Wow!! I missed my own party on my Blue Wildebeest and lost a zebra, so I can TOTALLY sympathize with you. I don't have a lot of empathy normally, but when I read your story, my heart was sinking. Awesome that they brought the chopper out and an absolutely fantastic story. Massive, massive bull. Congrats. Not only are the horns long, but the bases look pretty big too - he will score very well on SCI.
 
Haha love that you whacked that bushpig!!

Absolutely monster Kudu congratulations!

Great report!
 
Congrats for getting your Kudu in the end. I have enjoyed coming along for the ride. Nothing was going to stop me from reading your last installment.
 
50by50

Same kind of story I shot my Kudu a little high it was bleeding like a sieve as it ran off. We waited for the trackers and trained dog!!
In about 20 minutes took off after him. About 50 yards into the trees we found a huge blood spot where it was laying before we pushed it out. The next two or three hours we followed it and the trackers were amazing blood every 50 yards. The trackers saw it a couple times but I only saw it once. At the end of the time it started to rain and that brought the trailing to a stop.
I spent the next two days at the same blind hoping it would come back. The morning of the last day I was looking to the left and my PH
was looking to the right and I saw my Kudu come in on the left. I could see the wound from my arrow on its shoulder. I said here he comes. My PH said I never thought it would come back in!!!!! "Why were we sitting there for all this time?" Got another shot not great but better I got to bring the most important trophy of my first trip to Africa home with my trophies. Not even close to the monster you got!!!!!
Tom
 
You had me worried when you said the kudu went up hill, and then to jump him up after letting him lay over night, not good.
You no how to put excitement into the hunt, plus got a bush pig to boot. Awesome kudu and good for you and the gang for staying persistent. Forrest
 
Thanks for the cool comments guys. The hunting community can, at times, be pretty hard on each other so I thought long and hard about giving you the full story- good, bad and ugly. Helicopters, shooting from the back of a truck, poor shot management on the kudu... etc. At the end of the day, everyone on this forum are studs and super supportive and excited for each other, and I've kind of enjoyed the reports where the hunter gives the story as it was, without pulling storyline that has the potential to make him look bad, so I threw it all in. Haven't been disappointed. Thank you.

The rest of the report is rather tame from here. In fact, I'll wrap it up in two more posts. I still have a bushbuck and an eland to go for KP to fulfill his promise!
 
Bring it on I am getting restless.Forrest
 
Hey Forrest- here you go man!

DAY 9 continued

Last time I ended on the kudu bull photo shoot. I still can’t believe he’s coming to my house. Truly a bull of a lifetime and I’m so pleased to have gotten him.

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Can you guess which horn was the longer? You’re likely wrong! KP and I couldn’t believe it and measured each horn several times and then just sat back in surprise. The left horn in the above picture measured longer! There’s really something to say about deeper curl and that horn’s curl hid a lot of length even though the right horn looks longer.

If you’re wondering, my arrow missed the heart but did a number on his brisket. There was a gaping wound that was the source of all the bleeding and I’m sure it would have killed this bull eventually. But not that day so it was good we called in the helicopter. The arrow didn’t pass through because it hit the leg on the off side and I assume broke it with how hobbled up he was.

What a rodeo! Waiting 20 minutes to get a shot, misjudging the yardage and getting a poor shot, leaving him overnight with all the anxiety and sleeplessness that entailed, miles and hours of tracking with 3 or 4 sightings but no shots, helicopter, getting left behind, shooting a bushpig… as I sat and thought about the adventure that went into getting this bull on the ground, I knew this would grace a very special place on my wall and be a cherished memory always.

Oh, do you remember me telling you about hearing some popping shots followed by the big booms? Have you guessed what that was?

It was my helicopter pilot! He radio’d KP and Phan about whether he should try to slow the kudu down. They said yes so he tilted his helicopter and shot the kudu out the window of his chopper! And he hit it at least 3 times!! South Africa is still the wild west!

I put it together and got the whole story when I noticed a small hole on his high shoulder, then one on his flank and another perfect hole right through an ear and found out the pilot was shooting at him with his 9mm before KP finally put him down! Unbelievable.

After the photo shoot, KP looked over at me and suggested we go to the lodge, drop off our kudu, soak in the hottub and then go back to Bossi’s that night for a bushbuck. Sounded good!

So after dropping him off at the skinning shed, and sitting and admiring him for a while, we spent some time swimming in the pool and sitting in the hot tub before eating dinner. Felt awesome and KP, as always, kept me entertained with his never ending supply of stories from a lifetime of adventures in the bush.

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I wish I had taken pictures of the lodge, meals, etc. Everything was very nice and I’m not sure why I didn’t document it.

Around dusk we hopped in the truck and made the drive to Bossi’s. We arrived to full dark and met Bossi just coming in with his wife. Bossi was still a riot. Big personality and fun to hang out with and without the wedding drinks under his belt, I didn’t have to hold the bottom of my shorts closed!

We drove up to his fields, as I arranged my headlamp on the side of my head. We saw a few bushbuck but nothing very interesting until we reached the back end of the field. In our headlights was a bushbuck ram. Good enough. Bossi slowed to a stop while his son kept the spotlight lit on the ram.

The wheat was so tall I could only see the top half of the ram’s body as he walked broadside at 30 yards. I realized I would have to shoot through the crops to hit his vitals as I drew my bow back and lined up the pins.
At the shot, the bushbuck leapt forward and started to run. A clean miss. Maybe my arrow was deflected by the wheat. I switched my bow for KP’s rifle and as the bushbuck stopped to look back, I anchored him. The bullet had no problem parting the wheat and finding the vitals.

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He ended up stretching the tape at 12 or 13 inches… geez, I can’t remember. I’m going to euro mount his skull and put it on a metal rod for the top shelf of my office cabinet.

It will look really cool and save the spot on the wall for a big bushbuck with 2 dramatic twists so the horns look segmented and flare out like I love.

Meet Bossi!

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We loaded up our trophy and headed for the skinning shed and home. Day 9 was quite the day. We pulled the rifle out more than I would have preferred, but we knocked off 2 of the spiral horns!

I went to bed a pretty happy dude.
 
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Great kudu, congrats!
 
Your kudu is truly a beauty.
It takes next to nothing to deflect a arrow, shame the wheat was so tall or the bushbuck was so short. Forrest
 
Great story so far, nice hogs and that Impala was a shooter for sure.
 
Hey guys,

It's been a busy couple weeks and I haven't done the last installment of this hunt. I'll do it tomorrow for sure. I went after Eland. Thanks for your patience.

In the meantime, here's a couple pictures from the latest adventures!

I took my oldest son (9 years old) on his first elk hunt earlier this month. I didn't draw a big bull tag so took him on the over the counter spike hunt.

We tagged out opening morning with this little spike. My son loved it. Told me it was the best day of his life. I might have a hunting buddy in a few years!!

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Then Saturday I got home from a goose hunt that, despite the super warm weather, we had some great success! Can't wait for the weather to start pushing flocks from the north country. It's going to be fun!

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Hope you are all having a great fall!
 
DAY 10

I woke up feeling GOOD! After our bad luck in the middle of the hunt I was expecting to get only 2 of the 4 spiral horns, and here I was sitting on 3!

At breakfast, KP was in a very good mood. For the past few days he had been working on getting us on a concession right on the Botswana border, and the night before he’d received confirmation it was a go! The British guy that owned the land said he had some excellent eland and with how severe the drought was, he needed to take some animals off.

As we made the long drive to the concession, KP told me the owner had mentioned he has a big Livingston bull he’s not using as a breeding bull anymore and he would let us take that bull for the same price if we got the opportunity. Awesome!

A couple hours of driving and we were pulling up to the property. I couldn’t believe how poor the feed was. There was NOTHING for grazers. No grass at all. KP told me the drought was affecting this area a lot worse than down south.

KP and the owner spoke for a few minutes and then we jumped in the truck. As we drove through the property to where we would be hunting, KP was filling me in on the plan.

We were going to get set up in the garage of an old house (Hmmm. Interesting.) while the ranch hands brought out some feed, which ended up being mostly some kind of squash and a little hay.

After the hands left, I spent some time listening to a book in our unconventional “blind” before KP nudged me and pointed at his ears. I took out the ear buds and sure enough, I could hear the clicking of eland hoofs coming in!

We stayed perfectly still, waiting to see if they were bulls. Sure enough, the first eland to come in was a bull. Then another, and another, and there, standing in the trees was the Livingston! My adrenaline spiked as he slowly walked in. He was a huge bodied old bruiser of a bull. But as we evaluated the 4 or 5 bulls in front of us, we realized he wasn’t the biggest, or best looking bull. In fact, two of the others, one in particular, were just as tall bodied as the Livingston, but had heavier horns that looked incredibly long.

This particular bull was taller than his other companions so maybe some Livingston blood? Son maybe? I don’t know enough about it but as I was admiring him, KP whispered he was the best bull and if we got the opportunity, to take him.

As KP got the video camera ready, I put the knock on my bow string and got ready to draw. We had to wait several minutes as the bulls were moving around quite a bit, jockeying for position, and reminding each other of the pecking order. Eventually the bull turned broadside and gave me a great opportunity at 30 yards.

I took the shot. The bull jumped and ran behind a screen of trees and just stood there. The other bulls followed him and stood looking around, wondering what had just happened.

After the kudu episode my confidence wasn’t great, so I was really stressing the shot placement. The arrow seemed like it hit high to me but KP told me it was a great shot. We reviewed the footage and KP confirmed it was a lung shot, so we continued to glass the bull. We could only see part of his legs and his head, which began to droop lower and lower. At this point, I figured I had just gotten my Spiral Slam!!!!

Sure enough, a few minutes later the bull bedded down and 10 minutes after that, we snuck around and found him expired.

My arrow had gotten great penetration, although it didn’t pass through. In fact, as we got him into position for pictures, we noticed the broadhead pushing agains the skin on the off shoulder.

I’m super happy with this bull. He would have been incredible with a few more years on him but I couldn’t be happier to have gotten him and he will look fantastic mounted alongside my kudu.

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The last day and a half things got slow again and I didn’t get the blesbok I was hoping to take. On the last morning, just as we were getting ready to leave the elevated blind and head to the lodge so I could shower up and hit the road for the airport, this huge vervet monkey I had been watching all morning strolled in and I was able to take him as he drank water at 20 yards.

Great end to a great hunt! Hope you enjoyed.

Matt

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In my best Borat voice, "Very nice!"
 

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Impact shots from the last hunt

Early morning Impala hunt, previous link was wrong video

Headshot on jackal this morning

Mature Eland Bull taken in Tanzania, at 100 yards, with 375 H&H, 300gr, Federal Premium Expanding bullet.

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