What a beautiful and graceful creature. A mature ram standing in a brushy field, the sun lighting up his mellow tan coat. He turns his head to fix his gaze on you as you inspect his curvy horns through your binoculars. He will snort in a few seconds which will send his harem crashing away and then he will quickly follow. Shoot this one or let him go? There is no real pressure to shoot as many more will be found before the hunt is over.

You can take him with any of the popular deer rifles available in sporting goods stores, or use a beautiful custom rifle to hunt him. A suitable rifle for impala is light and well ballanced and a joy to carry.

The cost is more than affordable. Book a five day hunt and take one or two a day and still not spend what you would spend for a trophy whitetail hunt in Texas.

Have you ever thought of a plainsgame hunt for just impala. With maybe a warthog just for some extra fun?

AMEN!

Bravo

For some God forsaken reason, impala own me. With my track record with them, the thought of hunting them for five days is maddening.



Impala is the only antelope I missed on the first shot AND did not harvest on a follow up shot.



Impala is the only animal I ever wounded and did not recover. (It was the last afternoon of the hunt and we spent four hours tracking it)



I shot at a few others and missed due to deflections.



The one impala I did finally harvest required over an hours tracking and we came damn close to losing it. I had a front on chest shot with about a 4 by 4 inch area to work with. The .30-06 hit inside its right shoulder, deflected off the shoulder and went the entire length of its body diagonally and imbedded in the left thigh. The initial blood trail had chunks of meat! The blood trail died after that a few times but always restarted. We finally caught up to it just as it expired. It was an old ram and horn wise not much of a prize but I sure earned that trophy!

Right on, I can send you to the Eastern Cape of RSA for $150 per day plus trophy fees and you can shoot what ever you want and as many on big holdings...

Although I have some really nice $2500. Texas Whitetail hunts, most run considerably more than a 10 day Plainsgame hunt in Africa...

South Africa is within the financial reach of most anyone that really wants to hunt Africa. With most its a matter of priorities..

On hands and knees we creep through the bursh. The tracker, Jakob, in his bright blue jumpsuit is leading. He duckwalks slowly a few inches at a time. Even without the jumpsuit it would have been easy to keep track of his position by the Hi Karate cologne that he liberally applied just before we picked him up this morning at the quarters. Next is Peter, a local farm boy and PH. He and Jakob whisper and make hand signals, planning the best route to follow. Jim and I are last in line. Jim whispers the play by play of what is happening into my ear. He tells me that the ram is real close. All that I can see are bases of trees and branches and tangles of bursh.

A ram sounds off. What a horrible sound they make when in full rut. Now another answers back. Then all hell breaks loose as the dominant ram chases off the young interloper. Still no sight of the redish brown hide and dusty black horns that we have crawled in here after. Jim whispers that the old ram is not going anywhere. He will stay with the harem defending it from the younger males.

Peter and Jakob are a few yards ahead trying to get sight of the ram and judge his horns. A hand signal back from Jakob tells us that he has the old boy in sight and that he is a shooter. He motions to Jim the path that we should follow to get into shooting position.

Jim indicates that I should follow him and begins to creep forward from bush to bush. He stops next to the base of a small tree and points. The impala ram is broadside about sixty yards away. Lots of small branches and saplings are between us and the target. Jim whispers very quietly to be sure and wait until there are no branches in the way.

A slight shift to the left and I have a good sight picture from the kneeling position. A squeeze of the trigger launches the 375 cal. bullet on it's way. An instant later the ram goes down face first in the dust. It's over. What a thrill!! Jim gives me a big bear hug, Peter and Jakob are slapping me on the back as if something really spectacular has just happened. I feel like a million bucks. What adventures will the next nine days bring.

Muletrain,
I have three extra copies of "African Hunter shot placement pocket field guide to Impala". Since you have a great passion for hunting them, I will mail you one of these field guides. Please send me a private e-mail.

To any two other AR members, send me a private e-mail and I will mail out the other two copies.

This is a great guide to impala hunting.

Kathi

kathi@wldtravel.com

MT, I have to admit to sharing your passion for these beautiful, graceful antelope. I took a rep. head in 98 & am returning to Africa this fall. I am hunting buffalo in Moz., but after that I am off to RSA for a Nyala & yes, a really nice Impala is high on my list. I think it's alot like deer hunting, you see many, many animals but only a few exceptional ones. If I am lucky enough to hunt Africa 3 or 4 more times, an Impala will always be on my list. In fact, Warthog should also be included, kind of a beauty & the beast thing.

Kathi - Thank you for the kind, and unexpected offer. Email on the way.

Since it's cold and raniny here in Houston on this Easter Sunday I am going to share another story with all of the fine folks at AR.com


Exhaustion, fear, high excitement, disbelief, were all emotions that I was feeling when the small charter plane touched down on a dirt strip hundreds of miles from nowhere in Zimbabwe. My dream was finally happening. A cape buffalo hunt.

Peter Fick had been there waiting in a Toyota PU and soon I was unpacking my gear in a tent. Shortly after that the camp staff were introduced as well as a gentelman named Barrie Duckworth. A legend in my mind after reading all of the Boddington books. Every chapter had been memorised, and one was about Boddington hunting in Zim during the war with Duckworth. There was a picture of him in what looked like a leather jacket next to an armored Land Rover. How many times had I read that book and dreamed of some day going to the dark continent.

He was in camp to guide a doctor from the states on an elephant hunt. Sharing a camp with a real elephant hunter and someone famous in the safari business was just too much to believe.

That afternoon Fick suggested that we take a little drive and go check the rifles. We took off with Magara, the head tracker, Ponai, the second tracker and drove a short distance from the camp. A cardboard box was put up as a target and I fired a couple of shot at it with each rifle. The process was very casual but there was a lot of attention paid to the results. Everyone seemed relieved that I really did know how to shoot my rifles and things got more relaxed and friendly.

On the drive back the trackers spotted a couple of impala crossing in front of us several hundred yards out. The vehicle stopped and we watched the animals walk casually into the woods to the left. Fick asked if I would mind shooting some meat for the camp. It would be a feee animal and not be charged against my trophy list. Ponai took my Remington .375 out of the soft case and we all headed into the woods.

My mind was racing. Here we go. Why the .375 for an impala? How are we going to seneak up on an animal with all these people? What am I doing here? I all this a dream?

We had only been in the woods a few minutes when some movement in the distance caught my eye. I tapped Fick on the arm and pointed. He saw the animals and whispered that they were the two impala that we had seen on the two track. He said to shoot the smaller one as soon as I could get a clear shot. Everything that had been learned about shooting deer back in Texas was now running through my mind. This was the same thing. The animals looked very similar, the trees looked the same, the woods smelled the same, and the hunters senses kicked into high gear.

The rams were heading towards us through the trees. The smaller one was ahead of the larger one. They took a few steps and then paused to look around. I now had my intended target in the scope. He ws going to walk behind a tree and then there was an opening on the other side. A clear shooting lane. That's when I would do it. The head appeared from behind the tree, then the front shoulders. The cross hairs settled behind the front leg and I pressed the trigger. The little impala went down in his tracks. I had killed my first african animal.

Looking back on that hunt it is now clear that the impala was not needed for camp meat. It was sort of a test to see how the new tourist in camp was going to behave in the woods. To the crew it was just a small insignificant little chore that needed to be done so that there would be no surprises during the buff hunt. But to me it was a very significant event. Every detail of that impala hunt is burned into my memory. A dream had finally come true.

I had a similar experience my first trip to Africa. My rifle had been lost and I had to use Mark's rifle. We went out the first day and I thought it would just be a scouting trip as my rifle had not arrived in camp, but when we spotted a very good Blesbok Mark suggested I should take it. Using a rifle I had never shot before and off of sticks I had never done before I placed a poor shot aft of the lung area and the chase was on. A few klicks later we finished the poor beast off. That evening my rifle arrived in camp and the next morning we checked it on target and all was OK. The first thing Mark said was we needed a bait and would look for a young Impala. In a short while we found the required subject. I was feeling the presure - OK these people have no idea if I can hit a Bull in the *ss with a bucket or rice or not - the 338 cracked and the Impala ram folded like a cheap suit and the stage was set for the rest of the hunt. Oh by the way my computer crashed and I am using one of my staff's stations so strech out my handle - hint Die.

I could happily spend 10 days hunting nothing but impala. --- Unless I happened upon a good Kudu.

odie,

Be thankful that your nemisis isn't something big and expensive.



I too have a great love for the Impala. I have no doubt that I will never tire of hunting them. But, I was spoiled from the onset. I first hunted them in the Northern province near Thabazimbi. It seems that I was in the best trophy area in RSA. There were lots of 24 inch rams and I shot a couple. But, on the second trip over, I got a 26 1/2 ram almost by accident while trying to get my wife a Zebra. I'm hooked. I want to hunt them again.


/

I concur, my sons and I hunted together and had more fun chasing impala than anything else. Kudu is a blast but impala are fun. We had a great challenge on baboon as well, never getting a shot at one in 14 days.

I have hunted twice at Humani and the impala there are common as dirt.The second trip over I brought my son and each day we would sit together in a blind overlooking a waterhole.It was his first BIG bowhunt and I wanted to get him plenty of shooting.We would each shoot an impala and then radio for the trackers.Some days we would shoot one each in the AM and again one each in the PM.My ph said that we should call them right away but I did not want to disturb things too badly.Also he said we should be patient and give the bigger animals a chance to come in.We were having too much fun with the impala...eyedoc