sierraone
AH legend
I started planning this hunt in October, first confirming the hunt, cost and dates with Pieter Erasmus. Second I had many PMs, phone texts and phone calls with a group of AH members I have met during the past five years, all whom have hunted Africa many times and in many cases have taken cape buffalo many times over. And since my son and I hunted with Pawprints last year, I was already familiar with the camp and many of the PHs, trackers and other staff from that period. My primary animals were buffalo cow and warthog, which I never had a chance at last year. I departed my home town of Pensacola on Sunday, 1 July. I had a three hour layover in Atlanta before the long 16 hour flight to Johannesburg. I incurred absolutely no problems with the checking in of the rifle nor the Delta Comfort seat I paid for back in January.
I arrived in Joburg at about 5:30 pm (1730 hours) on Monday 2 July. I was met by my PH Jonathan Morris and Rifle Permits at the SAP office to check and receive my rifle and temporary gun license. The check in at the SAP office was actually much faster than the time it took me to retrieve my checked bag off of the carousel! Then we were on the way to Pawprints in the Northwest Province, about a 2 hour ride from the airport. Upon our arrival we had a great meal prepared by Claudius and his wife Ruth, met with old friends from last year and new ones from Canada, planned a late breakfast, then found my room and went to bed.......Oh, did I mention it was cold!
29 degrees cold!!!! And I wasn't prepared for these kind of night temps. I found my one sweat shirt that I had packed and wore it constantly for the next 2 1/2 days except in the shower. It finally warmed up a little!
Tuesday, 3 July
After a late breakfast, I checked zero on my rifle and I fired a couple of extra rounds from stix. (Never too much practice when your flying 8000 miles from home to hunt. The PH, Jonathan also fired off a couple of rounds at a much closer distance from his CZ .458 Lott he would be carrying on the buffalo hunt the next day.
After lunch, we headed to a new concession of Pieter's only around 15 minutes from camp. Since our buffalo hunt in Limpopo was scheduled for the next day, Wednesday. We were primarily looking for a warthog on this afternoon. Little did I know at the time that my PH and I would spend approximately 30 hours of a 7 day hunt looking for a damn pig to shoot!!!
We immediately saw around 15 blesboks just grazing just off of the main road. They paid virtually no attention to us or the truck. Nearly all of them would have been easy shots....but that's not what I was looking for. Then saw a large herd of Red Hartebeest, maybe 40-50 of them running full out across an open field. I saw two individuals on my last trip and both took off in a full run when they saw us. Also saw five zebras including a big stallion which I would run into again four days later. In addition we saw two young giraffes close to the road. We parked the truck on an old trail shortly and began stalk/walk/sit for the next 90 minutes or so covering two watering holes where barrels containing water had been placed and ended up at a natural or man made pond where we sat for around 45 minutes or an hour. We had jumped three pigs while walking through the brush, but all we could see were there backs and tails. No shot. Saw blue wildebeest and red hartebeest in a large field behind the "pond", but nothing came to the water...and no pig. We called it a day and headed back to camp. Seeing the different species on this day, some up close, still made me feel we had a successful day!
Next entry will cover the buffalo cow hunt.
I arrived in Joburg at about 5:30 pm (1730 hours) on Monday 2 July. I was met by my PH Jonathan Morris and Rifle Permits at the SAP office to check and receive my rifle and temporary gun license. The check in at the SAP office was actually much faster than the time it took me to retrieve my checked bag off of the carousel! Then we were on the way to Pawprints in the Northwest Province, about a 2 hour ride from the airport. Upon our arrival we had a great meal prepared by Claudius and his wife Ruth, met with old friends from last year and new ones from Canada, planned a late breakfast, then found my room and went to bed.......Oh, did I mention it was cold!
29 degrees cold!!!! And I wasn't prepared for these kind of night temps. I found my one sweat shirt that I had packed and wore it constantly for the next 2 1/2 days except in the shower. It finally warmed up a little!
Tuesday, 3 July
After a late breakfast, I checked zero on my rifle and I fired a couple of extra rounds from stix. (Never too much practice when your flying 8000 miles from home to hunt. The PH, Jonathan also fired off a couple of rounds at a much closer distance from his CZ .458 Lott he would be carrying on the buffalo hunt the next day.
After lunch, we headed to a new concession of Pieter's only around 15 minutes from camp. Since our buffalo hunt in Limpopo was scheduled for the next day, Wednesday. We were primarily looking for a warthog on this afternoon. Little did I know at the time that my PH and I would spend approximately 30 hours of a 7 day hunt looking for a damn pig to shoot!!!
We immediately saw around 15 blesboks just grazing just off of the main road. They paid virtually no attention to us or the truck. Nearly all of them would have been easy shots....but that's not what I was looking for. Then saw a large herd of Red Hartebeest, maybe 40-50 of them running full out across an open field. I saw two individuals on my last trip and both took off in a full run when they saw us. Also saw five zebras including a big stallion which I would run into again four days later. In addition we saw two young giraffes close to the road. We parked the truck on an old trail shortly and began stalk/walk/sit for the next 90 minutes or so covering two watering holes where barrels containing water had been placed and ended up at a natural or man made pond where we sat for around 45 minutes or an hour. We had jumped three pigs while walking through the brush, but all we could see were there backs and tails. No shot. Saw blue wildebeest and red hartebeest in a large field behind the "pond", but nothing came to the water...and no pig. We called it a day and headed back to camp. Seeing the different species on this day, some up close, still made me feel we had a successful day!
Next entry will cover the buffalo cow hunt.
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