Welcome to the Eastern Cape
Travel from Cape Town to Johannesburg to East London went without a hitch, and we landed in East London with the sun shining and two KMG PHs welcoming us. Nick would be the PH for a group that was coming on a later flight. That group consisted of an uncle from South Dakota who was a very experienced African hunter, and his two nephews on their first trip. We shared the lodge with them during the seven days we were hunting.
Our PH was going to be Lloyd, a native of the area of the Eastern Cape we would be hunting. He has been with KMG since 2019, and a PH full-time for around a decade. A true local, his father owns and operates a nearby gas station and farm store, and Lloyd pointed out his own home on the way to the lodge. I asked if English or Afrikaans was his first language, and neither was the correct answer. While he did grow up speaking English with his parents, he became fluent in the local African dialect isiXhosa even earlier, speaking it exclusively with the nanny and others he was raised around. Xhosa is how he communicated with his tracker Civet, the airport staff, property managers and workers, and even Nick quite often. This provided some measure of entertainment as I tried to learn some words and because it is a fun language to listen to, with its prominent intonations, clicks, and kissing sounds.
We got settled into the thatched roof guest room and then met Lloyd at the main lodge. After picking up Civet at the farm house, the first order of business was to check the rifle. We would be using Lloyd’s loaner rifle. This was an older wood-stocked Husqvarna chambered in 270 Winchester. Fortunately, it was set up quite similar to the rifles sitting in the lost baggage department in Atlanta- suppressed, with an excellent trigger and dialing scope like my 30-06, and chambered in 270 and with a flag safety and controlled feed like my Model 70. I immediately printed a 1” 3-shot group at 100 yards, which showed me shooting just a bit to the right. A small scope adjustment to the left, and both my wife and I were punching holes in the bullseye and ringing the gong at 200 yards. We would be shooting 150 grain Prvi Partizan (PPU) soft points.
We proceeded to do a drive around the property on which the lodge is situated, named Outspan. To be honest, I was just excited to be in Africa and seeing animals as I was to be hunting. Besides birds, the first and only animal that I saw in Cape Town was a seal swimming in the marina. Here in the Eastern cape I had already spotted monkeys darting across the highway, and as we entered the property, a trotting group of warthogs, tails held high. Then blue wildebeest, snorting and kicking and bucking. And out in the fields, blesbok and impala. On the hill, some zebra. Welcome to Africa indeed!
Lloyd and I discussed my hunting goals, which were quite simple. I wanted proper, real hunting, targeting either big or very old animals, either of which would be a trophy to me. And number one on my list? Bushbuck, with kKudu being just as high a priority.
I believe the psychologists would call it projection. Or maybe transference? Anyway, something about the rather small, territorial, feisty and clever nature of the bushbuck appealed to me as a rather short and feisty person myself. Lloyd and Civet had no objections to these priorities, as they both love hunting bushbuck and kudu.
In the Toyota Hilux, we climbed up and over a hill and Lloyd pulled to a stop. Twilight was approaching, and 300 yards away, a kudu bull had stepped into a clearing from the trees and shrubs. As we watched him, four more young bulls materialized and fed across the clearing. The appeal of these tall, gray, graceful antelope was instant and obvious. I especially liked their facial markings and beards.
To our right, maybe 30 yards away, something barked at us. Lloyd snuck up the hill a bit.
“Kudu cow, not too happy with us!” he smiled. And we heard it crash away.
The bulls fed away from us. One was mature but not yet old, with a good but not great set of horns. We returned to the lodge and dinner was fallow deer stew over rice- just perfect after getting a little chilled watching those kudu.
The Home Property, with the Great Kai River Forming One Boundary
One of the Locals, Sunning and Eating Lunch
Our First African Sunset
Ngwenkala
After dinner, some socializing, and watching the rugby game with the All Blacks taking on the Stormers, I fell easily asleep. I was as excited for the morning hunt as ever, but a 3:00am wake-up to start our travels that morning couldn’t be argued with.
At 6:00 AM the next day we were served hot breakfast, and then into the Hilux, picked up Civet, and met the tracking dogs. My wife would be sleeping in, and she picked a good morning to do so. It was cold and windy. Driving on the highway we crossed over the Ngwenkala River, and after a few miles we turned onto a dirt road and climbed onto the property I would soon get to know quite well. We were to start the morning at a high point with some glassing. To get there we drove past some hilltop pastures with goats and cows and curs that chased the truck. We then dropped off the hill and into the meadows and there it was- a baby giraffe, only ten feet tall! For not the last time Lloyd stopped the truck while I took a brief trip into photographic safari land.
The wind gusted to twenty-five miles an hour as we sat at the high point. At that property, my glassing would go like this- glass and glass and glass and then I’d see something that had potential! One third of the time that something was a gray stone, one third of the time it was a dark bush, and one third of the time it was a gray stone that then moved and had four legs and turned out to be a warthog. A half dozen times I’d have the sudden thrill of seeing movement, and it was a warthog. Lloyd was patient with me as I reported all my warthog sightings, none of which got him remotely excited.
There were herds of blesbok, impala, and golden wildebeest in the clearings, with a few zebra and the family of giraffes popping up all over at different times.
But the early morning came and went without any potential in the terms of targeted animals, and so we drove off the high point and, with the temperature rising, did some driving and hiking into the more secluded little valleys. We found impala. Zebra here and there. But nothing we were going to stalk. And so the first morning ended, and I was warm and happy at having been able to stretch my legs, and excited for lunch. My chief delight so far had been watching the antics of the warthogs doing warthog things and driving close enough to the giraffes to get to see them running away in their slow-motion gallop.
My wife was leaning towards coming with us for the afternoon, and I encouraged it. I am not the world's greatest hunter, but the way the weather had shifted for the better, I just knew we’d be seeing animals. We had spaghetti with fallow meat sausage, and then back on the roads and up to the high point. We quickly spied more animals than in the morning, and my wife quickly passed her previous record for amount of time spent glassing. She didn’t complain. In addition to the herds in the clearings, we were having some luck on the targeted species. A female bushbuck, finally! And then, after some time, high up on the far hill, a brief glimpse of a Nyala bull that quickly took up all of our focus.
He was mature and dark and had a good set of horns. But beyond that we were too far away to make an assessment. So more glassing, and some back and forth between the PH and the tracker, as we caught brief glimpses of the bull feeding up and away.
Then Lloyd called us over. “Lets get ready and get in the truck, we’re going to have a go at him”.
We drove off the high point, over the creek that long ago formed the valley we were glassing across, and then as high up the hill as we dared before quietly shutting the doors and starting off on foot. Up and across and up and across, with the pace slowing and footsteps more careful until we crested a hill…and there he was. Or rather, there they were. Three nyala bulls, who would soon be joined by the previously mentioned bull as he fed up the hill.
We stalked in close. And kept low. And Lloyd studied them.
Then we crouch-walked. And peeked up and over. Lloyd glassed. I stayed low beside him. I had my wife crouch, hidden in a depression.
Lloyd put up the sticks. Then he took them down. Then glassed some more. Then he relaxed and stood up straight.
I don’t know how to properly write the disappointed noise the South Africans make to start some sentences, but he said, as best as I can put it into type “Etjck, just not what we’re looking for.” And shook his head with a wry smile.
Four Nyala bulls, at 150 yards, and what would have been a prone shooting position. But, not for the last time, I would hear that even the biggest and oldest was “just not quite what we’re looking for”
Nonetheless, they were beautiful creatures to watch as they grazed peacefully, showing a yellow sock lit up by the sun here, and some faint white stripes there. My wife, caught up in the moment, forgot that she had the camera. So those four bulls will remain only memories.
As we left them and quietly walked back to the truck, we had good news from our high point! We had left Civet there, and he had spotted a Bushbuck ram in the thickets near the creek. We were already positioned perfectly for a stalk down the hill.
But the shyness of that bushbuck saved him that night. Two blesbok in the clearing were doing…well, who knows what they were doing. Either running from the bogeyman or chasing each other just for the fun of it. Whatever their motivation, they were too rambunctious for the bushbuck to tolerate, and he disappeared, not to be seen again before it was too dark to see anything. And so, our first full day of hunting was over. The dinner of oxtail soup with maize and corn on the cob made up somewhat for our lack of success. The other group had come up short too. Their hunter was on the sticks, adrenaline starting to pump, waiting for a mature bushbuck to just give him a shot- and then the ram disappeared. Unfortunately for him, this would not be the last time. The next morning they had a different mature ram sighted, had nearly closed the distance, and then a hidden female bushbuck popped up out of the brush. She ran, and the male disappeared.
The Baby Giraffe
And a Zebra Losing Patience With Me
Of Bushpigs and Bushbucks
On my second morning of hunting, I was back at our high place, spotting more warthogs. It was windy again, but not so windy as the day before, and overcast. Already we were spotting more animals. Lloyd pointed out a lone Nyala bull to the south of us. I have no idea how he spotted the bull, because his body and neck were perfectly hidden. In the spotting scope, all I could see was a floating head and horns, with the bull delicately pulling leaves off a shrub behind which he stood. And to the west, far off, a trio of small Nyala bulls. Uphill and south from them, two small kudu bulls.
I was alone and glassing the edges of the clearings near the river bottoms, when something short and stout and moving fast caught my eye. It had apparently been down near the river and climbed up the bank, appearing suddenly in a finger of a clearing with the curve of the bank on three sides. It was a pig, rusty red with white stripes down its face. And it had a companion, gray and less colorful. It was a pair of bushpigs, moving in the plain morning daylight. I triple checked to make sure they weren’t some oddly colored warthogs, then I ran over to show Lloyd, who doubted me at first, before remembering I hadn’t yet lied to him. After he confirmed with his own binocular, he scrambled for his spotting scope and phone to record them! But alas, they had somewhere to be and weren’t posing for photos. In another twenty seconds they disappeared into the brush. This was the second time Lloyd had seen daylight bushpigs in his life.
By now the sun was finally breaking through, and Lloyd wanted to investigate some of the more hidden valleys not visible from the high place. I was happy to get to do some hiking, and we parked low and hiked up into the narrow valley that was holding the young nyala and kudu bulls. If they were out and enjoying the sun, maybe something else would be as well.
We slowly, quietly hiked into the valley and climbed into a grassy draw as it rose. We stealthily came level with the Nyala on the opposite hill. Yep, too young. And then we came level with the kudu. Much too young and small. At this point the draw we were in climbed, and where it met the top of the hill, a herd of wildebeest had gathered and were eying us suspiciously. We slowed and tried to figure out how to navigate this situation without blowing the nyala, kudu, or wildebeest out of the valley, and any other animals with them. Still very much a rookie in African hunting, I was
thoroughly enjoying studying the peaceful nyala, the alert kudu, and the snorting, stomping wildebeest.
While I was in that world, Lloyd had imagined a shadow on the opposite hill, there and then gone. But Civet had been trying to decide what it was as well, and he finally confirmed it.
“A bushbuck ram just stepped into the sunlight” he told Lloyd.
It was a mature ram. He guided Lloyd to where the shadow now was, and Lloyd took a couple steps and confirmed with his binocular. This was an old, worthy ram. By then I had found it in my glasses too. Lloyd set up the shooting sticks and found it in the scope. But no, the angle was wrong, and the little antelope was behind a tree again. So we moved. Higher up the draw, carefully moving higher and a little closer. Doing that we closed from around 280 yards to 250, and then, with some crouch-walking and trying to keep a few scattered bushes between us and the ram, we closed to 230.
Lloyd set up the quad sticks and found the ram in the scope. Then I got on the rifle, which was set at the perfect height. It was easy to see the silhouette of the ram, and he was perpendicular to us, but with a tree and bush between us and him.
“We’ll have to hope he feeds out into the open. Keep the scope on him and be ready” whispered Lloyd.
The ram was facing to my right. A few hesitant steps and I saw the head and horns. A few more steps, and then he was fully exposed and broadside. I moved the crosshairs to the vitals. As I did so, he did a 180 and stepped back behind the bush. And then, agonizingly, put his rear toward us and appeared ready to climb up, further into the thicket. But then, no, he turned towards our left! And in a few steps, he was perfectly broadside.
“Take your time, no rush, he’s a bit quartering away so just behind the shoulder”
The crosshairs settled, but as I got steady the ram was moving again.
“Be ready, I’m going to stop him,”
Lloyd made a sound, the ram got a couple more steps in, and then froze.
I was steady and squeezed the trigger. My impression was that the crosshairs were behind the shoulder and a bit higher than midline when the suppressed .270 fired. The bushbuck dropped to the shot.
No celebration yet. He had dropped a little too hard for Lloyd’s taste.
“Keep him in the scope. Let’s make sure he doesn’t get up.”
But he didn’t and I knew he wasn’t going to. After going down he had kicked his legs a little and gone still, exactly like the last elk I had hit with a high shoulder shot. This was later confirmed with skinning- a high double lung that also took out the spine.
He was living in an area suited to his species name. We ducked and crawled and were poked by thorns and eventually found a narrow game headed to his hopeful location. And we found him exactly where he was supposed to be. Dark chocolate brown to black, with his white markings and just a little auburn of the rump. He had a large chunk missing at the base of the right horn, scars of the face and body, worn teeth, and was losing a little muscle mass and body condition. According to Lloyd all signs of an old ram in his decline, and a good trophy.
So my first African animal was down, and, according to the PH, “It has everything we look for in a bushbuck”.
Trying to Make It Through the Bushbuck's Living Room
My Bushbuck Ram, and First African Animal, Where He Fell
The Old Ram
Me, Civet the Tracker/skinner, and My Bushbuck
I’m trying to quit caffeine, but I had a celebratory Coca-Cola as we ate lunch and told the story of the successful hunt. For the afternoon hunt, we would be staying on the Outspan property. With no highway driving in the plan, I jumped at the opportunity to sit in one of the two high seats in the back of the hunting truck. That was fun, and I got to pick Civet’s brain as we spied impala, warthogs, and, extremely briefly, two young Kudu bulls that flashed ahead of us and disappeared. While we had enjoyed a brief window of good weather during the late morning, it didn’t hold, and I’m sure the animals knew what was coming. A sprinkle started, then the wind picked up, and then lashing rain. The "Type 1" fun of riding in the back now became "Type 2" fun. A brief stop for glassing showed us another young kudu bull, but nothing else. Soon we were the only animals dumb enough to still be out in the weather. So, back to the lodge we went. I wondered if this miserable weather might be good for one thing- maybe it would mean good hunting for the local predators. And good scenting conditions the next morning for the hounds.
Some of my earliest hunting memories came behind hounds. My dad and his friends ran hounds through the foothills and the Weber River drainage of the Uinta mountains. These experiences did nothing to encourage a love of hunting in me. Freezing cold, clinging to the driver of a snowmobile, trying to figure out where the dogs went in the era before GPS tracking collars.
Or else stumbling around in the dark, in the river bottoms, trying to keep up with my dad as we pursued raccoons, my childhood brain hoping that storm from Where The Red Fern Grows wasn’t about to start up and leave me buried under a fallen tree.
One time we did catch up to a large mountain lion. It was in a solitary, dead tree, and I found it particularly terrifying. My dad’s friend noticed.
“Oh c’mon, there’s nothing to be scared of!” he laughed. Then he climbed seven feet up the tree and pulled its tail.
The lion screamed and wheeled around, slashing the air where his hand had just been. He laughed again. And the cat prepared to bail. And I ran. And the cat ran. And everyone laughed except me and the cat.
That was around twenty-five years ago. Now the river bottoms are occupied by millionaire’s estates, and the foothills are fenced up and getting “developed”. People with as little money and influence now as we had then just can’t run hounds there anymore.
It’s funny what nostalgia can make one miss. Despite those unpleasant early experiences, I wanted to be around hounds again. I’ve grown to love dogs more, not less, as I have gotten older. So when I inquired about hunting caracal as part of my trip, Marius was quick to add it to my list.
We awoke on the third day of hunting, had a hot breakfast, and we loaded up the truck to go to a more distant property in search of a springbok or impala for my wife. We were halfway there when Lloyd got a call; a sheep had been killed overnight, and the rear quarters eaten off. Sure sign of a caracal kill. So we diverted to the sheep farm and arrived at the gate just before the houndsman. His arrival was quite the sight. One of the farm hands had driven out to bring the houndsman and the dogs. The houndsman himself rode in the bed of the little Hilux, swimming in a sea of mixed breed foxhounds and running walkers and one that looked like a giant bluetick coonhound and another that looked like he was mostly a terrier that got lost and ended up in the hound truck.
We drove to the kill and released the hounds. Quickly they got a scent, crawled under the fence, and were off to the races, baying and yelping and then quieting. And that’s how we spent the morning. My wife and I paced the sheep pastures and watched the hill in front of us as the hounds worked it, and then we all relocated when Lloyd heard a bushbuck bark at some predator to the west, but it was all for naught. No cat. Just a lot of mud in our boots and a couple of porcupine quills we found in our wanderings.
It was raining again as we drove back for lunch, but after a couple of hours the sun broke out. I photographed the rock hyrax that was eating the back lawn of our guest house, and chased a green and pink mowhawked bird around trying to get a picture. If the birds and little mammals were bursting into activity, I hoped that meant the kudu and nyala were too.
Then Lloyd got another call. Same farm, different caracal sighting. Lloyd is a safe driver, but he got us, shall we say, efficiently back to the farm. The farm hand described seeing a caracal on the road, higher into the gentle hills.
The houndsman put the dogs on the track, and over the next twenty minutes we got the full hound hunting experience. The hounds started circling, then one by one they started to bay as they found fresh tracks. Soon they were all on the same fresh track, racing single file further up the hill and to the east. Then the intensity of the dogs increased, the volume and timbre of the baying changed, and they were charging hard.
“They have eyes on the lynx,” someone said.
I don’t remember who. Because at this point we were running up the road with the houndsman and Lloyd, as Civet was slightly uphill trying to keep up with the dogs through the heavy brush and trees of the hillside. We ran for a hundred yards or so, and I looked uphill. A single white-barked tree stood far above the other trees on the hillside. If past experience with cats had taught me anything, that would be the tree the cat would climb.
We ran eastward until we drew level with that tree, and by then the baying of the dogs had changed yet again.
“The cat is treed. We have to hurry before it bails”, said Lloyd.
So into the brush and up the hillside we dashed, ducking under thorns and finding tunnels to crawl through until we made it to the tree. The cat was probably twenty feet up, and I was handed the houndsman’s Made in America break action single shot Harrington and Richardson 12 gauge. I later found out this was loaded with 7 shot lead birdshot. Lloyd and I circled slightly, trying to find a good shot angle, and I eventually found a decent presentation that gave me a good shot to the vitals. There were no sights of any kind left on the H&R, so I covered the vitals with the top quarter of the barrel and fired.
The cat dropped from the branch, killed instantly. It landed wedged in the fork of a lower branch, ten feet up. This drove the hounds into a frenzy, and I watched as a couple hounds made pretty good attempts at climbing the tree to get at the cat. Tentative celebration and relief, knowing that the livestock-killing days of the fully grown male caracal were at an end. Then the cat dropped the rest of the way to the ground, and chaos broke out.
Hounds biting the cat. Houndsman and tracker and PH trying to get them off. Houndsman getting hold of the cat. Dogs circling his legs for a different approach. Dogs biting people on accident. Me and my wife trying to block dogs with our legs. Finally the houndsman snatched the cat and held it over his head, just like Tarzan victoriously holding Sabor in Disney’s version of the story. He didn’t give a Tarzan yell, but he was clearly excited to not have to fight off dogs anymore. The remaining loose dogs still leaped and snapped at the cat, but eventually settled down.
We were free to walk out now, take pictures, and show the cat to excited farm hands. This was a fully grown male, large, and although his livestock and bushbuck eating days were over, the farm hands believed there were at least three more in the area, including a mother using the sheep to teach her young how to kill.
The Sun Breaking Through After a Successful Hound Hunt
The Caracal
Winter Rain
While not a complete loss, the wind and rain limited animal movement significantly for at least three full days of hunting. Chasing the cats around got us through one of those days, but the weather was worse the next day. For the morning hunt we stuck to level roads and did some walking on the Outspan property.
This was a large property, going all the way to the Great Kei River on one side, and containing mature and self-sustaining populations of multiple game and non-game animals, along with a bigger variety of birds than anywhere I had ever been. At various times through the week of hunting I saw monkeys, warthogs, blesbok, impala, blue wildebeest, zebras, a scrub hare, and fleeting glimpses of gray duikers and baboons. We spotted a genet in a large tree on the property, and the well-kept lawns of the lodge were a favorite place for dassies. Two track roads on the property took us through steep hills, thickly covered in stunted trees, thorny bushes, and large aloes. These were ideal cover for nyala, bushbuck, and kudu.
The morning hunt didn’t turn up any animals at all though, as they sheltered against the rain and wind. Lloyd decided we would wait for a break in the weather, and then hunt a nearby property to see if we could get my wife an impala. Driving out to the property after a long lunch and siesta, we quickly learned that the difficulty in hunting impala lies not in finding them, but in stalking within shooting range without being spotted by a couple dozen eyes.
Stalking in close is my wife’s favorite part of the hunt, but as the rain came and went, and we tried various different approaches, a nice herd ram just wouldn’t give her a shot. Whether intentional or not, he was always feeding steadily away from us, or putting ewes between us and himself, or hanging out behind brush. After getting on the sticks several times, without my wife feeling comfortable with a shot, we finally made a huge arc to approach the herd from a completely different angle. Finally, the herd ram was broadside, and Lloyd got the rifle on the sticks and dialed the scope for the distance. But then the ram drifted away. And Lloyd dialed the scope again. This happened a couple more times before he stood still and offered a broadside shot. This was my wife’s first opportunity at a big game animal in her life.
She fired, and missed cleanly.
We made further attempts, but now the herd was on high alert and we knew the afternoon hunt was over. We drove back to the lodge in the rain.
My Wife Taking Center Stage On Our First Attempt at Impala
Let the Sleeping Rhino Lie
My wife was not at all disheartened by this outcome. Disappointed at having missed, yes, but Lloyd had told us a few times that the property he really wanted to hunt impala on also contained a few rhinos. So that was the plan for the next morning, during which the forecast predicted alternating sunshine and rain. I won’t accuse my wife of having pulled the shot on purpose, but she was more than a little excited to head in the direction of the rhinos.
We arrived at the game preserve, driving through the thatched roof gatehouse and picking up the property manager. He proudly told us about the 11,000 acre property and the different species contained therein and future expansion hopes. He seemed happy to be hunting with us instead of attending a meeting that was happening at the same time. We had the whole place to ourselves.
“I’m not supposed to tell you how many rhinos we have” he said, grinning. Then he told us how many rhinos they have.
The lions were in their own enclosure, with a suspiciously low fence.
“Um, can the lions get out of there?” My wife asked nervously.
“Yes, if they want to!” He replied. But it was time for their feeding, and in his experience, regular mealtimes were plenty of motivation for the lions to not try the fence.
The plan was to look for a nyala for me, with the option to stalk an impala ram if the opportunity presented itself. The property manager guided us to a wooded hillside the nyala prefer.
“There are nyala here, but it usually takes a couple days of hunting to find them and find a mature bull” he explained.
Lloyd slowed the truck as we neared the first glassing location. Then he suddenly stopped and killed the engine. We looked to the left, and forty yards away, blocking a well-worn game trail as it passed into thick brush, was the expansive behind of a sleeping rhinoceros.
“Ah, I guess that’s where he decided to sleep last night!” laughed the property manager.
I put the zoom lens on my camera and took some photos that definitely won’t make National Geographic. But I could at least say I’ve photographed a rhino.
We drove a little further, then walked over to a high point. Having seen some nyala on a few different glassing sessions, I felt like I was starting to get my game eye. But Lloyd and the property owner still beat me in finding a bachelor herd.
The nyala were clearly relishing the morning sunshine. They fed out of the thickets and into a couple of small clearings, never all exposed at once. We eventually figured there were four of them, a good ways away, but one or two of them were clearly mature bulls that required a closer look.
We backtracked and found that the path that would put us closest to the nyala bulls. The path ran to within fifteen yards of the sleeping rhino. We crept by, and the boulder-like mass didn’t budge. Keeping low, the path took us downhill, then curved straight toward the hillside with the feeding Nyala. Having closed the distance significantly, Lloyd made another assessment. There was a shooter.
“The bottom left bull?” I asked.
“No, the one above him is older and has better horns.”
We slowed the pace and closed the distance more. The Nyala had fed downhill and in our direction. We approached a sharp curve in the path, and Lloyd set up the rifle on the sticks. Two bulls were exposed, and I confirmed with Lloyd which was the mature bull. This was all happening faster than I expected, but now that I was on the rifle, I calmed myself and waited for a perfect shot opportunity as the calm nyala bulls continued grazing along.
“Put it right on the shoulder” Lloyd whispered, as the bull paused. He was slightly quartering to.
I fired, and felt great about my shot placement. The bull leaped high and forward, then ran downhill for a short distance before going down hard in a near complete somersault into some tall grass. He didn’t move. Congratulations all around, from Lloyd and the property owner and my wife.
It took a minute to even get to see the horns on the bull, as he had died with his horns stabbed straight downward into the long grass and turf.
As soon as I got an up-close look at him, my resolve to hold myself to only European mounts for my taxidermy was shattered. The more I had seen nyala on the hunt, the more I admired them, and this was an especially beautiful bull in his prime. The white chevron below the eyes, the spots on the cheeks, the beard, and the subtle white stripes on the long coat- what a gorgeous animal!
We took photos, and then pulled the Hilux down to load the bull. We stopped once again as we drove past the rhino, now fully awake, and I got better photos as he shyly eyed us.
Despite the poor weather, I was pleased with my hunting experience so far. A hard-earned bushbuck, exciting chase for the caracal, and now a wonderful nyala. I got to sit back and enjoy watching the other animals on the property, as Lloyd shifted his focus to finding my wife an impala.
We started to climb to a higher point on the property before the manager had us stop the truck again.
“You can see one of the lions from here”.
My wife found her before I did, walking away from us at some distance, with those heavy, plodding steps and jutting shoulder blades.
We drove past some giraffes and wildebeest, came over the hill, and could see two different groups of impala in the valley below us. We also startled some nearby ostriches.
“Horrible creatures” said Lloyd “Stupid, and they’ll get everything stirred up”
We watched as the ostriches streaked across the valley. Fortunately, they didn’t make the other animals too anxious, and we emptied out of the truck to glass over the different groups of impala. After a short time, Lloyd and Civet were huddled together, trying to figure out an approach to a large group of impala to our east, when the property manager joined in. Their attention all shifted straight ahead of us. For a reason only known to himself, a lone impala ram was crossing the valley, from our right to our left. But the wind was wrong. It was at our backs, and soon the ram would cross right into it. Lloyd got my wife’s attention, and the race was on. They stalked quickly directly downwind, at an angle they guessed would intercept the ram before he scented us. The property manager and I hung back a little bit, taking care to not blow the stalk by getting seen.
The professional hunter used the cover well, and soon my wife was on the sticks. But the ram didn’t stop. Picking up the sticks, they crouch-walked left, putting some brush between them and the ram. This closed the distance some, and again my wife was on the sticks. She focused and waited for the ram to pause. In the distance, the lions started to yowl. The property manager looked at me and raised his eyebrows. What a sound!
But the ram apparently had somewhere to be. He wasn’t slowing down. He was now broadside. Lloyd whistled and the impala stopped and looked in our direction. After a couple seconds, my wife fired the .270. The ram dropped to the perfectly placed shot, and her first ever big game animal was down.
“What a story!” I excitedly told her as we congratulated her on taking a mature ram. “Setting up for the shot, lions roaring in the background, and then shooting your first big game animal!”
“Huh? The lions were doing what?” she asked.
She had been too worried about making the shot and hadn’t heard anything at all.
The Shy White Rhino
The Nyala Where He Fell
The Nyala Bull
My Wife and I, with the Nyala
My Wife's Turn on the Sticks
The Huntress and Her First Big Game Animal
The Impala Ram
The pressure was off. We had been successful thus far, the weather was improving and we had the final two and a half days of hunting to focus on kudu. My desire to take a kudu had only intensified as the days went by. The fleeting glimpses of old bulls, sometimes nothing more than some horn, a muzzle, and white chevron, nibbling at some shrubs before disappearing completely, made me excited to focus on hunting for a kudu of my own. We would be focusing on the large Outspan property, on which the lodge was situated, with its steep hillsides nearly completely covered in thickets and aloes.
Even as the weather improved, the movement of the animals remained unpredictable. We tried a few methods, including sitting up for the bachelor herd we saw on our very first night, trying to catch them passing through the thickets and into cultivated fields. But the first evening of doing this only led to a small, immature bull. The second evening we set up on the hillside itself. My wife was with us, and it was her first time sitting in a single spot for almost three hours in an ambush attempt. Slowly animals filtered out of the thickets and into the visible openings. First impala, then monkeys, and finally warthogs. Time dragged on. It started to get dark, and suddenly Lloyd focused in and slowly raised his glasses. Just as we had hoped, a kudu bull was crossing the dam that formed a fishing pond, and climbing the hillside up to the cultivated fields. Gray, large, and graceful- my heart rate sped up and my adrenaline kicked in. We were positioned perfectly for a shot. However, the first bull was too young. No time for much disappointment though- it was a bachelor group. Kudu bull number two, number three, and number four cautiously followed the exact same route. Lloyd carefully evaluated. I did my best to judge their age and size. My wife was glued to her binoculars.
I’m sure I’m not the first hunter in such a situation try to will one of the bulls to be larger. Or even to hope the professional hunter’s standards had changed a little bit. But neither of these was going to be the case. None of the four was old enough, Lloyd’s standards had not changed, and our perfect positioning availed us nothing.
“Where’s the fifth bull we need?” Lloyd whispered in frustration.
My wife signaled to me. Something was threading its way through the thicket just to our left. None of us dared budge, and Lloyd, with the rental rifle, was far out of my reach. Into the same clearing in which we were standing emerged a kudu cow. Then a calf. Then a cow. We were downwind, and dusk was helping to obscure our outlines. My wife raised her eyebrows and smiled at me. Completely oblivious to our presence, the group walked by at a range of about ten yards. There was no bull, but this was still a special experience. So ended day six of seven, leaving me with one full day to try for a kudu.
We returned to the lodge, to the most full house yet. Uncle Jimmy, the property owner’s brother and frequent host of hunting guests, was there with another local friend, and his small terrier as well. Marius, with his two dogs, had joined the company the day before. The other hunting party was back, exhausted but triumphant with both a bushbuck and caracal taken on that day. In total, their hunter had met his goals- a nice kudu and an ancient eland at the freezing, windswept property and lodge to the north, and nyala and bushbuck locally. With the bonus caracal, their hunter was done for the week. His brother was going to take the rifle and go for an impala on day seven. Nick was proving to not only be a successful PH, but was manning the braai and serving us seasoned, marinated eland steak straight from the flames. It was incredible. Thinking that was the main course, I overindulged, and was surprised when we were called away from the fire and into the lodge, for the real dinner. Jimmy entertained us with stories and poking fun at his friend, and I got to learn about local hunting adventures, local scandals, local politics, national politics, and business strategies of the local farmers and butchers. It struck me once again how hunting was uniquely suited to allow me to meet these small-town people, who were always kind and interesting. How else would I get to rub shoulders with rural South Africans, so similar in many ways to the small town ranchers and farmers I grew up hearing stories from? They certainly weren’t going to be found at fancy hotels in the Big City.
For the first time on the trip, I struggled to sleep, but soon enough it was time to breakfast and head to the hills to start day seven of seven. Marius wanted to help our search for kudu, and left a bit before us to go to a high point on the property to glass alone. We took to the roads, climbing, descending, glassing, repeating. Anxiety began to creep into my thoughts- if I’m going to be successful as a hunter, it’s usually in the morning. And this was the last morning. And as the sun rose and the weather became genuinely warm, we were coming up short. Zebra, sure. Impala. Even an old lone wildebeest. But no kudu. We took older, faded roads into sheltered canyons. We drove the high road “over the top”, and I sat in the high chair hoping to see a bull between the trees. The sun climbed, and any chance of finding a bull during the golden hour of the morning was over.
We began another descent, when Lloyd stopped the truck. Marius had seen a bull. It was too far away for Marius to judge properly, but he could describe its location and help guide us to it if we wanted to take the chance and go on foot. This was as good a prospect as any, and we soon parked the truck and started cutting through thickets, going to the south and east, toward the bull’s last known location. Cautiously we stalked down game trails, slid down banks, and circled aloe trees, heading eastward and downhill. We finally arrived on a steep section of the hillside that gave us a good view of the opposite hillside, across a shallow ravine. Lloyd was on the binoculars, then just as quickly setting up the sticks and on the rifle. He urgently signaled that I come down to him and get on the rifle.
My adrenalin surged. In the scope, quickly feeding up the opposite hillside, was the kudu bull, large and gray.
Game time. I adjusted the rifle.
But something was wrong. As I moved the crosshairs to the vitals, it struck me that this kudu seemed familiar. I looked closer. One horn had not yet completed its second twist, and was pointed backward. And the neck and body did not have the filled-out appearance of maturity I expected. This seemed an awful lot like a young bull we had seen before.
“Lloyd, am I on the right bull?” I whispered. Based on everything I had learned so far, I did not think it possible that he wanted me to shoot this bull.
“Is he looking to the left?” he asked
“No, the one I’m on is looking right!” I answered.
“Oh, no, not the top one. The bottom one. You need to look lower. Now I can only see his nose…”
I adjusted the rifle again. Decreased the zoom level on the scope. A few tense seconds, but then another bull appeared from behind a tree.
Now that’s what I’m talking about.
Everything with this bull was different. Thick, heavy horns from base to tip. Filled-out, muscular body. Longer beard. Finally, a mature bull, and he was in my crosshairs. But he was also not stopping! He fed to the right and upward, never pausing long enough for a shot, and I would need some time. This was going to be a longer shot. Lloyd ranged the bull again and dialed the scope. I didn’t ask the range. It didn’t matter. I had one job now. Now just give me a shot!
Steeply quartering away. Then behind a bush. Then straight away. Then behind an aloe. And he was alert. For some reason, both bulls wanted out of there.
“Get ready, I’m going to stop him”. Said Lloyd. And then he whistled.
The bull stopped and paused. Perfectly straight away. This was not Texas heart shot range, especially with a .270.
Then he was moving again, but he gave a brief pause. Steeply quartering away.
“Tuck it behind the shoulder” Lloyd coached.
But before the words were out of his mouth he was moving again. Behind a tree. Then a quick walk. I followed with the crosshairs on the shoulder. Finally, he stepped into the sunlight, paused, and looked in our direction.
My crosshairs settled behind the shoulder, and I instinctively fired without consciously pulling the trigger. The bull dropped to the shot. We both heard the drum beat of a bullet hitting home in the vitals. The bull went down hard, lay on his side, and his great head rested uphill. I stayed on him, and lowered the zoom on the scope. In my expert opinion, it was over.
“What’s the range, anyway?” I asked. I was amped up, and just wanted the time to pass so we could go and retrieve
my kudu.
“315 meters” replied Lloyd, “stay on him though. He went down a little fast”.
And then, horribly, the great head rose, the front legs regained their power, and
my kudu was on his feet and speedily walking away again. My expert opinion was sure wrong. He had a pronounced limp with his right leg, and while he was clearly not feeling great, he was moving fast!
I tried to regain my composure and focus on making another shot. I planned to shoot center of center of center if given another chance. He paused, quartering away again. Instinct took over, the crosshairs settled four inches behind the shoulder, and I fired. And the bull dropped to the shot. Again we heard the heavy thwack of a bullet hitting the vitals.
Whew. Two good shots, and he was down. But not for long. Just as before he regained his feet, worked up hill another ten yards, and then fell again. Between bushes, I could only see the ridge of his spine and the six inches of body below it. He was very still. I aimed at the center of the small visible section of the bull and fired again. This time, no reassuring thump of the bullet hitting home. But he did not move. The seconds crept by, then turned into minutes. Lloyd could not find him in his binocular from his position. I still had him in the scope, not moving.
Was it over?
Fortunately, during this time Marius had been able to get a different vantage point and observe the action. He had a good view of the bull and was confident he was down for good. We circled toward the kudu, found an old road that we might be able to get the truck down, and then were on the hillside with the bull. I still had some apprehension, given that he had proven he was a tough character. But we found him, lying on his side, his horns resting in a gnarly little shrub.
My Eastern Cape kudu, the perfect climax to a week of fantastic hunting. He was old, thick-horned, and battle- scarred. Lifting the heavy head, I smiled at my wife.
But there was an elephant in the room. Or on the hillside. I had to be the first to put it in words, so the others could pile on. That third shot, that didn’t quite sound like it hit home? Well, let’s just say I can be proud of the fact that I put 3/3 shots on the kudu. But the third didn’t prove too dangerous- it went straight through the middle of his left horn. Thank goodness he carried his thickness all the way up!
The bull was tough, and even though in the moment it seemed an eternity as he regained his feet and walked a few more yards, he probably expired within thirty to forty seconds of my first shot. I searched for entry and exit wounds, and later made some observations at the skinning shed, but I still cannot be 100% sure of the sequence of events with regards to my bullet placement. He had two entry wounds on the right shoulder itself, with one forward of midline and one further back, just two inches in front of the crease. He had an exit wound at the base of the left side of the neck. The right lung was severely damaged, as were the major vessels between the heart and lungs, although the heart itself was not damaged. My best guess is that my first shot broke his humerus, damaged some structures of the lower neck causing shock, and exited at the base of the left neck. This caused him to drop and be stunned, possibly with some very far forward lung damage, but with his heart still intact and relatively unharmed. The second shot hit the center of the vitals and destroyed the right lung and major vessels, somehow without penetrating to the right lung. We all knew where the third shot ended up.
Congratulations were in order, and this bull was definitely the result of a team effort. Marius had helped us find a bull, Lloyd planned the careful stalk and found the mature bull, and I didn’t shoot the wrong bull and did shoot pretty well on the correct bull! Finally, it must be mentioned that one of Marius’ dogs never believed the bull to be dead, and aggressively tried to finish it off by biting its haunches and growling the whole time we tried to take pictures.
As we drove the road back to the lodge, a green side-by-side pulled to a stop. It was Jimmy, the owner of the property. He congratulated me on the kudu, and I complimented him on his beautiful property. He analyzed the bull in the back of the truck and exclaimed, “Well, they don’t come any older than that around here!” As we prepared to drive off, Jimmy turned back to me. Extremely sincerely, he said “Thank you for your support”. As I thought about these thanks, it really hit home to me that I had played a small part in keeping these amazing animals around.
The math isn’t difficult. Part of my payment of eight days of room and board, and the trophy fee for taking the kudu, went straight to the landowner. Money from a few hunters per year harvesting the oldest kudu, nyala, and bushbuck allows the landowner to keep the habitat intact, allowing it to support further generations of these animals. It also offsets some losses from those animals raiding his crops, giving him incentive to not shoot every crop raider on the spot. And the circle of life can continue.
Back home, I am watching in real time as the privately-owned hills around my hometown in Utah are sold to the highest bidding developers. Out come the bulldozers, and the oak and junipers and sagebrush are plowed over and houses and streets are built. Habitat is destroyed, ostensibly “environmentally conscious” buyers get their second or third home close to the ski resorts (and magically the water to support it). The populations of mule deer and elk and mountain lions that my family have sustainably hunted for generations shrink or disappear entirely. My great-grandfather and grandfather could pick between big mule deer bucks in the large herds of the time. My father could sometimes get lucky and find a big buck among the scattered herds. I am sometimes lucky enough to see deer at all, if I somehow get permission to go on the land.
What will be left for my kids? The thought hurts me deeply, but I can gain some solace from the fact that on the other side of the world, there are still kudu and bushbuck in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. And with property owners like Jimmy and Stuart, and responsible outfitters like KMG, maybe my grandkids can hunt the descendants of the kudu that will be on my wall with a bullet hole in his horn.
Eastern Cape Kudu Country
My Day 7 of 7 Eastern Cape Kudu Bull
The Old Bull, and the Final Animal of My First African Hunt
