Had to go to Jo-burg to conduct about one hour’s worth of business, and had been putting it off for about a month, trying to figure a way to accomplish what I needed without traveling all the way to Africa. No go. So, I hopped on Delta. I contacted Jaco Human and he set up a 5 day hunt- I wanted to walk in the footsteps of by AR friend Wink, who seems to have a good time with Jaco.

I was dreaming of bush pig and hyena. Really wanted a big old pig for the wall. Hyena (brown) could not be imported into the US, but after several close encounters with them when baiting leopard, I wanted to try for one. Sort of a poor man’s leopard hunt- baits, blinds and blasting at night.

Well, like everything seems to be these days, no one on the business end of things did what they needed to do, and I needed a few more days to take care of things. My plans with Jaco were scrapped. When I wrapped up biz, I still had a couple of days left, so I called my old friend Johan Pieterse, and he took me to his place to hunt.

Set out the hyena baits and looked for pig. Had a hit the first night an the bait and sat in the blind beginning about 5 pm the next day. I kept falling asleep every time I sat down on this trip, including our time in the blind. Johan doesn’t hear too well, but for some reason I woke up at about 6:45 pm and heard the faintest chewing sound. On comes the light and bang, one dead hyena:



Never got a bush pig, but we set some corn out for baboon and waited. Within 30 minutes, we had 2 wathog and three jackal come in, all dropped on the spot. Johan was pretty happy about taking out 3 jackal, as they really wreck havoc with the new impala and other small critters.



In the end, it all turned out nicely, except I got very ill from a bug, thought I would not be able to fly back home, but made it- have been wiped out for quite a while. Going too hard I guess.

very cool pic!! Brown hyena is something you don't see on the hunting sites very often these days.. congrats on the unique trophy..

What type of rifle do you have there? The short stout barrel is of interest to me.

quote:

Originally posted by Camp Dog:
What type of rifle do you have there? The short stout barrel is of interest to me.

I think that "stout barrel" is a normal barrel with a shadow from the flash......

The rifle is a Blaser R93 with a standard tapered barrel. It may appear like a bull barrel but it is not.

Any idea why the jackals came into the corn? Sounds like you made the most of a tough trip. Flying to SA for one hour of business is not good.

Yukon

I don't think the jackal came for the corn; we were set up in a blind hoping for baboon, and three jackal just happened to pass by. Their bad luck - and evidence that the place was crawling with too many jackal...

Some clearing up needed for the uninformed.

How did you get a license to shoot a Brown Hyena legaly in S.A. on such short notice....?

Baboon are not nocturnal-did you sit up and wait for them in day time? If so, bad news, your good friend should know that it is the most difficult animal that you can sit and wait for. They are SHARP. Looks as if you had some success if I look at the bait on the photo with the brown hyena.

Jackal love corn/miaze fields. There is a lot of rodents and other little critters around that make out there STAPLE diet. It is bacause they eat these "little critters" that the farmers do not have pest problem in the corn.....Killing Impala lambs is a rarity amongst jackal, (although I know they do it.....) and not a thing that happen very often. Sheep are more docile, and therefore the sheep farmers of the arid Karoo take a beating in lambing season, which brings me to the next point.....

Where did you hunt, in which province.....

Just curious.

Any case, if you want a big Bushpig and want it bad, let me know. O, and I will put you onto one.....

By the way, some of the other P.H's should be able to back me up on this, baiting for bushpig reminds me a lot of baiting for leopard, although they are not as "sharp", they are far from easy getting into a bait. And what do we bait them with............rotten meat! No fresh Baaaaboon like in your picture.....

What scope is that on your rifle?

Thanks

The scope is a Schmidt-Bender 6x