A colleague and I have a weekend to do some hunting this month. We will need to rent a rifle. We are interested in finding a place to hunt one of the following: warthog, springbok, impala and wildebeest.

Can anyone suggest a ranch, game farm, etc.

Chronic

Blaauwkrantz Safaris.
http://www.blaauwkrantz.com/

PM sent

JP Kleinhans Safaris. Top Outfit we have hunted and filmed with for years.

you are only 2 1/2 hrs away from us an the heart of the Karoo. We have all those animals.
P.M me if you are interested.

this is what you can expect Leopards valley hunting report

I hunted with East Cape Safaris in May. They were great. http://www.eastcapesafaris.co.za/

Southern Cross Safaris, Cris Cawood PH & Owner. Near Cradock, Mortimer mailing address. Google for website.

Blaauwkrantz. Amazing place. 100% recommend.

www.blaauwkrantz.com

I,too, highly recommend Blaauwkrantz, been there 8 times. Lots and lots of Kudu and Impala.

Karl

Blaaukrantz, again.
I am sure one of the boys can set you up with an appropriate rifle.

Hi,

I hunted with KMG Hunting Safaris last year and is probably going back this November (crossing fingers) I borrowed a rifle from Marius the PH and outfitter. I have read maybe 15-20 reports after i was there myself and everyone said the same. Great stuff
webpage is KMG hunting safaries

PM me if you have questions. Good luck. Eastern cape is a beautiful place.

You can't go wrong with Russ Lovemore of Safari Trails International.

My bags and rifles were lost for 8 days of a 10 day safari with Blaauwkrantz. I used Arthur's 30.06 and had a magical trip.

CONTACT GAVIN AT NDUNAHUNTINGSAFARIS .CO.ZAhttp://ccs.infospace.com/ClickHandler.ashx?du=www.youtube.com%2fplaylist%3flist%3dPLcREm4blAImD_WJEpcsH...&ru=http%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2fplaylist%3flist%3dPLcREm4blAImD_WJEpcsH_xjwJPZhvwHUJ&ld=20130808&ap=5&app=1&c=facemoods.v2.1.tab&s=facemoodsv2&coi=771&cop=main-title&euip=92.113.172.223&npp=5&p=0&pp=0&pvaid=474b3e0fd96548ddaa2bd7e78402cfc0&ep=5&mid=9&en=pJl5jd2FjawQt8nZ2283LGXLjBdQ9GvaZOOcUJOsH7O4pVdhlxalww%3d%3d&hash=F375AF1AB99266BB4ECF5565C6D4A4A0

Thanks to everyone here who posted and sent me PM’s. The response exceeded my expectations.

What a day I had hunting in SA!! We decided to give Ferdi Venter Hunting our business. I exchanged numerous emails and a phone call with Ferdi. We agreed to hunt Sunday. His flexibility to work with our schedule was fantastic.

Ferdi picked us up at the hotel at 5:30am. We drove for 1.5 hours into the mountains passing Uitenhage and the Blaaukrantz lodge.

The weather was not good, very high wind and we passed a large brush fire in the mountains. The smoke was thick. I was hoping we would get some protection from the wind in the mountains, but this was not the case. The fire was far from our hunting concession.

Upon arrival Verdi handed my hunting partner and I two rifles to choose from, a 7mm mag and a 30-06. I looked through both and choose the 06. The scope was clearer and it seemed to fit me well. The 06 was a rifle brand I was not familiar (Musgrave) with a mauser based action on a wood stock and 6x duplex scope. It felt familiar in my hands. The ammo was PMP. It looked like 180g PSP Remington Core-Lokt bullet.

We climbed into the back of his pick-up via a side ladder stepping first onto the tire and then sitting on a very comfortable bench seat, the assistant guides were standing behind us. Riding in the back of a pickup while holding a rifle will get you thrown in jail and everything confiscated so fast where I live. That was a new, enjoyable and unique experience.

We saw Impala, Kudu, Waterbok and Springbok within minutes. Nothing that was good enough to shoot. We bumped along for a couple of hours seeing more of the same. We saw a nice herd of Impala in the thick thorn brush and decide to stalk closer for a look. However, it was just too thick to see anything once we got in the brush. We walked for a half-mile or so without seeing anything. Ferdi returned to retrieve the truck and we continued to walk onto a nice hilltop to glass for animals.

A herd of blue wildebeests were spotted across the valley; we drove to a down wind location and started a stalk. We immediately saw two nice wart hogs at 60 yds. We passed on these because of the closeness of the wildebeest. My hunting partner wanted a wildebeest, therefore his turn to shoot. He was immediately behind Ferdi as we stalked along. We could now see the back of two animals, but could not distinguish bull or cow. One of the animals saw us and it was over, off they went through the brush.

We returned to the truck and had some great sandwiches prepared by Ferdi’s bride, simple, delicious chicken and ham on home made bread. While eating we spotted some zebra and more wildebeest on the opposite side of the valley on the mountaintop. It was an interesting ride to the top on a very rough road in Low 4. There was just enough room to get the truck through some very heavy brush.

We stopped several hundred yards from the top and hiked to the last seen location of the animals. The terrain got quite steep at the top. Ferdi and I could just see the back of the Zebras. Well that is all I could see, Ferdi has to be in the 6’ 5” to 6’6” height range! He had the sticks out for a rifle rest, but the rocks were too tall for me to see the entire Zebra. I suggested we crawl closer and I shoot sitting or prone. We crawled on hands and knees up an additional 20 yds moving more to the down wind side. I was now able to see both zebra while sitting on my butt. Ferdi told me which one to shoot and I agreed with his assessment. The animal was striking white and black with very little gray on the white stripes. The other was not as good and had much more gray on the white. The animal was quartering towards me showing his left shoulder. He looked to be about 50 yds away. Resting my elbow on my knee while sitting I placed the reticle on the front shoulder…boom. The placed exploded with game, wildebeest and zebra running everywhere. There were more than a half dozen wildebeest bedded between us and the Zebra that I shot! My Zebra went down at the shot; he then got up stumbling towards us for 20 yds, and then was down for good. The left front shoulder was broken, the shot was a few inches left of my aim, but this is not F-class.

The wildebeest stopped running about 125 yds away. We motioned for my hunting partner to get up the hill, but they moved off before he could arrive.

We had one more very difficult stalk on some blue wildebeest that was not successful coming down a very steep rocky mountain. Ferdi is a big man for sure, but he can move like lightening when about to step on a Common Puff Adder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitis_arietans. This snake was huge!! Ferdi called it the lazy snake, it waits until you step on it before it strikes. From that point on we followed in Ferdi’s footsteps exactly!

My hunting partner took a nice blue wildebeest bull later that day with the 7mm at about 125yds. It ran about 100yds, and then dropped.

Thanks again Ferdi for a wonderful day in the South African Bush!

Chronic

http://www.ferdiventerhunting.com

great work. the Musgrave is a fairly common rifle made in RSA on Mauser actions. IIRC, they are no longer in business, but have a very good reputation. don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

Beautiful. Congrats. Well done.

quote:

Originally posted by chronic:

Congratulations.

BTW that looks like a Musgrave Mk 4 (I used to have a Mk 3 years ago). It has the latch for the magazine floorplate in the trigger giard and the safety on the right.

Made on the Spanish Santa Barbara actions.

Later Musgrave made a K98 which were basically just K98 actions in new wood with new barrels. Depending on taste you could get them with varying degrees of different safeties and so on.

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
great work. the Musgrave is a fairly common rifle made in RSA on Mauser actions. IIRC, they are no longer in business, but have a very good reputation. don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

they are back in production and I have heard that they might export soon

What a beautiful zebra! It sounds as though you had a great one day hunt. Congrats!!

quote:

Made on the Spanish Santa Barbara actions

Exactly what my rifle is, my late Father bought it in the earley 1980's and I just love the rifle, never let me down. I use 150gr PMP ammo.

chronic
Thank you for the oppertunity to spend the day with you guys and the kind words> I still see myself giving a "little" jump away from that Puff Adder