SOUTH AFRICA: 10 Day Plains Game Hunt With Game 4 Africa In May 2016

Very nice eland! I can't wait for the next update.
 
beast of an eland
 
Dave,
The property you got the eland on looks awesome! Hope I end up there at some point during my hunt!
 
Very nice eland. Well what about a bush buck?

After loading the Eland, there wasn't any room for Bushbuck! The reality was I was bumping up against the hunting budget limit. Bushbuck will have to wait for the next trip.
 
Dave,
The property you got the eland on looks awesome! Hope I end up there at some point during my hunt!

Albert,

What animals are on your wish list?

Dave
375 Ruger Fan
 
Albert,

What animals are on your wish list?

Dave
375 Ruger Fan
Mainly bushbuck and nyala, also going for kudu, waterbuck, black wildebeest and impala. Talked about a deal on a female eland if we saw one with really long horns but I'm on the fence on that with cash being tight
 
Albert,

A buddy of mine is hunting with Wik and Game4Africa this week. I heard he already has taken a very large Kudu on day 1 of his hunt. I'm telling you, the eastern cape is Kudu Country! Kudu, Nyala, Waterbuck and Impala shouldn't be a problem for you. Bushbuck, well we saw them and even shot at them, but we didn't close the deal. They are there, just tough to hunt those critters. I did see black wildebeest too on multiple properties.

Dave
375 Ruger Fan
 
FINAL PART

May 27: Day 8 of hunt

Since we all had a late night last night with the big Eland, we decided to take the day off from hunting. The only thing missing on our wish list was Bushbuck and an Impala for Elise. We also thought a couple of Springbuck would be nice, so we made plans for tomorrow to go to another concession. For today, we decided to go be tourist in nearby Grahamstown.

Having heard Elise talking about her plans to go to graduate school, Wik asked her if she’d be interested in seeing what Rhodes University was like. Wik made a few phone calls and an official campus tour was lined up. We met with a university representative and he loaded us into a golf cart and gave us a tour of the campus. After the tour, we had a nice lunch at an off campus, college pub called “The Rat & Parrot.” Rhodes University nickname is Rhodian, which students and locals morph into Rhodent, which I’m guessing is where the Rat came from. Not sure about the parrot part, but I’m sure alcohol was involved. Also know that several pubs in the UK use this same name.

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While still in Grahamstown, we also got a tour on Connock’s Butchery. This is another business owed by the Coetzee family and it was doing a brisk business the day we visited. If you think about it, it’s a business that dovetails nicely with a South African hunting operation. In fact, I saw firsthand when we saw my Eland from the night before hanging in a meat cooler. In addition to game meat, they process locally raised beef, pork and sheep.

We returned to the lodge late in the afternoon and Elise was really concerned about getting an Impala. So with about an hour of daylight left, we loaded up and went out to find a good Impala. Wik quickly spotted one and set up a stalk for he and Elise. X, the tracker with us, and I hung back. We couldn’t see the Impala and we also couldn’t see the large Waterbuck that was very close to them. What I could see, in the opposite direction, were 3 good looking Sable. So I was content to watch the Sable through the binos until I finally heard the shot. X and I moved forward and could see Wik and Elise high fiving. The one shot kill was from 150 yards and the Impala was quite impressive.

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Like several of our dinners during our hunt, we had a nice South African braai that night.

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May 28: Day 9 of hunt

Up early and an hour drive to a new concession to look for Springbuck. We drove north to Fort Beaufort, then turned west to Adelaide and Bedford. The land was a bit flatter and much more open. The farm we hunted was near the Cookhouse wind farm. You don’t realize how large those big windmills are until you are up close to them. We stopped at the beautiful farmhouse and the owner invited us in for coffee and told us about some of the history of the place. We spent the entire day there, saw tons of game, plus cattle, sheep and horses. The wind was blowing hard (probably why they put windmills here) and we attempted a few 400 yard type shots at Springbok, but didn’t connect. We could have taken numerous Blesbuck, Zebra or Wildebeest, but weren’t interested in those and we had already accumulated a sizeable trophy fee tab. We headed back to the lodge for the evening, glad we got to see another part of the eastern cape.
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May 29: Day 10 of hunt

Wik had offered us a tempting change of pace for today. Wik’s parents, John and Amanda, live in Port Alfred, maybe 40 km from the lodge. They have a deep sea fishing boat and Wik said if we wanted to go fishing, we could do that. We decided we’d just hunt the morning and if we bumped into a Bushbuck, one of us would take it. We kept bumping into large Kudu, Nyala and Waterbuck, plus Warthog and passed. So that ended our very successful and fun hunt. We spent the afternoon packing, as we had to get on the road at 5am the next morning for the 2 hour drive back to Port Elizabeth.


May 30: Travel day

Up early, a quick breakfast and on the road to Port Elizabeth. Wik got us there right at 7am, check in was quick and easy and our flight to Joburg left on time. We had about a 4 hour layover in Joburg and then a 6 hour flight back to Lagos. Elise spent a couple of day there and then flew back to the US.

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Final Comments:

Our 10 day plains game hunt with Wik Coetzee and Game4Africa Safaris was outstanding. Game4Africa is a sponsor on AH and this hunt was advertised on here and that’s how I booked it. We took 9 very nice trophies, stayed in luxurious accommodations and ate like a king. We also drank a wee little bit.

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Game4Africa is equipped with top notch equipment, from well maintained, late model Toyota Land Cruisers (I counted 5 at the lodge). As mentioned before, the rifles for rent were Sako with Swarovski scopes. Oh, the 375 H&H had a Schmidt and Bender. I liked it at the end of the hunt when Wik gave me a 6 pack of beer to give to the two trackers, X and Mike. They more than earned it. Prior to the hunt, Elise and I got matching olive green Carhartt jackets. We decided to give them to Mike and X to show are appreciation of all the hard work and the skill they contributed to our successful hunt.
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Another thing I appreciated was the simplicity in the billing. No VAT or special fees, bar tab or anything extra. Added up the trophy fees, added the day rate and gun rental fee, less the deposit and that was it. Pretty simple and very fair!

This was my 4th safari and the first in South Africa. The Eastern Cape is beautiful country and certainly has a lot of Kudu, as well as other game. I always have a dilemma about returning to a place I’ve already hunted, because I want to see more of Africa. However, I think we’re going to have to return here in a couple of years and probably bring the rest of the family. We came as first time clients and left as good friends.

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Great report and hunt! Can't wait to get there and try it for myself!
 
Outstanding report! Congratulations on some great trophies and memories. That's some beautiful country you hunted in.
 
Nice final installment of the report! Congrats again and thanks for sharing
 
Thanks to all the positive feedback and comments from the AH community. I enjoyed the hunt and also writing up the report and sharing it with you. All the best to you on your hunts!

Dave
375 Ruger Fan
 
Congrats for a great experience !

Giving the jackets to the trackers was a nice touch, these guys really appreciate these king of useful gifts.
 
Excellent hunt report! I can't wait to hunt there!
 
Thank you for sharing this update! I think the cake was a very generous extra.
 
Excellent report, I really enjoyed it! And the photos were outstanding...I really like the trophy shots with the animals chins on the ground. It's a nice change and gives a different view of the horns.

Looks like Game 4 Africa is another top-notch outfit! Congrats to both hunters and Professional Hunter!
 
Excellent report, I really enjoyed it! And the photos were outstanding...I really like the trophy shots with the animals chins on the ground. It's a nice change and gives a different view of the horns.

Looks like Game 4 Africa is another top-notch outfit! Congrats to both hunters and Professional Hunter!

That about says it all.


I nearly broke up laughing when Dave talked about the "hard landing" with Mango. That airline has to have planes with the toughest undercarriages ever made. I too experienced the exact same type of landing when I flew with them. (Upon deplaning I noted the pilot switching back into his school uniform as he was late for class. )
 
Excellent report, I really enjoyed it! And the photos were outstanding...I really like the trophy shots with the animals chins on the ground. It's a nice change and gives a different view of the horns.

Looks like Game 4 Africa is another top-notch outfit! Congrats to both hunters and Professional Hunter!

Ragman: The technique to pose the animal with the chin on the ground was a new one for me. The trackers had a piece of rebar that was folded over, sort of like a figure "9" that was squished. They would hammer the rebar with a rock like a tent peg into the ground, with about 12 inches or so sticking up above ground level. Then they guided the animals mouth over the rebar. It really did the trick to keep the head upright. It worked great on all the animals except the Eland. For that pose, we actually had one of the trackers laying down behind the animal and he was holding the head and neck somewhat upright. Tough animal to kill and tough animal to pose for the photo afterwards!

BTW, a co-worker of mine just came back from his hunt with Game4Africa and he did quite well. He posts on here occaissionally, so I will keep bugging him to post a report. I've seen his photos and he took some excellent trophies.

Dave
 
Update for December 2016

I thought I'd give an update on the timing and cost on shipping trophies from RSA to the US. My hunt was the end of May, so the trophies went to Hunters and Collectors Taxidermist in Port Elizabeth for dip and pack around the first of June. They told it would be 3-4 months and that was about right. In September they contacted me and wanted to verify names, addresses, etc and there was an error. Someone along the way interpreted "LA", the two letter abbreviation for Louisiana to mean Los Angeles. They even misspelled it. So that took close to a month to get all the paperwork corrected. Rex Freight handled the shipping and they work closely with Coppersmith in the US. In fact, their billing is handled through Coppersmith, so I just made one secured payment with a credit card on Coppersmith's website. The crate was listed at 104 kg and flew South African Airway to Washington, DC, then via United to Seattle. This occurred in early November. Once in Seattle, things didn't go real fast, I guess with the Thanksgiving holidays, etc. Everything got cleared and was delivered to the tannery in Montana the end of November, 6 months after the hunt.

Cost for dip & pack, crate, etc 9 PG animals (kudu x 2, nyala x2, impala x 2, blesbok, eland, zebra) $1400
(104 kg)

Cost to ship from RSA to Seattle: $1100

Cost to clear, transfer, store, paperwork, etc: $477

Cost to ground ship to tannery in Montana: $425

I hope my wife doesn't see this :(
 

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