SOUTH AFRICA: Pawprint Safaris Group Hunt My Quest For A Big Waterbuck

That is a fine heavy horned blesbuck! Congratulations! Good job taking what Africa offers.

Art II I have had the same open bolt issues with the Remington 700 action. They all shoot really well, but when the bolt easily opens and particularly when it drops the round out, it’s quite irritating!

Day 3:

The alarm sounds at 5am and I swing out of bed flip-flops at the ready, no cold stone for me this morning. I’m in the dinning room by 6am drinking coffee, eating a bowl of granola and checking the internet. Can you believe it according to the Delta app my guns are over the Atlantic heading to JoBurg. This is good and bad news, Carlos and I need to be on the road at 3:30 which means less time to focus on Hidder. During breakfast Carlos and I discussed shot placement for Sable on a shoulder mount they have in the dinning room, I was particularly interested in the frontal chest shot after a quick explanation of where Carlos wanted the shot and why we loaded up the truck and headed for Hidders hideout. We are in South Africa and as you know hunting concessions are high fenced and Hidders hideout is no exception. In order to prevent fence damage, the owner of this concession installed a separate electric fence. We arrive at Hidders Hideout around 7:30 and Carlos opens the gate and we drive in, Carlos gets out of the truck, closes the gate and brushes against 3000 volts of electric fence, OUCH. Stiff, sore and fully awake Carlos climbs back into the truck and we start to put our plan in motion. We park the truck a mile or so from the water hole Hidders likes to use and proceed on foot for another half mile. Now we move 10 yards or so into the bush and continue our stalk. Five or ten steps, stop and glass, this process continues for some time and still no sign of Hidder. We are getting close to the waterhole and soon the wind will turn against us, at about 300 yards from the water hole Carlos stops to glass, as is my practice I look where the PH is not, as I look down our direction of travel I see Hidder standing in an opening 300 yards away looking directly at us. I drop to one knee and whisper to Carlos “There he is, There he is”. Carlos askes if I can take him from here but I’m not willing to take a 300-yard frontal chest shot, so we need to move closer. We back up and moved to our right keeping some thick cover between us and Hidder. We where able to get to 200 yards or so before the cover ran out, Carlos eased the shooting sticks out and whispered “this is as close as we can get”. I slowly put the Whelen on the shooting sticks, check the bolt handle, turn off the safety and take aim, I find Hidder in the scope looking straight at me, a frontal chest shot at 200 yards. Carlos whispers in my ear you’ve got this just like we talked about this morning, I center the first circle in the middle of Hidder’s chest and squeeze the trigger. Have you ever dropped an anchor into the water? That’s what Hidder looked like when that 225 grain Barnes hit him in the chest, he sank right where he stood and never got up. I don’t know who was happier me or Carlos but it was smiles and high fives all around. Carlos called Herbert the ranch owner and he and his daughter helped us load Hidder into the truck. It was only 9:30 so well decided to hunt for Waterbuck until 11 then head back to camp to get Hidder in the salt. We hunted hard for Waterbuck for the next 90 minutes and the only thing we encountered was a 55” Kudu, a dead 55” Kudu. Carlos used my Victorinox to harvest the scull and horns and we headed back to camp.

Well done!

Beautiful Sable Art. Surely at the top of the PG beauty (and desirability) stakes with the Nyala in the PG hierarchy. (well for me anyway)

Magnificent beast you got there and an excellent shot! Obviously the old man taught you how to shoot well in those 40 years of training!

He is a fine looking trophy Art. Congrats!

Beautiful animal. Congrats!

Beautiful Sable. Congrats

Nice sable, congrats!

That is a nice Sable. Well done. That hunt was more like Zambia or Zim than RSA. Congrats
Bruce

Ridgewalker said:

Magnificent beast you got there and an excellent shot! Obviously the old man taught you how to shoot well in those 40 years of training!

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I did learn a thing or two from dad over the years about shooting and shoot placement. But you can't teach an old dog new tricks, dad hates shooting sticks he would rather shoot off-hand, me I'd rather use the sticks.

gillettehunter said:

That is a nice Sable. Well done. That hunt was more like Zambia or Zim than RSA. Congrats
Bruce

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I've haven't hunted Zambia or Zim yet but it did feel more like a free range hunt. I worked harder for "Hidder" than any outer trophy in my life, going forward I really need to focus more on my physical conditioning for these hunt,s that dam mountain was a pain to climb.

Art Lambart II said:

I really need to focus more on my physical conditioning for these hunt,s that dam mountain was a pain to climb

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Yes sir you should. It only gets tougher the older you get. I’m 71 next week. My grandkids, wife, hunting and fishing are my life now. I walk .8 miles to and from the gym where I lift for 30-45 minutes three days a week. I try to get in 7-10,000 steps every day. Living at 5,000 ft helps too, but I usually hunt 7,500 -10,000 ft. Only gets tougher every year. But I love it enough to try to stay in shape to do it.
Get out there and exercise!

Fantastic write-up and a great sable! Was good meeting you and your Dad in Atlanta!

Great Sable...................Show me the Waterbuck!

Day 3 – Airport Trip

Carlos and I head to the Airport at 3:30 with the hopes of getting back to camp before 8:30. I’m told the cook has something special planned and we don’t want to miss it. About an hour into the trip I’m barely able to keep my eyes open and take a 30 minute power nap and we arrive at O R Tambo shortly after I awake. The plane from ATL was early so the guns started to arrive in the SAP office just before 6pm. My guns soon arrive on the counter and the first thing I notice is that the straps that secure my luggage shelf to my case are snapped. I open the case so the officer can verify the serial numbers and I discover my T/C Encore and Bullberry barrel have rusted in transit. I take several pictures of the damage then we pack-up and head back to camp. We arrived back at camp before dinner was ready so I pulled a pad of 0000 steel wool out of my suitcase and started to clean up my rifle. Why I packed that steel wool I have no idea but I was glad I did, it’s now a standard part of my packing list. As promised dinners was fabulous, it was a kudu neck and shin bone stew with hominy and carrots, the meal was so good we requested it for our last meal in camp. After dinner we moved to the bar for a few more Castles, a bourbon or two and relive the day’s events.

After returning home I have been getting the runaround from Delta about the damage to my rifle and the inconvenience the late delivery caused. The baggage department says they will cover the cost to re-blue my rifle but can’t do anything about the inconvenience, I’ll have to work thru customer service to resolve that issue. Delta’s customer service says everything should be handled by baggage. So far the most helpful division of Delta has been the Skymiles department, they at least offered me all they could, a 250 dollar travel voucher or 15,000 Skymiles they also advised me not to take the offer because that is was they could offer for a delayed flight and that my case deserved more compensation. I’ll keep AH updated on my progress with Delta but as of now I’ll be using someone else to fly to South Africa.

Holy Crap!

As bad as the exteriors looked, the chambers and bores looked worse. A bore snake took most of the rust out of the bores but the chambers were a different story. Luckily I had a Pistol Cleaning Rod and a 45 Cal. brush in my gun case that was used to clean up the chambers. I thought that the cargo areas of most jet liners was heated. After all Pets are carried as cargo on a regular basis. In my opinion the only way Art's gun could have gotten wet enough to rust in that short of time would be for them to be left out on the tarmac during a rain storm OR be shipped in an unheated area where they would be subject temperatures well below zero due to the altitude modern passenger planes fly at. I' don't mean to hijack your thread, but it really irked me to see what Delta's negligence did to one of your Christmas.