Day 5
Alarm goes off at 2:45 am and I turn it off thinking I just went to bed but gather my wits and get up hoping a shower will wake me up a bit. After a quick cold shower I'm awake but Lori is not moving yet. I tell her we are leaving soon and say if she's going with me she needs to get up and moving and tell her she can sleep for 3 more hours on the drive. Greg shows up at the lodge we greet each other for a cup of coffee and a quick bite and we're off at 4am. Lindile takes the front seat, Lori in back with me and her pillow and we are heading to hunt eland. We arrive in Cathcart just as the sun is rising with a beautiful blue streaked sky and within 20 minutes or so we make our way into the farm property. This is a very large farm with lots of tall rock covered mountains, great terrain area for eland.
We started off at the farm house for a cup of coffee and meeting with an intern (Tekita) working the farm for a work study program. She had been there since March and knew the property quite well already. We drive for about a half hour or so through many sections of separate low fenced areas. We stop at another farm house on the way to the back of the property and pick a local tracker then we are off to glass for that special eland. Today is the coldest day of the trip so far, and we are hoping to find the animals standing in the morning sun to warm up. There is a very large known bull that has been seen in the area and we are set off to target him. This bull is almost always spotted alone but not real far away from the group. He is supposed to have all the character we are looking for. He’s a very old bull with a large mop, big horns, massive dewlap and mostly blue. A true blue bull, just what we want. Not long after we start our journey we spot a group of cows and calves with only a small bull in the group.
We glass around for a bit then make a move up a mountain top to glass back down into the area where the herd of eland were seen to look for the big bull. We work our way up the rocky road winding around the mountain and stop at a great viewing area. We again locate the same heard of eland but as luck would have it, no bull in sight. As we continue we see lots of other game just no eland that makes Greg excited. As we work our way down a valley we spot a very nice kudu bull standing only about 60 yards in a thick area. We stop to glass him as he was a very large bull and Tekita was quick to say we are not shooting kudu on the property right now. We glass him and take some photos and move on in search of that big eland. As we continue to drive on probably the roughest stone covered roads I have ever been on, we glass, glass and glass some more but are not finding anything that looks promising.
We head back towards the farm area where we picked up the tracker and come across a large eland bull bedded down in a thick area. Not stopping, we quickly drive out of the area thinking that might be him. The bulls head was behind a bush so Greg was unable to tell for sure if he’s the one we are after. We drive to an area we can get a better look at him. Greg talks to the tracker and he says he doesn’t think that was him. We decide to turn around to have another look. When we get closer the bull stands up and right away Greg says no that’s a nice bull just not what we are after.
A bit of disappointment and some time to get my adrenaline under control and we are back on the worst traveled roads of the trip. We travel for a bit and come through a group of cape buffalo. Tekita says there is a very large bull in the group that is their “big breeding boy”. Soon after she said that, we spotted him and moved closer for some photos. WOW!! All I can say is this bull was a monster with the most beautiful coat I had ever seen on a Buff and most likely would never be hunted, but maybe his offspring would.
Now almost 11am and no sightings of a shooter eland, we head to an area where the tracker said the big lone eland was spotted a couple weeks ago. To get there we would be taking a road Tekita said she had never been up, but has heard it’s a scary ride. The road was not travelled much and was cut into the face of the mountain just a few months ago. We start our journey up and I say this isn’t that bad. Little did I know that was going to be the best part in the four thousand foot climb! After about 10 minutes up the road Greg had to stop and have the trackers move some big rocks out of the trail so we could continue. Soon after that Lori, in a quiet shaky voice says, um….. I am not liking this much! I chuckle and say there is not much we can do now, just try not to look down. Greg stops and asks Lori if she would rather stop and walk from here. She quickly said NO and I don’t think we heard a peep from her the rest of the way up the mountain. As we made our way back and forth the switchback road we stopped to glass a couple times without Lori exiting the truck. At one of the stops she did muster up the courage to take a photo out the driver’s door from the backseat.
As we reach the top and find a flat spot, we get out and walk to an area to glass the valley on the other side. Greg spots 3 Mt Reedbuck bedded down on the front side well over a mile away. We glass them for a bit and after Greg talks with the trackers says let’s move closer we think one is a very nice ram. I was glassing the same 3 animals but had no clue one was a ram.
It took some time to make our way around but when we did the reedbuck got up and ran off when we were still a long ways away. As we stopped to watch them run over the next hill, Greg said they would probably stop once they felt safe on the other side. We slowly drove closer and suddenly a tap on the roof. Greg stopped the truck and Lindile said he saw the ram bedded. We parked the truck there, grabbed the gun and went for a walk. Sure enough as we got to the edge of the cliff, we spot him laying all alone looking off in the other direction. How Lindile spotted him I will never know as he was close to a mile away downhill in the tall grass. Using a large rock as a blocker and the wind in our face, Greg and I close the gap fairly quickly. We make to the big rock and see him bedded about 400 yards further, we glass him for a bit and Greg says YES that’s a proper ram. We need to get closer as we have no shot from this angle and I’m not comfortable taking this shot. The ram tucked behind another rock with a bush next to it and Greg feels if we crawl low for about 50 yards to our left we can close the gap within 100 yards.
We make the plan and crawl ever so slow to the next spot of cover. The ram now within 60 yards but on high alert knows something is not right. Greg has the video camera running and captures great footage as the ram whistles at us for nearly 5 minutes. Greg sets up the short sticks and I position myself for a shot if he makes a move my direction. All the sudden the ram takes off on a slow trot my direction. There he is trotting past me at a slow pace. I get him in my scope, Greg whistles and he stops broadside at 40 yards. I squeeze the trigger, with an 180gr core-lokt well placed on the shoulder he flips over backwards and is DRT. A shout of victory from me, a great shot my friend from Greg, some high fives and we walk over to look at a magnificent Mt Reedbuck…
Sorry for the poor quality on the next few photos, they were taken from my video camera.
At the sound of the shot the trackers make their way in our direction. They quickly close the gap on nearly a mile downhill hike as Lori and Tekita slowly made their way taking photos as they came. By the time Lori and Tekita made it to us, we have him set up on a rock, Greg takes several photos of me alone and all Lori has to do is jump in for a quick couple and we can be back in search for the Eland.
After a few more photos and another setting in the grass with the mountain in the background, Greg heads up to get the truck. The trackers grab the reedbuck and Lori and I get a lesson on sharing photos via Bluetooth from Tekita. At over 6000 feet with no cell coverage I send Tekita photos from my phone to hers. A short walk over the side of the mountain and we are on the trail waiting for Greg to pick us up with the truck. Once in the truck I tell Greg I not only scored on a fine mt reedbuck I was schooled by a youngster on sharing photos. From that moment on the rest of the trip, if someone took a great photo everyone else would say Bluetooth me!!!
We head to the skinning shed to drop off the trackers and reedbuck then go to the lodge for use of the facilities to cleanup a bit and have some lunch. During lunch we talk over the plan for the rest of the day. We decided to hunt for Eland until around 4-430 or so and make our way back to Mpunzi so we could be there around dinner time. The conversation did come up that we could sleep over at the lodge there if we wanted but we were not prepared for that.
After lunch a cold drink and a bit of rest, we were back to the mountains in search of that special eland that eluded us all morning. We searched for the next 3 hours seeing no shooter eland and decided to call it a day and make the long drive back to Mpunzi. On the drive back Greg spends some time on the phone when he has signal working on a plan for the next day’s hunt. We make it back to the lodge late and once again are the last ones back. We are exhausted, hungry, in need of a shower, a drink, dinner and sleep. I take a quick shower as dinner is finishing and join the group for stories of the day over another fine meal prepared by Graham and Nichole. After dinner, we have some drinks and talk with Marius about the plan for Thursday. He tells me he has arranged for us to hunt on a different concession where there are lots of eland. He said Graham would again be joining us as he knows the son of the property owner from school. We would again need to leave early but not at 4am as it’s only about an hour and a half away. We finish the evening off with a shot or 2 of fireball and off for a good night’s rest.
