift the good lord had provided us. 5 years of anticipation was over and I couldn't have laid the moment out any better. He was quartering toward me quite hard, the A-Frame entered just behind the shoulder and exited where you can see in the picture.
I don't know how many inches he measures, and I don't particularly care, all I know is it was an absolutely perfect hunt. Being a die hard elk hunter and having picked some terrible places to shoot bulls, I was looking at the extraction and commented that it was going to be rough getting him out. Andri told me that we were going to definitely break a sweat watching the guys get him out. I laughed my ass off, got to love everything about Africa!
We returned to the camp that night for a wonderful meal and great conversation with some local hunters that were there. We talked a lot about the difference between RSA and the US on firearms and reloading, made me realize just how good we have it here in terms of choices and freedoms we have when it comes to these topics. Great people, loved meeting them and sharing a fire a few beers and a perfect evening.
