JerBear8
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Wow, what a buffalo! Big congrats!
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SOUTH AFRICA: ZIMBABWE: BOTSWANA: RSA / Zimbabwe (With A Little Bit Of Botswana) 2026 Hunt Report With JKO HUNTING SAFARIS
- Thread starter PHOENIX PHIL
- Start date
PHOENIX PHIL
AH ambassador
The leopard project continues, but more on that at a later date. We're back in the lodge a little bit earlier than normal, so I have time to add to the report.
With a kudu and sable down, and then the add on of the buffalo, this part of the hunt has truly turned into a "let's just see what the bush gives us" scenario. Well then, how about an nyala? Donna doesn't have one, so let's see if we can find a proper bull.
We head out in the morning and come up on a flat are where shortly we'll turn and make our way to the crossing to the south property. "Hey Riaan, looks to me like that's a proper nyala bull, what do you think?" "I agree Phil." "Hey Donna, how about an nyala, you've not taken one before?" "Sure" she says.
We move on a bit to put the truck behind some cover and get the wind right. We cross the flat using the cover to disguise our approach. About 100 yards out, Riaan sets the sticks and Donna takes a shot. She hits a little high and little back, but good enough to catch the lungs. The bull makes about a 30 yard dash and stops, staggering a bit. A second shot and a step forward followed by a step back and the bull is down. So fun to listen to her excitement at taking another fine animal.
With a kudu and sable down, and then the add on of the buffalo, this part of the hunt has truly turned into a "let's just see what the bush gives us" scenario. Well then, how about an nyala? Donna doesn't have one, so let's see if we can find a proper bull.
We head out in the morning and come up on a flat are where shortly we'll turn and make our way to the crossing to the south property. "Hey Riaan, looks to me like that's a proper nyala bull, what do you think?" "I agree Phil." "Hey Donna, how about an nyala, you've not taken one before?" "Sure" she says.
We move on a bit to put the truck behind some cover and get the wind right. We cross the flat using the cover to disguise our approach. About 100 yards out, Riaan sets the sticks and Donna takes a shot. She hits a little high and little back, but good enough to catch the lungs. The bull makes about a 30 yard dash and stops, staggering a bit. A second shot and a step forward followed by a step back and the bull is down. So fun to listen to her excitement at taking another fine animal.
PHOENIX PHIL
AH ambassador
It's still quite early in the morning after wrapping up things with the Nyala, so we continue on with the original plan. The original plan was to head down the other side of the river that runs in front of the lodge. The owner of the property has a catch at the top of the bluff that would have animals drinking at often through the day. Others would go ahead and come all the way to the river such as red lechwe and one rather nice waterbuck bull.
Our plan was to go see if we could find that waterbuck. We didn't find him but as we rounded a bend and came down a hill there was a herd of Livingstone eland that I'd seen from a distance but now am seeing quite close. In with the herd is a bull, a big bull.
We make our way onward and discuss the eland. Generally speaking I prefer to take game that is endemic to the area we are hunting in. I already took an unplanned buff and I've got a leopard hunt coming, so I decide to not make a plan for the eland.
We go the rest of the morning without a shot fired. We've seen some of the tinies on this trip. Steenbok, which if I've seen one I've seen thousands have been teasing me once again. At this property you get a short lasting glimpse of them from the truck and in a flash they're gone. Just a step or two and they'll be in the thick brush.
But we make a plan to head over to the south side of the property and see what we can find. As we're ambling down the road, a Steenbok ram shows himself to the right side of the road a few hundred yards ahead. Riaan tells the driver to just idle the rest of the way forward to where we last saw the ram before it entered the bush.
About 60 yards out, he comes out of the bush and starts to run directly away from us, but stops looking over his left shoulder. I'd like to tell you we put on a stalk, but I'd be lying to you. Without much shame I took an offhand shot from the truck at the very small backside of the little guy. Convinced I'd missed, I call my shot as such. Riaan has a different opinion, he saw the ram go down.
@gizmo is going to have a bit of a mess with this one. The .375 hit the left rear leg and thru the abdomen and hit the front left leg. As I say, a mess. Worst case, a full body mount in a laying down position will work.
I go to sleep that night thinking about that gorgeous eland bull.
Our plan was to go see if we could find that waterbuck. We didn't find him but as we rounded a bend and came down a hill there was a herd of Livingstone eland that I'd seen from a distance but now am seeing quite close. In with the herd is a bull, a big bull.
We make our way onward and discuss the eland. Generally speaking I prefer to take game that is endemic to the area we are hunting in. I already took an unplanned buff and I've got a leopard hunt coming, so I decide to not make a plan for the eland.
We go the rest of the morning without a shot fired. We've seen some of the tinies on this trip. Steenbok, which if I've seen one I've seen thousands have been teasing me once again. At this property you get a short lasting glimpse of them from the truck and in a flash they're gone. Just a step or two and they'll be in the thick brush.
But we make a plan to head over to the south side of the property and see what we can find. As we're ambling down the road, a Steenbok ram shows himself to the right side of the road a few hundred yards ahead. Riaan tells the driver to just idle the rest of the way forward to where we last saw the ram before it entered the bush.
About 60 yards out, he comes out of the bush and starts to run directly away from us, but stops looking over his left shoulder. I'd like to tell you we put on a stalk, but I'd be lying to you. Without much shame I took an offhand shot from the truck at the very small backside of the little guy. Convinced I'd missed, I call my shot as such. Riaan has a different opinion, he saw the ram go down.
@gizmo is going to have a bit of a mess with this one. The .375 hit the left rear leg and thru the abdomen and hit the front left leg. As I say, a mess. Worst case, a full body mount in a laying down position will work.
I go to sleep that night thinking about that gorgeous eland bull.
Datchew
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I'm so sorry Phil.
Will be praying for you and your family while you heal.
Will be praying for you and your family while you heal.
Tucketed
AH elite
Phil, two of my sons and I hunted with Jacques the same property 3 years ago. Wonderful hunt, we all took 55 inch plus Kudu a couple outstanding Sable etc. and my one son took two very nice buffalo.Congratulations
PHOENIX PHIL
AH ambassador
Well we are home now and time to catch up on the report. Leopard hunting amount to a lot of long days when it's not going so well and I fell behind on the report. I left off with the steenbok and going to sleep wondering if I'd screwed up not pursuing the eland bull.
After passing on him, I discussed it further with Riaan. I said something along the lines of what a tank that bull was standing taller and larger than every animal in the herd....and thus the name Tank stuck.
So we decided to see if we couldn't find them and give Tank another look the morning of the 4th of 5 days of hunting. After about an hour or so we found the herd again. Only the herd had grown in size. Glassing them over another bull had joined, a mature bull himself but still not the size of Tank. He just towered over all others.....yah I'm going to have to give this a go.
So off we go on a stalk....but all of those eyes.....we get busted. We pursue them and find them a second time and we get busted again. This time the eland go into that trot that you hate to see. They're going to go and go for a long time before stopping.
We decide to not pressure them more and head back in for lunch. Back out later in the afternoon for the evening hunt, we find the herd actually had moved now close to camp and find them shortly. We put on another stalk and thanks to some thorns I managed not to avoid, they're off again, this time not so spooked. I don't believe they actually saw us or winded us, just enough noise to make them move off.
Back to the truck we go and we find them yet once more. This time we're in a great spot to use brush to conceal our approach. We get to about 125 yards and Tank is standing there broadside with no other eland blocking the shot. I put the crosshairs on the shoulder and take the shot. I'm confident in the shot and hear the hit. Tank goes down at the shot but quickly regains his feet and is off with the herd. The brush that helped us get into place is now concealing the herd. Just as well as a 2nd shot would've been too risky with all of the animals present.
We head up the hill where he was at the shot and pick up the track. One of the animals is clearly dragging the right front leg. So off we go expecting to find him shortly, we were wrong. We follow the herd but seemed to have lost the track. We get to a road and can see where the herd crossed, but we don't see his track.
We call the truck over. We leave the trackers there to see if they sort out the tracks and take off in the truck to circle around to the next crossing and see if we pick up the herd again. Before we get a chance, the trackers come on the radio and tell us to come back, they've got eyes on him.
We get back and follow the trackers. The bull had peeled off from the herd short of crossing the road. No doubt he is aware of our presence but he's hurt badly. I'm guessing he would have eventually dropped, but it was time for a follow up. He's quartering away from me giving me a perfect angle to send a bullet into the line between the front legs.
I squeeze off the shot preparing myself mentally just before to make ready for a third shot. The second shot was perfect as we'd see later, but off Tank goes like he's completely healthy. I cycle the bolt quickly and got a third shot into the south end of the north bound eland. This shot actually hit his left rear leg and I'm sure broke the leg, but still he went.
We pursue him again, but find him about 150 yards away laying upright on his chest. I put in a fourth shot, broadside and into the boiler room. The bull barely flinches seemingly immune to the 300gr .375 North Fork. Riaan says he's done and I'm sure he is, but I'm not one to let an animal suffer. I put a 5th into him and we get a more visual response. I can also hear he is gurgling his breath and shortly he rolls over and I can hear him take his final breath.
At this point in my life with my fair share of animals taken, I still feel a sadness when I take one. In this case it was much more. This nickname of Tank he had so lived up to. How he endured and fought for his life left me with a number of mixed emotions. The last thing I need taxidermy wise is a full shoulder mount eland, but this bull deserves that honor.
If you look closely you can see where the second shot entered behind his right shoulder. What you can't see is the entry of the first shot. What we could see when cleaning the bull was that the right front leg was hammered and just hanging on.
After passing on him, I discussed it further with Riaan. I said something along the lines of what a tank that bull was standing taller and larger than every animal in the herd....and thus the name Tank stuck.
So we decided to see if we couldn't find them and give Tank another look the morning of the 4th of 5 days of hunting. After about an hour or so we found the herd again. Only the herd had grown in size. Glassing them over another bull had joined, a mature bull himself but still not the size of Tank. He just towered over all others.....yah I'm going to have to give this a go.
So off we go on a stalk....but all of those eyes.....we get busted. We pursue them and find them a second time and we get busted again. This time the eland go into that trot that you hate to see. They're going to go and go for a long time before stopping.
We decide to not pressure them more and head back in for lunch. Back out later in the afternoon for the evening hunt, we find the herd actually had moved now close to camp and find them shortly. We put on another stalk and thanks to some thorns I managed not to avoid, they're off again, this time not so spooked. I don't believe they actually saw us or winded us, just enough noise to make them move off.
Back to the truck we go and we find them yet once more. This time we're in a great spot to use brush to conceal our approach. We get to about 125 yards and Tank is standing there broadside with no other eland blocking the shot. I put the crosshairs on the shoulder and take the shot. I'm confident in the shot and hear the hit. Tank goes down at the shot but quickly regains his feet and is off with the herd. The brush that helped us get into place is now concealing the herd. Just as well as a 2nd shot would've been too risky with all of the animals present.
We head up the hill where he was at the shot and pick up the track. One of the animals is clearly dragging the right front leg. So off we go expecting to find him shortly, we were wrong. We follow the herd but seemed to have lost the track. We get to a road and can see where the herd crossed, but we don't see his track.
We call the truck over. We leave the trackers there to see if they sort out the tracks and take off in the truck to circle around to the next crossing and see if we pick up the herd again. Before we get a chance, the trackers come on the radio and tell us to come back, they've got eyes on him.
We get back and follow the trackers. The bull had peeled off from the herd short of crossing the road. No doubt he is aware of our presence but he's hurt badly. I'm guessing he would have eventually dropped, but it was time for a follow up. He's quartering away from me giving me a perfect angle to send a bullet into the line between the front legs.
I squeeze off the shot preparing myself mentally just before to make ready for a third shot. The second shot was perfect as we'd see later, but off Tank goes like he's completely healthy. I cycle the bolt quickly and got a third shot into the south end of the north bound eland. This shot actually hit his left rear leg and I'm sure broke the leg, but still he went.
We pursue him again, but find him about 150 yards away laying upright on his chest. I put in a fourth shot, broadside and into the boiler room. The bull barely flinches seemingly immune to the 300gr .375 North Fork. Riaan says he's done and I'm sure he is, but I'm not one to let an animal suffer. I put a 5th into him and we get a more visual response. I can also hear he is gurgling his breath and shortly he rolls over and I can hear him take his final breath.
At this point in my life with my fair share of animals taken, I still feel a sadness when I take one. In this case it was much more. This nickname of Tank he had so lived up to. How he endured and fought for his life left me with a number of mixed emotions. The last thing I need taxidermy wise is a full shoulder mount eland, but this bull deserves that honor.
If you look closely you can see where the second shot entered behind his right shoulder. What you can't see is the entry of the first shot. What we could see when cleaning the bull was that the right front leg was hammered and just hanging on.
Hedge774
AH elite
I've never pulled the trigger on an animal that I didn't have at least a split second of reconsidering. I think that's the difference in hunters and killers.
Tucketed
AH elite
Not sure if he is the same bull I saw a few years ago but I told Jacque that let’s find him. We hunted him but another nice old bull presented a close shot so I gave in. Congratulations he is a Tank!
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