Canuck,

Congratulations on a successful hunt. I especially like your kudu and impala. Thanks for sharing.

George

Chris,

Congrats! Very nice trophies. As for the snakes, I think the only good mamba is a dead one.

Canuck Congratulations on a nice hunt, waiting for full report.

Jagter, it seems to me the PH is a bit of a cowboy regarding snakes. We know a puffadder is not very active, and will usually only bite when stepped on. How did he get bitten on the finger? Seems to me somebody was playing with fire...

As I know Chris is extremely busy at the moment, I would like to say a few words of behalf of Henk, the PH concerned.

I was not present at either incident, but if I recall the puffadder story correctly, Henk was bending down and parting some brush/grass with his hands during the recovery of a downed animal. He was not aware of the adder until the last moment and was bit on his finger as he withdrew his hand. Again if I recall correctly, he was only pierced with one fang and the snake was extremely close to missing altogether.

With regards the second incident, one mamba was shot and disappeared into a brush pile wounded.
For obvious reasons, Henk declined to follow this particular "wounded animal" up, knowing it would die shortly anyway...

The second mamba was seen a minute or two later in the termite mound. This mamba was not particularly active as it was still quite chilly.

The photos taken were taken with a camera belonging to Chris and I know that camera has a x10 zoom on it.

Henk therefore did not need to approach the snake within striking distance so to speak. Henk then shot the snake will it was still in the mound. At no point did the situation get out of hand.

I never actually got to hunt with Henk, but spent a lot of time talking to him back at the Lodge ect. He came across as an experienced and knowledgeable guy and I would not hesitate to hunt with him in the future.

Regards,

Pete

Canuck ... well done .. !! Now that you're quite a few hundred miles closer perhaps you and I and ol' Bill can get together over a bottle of Amarula (that Bill owes me for whacking a tiny bull elk ... )and you can tell us of your latest exploits .. I leave for the rest of the summer on July 7th so it might have to be later ?? Anyways, good on you !

Thanks for all the congrats everyone. It was a great time with some great people. I will do my best to get some more stories and photos up over the next little while.

PeteE...thanks for clearing up the issue about Henk being a cowboy. You got it exactly right. I have some video that I will post one day with the second mamba (the pictures, the shot, etc). Henk has a very healthy respect for snakes....since anti-venom is not an option, his next snake bite could very well be his last.

Jagter, Pete was almost right. Landelani is only about 25 kms from Ellisras. We could see the stacks at Matimba from the top of the kopjes, and saw "Timby" on a few occassions as well. I will get a full report out on the GS Customs one of these days too. In a nutshell, though, I got phenomenal penetration on almost all shots. I didn't know you would be so close, or I'd have warned you to keep low...some of those bullets may be still going! There was a downside though...I had a bullet failure that may have almost cost me the waterbuck (recovered bullet, have pic), and possibly another on an impala. But I will post up the details soon so all can draw their own conclusions.

Samwise: The buff hunt is in '06. Shoot me a pm or an e-mail and I'll fill you in on the details of the job. May be seeing more of you in my new role.

Labman: Yep, I did get to use my own rifles this time. I travelled through Frankfurt so that I could. Send me a PM with your new e-mail. I lost the PM you sent before when we upgraded to the new software.

Richard: You bet! Maybe at Bill's (just about halfway for both of us!).

Cheers,
Canuck

Chris,

I hope you do post a picture of that GS Custom as I am sure it will raise a few eyebrows. I bet the remainder you have will never see Africa again!
Regards,

Pete

Hey Pete,

I really don't have the time to do a complete shot by shot breakdown yet, but I did get a picture of the bullet. Since you asked for it, I'll post it up for discussion.

It was the only GSC bullet we recovered. The rest were complete pass thru's. It is a .375 265gr GSC HV (mv = 2750 fps). I shot a Waterbuck with it at 60 yards. It was quartering towards me and I hit it on the point of the shoulder. As you can see, it obviously did not open up. Near as I can tell, the bullet swerved off line and did not fully penetrate the vitals. The bullet was found against the hide on the near side (found by the skinner). We followed up on the waterbuck and caught up to it after about 200m's (fortunately we could hear it staggering, and falling...the blood trail was very poor). I ran up to where I could get a clear shot and dropped it for good with a shot through both shoulders.

Here is the bullet....



As I mentioned, all other shots taken were complete pass thru's. At least one other shot had strange results though. This one was at an impala, quarting toward me at 80 yards. It was also shot with the .375, as I was hunting zebra at the time. I hit it in the near shoulder. Based on the angle, I expected the bullet to come out behind the far shoulder. It actually swerved inside the impala and came out of the paunch just before the hind leg on the far side. It then entered the rear leg, shattered the femur and excited the rear of the leg. Phenomenal penetration for sure, but not very straight penetration.

It seemed to me that most of the game shot with these bullets reacted as though I had shot them with solids. With the exception of the impala with the broken femur, they all ran off further than I am accustomed to seeing and blood trails were not that good in spite of having entry and exit wounds. In my previous experience in RSA, all but two of the animals I shot with Swift A-frames literally dropped in their tracks.

I can't say that the HV performance was bad (other than the bullet in the picture above), but I think I will go back to the premium softs I am more familiar and comfortable with (Swift A-frames).


Cheers,
Canuck

Chris & Pete,

I'm glad to hear the following:

quote:

PeteE...thanks for clearing up the issue about Henk being a cowboy. You got it exactly right. I have some video that I will post one day with the second mamba (the pictures, the shot, etc). Henk has a very healthy respect for snakes....since anti-venom is not an option, his next snake bite could very well be his last.

A little more on how fast a black mamba really is and I sincerely hope your PH gets this to read as well:

quote:

Typically, when black mambas sense danger, they will slide away to the nearest hiding place, and are capable of doing this at 20 km/h, which makes the black mamba one of the fastest snakes in the world.

Black Mamba

Só, if Henk was standing 20 meters away from that termite mount when he took that photo, which I doubt even with a 10x zoom, that mamba had the potential to reach him in 3.6 seconds!
Before he would knew it, it could have been too late.
I think one can assume that their speed when attacking is perhaps a bit faster - still in 3.6 seconds one can hardly step aside.

I trust that this little bit of info would help hunters visiting South Africa in future to be very careful.

Canuck, great Pics. I am glad that the tick fever was not as bad as it could have been. You were right. I am going throuh post African depression. The only cure is to go back again. It was great meeting you and Cyril.

Roger

Hey Roger!

Nice to see you drop by. Sorry to hear about the PSD (post-safari depression), but we knew it would happen, eh? The symptoms will ease significantly when you are booked for the next trip! Looks like that Harley might have to wait, eh?

It was sure great meeting you and Serena! We had a really great group in camp and that can sure make a big difference.

Hope to see you around AR often. If you get a chance to put up some pics, I am sure everyone will enjoy them. You got some great animals!

Cheers,
Canuck

Lust and envy! You scored on "hellbeast". I hunted them for close to five days and went home empty handed.

Congratulations on your fine safari.

Thanks Nitro! It was a pretty good way to kick off the hunt. I hadn't planned on shooting one, but told the PH if we saw a really good one that I could be convinced to add it. Sure enough, about 2 hours later we snuck in on this on, which is a pretty decent 24"er.

Here are some more pics of it..





I am pretty happy with this Canon S1 IS camera...it takes some nice photos.

Here are some more pics of the others...

First is the #1 wartie. It goes 12 1/2" and I was(am) SUPER tickled with it. Warthog was the highest priority for me (not kidding), since I got skunked on them last trip. I also added this pic to the original post...



The kudu sure turned out to be something. I usually like the wide ones, and got a pretty wide 51"er on the last trip. But I decided to hold out for a pretty one with tips out. This one is not wide, but sure is pretty and has deep enough curls to come up just shy of 55 inches. I think the look on my face says it all...



Last, here is another pic of the nyala. The nyala at Landelani are not particularly large, but they were certainly challenging to hunt. They are such a beautiful animal. I was really pleased with this one...



Will continue to post more photos and some stories as I get a chance.

Cheers,
Canuck

Canuck you had way too much fun.
Take care,
Dave

Canuck,

Congratulations on your hunt and very nice trophies.

Hamdeni

My favourite kudu shape! My most "unfavourite" snake stories, except when they have finally drawn their last breath. Phew!
- mike

Congratulations! I can see you had a great time. Thanks for the story and all the pictures.

Congratulations on a great hunt, Canuck! Those are good animals indeed. And that 24" Hartebeest is more than decent in my eyes.. 23" is Rowland Ward minimum, and even after the horns have dried, they should measure up.. Not that the book is that important, but you know what I mean...
Great pics as well!

the warthog looks like he's laughing...better shoot em' again...could be faking it.

thanks for sharing...

quote:

Congratulations!

Did you keep the snakes for mounting?

I shot a cape cobra out of a bush in Namibia last year but it is gone missing from the salt shed, I am told. I would have liked to have the skin to help remember a scary experience.

Canuck,

Thanks for sharing your Excellent photo's & story, what a time you had.

Africa has been in my dreams since childhood and will have to wait a few more years, it's stories & pic's from hunters like you that keeps the fuel on the fire.

Kudo's-Ron

Congrats. Bet you are already planning a return trip.

Thanks again for the congrats guys. Hope to get some more pics uploaded over the weekend.

Onefunzr2: No, we didn't keep the snake. Just left it where the incident occured. Kinda wishin we had at least taken it back to the salt shack for some more pics....and maybe mamba stew!

Cheers,
Canuck

Weidmann's Heil! Well done. A tremendous group of excellent animals and a wonderful hunt. Glad you are back safe. Kudude

Chris,

Bien vu, la barre est haute mais le plaisir plus encore.
Congratulations, very nice trophies. Don't regret not to have got a zebra. Your Kudu and your warthog, in fact all you have is memorable.