Travel Agent: Steve Turner/Travel With Guns
Outfitter: Dries Visser Safaris
PH: Ingo Oosthuizen
Location: Eastern Namibia/Hochveld Conservancy
Dates: July 7-17, 2012
Species Hunted: gemsbok, red hartebeest, black hartebeest, and springbok
I wrapped up a wonderful time with good friends on a 10 day bowhunt with DVS. The principle species I was searching for was the gemsbok, the single animal that started my African addiction, and had eluded me on my last trip to RSA in 2008. We started the arrival day with a game drive, and within a few hours I knew it would be a productive hunt!

I had multiple shot opportunities each day, but was after the 4 main animals on my wish list. We had spotted a big oryx bull on day #1 and passed several other bulls hoping he would return to our blind.

On day #3 things got started quick when a lone hartebeest bull came in for water and I took a 17 yard shot on the bull and watched him drop within 55 yards of the blind.

The trackers quickly came in took him back to the skinning shed as we slipped back into the blind. Shortly after lunch I looked up to see our target bull cautiously approaching the water, for 45 minutes we waited as kudu cows and warthogs kept the lone bull from entering my shooting zone. Finally he settled in as I took my long awaited shot on my animal. The bull exploded from the trough and bolted away as the crimson patch on his shoulder confirmed a good hit! Some 150 yards later we located my bull, two trophies in one day was enough for me, I returned to camp and enjoyed a beautiful African sunset.

Next on our agenda was black wildebeest or springbok both were very elusive for the next several days but the other animals paraded by our locations that allowed for many photographic moments!

On day #8 we switched to a big pan where we hoped to get closer to the wildebeest or springbok. Just after sunrise a nice bull entered the pan and barked his dominance throughout the area, for almost the entire day the bull meandered throughout the pan patrolling his turf.

It wasn't until about 4:00 pm did the bull venture close enough for a shot. We recovered the bull just after sunset, whether it is blue or black a wildebeest is one tough animal!

I concluded my hunt on day #10 with a stalk on my last animal, the springbok, we were fortunate enough to recover him quick enough for the hair to make some nice pictures!

I found Namibia to be more remote and rugged to the areas of RSA I had previously hunted in.

My host for the hunt Ingo and Adel Oosthuizen's worked very hard at making my time very memorable, I particular enjoyed the various venison dishes prepared in Namibian flare!

Looks like a great hunt!

Nice work!

Was Dries in camp? Haven't seen him in a couple of years, so just wondering? Congrats on a great hunt.

Larry Sellers
SCI Life Member

Hey, excellent! Can you tell me a bit about your photography? I really like the effect.

Very nice Staley. Congrats. Looks like a great hunt.

Thanks for sharing! More details of your eqipment used?
JCHB

Thanks everyone,
My archery equipment was a 63# PSE bow madness, Axis 400 shafts, 100 grain G5 montec broadheads. The arrow weight came in around 420 grains.

I used two different cameras a Canon Powershot SX230 HS and Canon Vixia HFS 100 HD Camera, the shots you were probably asking about were done with a Tiffen gradual tobacco filter on the vixia.

Here are a few more shots.

Nice gemsbok! Thanks for sharing, congratulations on a wonderful trip.

Orvar

I finally had a chance to edit some harvest clips, this was the one I enjoyed the most!

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/96167374/Gemsbok%20small.m4v

Great vid!

Excellent Video!

Takes a look of foresight to prepare something like that.

And thank you very much for being honest and pointing out the shot was a little far back. A lot of folks would say since he didn't go very far that it was perfect.

Great video. What editing software did you use? Excellent stuff.

Thanks for the kind words, I used i-movie in the advanced settings in preferences; within that you can then use picture in picture and cutaways. I have premiere as well but keep going back to i-movie.
Thanks again

Great report & photo's
JCHB