Botswana boom boom, winter 2019 (by Robert Krix)

This hunt was with Nkwe Safaris, over six days out of Ghanzi, around 280 kms drive south west of Maun, Botswana.

The focus of my hunt was a Cape eland bull, with Burchell's zebra, blue wildebeest, grey duiker, steenbok and jackal also part of my package. I'd hunted in Namibia four years earlier, also with eland on my list, but the opportunity to hunt this, the largest-bodied of the African antelope, did not eventuate.

Nkwe's owner and PH, Jaco Visser, who has more than 20 years’ experience as a professional hunter - with all manner of plains and dangerous game, runs the operation. Jaco absolutely knows his stuff.

The hunting camp provides tented- and chalet-style accommodation. I stayed in one of the tents which have an outside shower and toilet, a couple of comfortable beds, is bug proof - really all you need for your time in camp. Your laundry is washed and returned to your tent each day. There is a large, well set-out dining area, with seating for around 10, containing a bar - with drinks of beer, imported wines and spirits/mixers available - all part of the package. As for the food served - I score that a definite 10/10 - prepared and served by the camp cook - make that Zimbabwe chef, Godfrey, who also knows his stuff. Three excellent meals per day, preceded by tea or coffee brought to your tent each morning at 6.30am with a full breakfast served at around 7am and then you head off for the hunt.

Nkwe has access to several properties in the district, with game plentiful on all that I covered. The first three days of the hunt were conducted on a 'mere' 40,000 acre block - that's an area of about 160 square kilometres! This block carries around 1,000 eland - about 40% of which are bulls, >600 zebra and who knows how many wildebeest? Bloody heaps of them! There are also kudu, gemsbok, blue and black wildebeest, springbok, waterbuck, giraffe, impala, red hartebeest, ostrich and warthog. A bird shoot for sand grouse, that are plentiful, is also available. I hunted for grey duiker and steenbok on an adjoining block, also a mere 40,000 acres. Overall, there is a ****load of area to be hunted! The game is all free-range, within the confines of the various blocks. Wear well-worn boots and be prepared to do a lot of walking. Morning temps are around 5c with day highs of around 25c. Hot enough, and puts the game down for a snooze by noon, when you head back to camp for the second seriously good feed for the day. You too can have a snooze until you head off again around 3pm for your second hunt of the day. There's also the option to stay out all day with lunch in the bush. This depends on what game you are hunting - e.g. for kudu. I should state here that Jaco's clients get to call the shots regarding how they want to structure their hunt; it's really your camp whilst you're there.

Day 1
As stated, my focus was on eland, so that's what we hunted. Short story, plenty of zebra and wildebeest to contend with, plus plenty of eland that easily 'bust' you in the bush, which is flat, dry, sandy and rocky. We walked about 10km for the day. No luck on day 1.

Day 2
Usual start. Drive into the bush and start walking with Jaco leading the way, me following, then comes Ampie, Jaco's 21 year old apprentice PH and Tex, aka Mr. Magic, the Botswana bushman tracker. There was also a driver, Danko, that's on standby for a call to come and collect you with the Land Cruiser when required.

So, we located a shootable eland bull around 10am, I took the shot over the sticks - boom went the 7mm Rem. mag., and off ran the eland. Lead by Jaco and Tex, we followed a small blood trail, just a few droplets, which dried quickly, for the next four hours, but no eland to be seen. The bull had broken away from the herd, then joined it again and then broke away again, which makes tracking relatively straightforward, as one eland can be tracked, but when it joins the herd again, well - which track is which, particularly with next to no blood trail? Even for a very skilled bushman tracker, this is nigh impossible. We gave it away around 2.30pm and drove back to camp for a quick lunch and then resumed the search for the bull. The trail was, by then, pretty much non-existent however, Jaco did find a tiny bit of dry blood high on a bush, so it was concluded that I had hit the bull high – certainly not a lethal shot. Bummer! Ok. So we push on as there was still game to be hunted. About an hour later we find zebra and more eland mixed together. Eland seem to run ahead of zebra and there will often be wildebeest amongst them too, so there are plenty of animals that can give you away.

Next up, Jaco spotted a couple of bulls amongst other eland and a bunch of zebra. Amazing that a 700-800kg animal can be hard to get a bead on with a clear shot, but with luck, the larger of the two bulls stepped into the clearing presenting a quick shot opportunity from about 80 metres. As I was ready on the sticks - another boom and the eland runs off big time. I was very confident that I had made a good shot, so we went to where the eland had stood and tracked it from there. Much easier this time as the blood trail was bloody, very bloody. One minute later, there's the downed bull. Dead due to a lung shot. These are huge animals. An estimated weight of ~800kg for this one. I called it the 19.6km bull, because that's how far we walked that day as per the tracking device on Jaco's phone.

Soon after, seven Bushmen arrive in a Toyota tray-back, gut the eland, load it onto the truck by hand, no winch, and off they go to the skinning shed. See the image below of the bull hanging on the hoist. Eland are huge.

I should mention here that Jaco provides camp rifles for clients including a .270, 30/06, the 7mm Rem. mag. that I used, or a .375H&H; your choice. You only pay for ammo you use. Alternatively, you can bring your own rifle and ammo, but it will cost you US$200 to import the rifle. Why bother?

Day 3
Had an easy day's start due to the 19km walk yesterday and as I was still jet-lagged from my flight, which was a bitch, as my first flight from Melbourne to Sydney was cancelled due to fog. So, I was late out of there and missed my Qantas flight from Sydney to J'burg. This meant that I had around a four hour wait for the flight to Perth and then another four hour wait to get a flight with South African Airlines - all 11hrs and 40 minutes of it to J'burg. Due to this I had only two hours in my motel room before I had to get back to OR Tambo for my flight to Maun. That didn't go well either as I was re-directed to Gaborone, Botswana's capital, rather than flying directly to Maun. I wasn’t a ‘happy camper’ on arrival, given I then had a four hour road trip to get camp from there. Took me more than 30 hours to get from Melbourne to camp!!

Day 4
This was the day for the blue wildebeest hunt with the usual start. It was all over in about an hour, as we heard a bull 'sounding', (call it a grunt) so we approached cautiously, as the bush is dry, but the breeze was in our favour. As we headed towards the wildebeest bull, two mature eland bulls, followed by about another dozen eland, walk right in front of us - say 40 metres off, and just stood there for a minute or so, just looking; the first time they saw humans? So, they move off and we head off towards the wildebeest. Five minutes later Jaco spots the 'beest' standing straight on, up with the sticks, and boom, the shot hits just above the brisket, and off it runs.....about 80 metres, and we find it down and out; a good wildebeest bull, I am told also known as the 'poor man's' Cape buffalo. The 7mm Rem. mag. does the job again. With correct shot placement it is adequate for such plains game animals.

Days 5 and 6
These were spent hunting for the very elusive and lightning-fast duiker and steenbok. I did manage to miss a shot on two duiker (we all miss) before connecting with a third which Jaco reckoned could be SCI Gold Medal class with horns of 5 inches. Anything around 4 inches is a good representative of the species. These animals bolt at the slightest sound of an approaching vehicle, as we hunted from the back of the Toyota tray, (you need the elevation to spot them) and if you are really, really lucky, they might stop for say, 5 seconds, look towards you and then bolt again. You have to be super quick to get a shot at what is a relatively small antelope. Although you can hunt them in some quite open areas, there is plenty of bush for them to hide in.

Grey duiker and steenbok are two of the ten antelope that go by the tag of the 'tiny ten'. Although we saw a few steenbok, I didn't get a chance at a shot. That's the way it goes. I also had a jackal available as part of the hunt, but we only spotted one that was on the trot, so no chance there either.

Overall, I great hunt and bagged the focus of my hunt - the eland. Jaco estimated it was around 12 years old and its best days were behind him.

Anyone that may be interested in this type of hunt or any other available in Botswana with Nkwe Safaris should contact Jaco’s US agent – Matthew Egan via email: mattegan36@yahoo.com.
Good hunting.
Robert Krix, Melbourne AUS.

Robert asked me to post his hunt report from his recent hunt with Nkwe Safaris. Pictures to follow.

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Wonderful detailed post. Sounds like you had a perfect and memorable as did I. Congratulations.
Cal

Nice! Thanks for posting.

Well done!!!! Botswana is a great destination.

Thanks for posting the report. Nice photos!

Looks great!