SOUTH AFRICA: My Successful 7 Day Hunt With Pawprint Safaris In The Northwest & Limpopo Provinces

[cagkt3]

Congrats sir! Looks like that 404 did just fine

 

[Nyati]

Congrats David, welcome to the Club !

 

[CAustin]

David it sounds to me like you had a good hunt! Congrats!

 

[sierraone]

Thursday 5 July

Pieter's main camp sits on 200 acres which is mostly dense brush and trees. Very few open areas. His fence line with his neighbor's property provided us many views of nice animals including male and female kudu. I ask my PH if these bull were shootable if we were hunting kudu on Pieter's property. He told me no, they weren't old enough. They sure looked big enough to my inexperienced eyes! We did see many impala and blesbok on the 200 acres though, but nearly all were in thick brush areas. A couple of times a few were in clear enough areas where I could have had an easy shot had we been hunting them. During the day after driving the property, we walked all the areas that my PH thought might produce a pig. We sat on a water hole for a while. We sat on a dump for the gut piles for a while, where they hunt jackals at night. We sat up on the fence line in one place hoping porky would come under the wire to our side. Finally time to go in with an unsuccessful hunt for the day.

Friday 6 July

After a successful buffalo hunt on Wednesday, both my PH and I got up, had breakfast and were excited to go find that pig even though Thursday had been a wash. We headed to a new concession for Pieter about 30 minutes away. It was a large farm, mostly wide open. When we arrived we met with the caretaker. He knew nothing about us coming, and had no idea that Pieter had taken over the farm, not only for hunting, but also to move his Brahman cattle there for grazing purposes. We waited around while several phone calls were made. In the end we had to leave because he couldn't get a hold of Pieter to confirm this. We then drove back about 45 minutes past the camp and to a farm I had taken a Blesbok on the year before. The landowner, Riaan who is also a PH advised us to go to an old BBQ party pavilion that is falling down, which overlooked a large pond/watering hole. Jonathan and I settled in for about a 5 hour stay. Even though we never saw a pig, we did see two separate massive Nyala bulls and a Bushbuck that Jonathan would go 15-16 inches and would be a true trophy animal for anyone. Unfortunately for me, I only had my pocket camera with a digital zoom and it would not reach out to grab a photo of these animals. As the afternoon came to an end, we grab our gear, walked back to the truck and headed back to camp empty handed.

Saturday 7 July

Friday night at dinner I made a change to my original hunt plans of taking a buffalo, a warthog and a trip to a local national park to take photos with my Canon. Since I had hardly seen any pigs, an none that I could have or would have taken, I made the decision that starting Saturday, I would also hunt any one of the following animals: a red hartebeest, a zebra or a bushbuck. No particular order. But the first legal one that presented itself while we were hunting pigs during my final days.

Saturday morning we drove back to the new concession we had been to on Tuesday, my first day to hunt. If you remember from my 3 July date, we saw many types of game including zebra and hartebeest. No pigs or bushbucks though. We were met my Riaan, the landowner and PH from across the highway with the falling down party pavilion, and Roy the landowner and hunter that is next to Riaan. I had known Riaan since last year, but Roy was new to me. He was easy to like and obviously loved to hunt! Riaan knew this property better than the others, so he and Roy were going with us today. I had no issues with either of them and neither did Jonathan.

Riaan was carrying only his pistol. Roy had a .300 Win Mag. I must clarify that the buff and a pig were pre-paid. The 3 animals I had decided the night before, if I were to take one, were not. So a wounded animal that may run way, was coming out of my pocket regardless whether or not we found him. Since I had never hunted with Roy before, I had to inform him of my rule when you hunt with me in Africa. If you see that I have wounded an animal and it appears he will get away from a bad shot.....and you have your rifle at the ready, do not wait on me to tell you to shoot. By all means shoot and try to put the animal down. You will not hurt my feelings! As it turned out I don't think Roy every removed his rifle from the case, at least not to my knowledge!

After driving well into the property on a decent rocky road, Jonathan and I exited the vehicle to walk parallel to a creek running through hardwoods with small fields on each side. Could have passed for a white tail hunt in the Arkansas hills. We walked for nearly an hour before the wooded creek bed ended into a very large field. We saw nothing. We started up the largest hill that I had seen on this concession so Jonathan could call Riaan to come pick us up. He arrived a short time later. The PH and I loaded into the back of the hunting truck and continued on the trail. Within probably five minutes, we rounded a bend and there was my next target!

These were the same zebras we had seen five days earlier. Three mares, a young one and very large stallion. The mares and young one were in the road. The stallion was just off the road on the right in the brush. But Jonathan and I could clearly make out he was the same one we saw previously. We waited for about 10 minutes for the stallion to come into the open and the mares and young to move to one side so I didn't accidentally hit one of them. Finally the stallion came into the open road and stood broad side to me. The mares and the young had moved to one side, just as we hoped for. They were 60 meters away. I took aim into the SGM stripes and fired. The big male immediately went into that stiff leg mode guaranteeing a good hit. He ran/limped back into the bush he had come out of. We waited maybe five minutes and started our tracking. There was so much blood, my 3 year old grand son could have tracked him. We followed the massive blood trail about 30-40 meters into the bush and found him dead! Again, 1 shot, 1 animal. I was elated!

PH and I with a big stallion!

Roy, Jonathan and Riaan. All three were as happy with this zebra as I was.

After photos we began the process of loading this big bas.... into the truck. Of course with the help of a winch! Everytime we moved him, blood would gush out the exit wound where the TSX had passed through. Took him to the skinning shed for the initial butchering. Around 3 pm (1500 hours) we took the shoulders, hind quarters and rib cage to the butcher in town for the final butchering and sale. What we transported weighed 184 kilos, or 400 pounds, the largest zebra taken to the butcher this year by their own records.

Next post will cover the last two days of my hunt and finally taking a tusker with about 2 1/2 hours left on my final day. Will probably finish it very late tonight or at least by tomorrow.

 

[MAdcox]

Looks like a great hunt. Beautiful animals and great memories. Congrats

 

[Royal27]

Congrats David!

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Nice report! Very impressive 404 Jeff bullet performance.

 

[Ridgewalker]

That 404 is a sledge hammer! Great shooting!
I really like zebras with stripes all the way down their legs!
Congratulations!

 

[tarbe]

Good shootin bro!

Always a relief when the bullets go where they are supposed to.

Makes for a happy PH, too!


Tim

 

[sierraone]

OK, here is my final installment of this hunting report. Some of you that may have read it all are probably getting tired about now!

Sunday 8 July

My PH and I decided to walk and sit on Pieter's main camp 200 acres once again. The weather was iffy at best. The elusive pig was my entire focus for the last two days of my hunt. We walked the area once again looking for any fresh signs of warthog presence. After a lot of walking, we decided to sit on the one small pond/watering hole on the property. We sat there from 11 am (1100 hours) until 2 pm (1400 hours). The only animals that came to the pond were five Nyala females and nothing else. We went back to the camp for lunch. As soon as we arrived in camp, the rain started. We did not go back out on this Sunday. No pig seen.

Monday 9 July

This was my last day of my seven day hunt. Tomorrow I would be headed back to the airport for that dreaded long flight home. Around noon we headed back to the broken down party pavilion on Riaan's farm. He was aware that my PH and I would be on his property set up in the old pavilion once again, but he couldn't join us. He was PHing other new Americans that came in the night before on his property. We parked about 100-150 yards from the pavilion and walked in. I also took my Canon camera this time after we had seen several good animals last time but were out of range of my pocket camera. I readied my rifle and placed it on safe, then leaned it against the old fence which surrounded the pavilion. I then took my camera out of its bag, check it out, then placed it by me where I could easily put it into action, but not interfere with the rifle. Jonathan had just left to walk back to the truck to pick up the drink box since we planned on staying until the end of the day. Then all of the luck in the world landed upon me. Porky strutted out of the bush (as only a wart hog can do) up to the water hole about 60 meters from my position. I could see the tusks without any scope or binos. I had no intention of waiting for my PH to tell me to shoot. Not that he was around to ask! I knew what a warthog looked like! I had already picked up the rifle, now just to put the cross hairs on that right shoulder. I fired! The pig initially jumped into the water instead of drinking from it. He quickly crawled out and moved about five meters onto the dried mud flats around the pond.
He kicked twice and expired. Again no second shot required! I could hear Jonathan coming up from the rear. Before he even made it back all the way to me, I said rather loudly I believe, I GOT HIM, PIG IS DOWN! The PH once back to my position looked at through the binos to also agree he was dead and I did not need to shoot again. We then started the walk to get to the other side of the pond where the pig laid.

Roughly 30 hours of hunting required for this pig. At the time I shot him, I had about 2 1/2 hours left on my seven day hunt. The bullet struck his right shoulder, passed through exiting at the joint of the far side front shoulder/leg taking a good bit of meat and bone with it.

PH Jonathan with our trophy warthog. He was as happy as I was. He had been with me every step walked and every hour sitting for the past 7 days and it came down to the last 2 1/2 hours! As most everyone on this forum has either said or heard others say...that's why they call it hunting!

 

[sierraone]

That concludes my hunting report. All of you should be happy that I didn't shoot 12 animals!!!

 

[BRICKBURN]

Thanks for the write up of your hunt.
Congratulations!

 

[BenKK]

What a great boar!

 

[jacques smith]

Atta boy David. Mission accomplished

 

[cpr0312]

Congrats on the zebra and a nice pig!!

 

[Ridgewalker]

Every one is a fine trophy, but I’ll bet you remember that warthog for sure! Just like elk hunting, you hunt until successful or you hunt until the last light of the last day! Great job sir and congratulations!

 

[CAustin]

That concludes my hunting report. All of you should be happy that I didn't shoot 12 animals!!!

Nice pig my friend. If you had shot 12 animals I for one would have gladly read every word.
Time to plan the next adventure.

 

[sierraone]

Nice pig my friend. If you had shot 12 animals I for one would have gladly read every word.
Time to plan the next adventure.

Charlie, I'll moving back to Arkansas around the grand kids during the last week of October. That move will cost me the price of a simple PG hunt. So any thoughts of another international hunt next year is up in the air for the time being. I still have a yearning to hunt a color phase black bear in British Columbia next year, but going back to S.A. would be less expensive by at least $3000, maybe $4000. Of course the air fare would be less. So who knows where I will be hunting next year.....Arkansas, S.A. or B,C.
Sending you a PM on another subject.

 

[sierraone]

Congratulations David!

Pieter told me to tell you hello and may see you in Dallas in January!

 

[Bullthrower338]

Congrats on the Zebra and the porker! That is a very nice looking pig! Are you gonna euro or shoulder mount him?