NAMIBIA: Outstanding Days In Namibia

Foxi

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Canada, USA,Austria,Turkey,Tschech Rep.,Poland,Hungary,Serbia,Denmark,Khomas HL and Omaheke/Namibia and England(England is wonderful) Romania,Luangwa/Zambia-,Gwayi/Zimbabwe/- + Save/Zimbabwe/- River. Horseback-tours in South Africa and Botswana.
Usually we, two friends and I, drive at the end of September into the forest wilderness of the Carpathians to Romania, to experience the rut of red deer.
This time we didn't want to jump after the deer, but to experience another hunt and so we decided for Namibia.
For my friends their first hunting holiday in Africa.
An old Kudu bull stood for us in the first place, everything else was secondary. Booked through a German agent, Wolfgang Stöger,we came across the Lodge "Africa Awaits" near the town Gobabis, 100 km west of Botswana, at the extreme edge of the Kalahari. Region Omaheke .A semi desert.
For the first time, I spent my stay in Africa in a Burian community and have to say - great people who showed enormous hospitality and were 1000% hunters + first class hunting guides, with best trackers and dogs who always accompanied us (Ridgeback and Bavarian Bloodhoundmix). The lodge is almost too beautiful for a hunting holiday in Africa and enjoyed the luxury we did not expect.
Lodge Africa Awaits..JPG
Lodge Africa Awaits.The main house.


I don't want to bother you with the multitude of hunting highlights and shootings, just pick out a few episodes that occupied me the most.
We didn't take any weapons with us and I shot the boltaction rifle of the PH, a .375 H+H with a 200 gn copper hollow point bullet.
Spartan bullets, which I've never heard of, but were great in their effect, especially when it came to shooting through the bushes, where we German hunters have an enormous problem (at the beginning) and some game didn't get lost because I just didn't want to chirp through the thicket.
But, there must be and my caution was unfounded. My PH swears by this bullet.
Besides, in the discussion about bonded bullets the Phs didn't take part - bullet placement is their main demand, then nothing comes for a long time and then everything else.
.308 and .30-06 are the most common calibers there, up to the Eland .
Without batting an eyelid up to 200 m.

The wild boar from the first day


The Kudu tracks are identified and tracked like buffalo. Only with the difference that kudus are even more sensitive, enormously careful and the old guys smart like professors at the university. Our problem was that in the first days there were none, only young vegetables, and so I was afraid to be in a totally overhunted area.

At noon we hit an enormous boar, jumped from the car and stalked it. Pointed from the front through the bushes he secured us and I deliberately ignored the eternal shoot, shoot of the tracker. As soon as I had the shoulder free, I pulled for the trigger and shot over the stick as the boar started to move. Shit. My PH Christo, a 25 year old enormously experienced hunter, whistled his dogs and with "Hurra" they went after the track. I was sure not to have met him and had no hope that the dogs could provide a healthy boar. In a hurry we followed Matthäus our ingenious tracker and after half an hour through the midday heat, pretty much done (I) we heard the dogs barking. They had him. Not to be believed.
As we approached the barking, I saw the boar fighting with the dogs and Christo told me to look after his dogs. I promised him high and holy. Better the boar escapes me, than that I shoot his dogs.
The picture of the fighting troops was unique and the boar got us and slipped backwards into a hole and almost completely disappeared in it.
The PH said we should wait, then it would come out, but it didn't make any effort.
After a few minutes I went resolutely with the .375 to her to and hoped to defend her in time so it would attack.
Unfortunately the rifle scope was not to be dismantled (I hate that to shoot at short distance with the ZF) everything went now furiously fast . I jumped in front of the hole and before the boar could react correctly he already had my bullet in his skull.
What an exciting hunt, what a joy. We many of us all in the arms and I almost smothered the dogs with enthusiasm.
Old and almost the strongest of the season and then this hunt!!!!Unique.
Keiler.JPG



Keiler vorm Loch.jpg

in the back ,you can see the hole where he disappeared.

Keiler und mein PH.jpg


my PH Christo .
You can see the exit hole ?
Always to be carefully.
I shot in the middle of the head.Exits are not safe to caluclate.
Keiler mit der Mannschaft.jpg

Outside,the trackers Elephant and Matthäus,my PH Christo and his uncle Sepi.
The owner of the property.
And Ranger, one of the two dogs.
Thank you so much fellows.

Tomorrow it goes on.
Foxi
 
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Very nice boar. Sounds like a great experience.
Bruce
 
Monster tusks on that thing.

Was there a specific reason you didn't take your own rifles?
 
Monster tusks on that thing.

Was there a specific reason you didn't take your own rifles?

We don't like the discussions at the airports.
Never be a problem,but its easier to travel.
It depends of the game.
On buffalo I always take the mine.
 
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I like your descriptive style of writing...Not to polished and enjoyable..
 
That's a nice pig, congrats!!
 
I like your descriptive style of writing...Not to polished and enjoyable..

Too much of an honor my friend.
Last I chase everything through the deepl or google translator :whistle:
 
Kapital keiler . Namibia is very easy to bring guns into. I always prefer to use my own. Given a drilling once in Hungary I was totally confused on which trigger did what
 
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Great looking boar Foxi.

Look forward to the rest of your report.
 
Waidmannsheil!
Wunderbar keiler!
 
Waidmannsheil indeed! Hell of a boar my friend. But wait to you folks see the kudu! No I wasn't there, but I did get a sneek preview. ;)
 
Very nice pig sir.
 
Great Hog! Always fun to as well as an entertaining show.
 
Waidmannsheil! That is a proper old boar and a well told story.
 
Very nice!! Congratulations!!! Anticipation is growing for the Kudu!
 
Great pig Foxi, waidmannsheil !
 
On the same day I shot a hartebest and a oryx for the kitchen.
So the prey was celebrated extensively in the evening.
I was always a little skeptical towards the Boers, but was enormously happy to have landed in a Burian community and in no Southwest African former German community and must say ,that these Boers are great guys, with amazingly pretty and charming women. Also there I had totally stupid prejudices. And there are beside first class hunters and excellent hosts, quite party lions whose rhythm not everyone can stand, especially if one runs the whole day in the heat through the African bush to look for such an old kudu.
The waves were high in the evening and I went on strike for Tequila in African style.
Do you know what that is African Tequila ?
No, I didn't know either.
Here is the recipe:
A pinch of salt is sucked like snuff on the back of the hand, a drop of lemon juice in the eye and then drunk immediately after the Tequilla.
Only hard natures are recommended :S Help:

The early morning saw us all again, but stormy wind came up above the surface and destroyed quite a lot of hopes.
We couldn't get close to a single old kudu in four days, which was hard for us not to even see one.
A few kitchen shots that anyone could make were happy hunting, but a good kudu had done it to us.

Springbock.jpg

When a dying springbok shows us his last greeting, which withers shortly afterwards, I want to see the hunter whose soul is not touched by it. Hunting is a wonderful and at the same time cruel game with God's creation.

A few words about the culling/mass shooting in this country:
As you all know this has nothing to do with hunting at all. The farmers must let it approve beforehand and there are often hundreds of heads game in a few days from the car shot. Thousands in some weeks. The cause is mostly the drought owed. Namibia has doubled his wildlife population in the last 50 years if not tripled.In former times hardly wild meat was eaten, there was no developed hunting tourism ("they all drove to Kenya, no sow came to us") and the farmers shot ruthlessly the wild animals as food and water competitors down and let them rot in the bush.Today it is completely different, the farmer receives half of the trophy fee, if the animal was shot on his farm and the (today) valuable meat. There go often substantial amounts in. Some farms were given up since the cultivation is not worthwhile and operated as a huntingfarm since the return of one kg meat per hectare of surface is greater with wild animals than with cattle and sheep.
In good rainy years, almost 5,000 springboks live in some areas on 10,000 hectares, for example in long lasting drought (this year is the terriblest drought of the century) literally agonizingly starve and die of thirst. Before the animals die uselessly in the bush, they are shot together and the meat is used for human nutrition.
Reason for criticism ?
No, not at all.


Cheeta.JPG

Cheeta live trap.

The farmers fear the gepard much more than any leopard.
The leopard beats a calf and eats from it the whole week.The cheeta eats only a little bit of its prey and needs it fresh every day, so the damage is much bigger.
You will no longer be friends -farmer and gepard.

We were told that there was a rest day at the lodge on Saturday and we were somewhat surprised.
There is no Kudu down for four days and then there's a rest day. Somehow we missed it in the communication before.
However, I could borrow a horse and have ridden with my PH for hours like a Comanche through the Omaheke. Have us great races with elands, oryxherds and gnus supplied. Even with an aardvark we have taken it.
My PH forgot his frustration that Namibia lost the Rugby World Championship on that day against South Africa.
Rugby, a game that a German understands even less than the baseball of the Americans :)
Only the darkness brought us out of the saddle.


Caro.jpg


I just wanted to be a cowboy.
I never felt happiness and freedom stronger and more beautiful than on the back of a good horse, to gallop through the endless wide and harsh beauty of Namibia.
It is like a rush that should never end.

The next two hunting days, however, all went in one fell swoop.
Then they were there - the old kudus. Old and strong.

Tomorrow it goes on.
Foxi
 
Last edited:
On the same day I shot a hartebest and a oryx for the kitchen.
So the prey was celebrated extensively in the evening.
I was always a little skeptical towards the Boers, but was enormously happy to have landed in a Burian community and in no southwest German community and must say ,that these Boers are great guys, with amazingly pretty and charming women. Also there I had totally stupid prejudices. And there are beside first class hunters and excellent hosts, quite party lions whose rhythm not everyone can stand, especially if one runs the whole day in the heat through the African bush to look for such an old kudu.
The waves were high in the evening and I went on strike for Tequila in African style.
Do you know what that is African Tequila ?
No, I didn't know either.
Here is the recipe:
A pinch of salt is sucked like snuff on the back of the hand, a drop of lemon juice in the eye and then drunk immediately after the Tequilla.
Only hard natures are recommended :S Help:

The early morning saw us all again, but stormy wind came up above the surface and destroyed quite a lot of hopes.
We couldn't get close to a single old kudu in four days, which was hard for us not to even see one.
A few kitchen shots that anyone could make were happy hunting, but a good kudu had done it to us.

View attachment 309194
When a dying springbok shows us his last greeting, which withers shortly afterwards, I want to see the hunter whose soul is not touched by it. Hunting is a wonderful and at the same time cruel game with God's creation.

A few words about the culling/mass shooting in this country:
As you all know this has nothing to do with hunting at all. The farmers must let it approve beforehand and there are often hundreds of heads game in a few days from the car shot. Thousands in some weeks. The cause is mostly the drought owed. Namibia has doubled his wildlife population in the last 50 years if not tripled.In former times hardly wild meat was eaten, there was no developed hunting tourism ("they all drove to Kenya, no sow came to us") and the farmers shot ruthlessly the wild animals as food and water competitors down and let them rot in the bush.Today it is completely different, the farmer receives half of the trophy fee, if the animal was shot on his farm and the (today) valuable meat. There go often substantial amounts in. Some farms were given up since the cultivation is not worthwhile and operated as a huntingfarm since the return of one kg meat per hectare of surface is greater with wild animals than with cattle and sheep.
In good rainy years, almost 5,000 springboks live in some areas on 10,000 hectares, for example in long lasting drought (this year is the terriblest drought of the century) literally agonizingly starve and die of thirst. Before the animals die uselessly in the bush, they are shot together and the meat is used for human nutrition.
Reason for criticism ?
No, not at all.


View attachment 309195
Cheeta live trap.

The farmers fear the gepard much more than any leopard.
The leopard beats a calf and eats from it the whole week.The cheeta eats only a little bit of its prey and needs it fresh every day, so the damage is much bigger.
You will no longer be friends -farmer and gepard.

We were told that there was a rest day at the lodge on Saturday and we were somewhat surprised.
There is no Kudu down for four days and then there's a rest day. Somehow we missed it in the communication before.
However, I could borrow a horse and have ridden with my PH for hours like a Comanche through the Omaheke. Have us great races with elands, oryxherds and gnus supplied. Even with an aardvark we have taken it.
My PH forgot his frustration that Namibia lost the Rugby World Championship on that day against South Africa.
Rugby, a game that a German understands even less than the baseball of the Americans :)
Only the darkness brought us out of the saddle.


View attachment 309196

I just wanted to be a cowboy.
I never felt happiness and freedom stronger and more beautiful than on the back of a good horse, to gallop through the endless wide and harsh beauty of Namibia.
It is like a rush that should never end.

The next two hunting days, however, all went in one fell swoop.
Then they were there - the old kudus. Old and strong.

Tomorrow it goes on.
Foxi
Lovely saddle - not exactly Texan, but much better than the usual leather postage stamp one sees over there (or at my daughter's place). (y) Sort of a hybrid thing. Heck you could even rope with it - though where you would hang the rope I truly do not know. We would normally tighten a rear cinch (girth), though not sure what that little strap would accomplish? These Boers .... ;)
 
Last edited:
Lovely saddle - not exactly Texan, but much better than the usual leather postage stamp one sees over there (or at my daughter's place). (y) Heck you could even rope with it - though where you would hang the rope I truly do not know.

yes, a western saddle is safer and not everyone is as professional as your daughter. And also professionals fall from the horse.
If you ride over the Plains at full speed and the horses avoid the many holes at lightning speed, you're happy not to sit in a stamp with stirrups.
An open fracture of the lower leg, or a brain haemorrhage is not funny at home, but in Africa?
 

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