Winkabeast
AH member
My brother Rob and I are just back from our second safari this summer, this time to South Africa, hunting with Jannie Otto Safaris in the Freestate.
It was an incredible trip to an incredibly beautiful place.
Ten days living, eating, hunting, talking, and learning with some really interesting PH's and farm owners.
Jakkie, Hine, Vella, and Conrad, our hosts, ranch managers, and PH's were hard working, knowing and admirable men, not only in the hunting arena, and in rifles and shooting, but also in the history and nature of their area and the convoluted politics of modern SA.
We never lacked for interesting conversation in camp or in the field.
We hunted at two different camps.
The first, Donkerkloof, ("Dark Canyon" in Afrikaans) was steep and beautiful with a central river gorge and the tall blue gray surrounding cliffs that create the canyon and give it it's name. Accommodation was a modern lodge with attached chalets.
It had been a tough winter, and you could see it in the weight and hide condition of some of the animals, but my brother and I both killed nice Cape Kudu here, at relatively short range, in the thick, after good stalks.
Rob also took his bucket list animal, an ancient Eland bull, and I took an excellent Blesbuck, hunting as a human "pack", with Rob and Jakkie making their presence known in the distance to push the herd towards me and PH Vela, after we positioned ourselves on our best guess as to their travel path to a large pond. This was a longish shot for me off the sticks... at about 270 yards. Primal and satisfying. Humans probably hunted this way thousands of years ago.
After three days we moved about 30 miles up the road to Sandy Mount, an enormous property of nearly 50,000 acres of varied and beautiful hill country, open plain, and high rocky stuff. The accommodation here was a turn of the century farmhouse converted & expanded upon to become a hunting lodge in the grandest tradition. All wood and stone, it was old world luxury like something out of a movie about the Golden Age of African hunting.
We lived the life of Col. Teddy, and Hemingway, Ruark and Capstick.
Here there were Buffalo, and all manner of plains game.
We were after Nyala, Red Hartebeest, Blue Wildebeest, and Impala.
Comfortable lodge or no, the hunting here was satisfyingly hard.
The step counter thingamajig on my phone showed six, eight, and ten miles a day walk and stalks.
Steep country. Days of bad wind. Some rain. Busted stalks.
We earned what animals we took here, and there were days when we didn't win.
On top of that, while Rob took a beautiful Nyala, and a Blue Wildebeest, I was in a slump.
I made a bad range call, fumbled the sticks once, and bounced a round off some brush too close to my muzzle.
My last four days were spent trying for one of the really ancient Red Hartebeest bulls we had seen.
Tough days mentally and physically, in worsening weather, trying for that particular animal... and trying to get my shooting mojo back.
And then there was an amazing day.... the final day.... so hard, and so good, and so redeeming for all involved, that when I finally put down that ancient battle-scarred Hartebeest, four grown men were hugging each other, and thanking god and running our hands over this magnificent animal and I actually teared up and had to just lay on the ground in total elated emotional exhaustion.
All in all, with the lodge and the food and the country and the animals and the people, this was a near perfect safari with not a single negative and in the end it provided what may be the single best hunting day I have ever experienced.
It was an incredible trip to an incredibly beautiful place.
Ten days living, eating, hunting, talking, and learning with some really interesting PH's and farm owners.
Jakkie, Hine, Vella, and Conrad, our hosts, ranch managers, and PH's were hard working, knowing and admirable men, not only in the hunting arena, and in rifles and shooting, but also in the history and nature of their area and the convoluted politics of modern SA.
We never lacked for interesting conversation in camp or in the field.
We hunted at two different camps.
The first, Donkerkloof, ("Dark Canyon" in Afrikaans) was steep and beautiful with a central river gorge and the tall blue gray surrounding cliffs that create the canyon and give it it's name. Accommodation was a modern lodge with attached chalets.
It had been a tough winter, and you could see it in the weight and hide condition of some of the animals, but my brother and I both killed nice Cape Kudu here, at relatively short range, in the thick, after good stalks.
Rob also took his bucket list animal, an ancient Eland bull, and I took an excellent Blesbuck, hunting as a human "pack", with Rob and Jakkie making their presence known in the distance to push the herd towards me and PH Vela, after we positioned ourselves on our best guess as to their travel path to a large pond. This was a longish shot for me off the sticks... at about 270 yards. Primal and satisfying. Humans probably hunted this way thousands of years ago.
After three days we moved about 30 miles up the road to Sandy Mount, an enormous property of nearly 50,000 acres of varied and beautiful hill country, open plain, and high rocky stuff. The accommodation here was a turn of the century farmhouse converted & expanded upon to become a hunting lodge in the grandest tradition. All wood and stone, it was old world luxury like something out of a movie about the Golden Age of African hunting.
We lived the life of Col. Teddy, and Hemingway, Ruark and Capstick.
Here there were Buffalo, and all manner of plains game.
We were after Nyala, Red Hartebeest, Blue Wildebeest, and Impala.
Comfortable lodge or no, the hunting here was satisfyingly hard.
The step counter thingamajig on my phone showed six, eight, and ten miles a day walk and stalks.
Steep country. Days of bad wind. Some rain. Busted stalks.
We earned what animals we took here, and there were days when we didn't win.
On top of that, while Rob took a beautiful Nyala, and a Blue Wildebeest, I was in a slump.
I made a bad range call, fumbled the sticks once, and bounced a round off some brush too close to my muzzle.
My last four days were spent trying for one of the really ancient Red Hartebeest bulls we had seen.
Tough days mentally and physically, in worsening weather, trying for that particular animal... and trying to get my shooting mojo back.
And then there was an amazing day.... the final day.... so hard, and so good, and so redeeming for all involved, that when I finally put down that ancient battle-scarred Hartebeest, four grown men were hugging each other, and thanking god and running our hands over this magnificent animal and I actually teared up and had to just lay on the ground in total elated emotional exhaustion.
All in all, with the lodge and the food and the country and the animals and the people, this was a near perfect safari with not a single negative and in the end it provided what may be the single best hunting day I have ever experienced.
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