Hey Mark,

It sounds like you made the best of everything. Congrats on your latest safari. Give my best to LaRita!

......now I am going to look at your photos!!

Good Hunting,

Bob

Back from South Africa.



We hunted 10 days , Oct. 5th through Oct. 14th, in the Limpopo region of South Africa.



Rifles and ammo: Mark,300wsm using 200gr XTS. LaRita, 270win using 150gr X.



Game seen but not hunted Rhino, Eland, Giraffe, Buffalo, Waterbuck, Gemsbok, Black Wildebeest, Ostrich, Nyala, Steenbuck, a Boomslang snake and others.



Game hunted and taken by Mark: 2 Blue Wildebeest, 1 Impala, 1 Zebra and 1 Grey Duiker.

Game hunted and taken by LaRita: 1 Warthog and 1 Blesbok.

Game hunted and not taken: Kudu and Red Hartebeest.



Weather: Highs in the upper 90s the first two days, low 90s the third day. The fourth day a cold front come through and we awoke to temps in the low 40s.Then two of the last three days it rained off and on. In all we had weather from one extreme to the next, with 4 or 5 good hunting days in the middle with lows near 50 and highs in the upper 70s.



General comments: Overall this was HUNTING not a "Whack and stack" style safari. We tracked Zebra, Kudu and Hartebeest for hours, over many days.More than one day we walked and tracked 3 hours without stopping. Most days we would track and walk 6 hours pre day, in the rain and heat this was pretty tough. It got real hard on LaRita, she is just getting over 2 operations, that's why this trip was postponed to October, and if that wasn't bad enough she wore two blisters on her right foot from all the walking. She never gave up and on the last morning got her Blesbok, I was so glad she got her trophy after all her hard work and very proud of her. The food was great, we had Impala, Kudu and other game meat. Plus the tracker, PH and I had fresh, just killed, Blesbok liver cooked on an open fire one morning. The camp we stayed in was very nice.



Things we learned the hard way:

1) Hunting Africa in October the weather is not the best, we lost many hours of hunting due to the heat and rain. We learned that the daily rates, or package price, is the same no matter if your hunting the peak of the season or, like we did, the end of the season. If LaRita's operations hadn't postponed our trip we would have went earlier in season. Don't go in October.

2) We don't like package deals. We would rather pay the daily rates plus trophy fees for what we shoot than buy a package for what we MIGHT shoot. In our opinion, with a package deal your the only one who can lose, the PH has no added incentive to help you get the more expensive trophies, Kudu, his pay is the same if you get them or not and after all hunting is still hunting, sometimes you don't get them.

3) Ask more about your PH before you book the hunt. Our PH was 15 years younger than us and that was, at best, odd. He's closer to our daughters age and we just never really hit it off. We didn't have much in common, it just seemed like he was there to do a job. One day, while setting in a blind a lunch, he pulls out a hand held video game and starts playing it!! That was a big turn off, I DON'T play video games and was in Africa to hunt! Not listen to someone play video games. The guy also had a cell phone, so when ever we stopped the truck and he could get a signal, he was checking his calls or returning calls. This happened 2 or 3 times a day, I WANTED to break the DAMN cell phone. Anyway, we've had better PHs.

4) Buy some small disposable cameras and keep one in your pocket. There was may things, miles from the truck and our cameras, that we wished we could have taken photos of. Like the Ostrich nest with 31 eggs in it and .........

5) Take at least 2 photos of everything with 2 cameras. We had trouble with some of our flim and lost some 35mm photos, my Impala. Then we forgot to take digital photos of the Duiker so I'll have to get them scanned.



Overall: It was a good trip, we've had better and we've had worst, we both would rate it a 7 out of 10. We hunted hard and spent two weeks in Africa, whats not to like about that.



BTW. I have digital photos of most of our trophies if someone would be so kind as to post them for us.

Mark Welcome back ,glad you had a good trip, I can't wait to see the photos. Please tell us more about the Wildebeast. (Rug) Ben

> Things we learned the hard way:
> 1) Hunting Africa in October the weather is not the best.
All depends where you hunt. In Limpopo in October it can be hot and rainy, but not always. I have been living there in the eighties. Hardly any rain for years, but hot. You are right, May to July, or maybe August would be much better.
But here in the Cape the situation is completely different. In October it's not very hot yet, only sometimes, and the rainy season is over. In other words, ideal for hunting.
> 2) We don't like package deals.
Agreed. Don't like them either.
> 3) Ask more about your PH before you book the hunt. Our PH was 15 years younger than us and that was, at best, odd.
The age of a PH doesn't indicate whether he is good or bad. There are many young guys which are excellent. Harry Selby also started young. Do you think he only became a good PH when he was much older? In your case that PH was still a bit childish, but as I said, don't judge a PH by his age.
> 4) Buy some small disposable cameras and keep one in your pocket.
Waste of money and not the best proposal either. With a "disposable camera" you are unable to take hight quality pictures. Get a very good little digital camera. Mine is a Canon Digital Ixus 430 (called differently in the USA). Fits easily into your pocket.
> 5) Take at least 2 photos of everything with 2 cameras.
Agree with you. But you don't need a camera with films. Nowadays you get beautiful prints from digital images.


www.kapstadt.de/lemberg
Hunting one hour from Cape Town

Rug

I shot 2 Blue Wildebeest. One was a real old bull taken on a real nice farm 30 min. south of the farm we camped at and only hunted 2 days. It was around noon on the first day and we were driving around in the truck with our PH, the farm manager, LaRita and I all in the back, when we saw him running with a bad rear leg. You could tell he very old and wasn't going to make it much longer, so the manager asked one of us to shoot him. The PH grabed LaRitas gun and went one way, the tracker and I went another. Well, the old bull wasn't just going to give up, the tracker and I followed him a couple hundred yards before I could get a shot. I shot him a about 75 yards, with the 300wsm and 200gr XTS, he went down and tried to get up so I hit with another and he was done. It all happened so fast we didn't even take photos of him, the farm manager said she'd send some of her staff for it and we kept hunting. I thought about it that night and asked her the next day if she'd be willing to sell me the horns and skull, he wouldn't score very high, I didn't care scores anyway, but he was a real old bull and I would like to have had the horns rather than seeing them go to waste, she said she'd look into it and let me know but I never heard from her.

The second bull was taken on the fourth day at the farm we stayed at. He was some what younger and was with a bunch of cows. We stalked them for some time and I finaly got a shot at about 60 yards or so, he went maybe 50 yards at most and was down. I really like the 300wsm, it and the 200gr XTS worked great.