BOTSWANA: BOWHUNT: Choronga Safaris Bowhunting Adventure Begins At Midnight

[Buffalo1]

Interesting story- please continue.. I know the "sun is gonna shine" soon on this trip..

Emily scored a very nice ram. A great start . Congrats !!!

 

[Dee S]

Better yet a change of clothes and small toiletry kit in your carry on. That way you are 100% guaranteed to have your own stuff.

I had my ditty bag, a pair each of socks and underwear, and a shirt in my carry on backpack, but kids, what can you do? She is 20 years old, too old for me to double check how she is packing. I hope it was a lesson learned for her?

 

[buck wild]

Good stuff. Did you clear all that with her before publishing ? . I think I’ve gone longer and had a change of clothes available.

 

[Dee S]

The rest of that first full day, I'll call day 1, was filled with more impala, and plenty of birds, but nothing further to shoot.
This hunt was an SCI auction hunt that we had won and the package included two zebra, two blue wildebeest, and two impala. Emily has no desire to harvest a zebra, so both of those were mine. I opted to give her the two BH, while we'd split two impala. She had already shot a nice ram in Namibia a couple of years ago but this would be my first opportunity to take a one.

We headed back to camp where they fed us like royalty. My blood sugar went through the roof on this trip. The food was incredible.
The variety of bird life in Africa is unreal.

Old mature bull and he gave us plenty of bow shot opportunities. This farm had several dark bulls like this one.

 

[Dee S]

Good stuff. Did you clear all that with her before publishing ? . I think I’ve gone longer and had a change of clothes available.

Shhh, I'm counting on her not coming to this website to read it.

 

[CJW]

I had my ditty bag, a pair each of socks and underwear, and a shirt in my carry on backpack, but kids, what can you do? She is 20 years old, too old for me to double check how she is packing. I hope it was a lesson learned for her?

Some people just have to learn the hard way.

I hope for your sake she never reads this.

 

[Dee S]

Some people just have to learn the hard way.

I hope for your sake she never reads this.

I'm safe as long it's not posted on TikTok or Instagram. Besides, I hope her experiences can be passed onto one of your kids should they start to pack for a trip and tell you, "thanks Dad, but I got this."

 

[Dee S]

We went to bed and then the lights went out, that's when the zebra came to the water not 40 yard from my bed. It was great to hear them splashing and making noises right there in camp. That's another great thing I look forward to on these trips, "just being in Africa." One night, the zebra could be heard all over the farm talking to each other. Theuns told us the next day it was probably because of the brown hyena that has been spotted on the property. We actually saw its' tracks on several occasions along the roads.

Day 2
Back in the blind and ready for anything. More impala came in before lunch and it was my turn to have a shot. Still using his Mathews, we were ready.
Another mature ram came in and gave me the shot. It didn't go far after the GrimReaper passed through him.

Check out the spot on the back of his head. Odd

We returned after lunch and settled in. I admit, I was anxious to see a zebra. Getting a shot at one is always an iffy proposition, so just to see one for me is worth the trip and time spent in the blind.
Theuns saw them first and they acted like they were going to walk right in. Nope, they didn't. They did what zebra have a tendency to do and passed right on by, out of bow range, and went and stood in the brush 200 yards away for about an hour. The herd mare finally got thirsty enough to start heading our way and the others followed.
When they came in, they again did what zebras tend to do at the water. They lined up, shoulder to shoulder, skin to skin, with no chance of a shot, with the stallion the last in line. It turned out to be a great photo though.
While Theuns is filming, I'm thinking to myself, I won't get the shot. That stallion will finish drinking, turn and walk straight away from me. Surprisingly, I guess Theuns said the right PH prayer, as the lead female finished, she turned and walked to my left. The stallion spun and followed. He paused at 22 yards, quartering away, and shook his head. I drew and hit the release. Arrow hit him in the 'armpit' just behind the left leg.
Theuns thought I hit him a bit low, but I was thinking of the exit point when I aimed and it traveled through the heart and the broadhead punctured the skin on the right shoulder in the chevron. Our position below ground had the arrow going upwards in flight, so the angle was good. He ran out in front of us and fell over about a 100 yards out in the open ground.
I was impressed that an expandable broadhead got that much penetration on such a large, thick animal, but I'm sure glad that it did.
Add a mature Burchell's to the salt.

My stallion as they came in, then passed on by heading to the brush. He's watching the rest of his herd.

Driving me crazy!

FINALLY.......

And no shot.....I'm thinking it was fun to watch them.......He's in the back with the red neck.

A happy feeling when you take one of these with a bow. By far, the smartest, wariest animal I have ever bow hunted.

After we had him loaded and back at camp, we went to check out a new blind setup at a neighboring property.

We hunted it a couple of times and Theuns had his men add a lot more brush to it to help conceal us inside, but it had very little activity while we hunted it. It is their intention to build a permanent blind at this location and I have no doubt it will be a producer for them once it is finished.

Not a bad day 2 at all. We returned to camp hungry and happy. I slept well with the memories of the day. It is just a blessing to have Emily along on these hunts and to share these times with her. She's a really good hunting partner and other than her getting annoyed with dad and his camera, she never complains about anything.

 

[Dee S]

Short video links to the shots.
Her impala.

My impala

My zebra

 

[Dee S]

I should have added the slo-mo to the videos. Here they are with the footage zoomed and slowed down at the end. By the time I did the editing, it was too late to delete the links above or I would have just replaced those with the slow motion clips.

My daughters impala.
Again, poor penetration as she is shooting a 52 lb bow with 2" Rage. Those things require a lot of force to open fully and that absorbs so much of the arrows energy. We were making due with what we had and we thank our PH for helping us out. Without him, we would have been on a photo safari for the first four days.

My impala zoomed in and in slo-mo at the end.
I have to admit, that Mathews has some ump to it. Even in slow motion on my computer and in editing mode, I cannot see the arrow before it makes impact.

And the zebra.
Looks low, but the exit point determines the entry point.

 

[Frederik]

Enjoying your report so far.

 

[Tokoloshe Safaris]

This is probably not funny, but does her hair ever get caught in her bow string?

 

[Dee S]

This is probably not funny, but does her hair ever get caught in her bow string?

Not that I'm aware of, and normally, when she has her hair products with her, the hair would be pulled back in a pony tail for shooting her bow.
As I mentioned before, she never complained, but that was a long time for her to go without a hair brush, her shampoos and conditioners. That's why I told her once it all arrived, take as long as you need, the hunt can wait. As her dad, I knew how important it was for her to get her hair back and have a proper wash up with her own products.

 

[Dee S]

Back to the hunt.
I wish I could tell you that we put animals in the salt every day that we hunted, but that was not the case. As we all know, hunting is not a guarantee and everyday brings its' challenges. The wind may be wrong, the animals decide to go to another source of water, etc.
But we continued to hunt and there was a herd of wildebeest on this property that were frequenting this particular water hole. It had a good mature bull but it was very frustrating as the herd was led by a one horn old cow. She was way too smart for her own good. I told Theuns, "she needs to go!"
After several days of having them come in, often as last light, Emily finally got a shot at him. The shot was a little far back, but there was a decent blood trail. It was about 20 minutes before dark when she shot, so we waited until dark and then called the truck. On this hunt we did not have tracking dogs and they may have made a difference, who knows. The long and short of it is, we tracked him for a mile or so that night, then returned this next morning. The tracker did an outstanding, simply amazing, job of tracking that animal and we followed along until mid-day. At that point it was decided we would resume our hunt while the tracker and Stephan's son, Luka, would continue on the track. The hope was for Luka to get a rifle shot should it present itself. Luka and the tracker stayed on it until dark, seeing the animal several times but never had a clear shot. They would track it again the next day, again, seeing the bull but no clear shot.
As the hunting rules go on all safaris hunts, a wounded animal counts as one of your animals and this was no different. Emily felt horrible and it was hard to for her to swallow, but we all told her that it happens to everyone, man, woman, or child. Sometimes our arrows or our bullets just don't hit where we wanted them to and it's unfortunate, but you deal with it and move on.
In fact, my time would come the next day.
We were back in the blind and I had my own gear at this point, so there are no excuses. Three zebra made their way into the water. We also had giraffe, wildebeest, and impala in and around the water which made the zebra nervous and jumpy. I was hesitant to take the shot on the best looking stallion as he was not a real mature animal and I let my greed get the better of me.
He tried coming in several times and would jump and bolt away. He did it one more time and paused at about 35 yards. I released the arrow and I'll take full blame, for whatever reason, the arrow did not go where I wanted it to and it clipped him across his back. It looked like it was between the backbone and the skin above it. Another inch, maybe two, higher and it would have been a clean miss. The trackers searched and searched for blood but there was just a speckle here and there for the first 100 yards or so, then it petered out to nothing. I'm convinced he's still alive with a small scar on both sides of his center line stripe. But, he was now my second zebra.
That would leave us with one wildebeest left on our animal allotment. I had hoped to go after a bushbuck, but the day we were going to go to that property was the day we spend looking for her wildebeest, so bushbuck is still on my bucket list.
While we are waiting on the report regarding that last wildebeest, I'll captivate you with more pictures and a story about a snake or two.

 

[Dee S]

The one that got away with a new scar.....

He's watching that old cow to see what she does.

The old one horn cow......she was too smart for her own good........what would become of her?
She's eating a feed they had mixed up hoping the bushpigs would come in. The bush pigs never came, but she loved the stuff and did not like to share.

the herd bull

staring us down......

 

[Dee S]

One day, we had returned to camp for lunch and as we were about to leave camp heading back out to the hide, Theuns had just started to accelerate when he suddenly slams on the brakes. What the heck?! He starts pointing and motioning out the right side of the vehicle. He had spotted a very large puff adder. It was stretched out about 10 feet from the back of Emily's tent and about 10 feet from the walkway ramp that leads from the dining area to the place where Theuns parks his truck. We had just walked down that wooden path and had been standing around the truck as we prepared to load up and head out.
Needless to say, all hands came out for the snake adventure. The big bore rifles were put away, no need for that kind of firepower. Someone produced a shovel, then it was down to "who was brave enough to go in for the kill??
I can't remember if it was Stephen, our host, or Theuns? I think it was Theuns, as he is still young enough and has no wife or children to scold him for being so reckless. LOL
With one or two well placed jabs, the snake was no longer a threat. Stephen took possession of the prize and his son Ruben came in for the trophy pose with dad.
Theuns 1, snakes 0.
This would not be the last encounter with a snake on this trip.