SOUTH AFRICA: BOWHUNT: Off Season Wanderings....

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

Recently, after sitting down, I found myself thinking back, and reminiscing on the amount of time that I had spent out in the field hunting, whether this was in a personal capacity or guiding hunters. Thoughts ran back to where it all began as a youngster, hunting in sun bleached jeans that were almost white on traditional driven Kudu hunts in the Karoo with thoughts eventually transitioning to hunting more in a professional capacity as a Professional Hunter.
Specific incidents came to mind, hunts that were successful, others that weren't successful, close calls, comedy of errors and all the rest of the stories that goes along with it.

This stirred a fire inside of me. One that I have not had since our last hunters departed from an early season big game hunt during the 2020 season. Coming up in a week, will be one year since that safari. It was time to get out there again. I made some calls to some of our areas, wanting to add to my Tiny 10 quest with the bow. Truth be told, anything would be in danger of getting a Muzzy flung at it. I have had two Steenbuck jump my string thus far. One at 30 yards, and the other at 28 yards. This makes me more determined.

The area that I decided to hunt has good populations of Mountain Reedbuck as well. Also a species that is very high on my list of hunts to accomplish on foot. For those readers who are bow hunters, and interested in the details of my equipment, I am shooting a Mathews VXR 28 set at 75Lb. My arrows are 505Gr total weight, tipped with a 100Gr Muzzy Trocar HB, which is their hybrid broadhead.

This is a used broadhead which I still need to replace the blades. The photos are just as reference as to the mechanics of the Hybrid. In the closed position, the four blades pretty much offers a cutting area of a fixed blade broadhead, so will still give a very respectable cutting diameter, in the chance of a "failure."

As you can see upon expansion, its a different beast.

The day before departure, I got a call of from one of the landowners in the area, that he had a Sable bull he had been seeing around, that had lost a bit of condition from the tough dry conditions. You could see his hip bones quite clearly, but one of the most obvious signs was that he had an injury to the tip of his one ear. Around an inch from the tip of the ear, was just hanging. Almost like he had damaged the cartilage. With not many foreign hunters around, the landowner thought that he would rather get something for it, rather than find it dead. We made a deal which I thought was too good to pass up, and a win win for both parties.

The next day I set out to the hunting area to try and locate the bull. They had seen him around a particular waterhole. Due to the dry conditions and his physical condition, I figured that we would not wonder too far from this area. Apart from the area immediately around the waterhole, the vegetation in the valleys are quite thick, and it being our summer months, finding the bull lying in the shade in one of these valleys would be quite tough.

The Sable bull that we were looking for, was a lone bull and did not walk with cows. The first Sable we found, was a breeding herd with 3 bulls and a few cows. The bulls ranked from 2 sub adults to one jet black bull. I decided to wait at the waterhole for a bit,and see what came in.

TBC.....

 

[PARA45]

Looking forward to some more, keep it coming.

 

[Ryan]

The same Muzzys were my broadhead of choice for my last hunt a few weeks back right up until I had to go through Amsterdam. Slick Tricks were easier to get in RSA on short notice.

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

Looking forward to some more, keep it coming.

Will do. We have been blessed with unscheduled "load shedding" so the power is out. Will carry on tomorrow.

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

The same Muzzys were my broadhead of choice for my last hunt a few weeks back right up until I had to go through Amsterdam. Slick Tricks were easier to get in RSA on short notice.

Been using the Muzzy Trocar HB's for the past three seasons. I will be hard pressed to change them out. I pick up as many packs as I can from Cabelas whenever I get the chance.

 

[cpr0312]

Alright! Looking forward to how things turned out!

 

[AZDAVE]

Look forward to the rest of your hunt. Glad to see you were able to get out and have a nice hunt on your own. It is always refreshing to one's well being to get outside and just enjoy being in the bush.

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

After working the area for a couple of hours, I managed to spot a bull lying in the shade by himself. What was apparent immediately, was his narrow hips, clearly visible from the back. You could see his hip bones protruding. Could this just be from the angle that we was lying down, compressing his body?
I needed to make sure. Not to discount Impala or Blesbuck, but there was no second chances on this one, and if I arrowed the wrong one, it would not be the same rate as the agreed deal. That is for sure.

The direction of the wind, and where the bull was lying made it almost impossible to approach him on foot. Plus, I wanted him to stand up in order to get a better look at him. We had lots of time, and decided to let him be. It was a relatively warm day, and decided to take our lunch at the lodge, waiting for the afternoon to cool down and hopefully get him out feeding again.
Around 16:00 we set out to the same area where we last left him. We found him, as well as two other bulls grazing in the vicinity of a breeding herd. Certainly not apart of the herd, but keeping their distance at around 100 yards.

I picked out a bull through some brush, and could clearly see the injured ear, so knew that we were on the correct bull. Our problem now was that we had some of the breeding herd grazing and lying down to the right of us. We proceeded to shift on the seats of our pants, inching our way towards the targeted bull. I had already made my mind up that anything within 50 yards was game on.

As I looked to my right, the herd bull was staring directly at us. I knew it was now or never, and increased the pace, still sliding on the seat of my pants trying to close the distance to below my threshold on this specific animal. The herd bull snorted, which halted us in our tracks since everyone was now on full alert. Although we were in the middle of nowhere at that stage, we were still clothed in our leafy/ghillie suits which breaks up your shape quite effectively.
It wasn't long and everything bolted. We tried to follow them a bit, but felt that it would serve us better to allow them to calm down. The one advantage was that our target bull never saw us, nor does he know what he actually ran from. We proceeded back up the hill towards the vehicle to rehydrate and find a different vantage point.
As drove approximately 300 yards, and stopped to vehicle to glass, a Sable bull cleared on the other side of the valley. He was still going at a rate of knots. It was impossible to see if that was indeed the bull that we were after.
While standing on the back of the truck in order to get a better vantage point, I spotted another bull standing and on the lookout. I could only see his rump, but he was roughly 600 yards away from where we were. We decided to walk through the valley, and my plan was to try and pop out roughly in his vicinity. There was quite a lot of cover there, and if I could just see him first, we would have a chance. We proceeded through the valley, and in had to walk past him in order to get the wind in our favor. Not long after cresting, I picked out the sun shining off his tips as he was grazing away from us. The wind, vegetation and terrain was in our favor. There was a small mound with some trees growing from it which offered some great cover, and we slowly proceeded step for step. By this time, the shoes were long gone, and we were only in socks so movement was really quiet.
As we were inching forward, I spotted his legs where he had stopped. We froze. I ranged the brush where there was a break and where I could possibly thread an arrow through. The rangefinder read 25 yards. I clipped in my release and waited for him. As I saw him take a step, I drew my bow. At that range, the slightest noise will be apparent to any animal. The only thing that I can think of, was that he heard the cams of my bow turn over. Almost as soon as he started walking, he stopped. I was at full draw. He paused for roughly 10 seconds, and proceeded to walk. I tried to stop him in the roughly 1 yard clearing I had, but he went through that, and stopped where he was completely covered with brush. All we could do was freeze, and hopefully let the Ghillies do their work.
As he started walking again, I let my bow down, detached my release, and ranged the next clearing which read 38 yards.
As his horns started clearing, I drew my bow again, and slowly walked out from my cover.

One of the main reasons why I had chosen the path of my stalk, was because the late afternoon sun that was lying quite low at this stage and was directly behind us. There was simply no way that he would be able to pick us out. As he stopped, he looked in our direction. By this stage, I had already settled the pin....

TBC...

 

[Ragman]

I want one! Looking forward to more...hope it’s a long one.

 

[Mark R]

Ahhh, the old sock stalking boots....

Good report so far Marius

 

[Ragman]

Ahhh, the old sock stalking boots....

Good report so far Marius

I wonder if Lloyd is there to bring him his boots at the end of the stalk?

 

[Pheroze]

Thanks for taking us along on this one! It is a great read

 

[mark-hunter]

Its not nice to stop the story in that moment!
Pls continue!

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

If one turns up the sound, you can clearly hear the arrow hit. After following up on the shot, we found zero blood. After searching the area for tracks, I eventually recovered my arrow still intact. The fletching did not show much blood at all, and there was some tissue in the broadhead, similar to cartilage. We continued to search and stayed on the tracks which followed a game trail.
Finding a vantage point, we could see a long way, and caught a glimpse of the Sable walking away from us, around 700 yards away. I watched him and could not see any sign of discomfort.
He wasn't showing a limp or any injury. We ran out of light and out of time, to follow up immediately.

My initial reaction was that the shot had gone too high, and it was difficult to understand what happened. I had to leave, and it gave me time to try and reflect on what had gone wrong. The shot felt pretty steady, decent range but I was not happy with the arrow flight.
I sat watching the video over and over again trying to analyze where it all went wrong.
Then it jumped out at me:

I'm not trying to drag this out, but hope that others can possibly learn from these mishaps, or at least its something to keep in mind when you are bowhunting South Africa on foot. I wouldn't call it a mistake, since its just a tough break. I have the luxury of time on my side, which is something that many hunters coming here from abroad does not have. Majority of trips are between 7-10 days long. I have the luxury of repatterning the bull and getting a second chance. I would like to hear some comments on the photo above and if anyone can see where the problem lies, before I released the arrow.

 

[mark-hunter]

Bush covering vital area, diverting the arrow in flight?

(You really know, how to keep us hooked!)

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

Bush covering vital area, diverting the arrow in flight?

(You really know, how to keep us hooked!)

That is a reasonable assumption. The brush appears to be in the way, but that is because of the camera's angle. The angle where I was shooting from further left, had a pretty clear shot.

I will give a bit of time for others to see if they can figure out how quickly the situation changed, and hopefully comment here.

FYI , You will need to look a little bit more closely at the finer details. The clue is certainly in my previous post which has the video embedded.

 

[Ryan]

Best guess, wrong pin. Said sable is no longer at 38 yards when you released.

 

[Pheroze]

more practice?

But seriously, the wind seems to pick up suddenly at the shot. is that it?

 

[Dudders]

You rushed the shot because because you could see him getting ready to move off when you loose the arrow he is already beginning to move off. There you go perfect excuse Marius.

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

So, I had a lot more time to figure it out, as I watched the video over and over again. As I explained, my best camo was the setting sun being directly behind me, and it being late afternoon. Notice in the photo how the bull stopped in the shade of the tree, meaning that he could now clearly see me. You can see the sun line on his horns. Since he could see me, he was alert, which any bow hunter knows is a very tough shot with a great chance of a string jump.

Which is exactly what he did.....
If you use the bar on the side and scroll up and down, you can clearly see how much he dropped. If you look closely just below the mane on his back, you can see the fletches of my arrow on its way to where the target use to be....

I left the hunting area to give him some time and to figure out his new pattern, and would return once things have settled down. Some of the staff at the hunting area found him to be strong, and still hanging around the same area. After a week I returned, but could not do much due to very thick fog. I found and stalked a bull by himself in the thick fog, but had to look long and hard to finally realize that I lining up on a fresh one. I check the week's weather forecast and choose the hottest day of the week, which would be close to 100 Deg F. My plan is to wait him out at the waterhole so that I can make a clean shot and finish it.

TBC....