The weekend dawned with an overcast sky on Friday the 20th of March, I was sitting in the office as I do on all Fridays thinking of getting out of town and escaping the rush to our farm outside Nylstroom in the Waterberg of Limpopo Province where we run a small game ranch, we keep ourselves busy there almost every weekend of the year with one or another project, from fencing to building outdoor showers, chasing bushpigs around, etc.

The drive out of Johannesburg was fraught with the worst traffic imaginable as the city is currently upgrading all major highways in the province and it was raining cats and dogs – we arrived at the farm just before sunset and sat around the fire enjoying a good couple of castle beers and then switching to whiskey on the rocks. It was then decided that we should start taking the impala rams off of the farm as we needed to introduce new blood which would be arriving in the next month from the various auctions that we will be attending.

I had bought a pack of 100g Spitfire Mechanical Broad heads for such an occasion as I was anxious to try them out and see what the performance was like – no better time than now. My bow is shooting well at the moment or should I say that pilot error has taken a backseat these days, the bow is a Hoyt Ultra Tech and I am shooting a 32” draw length, I am uncertain of the poundage at this point but guess it is just under 70, I am using Easton St Epics 300’s.

at about 06h00 I got out of bed and got kitted up – nothing fancy all I would be taking was my bow, knife, camera and my new Leica rangefinder. I got in the hide at roughly 06h40 and sat down to start the inevitable wait. There were four tree squirrels that came in and started feeding at the trough and I was very tempted to try and create a squirrel sosatie by shooting all four with the one arrow but decided not to and just wait to see what came in.

View from the hide:


08h30 I hear a noise and think to myself that the warthog are on their way in, there is a big sow with three little ones that come in like clockwork every morning. Much to my surprise an impala ewe pops out from the bushes and walks right up to the trough followed by the whole heard. The females and this year’s offspring are right up front with one of the big rams in the middle beating his harem into submission and getting right into the food that had been put down for them with the other ram holding the young rams back from the trough with a good couple of head butts. I’m looking and trying to pick a spot and hoping to get a shot in but every time I am about to draw a ewe or a young impala step either in the way or behind the ram. Wait some more, another chance draw – anchor – aim – “is it all clear” nope effing ewe behind the ram, let down and wait – buck fever is starting to rattle my bones. these animals are close – 15 yards.

My opportunity presents itself with the ram giving a ewe a good go and knocking her out of the way, there is a young ram slightly in front of the big ram and this is my chance, its all clear behind and I have a good shooting window. Draw – Anchor – Relax – Aim and pick a spot – Breath and before I know it the arrow has flown right through the ram and all chaos breaks out with the ram making a sprint for the cover, he is running into trees and creating a racket as he goes. It’s all silent. The impala have moved off to about 60 yards and are proceeding to voice their objections with barks and grunts.

I sit back down and reach for my smokes the time is now 08h34, light one up with my hands trembling and my back aching from the adrenalin rush. I will give it 25 minutes and follow up. then the devils of bowhunting start playing games with me, was it a good shot? where is my arrow, I cant see it, I hope there was not another animal behind the ram that I had not seen….. time goes by slowly and my cigarettes are finished. I had 5??? at 08h50 I decide to go and have a look. I walk up to the spot where the ram was standing and see good blood on the floor and blood on the tree to the left of where the ram was standing. I start my difficult tracking job in this wet sand and can only pick up the blood spoor on grass and leaves as I go, the herd has ran over his spoor and its now starting to become challenging, I loose the spoor twice and start searching in circle’s for it, pick it up and continue further. I wish I had not forgotten to press record on my camera I am now starting to stress even though the blood is good, about 60 yards later I arrive at the dead impala.

A double lung shot that went over the top left hand side of the touching two of the arteries.

Below is the entry wound on the shoulder:


Below is the exit wound:


In all the harvest went well, the ram weighed 32kgs with skin off, head off, innards out.

The spitfire mechanical broad head worked well, it hit him on the shoulder with a slightly quartering away shot and broke a rib on the exit.

Picture of broken rib on exit:



The arrow had a complete pass through and pegged itself in the ground 60 meters from where I shot, below is a photo the arrow pegged into the ground 60 meters from the hide:


And below is a photo of our farmhand Lucas with the Impala on the back of our farm bakkie “bosvark”:

Congrats!!!

Thats a nice Ram to start the season with. I have to wait for May....

For me the worst part of bow hunting is that 30 minutes after the shot....

Like you said the devils can make it hectic .... lol

Come and join us

http://www.bowhuntingforum.co.za/

Nice shot, Atleast you get to hunt already. makes me want to go out with my bow. I should get to practicing though.

Nicely retold!

That captures very well what it is like to shoot an impala at a waterhole with a bow.

congrats.

good story.

Hi Guys

Thanks for the comments, i will be shooting another one this weekend if the impala play game.

Gerhard i will post it up on the bowhuntingforum some time soon.

Regards