Dear all
hunt report
hunting agent: Blaze Global Safaris (www.singaporesportshooting.com)
safari outfitter: tomkinsons african safaris (www.tomkinsonafricansafaris.com)
PHs: Jason Van Aarde & Willie Vermaak
Guest PHs : Jess De Klerk & Weisman Nels
asst PH: Danie Robberts

Dog Team : The Amazing Spike, Scruffy the guinea getter & The lady Allegro(leggy)

Gun clearance: www.riflepermits.com henry durrheim - pre-approved at usd90 per hunter.
A short word on this. Henry is a good agent, clearing stuff with minimum fuss even though the SAPS office at Oliver Tambo did give us some problems. Also both the BIDair Staff in the luggage hall and the SAPS staff suggested they were thirsty….eg looking for tips. Frankly I was loathe to tip them as their services especially on arrival were really incompetent, still TIA. Importantly Henry sorted out most things with minimum fuss. On exit the Bidair guys on airside were much better and way more cheerful and efficient, they deserve their tip! By the way Oliver Tambo charges 250 rand handing fees per gun case now…
Hunters: 7 +1 (agent me )



Itinerary: 3.5 days dove and pigeon near Welkom, 4 days driven and walked up guinea fowl, francolin and some plains game extras. Near Rosendaal and Paul roux and Ficksburg Eastern Free state province RSA.
Weather: mild 22°c in the day and 5°c at night it was colder nearer the Wirtenberg mountains. We got rained on a bit in the first days, but its was like an English pigeon day….birds flying made us warm though we got a little damp.

Overall Comments: PHs were extremely hardworking, pushing organization, cooking in the field some days, beaters, dogs and guns all day, while being very entertaining and extremely sociable all night. I have no idea how they do it, but they dealt with every request with smiles and efficient action and immediate remedies.
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All were incredibly patient with our group which included some first time African hunters. Especially since we kept leaving stuff behind like i-phones (in a pigeon field) trousers, expensive custom hair brushes, toilet bags etc etc. The good news was everything was recovered in good working order by the end of the hunt. Bloody amazing service. They even managed to help one hunter buy new boots(his were unsuitable) and do some shopping for something he wanted that had to be sent to a residential address to be picked up…. These guys really did some amazing stuff.



Hunting comments: Pigeons and doves obliged by coming in for 3 days straight. Guns did their job and dropped 1000-1500 bag a day each gun shooting 500-750 shells on average. Good fun was had by all especially those who had never before had such a surfeit of birds.
Driven birds were excellently organized with a strong and energetic beater line…the wet season made this year’s corn very thick,


but we managed to get our bag limits for each gun almost every day bar one. The quality of the birds was amazing with fast close rising guineafowl being the norm and equally good numbers of orange river, grey wing and swainsons spurfowl(francolin).




Driven shooting wild birds is extremely challenging and requires military precision and good knowledge of the ground where resident flocks and other birds are. Hats off to Jason and Willie for doing the stressing for us and getting us excellent all round shooting! Below willie points out where the gun line will be.



If anything we should bring maybe 2-3 more guns for a longer more active gun line next year! This year there were some lucky guineas that jinked past 6 barrels of 32gr no.5 to get away…. Lucky lucky bird!



Doggies all deserve special mention : Scruffy, Leggy and Spike all worked hard, pointing and retrieving and generally doing a bang up job. Spike ran most of the days even though he is 13 and not all that spry any more…amazing dog, heart of a lion. best doggy experience of the trip was scruffy scoffing a dove and then giving us an extremely guilty look as she was reprimanded by Jason!

Btw we saw duiker and steenbok in almost every field we shot and I personally had a duiker flush no more than 3 paces in front of me.
Plains game: 3x blesbok, 1 x springbok, 1x warthog, 1xostrich and 2x jackal were successfully hunted. Hats off again to the PHs, guest PHs and our ever smiling asst PH who worked so hard after hours and while still birding to achieve this. You guys made some first timers very very emotional….no doubt reflected in the amount of congratulatory jagermeister and single malt we made you guys imbibe.

The only real issue this year was the distinct lack of goose and duck….PHs suggested that the enormous amount of standing water in the area had dispersed the populations. I saw no reason to dispute this as the whole hunt 1 only saw 2 pairs of duck and no goose, despite looking at every pond , river and dam we passed. Spike looks forlorn below as apparently he likes nothing better then fetching dead geese from the dam.





For those who say African wingshooting isn’t great, I beg to differ. It may be a little different from pheasant and chukkar, but it is just as good as England, Scotland and the states. In fact on walked up shooting, my guess is that the shooting is a little better as the weather wasn’t as cold as in the mid west or the uk when I last did walked up shooting.



Accommodations:
Gold Guest house Welkom, great ensuite rooms, nice breakfast and good laundry service… our landlady caroline was really top stuff even managing to provide spare power adaptors for our myriad of electronic gear and chargers etc etc….(we can’t help it we are Asians and love our beeping toys)

The Rosendal, Rosendaal, even nicer ensuite rooms in a beautiful spread out property… lovely dining rooms and fireplaces…good in room amenities, I would rate rooms at a conservative rustic4*. Really good and clean. I would have stayed there longer as each room was essentially a suite with sitting room king sized beds and massive bathrooms. Manager Esmirada is as hospitable as she is pretty! Chef does good work and did us tasty game buffets and even cooked up our guinea fowl and francolin.

Moolmanshoek, ficksburg The Nels family has a great place with…cosy rooms, grand dining room and breakfast room, top class food, amazing property…beautiful horses, a great meerkat experience, lovely boerbol dogs…amazing hosts this is my groups second stay there and frankly they’d gladly go back.

The food is so good the chef really must be commended. They even bake fresh croissants, cupcakes and muffins every morning….try his carrot cake and milktart….wowwweeeee! I had 3 slices each. His skilpatties are to die for and his oxtail and lamb shanks are pretty darn good too. They even catered for lovely hamburgers in the field, best cheese burger I’ve had in a while, huge juicy and washed down with great hot five roses tea YUMMY! Traditional Boer farmhouse fayre well done and served with modern plating…. If I stayed here more I’d explode. JF the chef even let me cook some game rendang and guinea fowl curry on our last night.

If you would like to hunt birds in Africa then look no further then tomkinsons. We had an excellent time and will be arranging another hunt for next year.

I hope this was informative.

cheers, Guy (Trapmonkey)

Sounds like you guys had a fantastic time with a great outfitter. It's nice to read a report that is different from our usual fare.
Thanks for sharing your trip with us.

Guy you are letting Africa's best kept secret out of the bag!

The wingshooting is top class in a few of southern africa's hunting destinations - especially when you choose a good outfitter. Glad you all had a great time

Great hunt. A different way for a safari experience. Congratulations

That looks like a ton of fun...

I love hunting upland game in Africa and never pass up a chance to do so when a break occurs while big-game hunting. One of these days I have to focus on a wing-shooting only trip... one of these days.

BTW, does anyone know if they are still doing bird safaris in Kenya?

quote:

Originally posted by Mario:
Great hunt. A different way for a safari experience. Congratulations

I agree cool change of pace. Congrats on your adventure.

Questions: Does RSA prohibit semi-auto shotguns, as it does semi-auto rifles?

Was everyone shooting double guns? If not, what else?

Thanks. Your hunt looks/sounds just superb.

rsa requires a motivational letter for semi anythings rifles or shotguns.... we used 1 semi as the hunter has had a previous op on his hand and shoulder and finds a semi easier to shoot.
my advice is that you send in your motivational letter at least 6 weeks in advance and use a pree clearance agent like www.riflepermits.com or Phasa.


i used a hooligan 870 pump turkey express with a 20" barrel effective though not so gentlemanly huurrgh huurrgh hurrgh... i'm paying for it as my left hand hurts down to the bone and I can't close my hand into a fist at the moment....owwww owww

We had an absolute blast!

Congrats! I hope to bag a couple guinea fowl and franklin when in the RSA in August as targets of opportunity.

Thank you, t'monkey. There may be hope yet for a beloved 1100.

mauser 93...1100s are great dove guns, 1/2 choke and you are away!