12 October 2010, 08:03
Jorge400September Nyala and Bushbuck
As of July I had no hunting trips lined up for myself for this year. Realizing that this would not due I remembered seeing a good deal on a nyala hunt posted earlier this year. The deal was for a 5-day hunt south of Durban in KwaZulu Natal area of South Africa at a very, very good price. With work and other personal commitments, 5 days was about all I could spare and figured this would work well provided I could work the dates out. I contacted John Harris (500nitro here on AR) of Southern African Safaris to see if the deal was still available and if he could squeeze me in at the end of September. Both the deal and the dates were available and I was soon booked on a hunt for nyala as well as a bushbuck. While I have hunted in Namibia on three previous occasions, this was to be my first hunt in South Africa.I departed September 23rd and the flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg was uneventful. The folks at Afton had my gun and permit waiting for me and I had what is becoming my customary steak dinner shortly after arrival at Afton and retired for the night. The flight the next day to Durban was uneventful as well and John Harris was waiting for me just outside baggage claim.
We were to be hunting a ranch called Montezuma, which is about an hour southwest of the Durban airport. Montezuma is approximately 9,000 acres of cattle ranch surrounded by sugarcane plantations and a few villages. The farm is bisected by a river and several feeder streams.
Other than cattle fencing, the farm is un-fenced. The topography is rolling to slightly mountainous and ranges from open to wooded with a significant amount of thick brushy vegetation that I was to learn is preferred habitat for both nyala and bushbuck.
Game on the ranch includes nyala, bushbuck, impala, giraffe, kudu, warthog, blesbuck, duiker, caracal, zebra, blue wildebeest and waterbuck.
The house on the ranch is called Haven Rock and seems to be primarily used as a self-catering lodge by backpackers and bird watchers as well as the occasional hunter. It was very comfortable, very clean and has a perfect vantage point perched high atop a bluff overlooking the ranch.
As I understand it, the hunt offer was brought about in part because this ranch is under consideration to be purchased by the South African government to be turned over to the local community/villages and possibly won’t be available for hunting much longer. Judging by some of the activities of the locals, the game will be quickly decimated by poaching if this is to happen. Twice we encountered teams of poachers and their dogs. Once, they were on the adjoining land and they seemed only mildly concerned with us. The second time, we bumped into two teams of poachers on the ranch minutes apart and they made quick haste in departing. They appeared to be fairly well organized and their dogs well trained. These guys don’t just take their dogs out and try to rustle up game. They work together in several teams and have a plan and spend quite a bit of time training their dogs. One wonders how much better these people could live if they could channel as much effort into legitimate jobs or farming.
The first few days of hunting were somewhat of a challenge. At times it was cold with a slight drizzle and most of the first 3 or 4 days it was very windy at times. While we saw a few bull nyala every day, most were young and the sightings were very infrequent. We saw many more females but only because they seemed to herd up. The weather was clearly playing a part in game movement because our sightings picked up when it broke. Unfortunately, it just didn’t let up long enough.
One thing I was not seeing much of, however, were male bushbuck. We saw the occasional female but no males other than a glimpse of one on the first day. That changed after 3 days. We saw a nice ram early on Tuesday but could not get a shot at him. We herd the barks of one later in the morning and made a mental note to re-visit the area at another time as well as where we saw the ram earlier. Most of the day was spent looking for nyala but early in the afternoon we bumped into another bushbuck ram but again could not get a shot at him. John was very upbeat about the bushbuck because he says they are very territorial and they won’t stray far from their area. He proved his point when late in the afternoon we went back to the area where we bumped the last bushbuck and sure enough he was within 100 or so yards of where we first saw him. Our tracker Bheki first spotted him in the shadows of a tree in fading sunlight and two quick shots later I had my bushbuck. While not overly long, he seems to be quite mature with worn horns that were busted and splintered on the tips.
With the bushbuck in the salt there was only the nyala remaining. Unfortunately, time was running out and I was beginning to rethink my decision to only allocate 5 days for a hunt. After 4 days of weather ranging from clear but windy to overcast, cold, drizzly and windy, we finally had a perfect day and we started seeing game soon. I spotted a nice bushbuck in the same area I caught a glimpse of one on the first day but John reminded me that we had to focus on bushbuck. Very soon afterwards, Bheki spotted a large nyala bull moving through the trees several hundred yards away across the river from our location. I picked him up through my binoculars just as he drifted off into the trees and could see he had very good horns. John could not see him from the cab of the truck but we convinced him he was worth a further look.
We worked our way to another vantage point across the river overlooking the patch of trees he faded into. John said we would look it over a bit then move on. After about 20 minutes I caught his movement but quickly lost him when he stopped. At that point, I was firmly convinced that nyala can completely disappear. This bull was within a few feet of where I spotted him at less than 200 yards and none of us could pick him out until he moved again. We could see that he was a very nice bull but I could not get a clear shot at him in the thick stuff. We ended up bumping him a bit and once he settled down and was walking away I tried a desperation shot at 350 yards but missed.
We figured he would settle back down in the next thick patch he ran into and decided to give him a rest until later in the day and try for him again from across the river. Our planned worked but at the end of the day, I let down my end of the bargain. At this point I should probably click over to the “Lessons Learned” thread and add that just because you have shot lights out in the past does not mean you can make a mildly long shot when you haven’t practiced (thanks for pointing this out to me Wendell). Obviously I missed when my time came to close the deal. Bheki found the bull with another smaller bull and when he stepped clear at about 175 yards, I missed high. To add insult to injury, the bushbuck that we has seen earlier that day was within 65 yards of the bull when I shot and stayed put after the shot but he was not the focus of our attention even after the miss.
I was pissed at myself and making a plan to come back as soon as possible if we were not successful in the little time we had remaining. As I was kicking myself in the back of the Hilux, John stopped and ahead of us a few nyala appeared and nervously moved off. We quickly dismounted and after a short stalk I was able to get off a successful stalk on an nyala.
We had passed several nyala of similar size and larger but at the end of the day I was happy not to come home empty handed especially after dropping the ball on a toad. I am very hopeful that this farm will still be around next year as I would like to come back and hunt it again next year as it is ideal nyala and bushbuck habitat.
John was a pleasure to hunt and spent time with and I would highly recommend him to anyone considering South Africa. Hopefully he and I will hunt together soon on Montezuma.
George