25 September 2013, 19:52
FjoldKaroo Wild Safaris- East Cape, Sept. 2013
Sept. 10 – Sept 20, 2013Outfitter - Karoo Wild Safaris – Vic and Lindsay Watson - East Cape, South Africa
Hunters – Frank and Tom
Guns – Winchester M70 Classic Safari Express in 375 H&H using Barnes 300 grain TSX. Ruger M77 (tang safety) in 338 Win Mag using the 225 Barnes TTSX. Both guns had 2.5-8X Leupold VX-III scopes
Animals hunted – Kudu, Gemsbok, Impala, Blesbok, Warthog, Bushbuck, Blue Wildebeest, Vervet Monkey, Baboon
Animals taken - Kudu, Gemsbok, Impala, Blesbok, Warthog, Bushbuck, Blue Wildebeest, and Vervet Monkey.
Animals seen – All the above plus Steenbok, Duiker, Rock Hyrax, Hartebeest, Springbok, Mountain Reedbuck, Klipspringer, Zebra, Waterbuck, rabbits, mongoose, secretary bird, hawks, eagles, bustards, dove, pheasant, ducks, geese, porcupine, At Addo Park – elephant, ostrich, jackal, kudu, hartebeest, warthog, lion, tigers and bears, Oh my! (The last two are a joke, relax)
This was a family trip for plains game with my brother to get him his first trip to Africa.
Up at 6 AM, we go to look for Gemsbok. Tom takes a cull cow that was 100 Lbs. underweight, with short horns that were flaking and peeling. Vic says that the cow was free because it had “heart water”, a tick borne disease, and he wanted it off the ranch. I didn’t get a good picture but Tom broke the ice on his first animal in South Africa for free.
Tom later in the morning gets a nice Gemsbok:
That afternoon I took a nice blesbok. I hadn't planned to take a blesbok but it was a great ram so I couldn't resist.
The next morning we’re up to look for Blue Wildebeest.
One shot at 150 yards. I love the 375 H&H!
I don’t know blue wildebeest standards that well but his horns are curved a couple of inches outside of his ears, with old cracked bosses so he’s a good bull.
We drag the elongated wheel barrow shaped game cart up the hill and get the bull loaded for its ride down to the truck.
Tom sees some football sized warthogs and the ranch owner tells him to shoot them because they’re pests. Tom knocks down a piglet at about 100 yards.
The next morning we chase warthogs and impala at another concession and Tom takes a sow warthog at 150 yards;
The next morning, it’s up into the mountains. The wind is blowing at 20 MPH with gusts above 30 MPH. Three hours later, we spot a good bull about 800 yards below and start the stalk going straight down the mountain. At 70 yards, Tom shoots a nice
The slope was so steep and brushy that we had to cut the bull in half and slide it (on a tarp) down to the road in two trips.
The next day we drive an hour and a half to the coast to hunt bushbuck on a low fence dairy farm that borders a high fence nature preserve on one side.
While walking along the edge of the wildlife preserve a large male cheetah comes out along the fence and lays down 5 feet from us.
We walked a few miles around the blocks of brush. Rounding a corner we all hit the ground when the tracker spotted a buck on the other side of a small hill. Vic looked him over and said that he’s a big buck but only had one horn. I asked if it was a big horn and Vic said that it was and that he was an old ram.
I made my decision and slid out and into a sitting position. Bringing my rifle up, I could only see the top half of the ram’s body facing almost directly at me. He had a 2” stub for a right horn but the left side had the classic full twist of a nice bushbuck. I put the crosshairs on the junction of his neck and shoulder and squeezed the trigger. At the shot, the ram disappeared and everyone jumped out to see the ram dead on the ground. Getting up to him I discovered that I had shot the world’s ugliest bushbuck. He had no hair on his face and big bald patches on both sides and the top of his neck and shoulder areas. The tracker opened up his mouth and all he had was worn nubs for lower teeth.
We got him posed for pictures, loaded him into the truck and drove to the farm headquarters. The farm manager came out to look at him along with the farm owner’s, father and they were both glad to see that I had shot the old, one horned “killer”. He opened up the ram’s mouth and said ‘Ach, He’s old!” I asked him how old bushbucks get and he said that they could live to 15 years. I then asked how old this buck was and he said “14 and a half”. We all had a good laugh at that.
We found the bullet while skinning the ram under the skin at the back of the ram’s rear leg. It had broken the ram’s neck and then deflected, travelling the entire length of the ram’s body, coming to rest under the skin on his butt. The bullet weighed 299.1 grains at home on my reloading scale.
The next day Tom winds up taking a younger, broken horned ram when a group of blesbok and a wild goat running with them, blows our stalk on the older herd ram.
Our last day in camp, Vic spots another small herd of about 20 Impala, “Just over there”. To a South African, “Just over there”, means somewhere within a mile, apparently.
After a 140 yard stalk that took us just about an hour and a half I shot this nice ram.
Overall, the hunt was just complete fun. We couldn’t ask for nicer people to hunt with, Vic and his wife Lindsay are perfect hosts and since Vic has access to many different hunting areas we could hunt just about any types of plains game that South Africa offers. We didn’t hunt them but we saw and could have hunted zebra, waterbuck, mountain reedbuck, hartebeest, klipspringer, steenbok, duiker and a bunch of other animals that we saw almost every day. Small game like rabbits, hares, porcupine, civet cats, jackals, etc. were also around in abundance.
The staff is outstanding, friendly and fun to be around. The accommodations are extremely comfortable and the food is fantastic. Even though we walked many miles every day, my brother and I both probably gained weight during this trip.
Vic and Tom
