Great Bull!! Looks like one I saw on my trip!! I know the spot and they had to work to get him out. Congrats to huntress.
Qatar airport police however were a bit of a disaster… they decided I couldn’t have several items and seized them from my bags.. More on that to follow later.. nothing that will have any impact on my hunt.. but they did take items intended for some South African friends.. some of the truly silly and for no justifiable reason.. like 10lbs of powdered steel… but, take them they did.. all while showing me on video that they were taking them…
So, they X-ray transit luggage? Also, how did they get into your bags, break the locks or do they have TSA keys?
@mdwestok.. finally managed to catch a couple of decent nights of sleep and organized a few pics.. so... back to posting in this thread...
first.. a pic of the eland mentioned in the previous post
View attachment 415128
The old boy was a serious brute with a huge dewlap, well worn teeth, and some great horns.. He's going to make a fine addition to the "spiral slam" collection that now almost complete.. you can tell from the pic that the terrain on the mountain he was standing on is thick.. the shot window was small.. but things worked out well.. he went just a few yards before we watched him tumble.. Im pretty sure he would have come down the mountain quite a bit more, but the tree he is resting on stopped his roll, and Im sure prevented any damage to his horns, legs, etc..
If anyone questions whether or not a .35 Whelen is enough gun.. i think the pic provides the answer.. eland presented absolutely no problem at all (nor did the other animals taken... more on that to follow... )....
@BourbonTrailYou are going to make Bob’s day with the 35 Whelen shout out.
The tips on that eland look awesome, congrats!
It is a always good if a plan comes together!! never recovered a bullet from the Whelen. At 235 it punched right through the eland. None of the other animals shot with it allowed us to recover any bullets. Great cartridge.@mdwest
Don't you love it when a plan comes together.
It's good you had success and the Whelen did its usual great job. Did you recover the bullet.
Congrats again looking forward to seeing the photos.
Bob
CodyDave,
Following along! Hope to be there myself in the near future with my boys! Hopefully it will work out and you can be there as well and we can molest a few dozen castles over the bush tv! Hunt well,
Cody
@mdwestI just realized I left this report half finished (I apologize.. got sidetracked with work, life issues, etc and completely dropped the ball in getting the rest of the story in)...
So.. as stated early on, this hunt was originally planned in 2019 to be a a hunt among a group of US Military veterans that get together every year to chase deer and hogs in southeast texas, and that the other hunters in the party had never been to Africa, nor hunted anywhere outside of the US before.. so I intended to largely focus on being a "host", making sure everyone in the group had a great time, etc.. and if I happened to take a few animals along the way, that would be great, but it was pretty low on the priority list to be honest..
The great news is I did have an opportunity to take a nice impala as well as a nice blue wildebeest over the next few days.. I've hunted both of these animals before, and they are both plentiful on the Bos en Dal properties, but who can ever hunt enough wildebeest and impala? Each was something of a target of opportunity that presented itself while out looking for other animals, and each ended up being a fun hunt..
We spied a fairly large group of impala a couple of different times while out looking for a good hartebeest bull or perhaps even a hartebeest cull.. Both times the impala were hanging out in some extremely thick brush and were spread out over a distance of 200-300 yards away.. There were a couple of good shooter rams in the group, and as we sat and watched them, we discussed how this could actually be a pretty difficult hunt.. if we wanted to try to take one, we were going to have to figure out how to cover a couple of hundred yards of really thick bush without being heard, deal with swirling winds without getting smelled, and then find a window to shoot through that would likely be small.. We thought the chance of making a connection was probably 50/50 at best, but to be truthful I much prefer a challenging hunt to an easy one, and while I'd love to be able to get in a challenging hunt that produces a 26" impala, I'm the sort of guy that is equally happy with a "good representative" and would take a 22" and a hard hunt over a 26" easy hunt any day.. So we set off to see if we could land a "good representative" knowing that it wasnt at all going to be easy..
We closed the gap and got to within about 125 yards, but were unable to get a shot off on the first attempt.. by the time the sticks went up and I was able to get into a stable position behind them we heard one of the ewes blow at us, and off the herd went another 70 or 80 yards into the bush where we could no longer see them..
This happened one more time.. and now I was pretty sure they were on to us.. the first time we were "busted" I thought the ewe just sensed something wasnt right and sounded an alarm.. the second time it happened I thought they must have smelled us at this point or maybe saw some movement they didnt like and we'd never catch up to them again... but.. I was wrong..
We made one more attempt, closed the gap to about 135 yards, found the shot we were looking for, and I had my first animal of the trip...
More on the wildebeest later (another hunt we decided to do thinking it was going to be difficult, but it actually ended up being the easiest hunt I've ever had on any hunt in Africa lol...)
View attachment 417843
@mdwestI just realized I left this report half finished (I apologize.. got sidetracked with work, life issues, etc and completely dropped the ball in getting the rest of the story in)...
So.. as stated early on, this hunt was originally planned in 2019 to be a a hunt among a group of US Military veterans that get together every year to chase deer and hogs in southeast texas, and that the other hunters in the party had never been to Africa, nor hunted anywhere outside of the US before.. so I intended to largely focus on being a "host", making sure everyone in the group had a great time, etc.. and if I happened to take a few animals along the way, that would be great, but it was pretty low on the priority list to be honest..
The great news is I did have an opportunity to take a nice impala as well as a nice blue wildebeest over the next few days.. I've hunted both of these animals before, and they are both plentiful on the Bos en Dal properties, but who can ever hunt enough wildebeest and impala? Each was something of a target of opportunity that presented itself while out looking for other animals, and each ended up being a fun hunt..
We spied a fairly large group of impala a couple of different times while out looking for a good hartebeest bull or perhaps even a hartebeest cull.. Both times the impala were hanging out in some extremely thick brush and were spread out over a distance of 200-300 yards away.. There were a couple of good shooter rams in the group, and as we sat and watched them, we discussed how this could actually be a pretty difficult hunt.. if we wanted to try to take one, we were going to have to figure out how to cover a couple of hundred yards of really thick bush without being heard, deal with swirling winds without getting smelled, and then find a window to shoot through that would likely be small.. We thought the chance of making a connection was probably 50/50 at best, but to be truthful I much prefer a challenging hunt to an easy one, and while I'd love to be able to get in a challenging hunt that produces a 26" impala, I'm the sort of guy that is equally happy with a "good representative" and would take a 22" and a hard hunt over a 26" easy hunt any day.. So we set off to see if we could land a "good representative" knowing that it wasnt at all going to be easy..
We closed the gap and got to within about 125 yards, but were unable to get a shot off on the first attempt.. by the time the sticks went up and I was able to get into a stable position behind them we heard one of the ewes blow at us, and off the herd went another 70 or 80 yards into the bush where we could no longer see them..
This happened one more time.. and now I was pretty sure they were on to us.. the first time we were "busted" I thought the ewe just sensed something wasnt right and sounded an alarm.. the second time it happened I thought they must have smelled us at this point or maybe saw some movement they didnt like and we'd never catch up to them again... but.. I was wrong..
We made one more attempt, closed the gap to about 135 yards, found the shot we were looking for, and I had my first animal of the trip...
More on the wildebeest later (another hunt we decided to do thinking it was going to be difficult, but it actually ended up being the easiest hunt I've ever had on any hunt in Africa lol...)
View attachment 417843
@mdwest
Keep going mate I need more and what else did your darling wife take with her Whelen. Did you use it on anything.
Bob
Any other pictures of the crock, besides his woody. How about the bushbuck, any luck?