09 June 2008, 15:29
500nitroInteresting piece
on 2008/6/5 0:37:09 (67 reads)
By MATT SCHUCKMAN
Herald-Whig Sports Writer
Sleep should have come easy for Mike Roux after long days beating the bush, targeting what he hoped would be a trophy kudu or impala.
But how can you sleep knowing lions lurk in the darkness?
"Even though you're in a compound, you can hear them," said Roux, a professional hunter based in Quincy. "It will make the hair stand up on your neck. It's not the over-on-that-mountain roar. It's the 75-yards-on-the-other-side-of-that-fence low purr."
You don't move when you hear that.
"The shower is outside your room," Roux said. "So I am not showering at night. I am not leaving this place at night."
Not until the hunt is over.
"You sleep good after you leave lion camp," Roux said. "You don't sleep until then."
By then, if all goes as planned, there will be stories, pictures and trophy kills to chronicle the hunt of a lifetime.
"And you do not have to sell the farm to experience it," Roux said.
Making it affordable
Last year, Roux was invited by his boss, Greg Pape, the president and CEO of Medical Outsourcing Services, to accompany him on an African safari.
Well versed in how to hunt big game in North America but a novice to the spot-and-stalk methods in Africa, Roux relished the opportunity, especially when he discovered it wouldn't break the bank.
Pape and Roux teamed up with Intrepid Safaris, which is owned and operated by Phillip and Anske du Plessis near Alldays in the northeastern part of South Africa, for an October hunt.
Their 6,500-acre ranch features nearly 50 indigenous game, including the five most treasured trophies.
Leopard. Lion. Cape buffalo. Elephant. Rhinoceros.
Roux had no plans to harvest any one of those.
"I like the plains game because those are more like the deer and elk and stuff that I hunt here," Roux said.
He had no reason to anger any of the big game.
"I'm not mad at any of them," he joked.
And the cost of taxidermy for one of those trophies can be expensive.
"Care of the plains game is much more reasonable," Roux said.
So is the cost of hunting in South Africa compared to other parts of the continent.
"For $7,500, you can have a terrific hunt," Roux said. "For $7,500, you can have a trip where you bring home four of five trophies and absolutely have the hunt of a lifetime. If you can afford $10,000, it can be incredible."
The reason? Private ground.
The South African government does not control the hunting rights, whereas in Zimbabwe or Zambia, hunters are forced to purchase a 21-day hunt regardless of the number of days they actually hunt.
They must also purchase their permits before the hunt. For example, a hunter interested in harvesting a kudu must pay $1,800 for a permit and take their luck in the field.
In South Africa, you purchase the permit after the animal is down.
"Everybody goes with an animal or two in mind they would like to get," Roux said. "Then you get there and you don't see those animals, but you run across something else, you take it.
"You know what everything is going to cost, so you can budget."
Having a plan
With his budget in mind, Roux headed to the bush with a plan.
"I wanted to kill an impala, a kudu and a warthog," Roux said.
It didn't go that smooth.
"I never did see the warthog I wanted, but I was inundated with gemsbok," Roux said. "Nice, big, long 55-inch horns. So I was like, I'll switch off. You can make that decision on the fly."
So Roux did.
"I kept seeing big bull after big bull after big bull," Roux said of the gemsbok, which is similar to an antelope with straight, thick horns that typically measure more than 40 inches.
"They're gorgeous," Roux said.
The gemsbok typically travel in herds of as many as 40, and Roux and his Swahili tracker, George, kept seeing them.
"I said, 'If I see another big bull that makes the mistake of stopping in the open, he's coming home,'" Roux said.
He did, and he wouldn't be the last.
Most hunters are teamed with a tracker and a guide, based on their level of hunting knowledge and the game they're chasing. Roux's host turned him loose with only his tracker by his side.
"He will guide you if you need," Roux said of the tracker, who does not carry a gun. "Otherwise, he's with you to keep you from getting lost or stepping on a cobra."
Luckily, Roux saw no cobras, but he did come across leopard tracks the second day of the hunt.
"My hunt the next 48 hours was on that leopard track," Roux said. "I killed the impala when I was on that leopard track. I never did see the cat."
The impala, though, nearly landed him in the Safari Club International's record book. To qualify for SCI recognition, the impala must have at least 21-inch horns.
The impala Roux killed had 20-inch horns.
It would be his last near miss.
'Longest, toughest hunt'
Roux's hunt lasted 10 days, an exhausting amount of time spent stalking the game he was after -- a trophy kudu.
"It was the longest, toughest hunt I had," Roux said.
Part of the reason was the style of hunting is dramatically different.
First, the spot-and-stalk style is typically done from a vehicle.
"That way they can cover more ground and the client can see more animals," Roux said.
Second, African hunters don't wait for the perfect shot.
"They take shots over there you and I don't take over here," Roux said. "They don't even hesitate to shoot through brush and bust brush."
Third, record kudu are rare.
"Phillip said to get a kudu 45 inches or better is the equivalent of a Boone & amp; Crockett buck here," Roux said. "If you see one, you better get him."
Even with that advice, du Plessis tried to talk Roux out of stalking a kudu.
"He said, 'How many guys will come to Illinois this year looking for a Boone & amp; Crockett buck and how many will get it? What percentage?" Roux said. "I told him one-tenth of one percent. He said, 'That's what it is like here.'"
Actually, du Plessis made Roux's odds seem impossible.
"He said for a 45-inch kudu he could get me close," Roux said. "For a 48-inch kudu, they see one or two a year. A 50-inch kudu, it's a ghost."
The ghosts don't travel alone.
"Everything is in herds," Roux said. "You have 60 or 70 eyes looking at you every time a herd comes through."
In every herd, 45-inch kudu were easy to see.
"I passed on some good ones," Roux said.
He made the right choice. From 65 yards out, using a Thompson Center Icon rifle, Roux killed the ghost.
The kudu he stalked -- "I saw three or four nearly as big," Roux said -- was SCI record book material with horns measuring 52 inches and a total measurement that includes the circumference at the base of both horns of 126 inches.
It takes 122 inches to qualify under SCI standards.
"That was a thrill," Roux said.
Killing a 700-pound animal has to be.
"You could tell he was old, too," Roux said. "The tips of his horns had been rubbed down to the point they were ivory."
One of three
Roux's kudu was his only kill to meet minimum SCI standards, but Pape brought home a pair of record kills.
Amazingly, they were his first harvest ever.
"He had never shot an animal before," Roux said.
A lion became his first. Pape was accompanied on the hunt by two professional hunters, both with guns, and a tracker.
"It was an entourage tracking that lion," Roux said.
It could have been needed.
Cape delivered a kill on his first shot, breaking the animal's shoulder and piercing both lungs. However, it took three additional shots to keep the lion down.
"You don't walk up on a lion until you know it's not breathing," Roux said.
You don't get in the way of a cape buffalo, either.
Roux was part of the entourage stalking the buffalo, and the group knew the buffalo was working its way down a creek bed while the hunters were working up the creek bed from the opposite direction.
They had hoped to see the animal at about 100 yards and start shooting. Instead, they came around a bend in the creek and the buffalo stood just 25 yards away,
Immediately, they opened fire.
"We hit it seven times before it was knocked off its feet," Roux said.
Thankfully, it went down.
"That's one ton of black death right there," Roux said.
You don't forget something like that.
"You don't forget any of this," Roux said.
Not when you've stalked ghosts and stared down death.
"So I'm going back," Roux said.
His plan is to head there in June 2009, and he wants four hunters to go with him.
"The first four guys who say I'm in get to go," Roux said.
And he guarantees whoever goes is in for the hunt of a lifetime.
-- mschuckman@whig.com/221-3366
http://www.whig.com/story/5-31-Roux-safari
