Well, I finally figured out how to post photos, so can now share our better-than-imagined first African hunt! We hunted in mid-June on Nomtsas Farm in Southern Namibia, about 3 hours south of Windhoek. This is very dry, open country, but is flush with game. Several have reported on the great Gras Ranch here on AR. Nomtsas is a neighbor about 30 miles to the west, and even larger than Gras. The owners are Heino and Heide Voigts, and thier son Albert helps with guiding and booking.

Three of us (friend Bill, myself, my 31 year-old son) took 27 head of game in five days of unbelivable hunting. Being our first trip, we could have cared less about scores, but virtually everything we took went "Gold". Nomtsas obviously doesn't overhunt their 138,000 acres, and trophy quality is excellent.

My son took the best of six springbok, this one scoring 43 3/8



He used his Sako .30-06 with 180 Nosler Partitions at 2800 fps.

I took a really fine black wildebeast at around 250 yards with my Sako .338. I was loaded with 200 gr Nosler Ballistic Tips for lighter game, but one shot high in the lungs did the trick, anyway. I later switched to 225 Nosler Partitions, recognizing that most of the game we would run across needed "more" rather than "less" bullet.



The number and quality of oryx (gemsbok) is outstanding here. Bill took the best of three bulls with his Sako .300 Win/ 180 Nosler PT.



Jake took the only cow, but boy, what length!



They don't claim great "trophy" quality in their kudu, but despite that, I killed a truly nice one, going 55 inches.



Albert, who is pictured with me, did a quick field measurement and exclaimed that it would go "Gold". "We guarantee clients that they will NOT kill a gold kudu here", he said. "In that case", I replied, "I demand my money back "

Nomtsas hunts a strong population of indigenous Mountain (Hartman's) Zebra on a relative's 10,000 hectares located about an hour away in the Naukluft Mountains. Bill and I both took really nice animals in a morning's hunt there. My stallion dropped with a single shot to the neck from my .338/225 Nosler at about 275 yards. Bill took his immediately following my shot as the group strung out up the side of the mountain at similar yardage.



Red hartebeast was on my "maybe" list, but when I saw this bull, I immediately moved hartebeast up to my "definate" list. Reference material lists a hartebeast bull at 180kg, or slightly under 400 lbs, but they are the toughest 400 pounds I've ever seen. The first shot took it squarely in the heart/lungs at 250 yards or so. It traveled maybe 50 yards and went down. When we got to it, it still had some life in it, so I put another .338 into the chest that literally seemed to roll the antelope over, but up popped its head again! It took another in the neck to convince it to go on to its reward.



Both Bill and Jake took warthogs, with Bill's being the larger.



I had wanted a warthog, but after hunting for a while on our last hunting day, I told Heino that I wanted to quit without shooting one, that way I would leave something to come back for! In addition to the nine species we took (including jackal and baboon), we saw blue wildebeast, giraffe, plains zebra, eland, blesbok, and ostrich.

Nomtsas is a working ranch with several hundred head of Santa Gertrudis cattle. They set aside about 50,000 acres exclusively for game, but game is also abundant on the grazing land (which is where we killed all three of our kudus, as well as our two warthogs and several springbok.) The family is warm and friendly, and the accomodations are sparkling clean private rooms, each with it's own private bath. We even had a private sitting room with a fridge and a gunsafe for our guns and valuables. THERE WAS NOTHING MORE THAT WE COULD HAVE ASKED FOR! They made us feel like family and every minute there was a pure pleasure.

We were actually their first group of American hunters, other than a couple of guys a neighbor had sent over for springbok. Heretofore, all of their hunters have been European. No disrespect to Europeans, but Heino says that his European clients are sometimes frustrating to guide because they are unaccustomed to shooting at the typical 200-350 yards that is common in this very open country, and are also unaccustomed to making quick shooting decisions on game that, once spotted, will not stay put long. As his first Americans, he was delighted to see that we were not hesitant to take longer and quicker shots, and you could almost read his delight when Jake muffed a standing shot on his warthog, but then jacked another round in and dropped the piggy on the run. Heino definately wants more American hunters! If you're thinking of Namibia, look over their website at http://www.namhunt.de/en/huntstart.html If you contact them, tell them that Steve from Texas told you about them and they'll turn handsprings catering to new American hunters (not that they would abandon their European clients, just that they obviously enjoyed their experience of hunting with Americans).

BEAUTIFUL Kudu!!

A few more photos, as Bill and Jake might get their feelings hurt if I don't post their kudus, also:

Jake's was a really old guy with unusually close together parallel horns. It was killed not more than a half-mile from mine.



Bill's kudu had a beautiful shape.



This jackal stopped for me at 200 yards and I made a lucky shot on him. Willem, our tracker (who fortunately didn't have to track anything) displays the jackal.



Jake and Bill relax near the pot full of soaking trophies.



Of six springbok, all went "Gold". We had 3 of 4 oryx "gold" with the fourth "silver". The red hartebeast was "gold" and the black wildebeast went 20 points beyond "gold". Bill's and Jake's kudus were high in the "bronze", with Jake's just missing "silver", and my kudu was easily "gold". I have no doubt that if you wanted to make the "book", you could spend a few days with Heino and he could put you on both a top ten springbok and oryx. But when I go back, I'll just be hunting for pleasure and any medals or record book heads will just be icing on the cake.

Some beautiful animals there! Congratulations. I'll bet it beats hunting those central Texas deer! LOL

I love the fat old zebra. Nice hartebeast too. Looks like a great trip.

Congrats on a successful hunt. Ain't Namibia great?

Namibia is a wonderful place, it looks like you had a great trip. Your son is all grown up, he was about half that size the last time I saw him.

Hey, Jerry! He's gotten bigger, but that Kent County buck you did of his in 1987 hasn't shrunken any.

Not African, but here's his elk from last fall; he's long since gone off and left the old man in his dust in terms of collecting quality trophies.

quote:

Originally posted by Stonecreek:
Albert, who is pictured with me, did a quick field measurement and exclaimed that it would go "Gold". "We guarantee clients that they will NOT kill a gold kudu here", he said. "In that case", I replied, "I demand my money back "

Don't you hate it when the outfitter doesn't live up to their advertising?


Great report!

What a Safari. Congratulation.

Mayby i should also go there for Springbuck and Oryx in the near Future.

Seloushunter

quote:

Originally posted by mboga biga bwana:
What a Safari. Congratulation.

Mayby i should also go there for Springbuck and Oryx in the near Future.

Seloushunter

I don't think you'd be disappointed. Drop me a note if there's anything else I can tell you about the great folks at Nomtsas.

Congratulations on your successful hunt. Great pictures.

Follow up: Here's how our Euro mount trophies from the trip above look when displayed. They are on a screened porch where they are protected from sunlight and rain, but not from temperature and humidity changes. Shoulder mounts would suffer quickly under these conditions, but the Euro mounts should last virtually forever. The screened porch makes an ideal place to display them amd promotes domestic harmony. They are constantly visible to me from my easy chair through large plate glass windows. But, they are not actually "in the house", much to the delight of my wife, with whose decorating theme she feels they do not fit. However, she actually likes them on the screened porch. They seem to fit well with its "outdoor" theme. I actually got the idea when we went to see our shipping agent in Windhoek. We visited on his outdoor patio with a thatched roof where he had a number of Euro mounts tastefully displayed. They looked so natural in that outdoor setting that I thought I would try the same and am not disappointed. I saved the cape from the larger kudu (currently displayed on the stone fireplace) with the intent of getting a shoulder mount done, but having no really appropriate place for a shoulder mount I think I will leave it as is.

Did you have your Black Wildebeest scored? I bet he will go high. Nice trophies, congrats to you all. LDK

Our hosts scored it at 212.5 (cm). I watched as they scored and they were fairly meticulous but only ran through the measurments once, so I'm guessing this is within a few cm one way or the other of accurate. The "Gold" category starts at 192, so yes, it would appear to be a rather high-scoring head. If my math is correct, the metric score converts to between 83 and 84 inches.

As I said, being our first African hunt we really had no frame of reference for trophies and would have been happy with any represenative animal. But it is nice to have been able to hunt fully mature trophies on a place where hunting pressure is not excessive and they have obviously been allowed to reach the appropriate age before being taken.

Very nice indeed. Congrats, David

Great pics, four of us are going to Namib in 4 months. This report just stirs the pot.....cant wait.
Congrats on what looks like a great hunt.