SOUTH AFRICA: First Safari With GAME 4 AFRICA SAFARIS

[Drywaller44]

Day 5

The plan today is to go look for a bushbuck up at Mountain Top again. We are trying to work on finishing my package and I would like to get a bushbuck. They are hard little critters to find but boy are they fun to hunt. We arrived up at Mountain Top just as the mist was clearing, hiked onto a ridge and began glassing. We had a couple of female bushbuck come out below us but no luck with a ram. We glassed this ridge for at least 2 hours before moving on. While glassing the ridge we did have a group of kudu cows come out on the ridge to our left with 3 young bulls. Two of those bulls started fighting with each other, that was a lot of fun to watch.

We took our time moving to different ridge tops until we finally got lucky on the 4th ridge. We had two trackers that day, Sada and X. X has great eyes and usually spots everything before anyone else. It was around noon when X spotted a bushbuck ram with a smaller ram and a female. They were down in the valley across from us and it was hard to make out the size of his horns but he looked nice and dark. So we decided to work our way down the steep rocky ridge to get a closer look. We moved to within 155 yards of the bushbuck ram and had him standing broadside in the open for about 10 minutes. Unfortunately once we had a good look at the ram Don decided he was an inch or two too small to take. It was still exciting getting in close enough for a shot. I enjoy just stalking these amazing animals. Of course it helps to ease the disappointment when I've already had success the previous days.

Before putting the stalk on the bushbuck we had noticed 6 black wildebeest on top of the ridge in a more open area so we decided to go take a look at them after the bushbuck was too small. It was noon and highly unlikely that we would see another bushbuck moving at that time and I figured I could always hunt the bushbuck another day. As we stalked to about 215 yards of the black wildebeest, the zebra herd that was nearby them noticed us and alerted them. So the zebras and wildebeest all moved away from us getting on the skyline. We were able to make out 2 nice black wildebeest bulls, one was slightly bigger than the other though. It had a little more mass to its bosses. So that's the one we wanted to target. The wildebeest and zebra were on to us in this position though and we had no shot, so we pulled back and got in the truck. We drove a wide circle around them out of their view before we exited the truck and began our stalk from the opposite side. We got lucky and found a ditch that we were able to stay low in and get to within 235 yards of the wildebeest. The zebra were still right alongside of them and seem to be more wary, so we had a lot of eyes on us but we were able to get set up on the sticks without getting noticed. Don had already spotted the biggest bull of the herd and when I got on the sticks I confirmed with him that I was on the right one. Then I sent a shot his way and hit him in about the same spot I had with the waterbuck. Another liver shot and now we had a tracking job on our hands again.

When I hit him it almost seemed to me that he didn't even react, but you could hear the impact of the bullet on him because of the suppressor. When the wildebeest took off he was the only one that broke left and when he rejoined the herd he seemed to be getting pushed off to one side. I wasn't able to get a second shot off since there were just too many other animals and I was afraid I'd hit the wrong one. So we watched them run for 600 yards or so and then went back to the truck to go try and find them. We were able to find them a ways off and when we were on the opposite ridge from them we got out to stalk closer on foot. It took awhile to get up close to them and we ended up spooking the herd but only 5 wildebeest ran past us going left. That's a good sign since there was 6 so the injured one must have been pushed out or was lying somewhere dead if we were lucky. For the next couple hours we covered a lot of ground searching back and forth in the more open area looking for him around all the bushes and searching for blood. We did come across some blood eventually confirming that he had gone in the direction that we thought he had. We eventually pinpointed the location where he most likely was and got Rocky our dog for the day on a leash. He wasn't able to pick up much of a scent though but we got lucky and our tracker X was able to locate the black wildebeest sitting under a tree. We were able to get to about 20 yards from him and I put 2 more bullets in him to finish him off under that tree. What a relief to get him. I was actually more worried about losing him than the waterbuck since we didn't know how well he was hit at the time. I also was feeling pretty bad for making a mediocre shot for the second day in a row. It's a great feeling to be able to put your hands on the animal you've hunted.

 

[Drywaller44]

Day 6

A couple of days ago after killing the waterbuck I told Don and Wik that my top target was now an eland. While they have quite a few eland on the Woodvale property they are difficult to find on the property and I was only interested in taking an older mature eland. So they made some phone calls and found another property that had an abundance of eland with a few older bulls that they were afraid they may lose in the next couple of years. So we planned to focus solely on eland this day on the other property. The property was named Kleinhoek (small corner) and it bordered Addo Elephant Park. The terrain was was very hilly with a few open fields, it was very pretty. I was using a Sako 85 375 h&h with a suppressor that tamed most of the recoil, for this hunt. The elands a big animal and while the 7mm rem mag would have worked the 375 h&h is just a better choice.

Kleinhoek has two different concessions and they are both smaller than anything Wik has but the terrain was hilly and thick so it wasn't going to be a given that we find the eland we're looking for. We started our hunt on the smaller of the two concessions that was a bit more open and found a herd of cows pretty quickly while glassing on the first ridge. It was a group of about 8 cows but no bulls with them. We did hear something on our side of the ridge though so we shifted to the left and came across some fresh eland bull scat. Now it became a tracking hunt. This was a lot of fun. For the next couple of hours we slowly tracked after this eland. We came across another cow with a calf, a nice waterbuck bull and some warthogs but never did catch a glimpse of the eland bull. We came to a ridge overlooking a large field and we could hear something hitting some trees down below us. We figured it was either a kudu or eland bull, so we waited on the ridge waiting to see if he would come out in the field. We gave it about an hour glassing the ridges and watching the field below us without any luck before we got in the truck and moved to another ridge. Again we spotted several cows and one young bull. We watched them for about an hour but no luck with a mature bull appearing. It was around 1 now and we decided to head over to their other concession to try our luck.

This concession was bigger and thicker than the concession we had been hunting that morning. It resembled Wik's Mountain Top property but wasn't nearly as large. As we drove through the property we spotted many nyala cows, two groups of giraffe, 3 large impala rams 2 with tips flaring out and on the second ridge we came to we finally saw a couple of eland cows so we made our way up to the top of the opposite ridge to start glassing them. If we were lucky the bulls would be close by. Well we did turn out to be lucky because when we got to the top of the opposite ridge we ended up jumping a big eland bull out of the bushes in front of the truck. Not exactly how you plan on finding your eland but when luck strikes and you've been hunting them all morning you might as well take advantage of it. The eland bull had moved off a little ways now and was behind some brush but we were able to get out of the truck and make our way left along the ridge top to get an angle on him. He looked like a nice bull but he was still in his prime and we weren't sure about him but then a second eland bull stepped out of the bushes just to the right of this one. Don could tell immediately this was an older bull. His body was bigger, his horns were wore down more and were thicker. So we switched our attention to him. We were able to get to just under 100 yards from him when I got one the sticks and put one right in his shoulder. A perfect shot yet he took off running like nothing happened. I hit him in his hindquarters with a second shot as he headed into thicker brush. We immediately sent our two trackers in after him and they found him standing only about 30 yards away in thick cover. So we went in after him and ended up spooking him but he only ran about 20 more yards. We had to reposition though for a shot, so we snuck up about 15 yards away and I kneeled down and put two more in his shoulder as he just stood there and took both of them. Then he leaped up broke a large tree in half and fell down with a crash. What a tough animal, 3 shots right in his vitals from a 375 h&h before he went down.

The size of these animals blows me away. A kudu is a large impressive animal but this thing is a different beast altogether. It makes a kudu look small. When our trackers carried it out they cut it up into five different pieces and one of those pieces still weighed as much as my kudu had. This eland was just what I wanted, he was on the backside of his prime. Not ancient but his teeth were wearing down and horns were worn down some. He probably had 2 or 3 more years left.

We also were able to sneak up to within 30 yards of some giraffe this day, that was cool to get that close to them on the ground and gave me the chance to get some good pics.

 

[AZDAVE]

Enjoying your hunt report. Your first safari is so special, you will be planning #2-3 on the plane ride home. Congratulations and some nice mature animals.

 

[Hunt anything]

Great report, brings back great memories of my time at G4A, really want to see them again!

 

[Trogon]

Enjoyable hunt report, looking forward to reading more. Congrats on excellent animals so far!

 

[Drywaller44]

Day 7

Today we are going back to Mountain Top to hunt bushbuck. This will be the third time going there to target them and even though we haven't had a shot on one yet, they have been one of my favorites to hunt. It's difficult to pick them out in the thick brush and you typically see kudu while hunting them. I have told Don that if we see a monster kudu that I would also attempt to take that.

It took a couple hours before we finally spotted a bushbuck ram a couple of valleys over from us. It looked dark in color but we had to get closer to see if it was mature or not. So we moved over to the ridge above it and started our stalk down. As we got in a position just above where we had seen the ram a female bushbuck barked to our right alerting everything around us. So everything took to cover and for the next half an hour we just waited there hoping he would come out again. Finally they settled down and he came out of his cover. He was broadside at 165 yards but unfortunately he was just a tad too young again. Bigger than the last one we stalked but still an inch too short. It feels good just to get into position to shoot these bushbuck even if they have been just a tad too small to shoot. It still feels like an accomplishment and is rewarding in its own way. It'll make getting one that much more special too.

We ended up hiking down the hill this time instead of up and had the other tracker pick us up in the land cruiser. Now we moved deeper into the Mountain Top property closer to the Great Fish River. This property is something special. I think it's about as wild and rugged as anywhere I've seen. They have some cape buffalo on this property that made their own way on it and you see their sign everywhere but no one has actually ever seen them while hunting. This land is just so thick. On one of the ridges we were glassing we had a beautiful kudu bull come out just below us at 130 yards. He was similar to the one I had killed the first day but just a little bigger and better in everyway. He was an inch or two longer, his ivory tips were a little longer and his striping on his coat was more pronounced. He did look a little younger than the one I shot but just an amazing bull. It was very hard for me not to pull the trigger on him but he wasn't THAT much better than the one I shot so we just watched him. For the next half an hour he was out in the open eating, rubbing trees and laying under a tree. Eventually a couple of cows walked through and he followed them out of the valley. I kind of regretted not taking him at the time, he just seemed so perfect but I enjoyed watching him and in the end I think it all worked out for me because of the next few animals I took.

Around 130 we started to make our way down to the Great Fish River. On our way down we spooked several kudu including a few nice trophy bulls and jumped up a nice mature bushbuck ram too. Kind of odd for so many animals to be moving around at this time in the day but it was a full moon when I was there so it may have thrown off their normal schedules some and most of my animals were actually taken between 10 and 2 on this trip, with the majority of them closer to around 1. We tended to have pretty late lunches since we were seeing so many animals at that time which was just fine by me.

Just as we were getting the coolers off the truck for lunch in a clearing right next to the river we heard some baboons above us on the steep rock cliff. Now I had been wanting a baboon this trip and my kids were telling all of their friends that daddy was in Africa shooting monkeys lol, so I knew they would think this would be the coolest animal I could take in their eyes. My kids are 7 and 3 by the way. So we start glassing the cliff and find a few of them sitting at the tops of some trees sky lined. No shot available there but they must have noticed us down below and came down from the trees and started moving along the cliff face towards us but about 230 yards at a steep pitch above us. There were 4 of them and the second one was noticeably larger than the other 3 and had a big dark black mane on him. That was the one I wanted. They must not have been able to figure out what we were because every once in awhile they would pause for a second and look over their shoulder at us. So Don pointed out a large rock that kind of stuck up from the cliff that they seemed to be going towards. He told me they will stop on that rock for a split second, when the second one jumps up there take the shot immediately. So I give him all the credit for this. I placed my crosshair just above that rock and a few seconds later the first baboon jumps on it, pauses and is gone. Then the big male jumped, paused to look over his shoulder and I fired just as he started to move again. I hit him good and he rolled down the hill about 10 yards and got up walking. I missed with my second shot but nailed him with my third dropping him right on the edge of a cliff. It was very exciting and lessened my regret of passing up on that kudu. I knew my kids would be really excited about this one, as was I.

 

[Drywaller44]

Day 8

Today I decided to go after a big impala. I figured with 2 days left we could hold out for a nice mature one and if we saw something else along the way that was too good to pass up I would take advantage of it. This hunt has already gone much better than I could have ever imagined with me taking my top 4 animals, red lechwe, kudu, waterbuck and eland. It's been a perfect hunt and I still have two days left. We are hunting the Woodvale property today, which is where the lodge is located. Around 8 that morning while driving towards a ridge that we were planning to glass from, Don spotted a nice eland bull eating along a field. We stopped to take a closer look at him, he's a nice looking younger bull but something doesn't look quite right with him. He's walking funny and doesn't look in the best of shape, unfortunately come to find out he was injured probably from fighting with other bulls. So we phone Wik the owner and show him some video. It's decided that it's probably a 50/50 chance that this bull recovers from his injuries so Wik offers me a bit of a deal on him instead of taking a chance on him surviving. Thank goodness I didn't take that kudu bull yesterday so that I could fit this guy in my budget. I can't believe my good luck on this trip. I came here not knowing if I would get one eland and now I have an opportunity to add a second one. So we get out of the truck and stalk down to the opposite edge of the field from this eland bull. He's very content eating on a tree at the edge of the field and offered me a perfect broadside shot at about 130 yards. I took my time making sure I was steady on the sticks and put my first shot right in his shoulder. We started walking away and I hit him high up but then placed two more in his vitals as he was quartering away. He dropped about 20 yards from where the first bullet struck him. What a great feeling. You sure don't want to hit these huge animals wrong or you're in for a long day.

It would have been nice to see this guy with a couple more years on him but he's still a solid bull and now Wik doesn't have to worry about him succumbing to his injuries and losing him for nothing. He will also provide a lot of meat. I'm feeling like the luckiest guy on the planet at this time. Lucky for us he died close to the field so we were able to use the truck winch and the help of four trackers to help load him on the truck.

By 930 we had dropped him off at the skinning shed and were back to looking for a mature impala. We stopped on a few ridges and glassed. We spotted several giraffe and a couple dozen cape buffalo a few hundred yards away. Cape buffalo hold my attention just like the kudu bulls do. Hard to take my eyes off of those massive creatures. Too bad they are so expensive. Maybe someday I can save up for one of those big bossed bulls. We saw a few impala rams but nothing really nice until the third ridge. We spotted two rams together and one looked big. So we made our stalk down into the brush to get a closer look. We stayed low leaving our tracker on the hill to try and guide us into them. At about 130 yards we saw the smaller ram looking at us broadside, of course the larger ram only had his head sticking out from behind a bush and they took off running. So we followed after them on foot. We caught up to them and had them at about 240 yards broadside but I wanted to get a little closer and we spooked them again. So after trailing them for another 20 minutes we found the big one standing broadside on the side of a hill and were able to stalk to 160 yards from him. I got on the sticks confident I could make this shot easy enough and then proceeded to shoot right over the top of him. I couldn't believe it at the time that I missed. I think I let my confidence get the best of me and I just rushed my shot instead of focusing on the little things, like holding steady on his shoulder for a second and calming my breathing before pulling the trigger. It really bothered me that I missed this shot, as I'm sure it would anyone.

After looking around for blood for an hour or so just to be positive that it was a clean miss we started to work our way back to the lodge for lunch. On our way though we saw a bunch of warthogs out in an open field and we decided to go get a closer look to see if there was any massive ones that were worth taking. We made a good stalk out to the edge of the field and had several warthogs within bow range of us. This was very exciting. Don said they hear and smell well but their eyesight isn't the best so we were able to get close to them. We did spot one really nice warthog with thick tusks about 145 yards away. I moved slowly to get on the sticks so I wouldn't spook the warthogs close to us and then proceeded to shoot right over the warthogs back just like I had with the impala. I couldn't believe I did the same thing again on one of the easier shots I had gotten that week. Now my confidence is starting to take a hit but I told myself it's time to buckle down. I got lucky with these two shots being clean misses but I wanted to finish strong and no matter if it's a cheaper or more expensive animal it deserves my full concentration and I need to make a good clean shot. I don't want to wound an animal and make it suffer because I took the shot for granted and rushed it.

One of the nice things with hunting the Woodvale property is that it's close enough to go back to the lodge for a hot lunch. Today was kudu meatballs and they were almost as good as the wildebeest lasagna. I think I went back for thirds today lol. Lunch was a nice reset, Don took a short nap and I took a walk around the lodge taking some pictures. I feel like I was able to get my head straightened out during this time and was ready to make my next shot count if I got on another animal.

Around 330 we were back out glassing on the ridges. There was a pretty strong chilly wind this afternoon, wind wasn't something that had been a big factor for most of this week. We were looking in mostly the valleys where the animals would have some protection from the wind and in the third valley we found what we were looking for. Two trophy kudu bulls were bedded down behind a dried up pond dam and a herd of impala were feeding right behind them in some brush. There was a mature ram in the group and two other rams standing off to the right of the herd. It was difficult to tell if one of them was what I wanted, so we left Sada our tracker on the ridge and headed down for a closer look. We stalked up to the other side of the pond and got to within 100 yards of the impala and kudu bulls. I think the wind really helped cover the noise of our stalk. One of the kudu bulls noticed us eventually but he couldn't quite figure out what we were and after about 10 minutes slowly walked into some thick brush. The other bull followed and now we just had to worry about the impala herd.

We still couldn't see the two rams that were off to the right but the herd was feeding left and we figured they would follow them. Unfortunately the two rams ended up feeding to the right and caught wind of us but not before Don was able to identify one as a nice ram. They bolted up the hill and moved off to the right. So we circled around some trees to the right and tried to catch up to them. We caught sight of them on the hill but the sun was going down and setting right behind the hill they were on, so it was difficult for me to keep track of them with the sun blinding me. I finally was able to make out the bigger ram we were after and when he stopped he was at 205 yards quartering away from us with his front legs higher up on the hill. It wasn't the best position but it was probably our last chance before they went over the ridge, so I focused steadying my crosshairs on the right spot and took my time squeezing my shot off. I hit him perfectly through the vitals and dropped him in his tracks. What a good feeling to see him go down right away after missing two animals earlier that day. It was the perfect way to finish off my hunt. At this point I'm over my original budget by more than a thousand dollars and day 8 is going to be a day of relaxation. I mean if you're going to fly half way across the world you better be ready to stretch that budget a bit but I also didn't want to completely blow it out of the water either.

 

[Doug3006]

Dude you shot the place flat! Awesome.

 

[Mark Biggerstaff]

Great report. Congrats and thanks for sharing your adventure

 

[Drywaller44]

Day 9

Well I booked 8 full hunting days and only needed 7 to go well over my budget. That pretty much sums up how awesome of a hunt it was. I feel like all of my animals were solid quality animals and am very happy with the outcome. I don't have a negative thing to say about my experience, it was all top notch. The trackers were friendly and excellent at their jobs. Don was an amazing PH, he seemed to really know the animals habits and knew the areas that we would find them in. I told him I wanted to hunt hard and I feel like we did that. He never pressured me into taking an animal or making a shot I wasn't comfortable with. We had a lot of fun glassing and stalking not only the animals that I took but also the ones that ended up being a tad too small or just ended up besting us. It was everything I could have hoped for. Don also was excellent at pointing out all of the little things that really make the trip special, like seeing a black eagle, the secretary birds, a tortoise shell, all of the different tracks. I would highly recommend him as a PH and just a fun guy to be around. He can hold a conversation while in the truck but is all business out in the field. It's the perfect balance and we worked well together.

I took a hike around the lodge in the morning taking more pictures and then we went to Lauriston Taxidermy after breakfast. I met the owner Greg there and he showed me around the place. I'm not an expert at taxidermy by any means but his work looked good and his place seemed busy but organized. I did like the fact that he doesn't paint his skulls and he leaves the horns as natural as possible. That was very important to me and you can tell that its the case when looking at the skulls around the shop nothing looked unnatural about his euro mounts. So I'm using him to do all of my animals as euros. The baboon I'm doing as a desk stand euro. I should receive the taxidermy before the end of the year and will post about it when I get it.

After lunch which was kudu shepherd pie, again delicious as was all of the food I had. We went to an orphanage that Wik and Britt sponsor. It was a fun experience dropping off some toys to the kids and other items. We also brought them some much needed meat. I'm not much for donating to organization's where I can't see where my money is going but being able to actually go and see the kids your helping makes me feel much better about donating to help them.

We also spent some time at the butcher shop that Colin, Wiks brother runs in Grahamstown. It's a very clean and well run place. It was interesting to see all of the different cuts of meat and organs that they sell out of it. They sell cuts of meat to fit any ones budget out of here, it was really cool to see that and just so different from anything I've seen in the states.

That evening we did a night drive and saw a bunch of cool animals. We came across springhares, a bat eared fox, several waterbuck, nyala, impala, zebra and got really close to a couple of big old bull buffalo. It was a great way to end the trip.

So to sum up this trip is was perfect, the best 10 days of my life and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I came here like many thinking this would be a once in a lifetime trip but now it feels like a part of me is in Africa. It's a little slice of heaven for me and my goal is to make it back there with my wife in 5 years. I would love to make it sooner than that, but me being a drywall taper and my wife a teacher I think 5 years is a realistic goal if we start saving now. If we choose to go back to South Africa I don't see myself going with anyone besides Game 4 Africa. Why search for something better when my experience with them went so well.

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Great report and what a super great hunt. I am very happy that it all went so well for you. Another happy client from @GAME 4 AFRICA SAFARIS

 

[Drywaller44]

Oh and one tip, I couldn't imagine trying to write this report without keeping a journal while I was there. Every night before bed I would try to write down all the details of my day. The food I ate, the animals I saw, the sounds I heard, the places I hunted, the people I met, and the shot distances. I tried to write down the little details that I would forget over time so that I could always go back and relive the greatest experience of my life. That is coming from a guy who hasn't really written anything since he was in high school. Construction doesn't really require writing skills lol.

 

[Firebird]

Bushbuck eluded me the first trip as well-gives you an un needed reason to go back-and a nyala, and a zebra and. . .
You in know I’m a waterbuck junkie and I love your bull! Some great animals for the trophy room, congrats on a very solid 8 days!

 

[Drywaller44]

Yea bushbuck was one of my favorites to hunt even though I didn’t come away with one. Would definitely be near the top of my list on a return trip.

 

[Hunt anything]

I’m with you on the bushbuck, I took a nice ram with Wic in 2018 and a couple other ones, I will never pass up a chance to hunt a bushbuck!

 

[375Fox]

Congratulations on a great first safari. A really well written report. I think the eastern cape is one of the best values in Africa for the experience you can get there.

 

[WMU05]

Outstanding report and hunt! Congratulations!

 

[Nyati]

Congrats for a great hunt, and thanks for sharing !

 

[Uncle Sauce]

Congrats on a fine hunt and animals!

 

[gillettehunter]

Thanks for sharing. I'd say you had a great trip. Congrats
Bruce