SHOCKER
AH member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2017
- Messages
- 34
- Reaction score
- 31
- Location
- GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN
- Media
- 13
- Member of
- SCI
- Hunted
- CANADA, USA, SOUTH AFRICA EASTERN CAPE
Day 6 continued: The morning was off to a great start. Beginning the day with only 2 animals left on my list and gears switching from going after Steenbok right away to harvesting a beautiful Springbok in the 1st hour, we were back on the lookout for that monster Steenbok that Boyce had been saving for me.
It was now 8:30am and we drove around for about 15-20 minutes where we saw a couple of females and other beautiful animals as well. Now this mountainous terrain is different from the mountains we hunted in at Rocklands and Huntershill. Remember at the other property just down the road from Rocklands where I got my Kudu, was extremely thick and we were on our hands and knees to make the long stalk up to the Kudu. Huntershill was less thick but still had to plan your shots and pick your openings. Here at Comre you could long distance shoot from almost everywhere. It is very open with small bushes scattered around. With this being the case you would think that you could pick out every animal in the area. That my friends is far from the truth...Unless you are one of the trackers or a Ph. Like I've said many times their eyes are much better than ours. They can pick out a needle laying on the ground in the brush from 1000 yds I swear!!!
So like I said, we drove around for about 20 minutes and Mutile signals toBoyce Frans to stop. Mutile and Smiley both got all excited and they both at the same time said "SHOOT EM HE'S HUGE". Once again like every other animal I'm looking in the same direction that they are and I said "What? Where? How far?" They said "right there laying under the bush you can see it's horns." I'm like WTH??? They gave me a landmark to get me in the right area. I finally found him in my scope. He was laying down tucked under the bush and was only 35 yds out. Now these animals are TINY!!! I'm talking the body size of a house cat. From the ground to the top of their head might be a total of 20" but no more than that and they might be 20 pounds not much over that at all. This guy blended into the landscape soooooo well, I'm still wondering how they saw him with the naked eye. Unbelievable.
So back to the hunt. Now that I found his horns, and the rest of his body blending in so well I had to take a few seconds and get my eyes to focus and start looking for the outline of his body. Once I got that sorted out after about 1 minute, I said "I'm on him". Still totally excited once again they both said "SHOOT, SHOOT" I put the gun on kill put it on him and sent a .308 his way. I knew right away something wasn't right. That Steenbok jumped up, literally did a flip, stood for a hot second and was gone. I never seen something take off so fast in my life. I said "I missed". In my mind it was obvious that know matter were you hit that animal it should have never moved at all. I didn't have that good feeling like with the other animals. We of course went and looked for a bit and it was ruled that it was a clean miss. I felt like CRAP. All week I was dropping animals like it was going out of style no misses all perfect shots and quick kills while shooting 150-250 yds and here at 35 yds I miss a HUGE Steenbok that Boyce Frans had picked out for me. All I could think to myself was "ARE YOU FRICKEN DRY SHAVING ME? How do you miss such a close shot on your last animal of the hunt?" I really felt like I disappointed Boyce.
After getting back on the truck, I sat down in the front seat this time and said to myself, "Alright dumbass, that's done and over with. Nothing we can do about it. All you can do is smoke the next one." We drove around for about another 30 minutes. As we were driving down the ridge of this mountain 2 Steenboks jumped up from under a bush. Right away Boyce picked up his binoculars and said "shoot the last one". They had both stopped for a second but the 1st ram took off running. Luckily mine stayed in place broadside. I had to step out and use the door frame as a rest. I relayed to Boyce that I was on him and he said 150 yds. I put the cross hairs on the center of the body. (This small of an animal you can just "center punch" them for 2 reasons. 1st by doing so due to the size of them you don't blow up the hide and ruin it for your mount and 2nd your letting the bullet do all the work. The over pressure from the velocity of that round going through just blows everything up.) Once I was on him I flipped the safety off and went ahead and dispatched him. "THUD" The bullet hit right where I was aiming. The bullet spun that Steenbok on the ground and he never moved another hair. I heard Boyce say "SHOT" I love hearing that...Hahaha!!! I never did get an exact measurement on the horns before I left but Boyce was guessing 5-5.5" which is a very nice ram.
As we were walking up to it,(Don't think I'm getting all soft here I'm just telling you the truth. Anyone that has been blessed with this experience can totally relate.) I had to fight back some emotions. It was a bittersweet moment. I had just completed my 1st hit list on my 1st African safari. It went by in the blink of an eye. I also thought about how this hunt started and how much saving and work has to be done in order to go. As our Uncle Tom was in the hospital and we had brought up to him that we were going to Africa and were joining SCI. I can still see how he lit up and was sincerely excited for us. He asked if I had my hit list yet and I had not yet. The next day I thought it over and made one. I kept all the animals on there plus I had added the Kudu. I remember walking into the room and I kid you not the 1st thing he wanted was to see a hit list. I said does it look like this? He looked it over and gave me a thumbs up and told me it was PERFECT. He had been over there 9 times hunting and Boyce Frans actually guided them in 2007 when he was just a rookie PH. Tom told us for our first hunt that Huntershill is the perfect place and if we did go there to make sure Boyce Frans was our PH. I actually thought about that day frequently throughout this hunt and noticing different signs clear as day that Tom was with us the whole time. From the butterflies we saw only twice the whole trip. 1st time was while standing over my Kudu and the 2nd with Linda Veurinks Zebra. Also with the above average animals especially my huge Impala and monster Gemsbok we were blessed with. It was on that walk were I started planning on what I had to do to get our next trip booked to Huntershill.
It was now 8:30am and we drove around for about 15-20 minutes where we saw a couple of females and other beautiful animals as well. Now this mountainous terrain is different from the mountains we hunted in at Rocklands and Huntershill. Remember at the other property just down the road from Rocklands where I got my Kudu, was extremely thick and we were on our hands and knees to make the long stalk up to the Kudu. Huntershill was less thick but still had to plan your shots and pick your openings. Here at Comre you could long distance shoot from almost everywhere. It is very open with small bushes scattered around. With this being the case you would think that you could pick out every animal in the area. That my friends is far from the truth...Unless you are one of the trackers or a Ph. Like I've said many times their eyes are much better than ours. They can pick out a needle laying on the ground in the brush from 1000 yds I swear!!!
So like I said, we drove around for about 20 minutes and Mutile signals toBoyce Frans to stop. Mutile and Smiley both got all excited and they both at the same time said "SHOOT EM HE'S HUGE". Once again like every other animal I'm looking in the same direction that they are and I said "What? Where? How far?" They said "right there laying under the bush you can see it's horns." I'm like WTH??? They gave me a landmark to get me in the right area. I finally found him in my scope. He was laying down tucked under the bush and was only 35 yds out. Now these animals are TINY!!! I'm talking the body size of a house cat. From the ground to the top of their head might be a total of 20" but no more than that and they might be 20 pounds not much over that at all. This guy blended into the landscape soooooo well, I'm still wondering how they saw him with the naked eye. Unbelievable.
So back to the hunt. Now that I found his horns, and the rest of his body blending in so well I had to take a few seconds and get my eyes to focus and start looking for the outline of his body. Once I got that sorted out after about 1 minute, I said "I'm on him". Still totally excited once again they both said "SHOOT, SHOOT" I put the gun on kill put it on him and sent a .308 his way. I knew right away something wasn't right. That Steenbok jumped up, literally did a flip, stood for a hot second and was gone. I never seen something take off so fast in my life. I said "I missed". In my mind it was obvious that know matter were you hit that animal it should have never moved at all. I didn't have that good feeling like with the other animals. We of course went and looked for a bit and it was ruled that it was a clean miss. I felt like CRAP. All week I was dropping animals like it was going out of style no misses all perfect shots and quick kills while shooting 150-250 yds and here at 35 yds I miss a HUGE Steenbok that Boyce Frans had picked out for me. All I could think to myself was "ARE YOU FRICKEN DRY SHAVING ME? How do you miss such a close shot on your last animal of the hunt?" I really felt like I disappointed Boyce.
After getting back on the truck, I sat down in the front seat this time and said to myself, "Alright dumbass, that's done and over with. Nothing we can do about it. All you can do is smoke the next one." We drove around for about another 30 minutes. As we were driving down the ridge of this mountain 2 Steenboks jumped up from under a bush. Right away Boyce picked up his binoculars and said "shoot the last one". They had both stopped for a second but the 1st ram took off running. Luckily mine stayed in place broadside. I had to step out and use the door frame as a rest. I relayed to Boyce that I was on him and he said 150 yds. I put the cross hairs on the center of the body. (This small of an animal you can just "center punch" them for 2 reasons. 1st by doing so due to the size of them you don't blow up the hide and ruin it for your mount and 2nd your letting the bullet do all the work. The over pressure from the velocity of that round going through just blows everything up.) Once I was on him I flipped the safety off and went ahead and dispatched him. "THUD" The bullet hit right where I was aiming. The bullet spun that Steenbok on the ground and he never moved another hair. I heard Boyce say "SHOT" I love hearing that...Hahaha!!! I never did get an exact measurement on the horns before I left but Boyce was guessing 5-5.5" which is a very nice ram.
As we were walking up to it,(Don't think I'm getting all soft here I'm just telling you the truth. Anyone that has been blessed with this experience can totally relate.) I had to fight back some emotions. It was a bittersweet moment. I had just completed my 1st hit list on my 1st African safari. It went by in the blink of an eye. I also thought about how this hunt started and how much saving and work has to be done in order to go. As our Uncle Tom was in the hospital and we had brought up to him that we were going to Africa and were joining SCI. I can still see how he lit up and was sincerely excited for us. He asked if I had my hit list yet and I had not yet. The next day I thought it over and made one. I kept all the animals on there plus I had added the Kudu. I remember walking into the room and I kid you not the 1st thing he wanted was to see a hit list. I said does it look like this? He looked it over and gave me a thumbs up and told me it was PERFECT. He had been over there 9 times hunting and Boyce Frans actually guided them in 2007 when he was just a rookie PH. Tom told us for our first hunt that Huntershill is the perfect place and if we did go there to make sure Boyce Frans was our PH. I actually thought about that day frequently throughout this hunt and noticing different signs clear as day that Tom was with us the whole time. From the butterflies we saw only twice the whole trip. 1st time was while standing over my Kudu and the 2nd with Linda Veurinks Zebra. Also with the above average animals especially my huge Impala and monster Gemsbok we were blessed with. It was on that walk were I started planning on what I had to do to get our next trip booked to Huntershill.
) Let me tell you something it's not just shooting animals, that's just a minor bonus. It's the adventure leading up to pulling the trigger as each hunt is 100% totally a different adventure from the last. 
