2010 Namibia Hunting Trip Report with African Plains Safaris.

Hunt Dates: September 18-25, 2010

PH: Schalk W Pienaar

Main tracker and assistants: Lukas

Hunt Location: Omaheke province, Namibia
Southwest of the town of Gobabis, Namibia

Game Hunted: Warthog, non-trophy Gemsbok, Kudu & Red Hartebeest

Game taken: non-trophy Red Hartebeest, Blue Wildebeest, Gemsbok, trophy warthog and Kudu bull

Game seen but not hunted: giraffe, duiker, steenbok, ostrich, Burchell’s zebras, impala, brown mongoose, monitor lizard various birds, and NO snakes.

Rifles Used:
Mossberg Model 1500 in .338 Win Mag with Barnes 250 TSX bullets (none recovered)
Ruger 77 Hawkeye in .270 Win. With Nosler 150 Partition bullets (non recovered)

This was the follow on hunt to my South Africa hunt and started with the folks from Infinito Safaris in South Africa taking me to the Johannesburg airport on Saturday Sept. 18, 2010. This was about a 4 hour drive and upon arrival at the airport I did all the check in stuff for my flight with Comair Limited, a partner with British Airways for the two hour flight from Johannesburg to Windhoek, Namibia. The flight itself was uneven full and really no hassle with them as far as getting my guns checked in, didn’t even have to pay the extra $80.00 firearms handling charge that BA is sticking to its gun toting passengers these days. Gun clearing with the Namibian police at the airport was fast once the police opened up the permit office, seems I was the only passenger traveling with a firearm. My PH, Schalk W. Pienaar who is the principle holder of African Plains Safaris met me at the airport and once the gun permit was done we quickly left the parking area there and started the 2 hour or so drive due east to the town of Gobabis where we then turned in a southeasterly direction for the last hour drive to the Pienaar farm, also called Masindi. Upon arrival at the farm, I was shown my room for the duration of the hunt, one of the bedrooms in the main ranch house and meet Schalk parents, Jan and Johanna and talked with them all for the next few hours as we became more acquainted with each other. My program here with Schalk was to simply enjoy hunting once again in Namibia for the next 5 days while in the pursuit of non-trophy animals, specifically a red hartebeest, kudu, and several gemsbok. On both my previous trips to Africa, I had shot and lost a gemsbok bull on each trip and considered them my jinx animal and simply wanted to hunt more of them. I had met Schalk at a local outdoor show in Jan 2010 in western Washington where we discussed hunt possibilities and chances to get some non trophy hunting in for a less expensive fees for animals shot. Also since I had never shot a warthog before and missed opportunities on those in South Africa we discussed a simple substitution of a warthog trophy for one of the gemsbok I had on quota with him and then pay the difference in the fee between them. Schalk agreed to this and so a warthog was added to the bag list. Later in the hunt we did another gemsbok substitution for the blue wildebeest I shot on the morning of the last day.
I’m not going to recoup each day individually, but more of a general statement of how things went. The farm here is close to the Kalahari Desert in terrain and features, the country much flatter than what I hunted in SA the week before. Lots of camel thorn acacia trees and knee high brown grasses and other various thorn bushes and brush. Walking in the loose sand, especially on the dirt roads would prove to be quite exhausting, but we kept at it every day and I did much more walking here than before. The ranch here is about 50, 000 acres in size and about 20,000 of it was under high fence. Hunting was done both in the high fenced area and outside of it. Most days started around 6:00 am and we would leave the main house by 6:30 am for the drive to whatever hunting area we were going too for that day. We would hunt until about noon, come back for lunch and a rest break and then leave again about 3 pm and hunt until dusk, returning for dinner, usually served about 8 pm and then small talk and then to bed. As I was the only hunter here, we, Schalk, his parents and I would all eat together (except for breakfast which was always self serve cereal and fruit and juice) in their new lapa area where Jan did most of the meat grilling over an open acacia tree fire. I tasted the game meat from eland, gemsbok, red hartebeest, blue wildebeest, and beef from the farm cattle throughout my stay here, everything always tasty and plenty of it available at meals. Beer and wine were also available for both lunch and dinner if desired.
Our hunting strategy each trip out was to drive to the hunting area, where Lukas would then take over the baki driving with Schalk and myself in the back of the open hunting truck. We would slowly cruise the many dirt roads looking for any animal on the list. Schalk and even Lukas in the truck cab were of course much better at spotting game than I was. Typically by the time I would see something, usually due to its moving, they had already seen the animals and evaluated the potential for a possible stalk on it. Often times, Schalk would say it’s time for a walk and he and I would leave Lukas with the truck and take off cross country thru the bush, usually with one of the many dried game pans as the place we wanted to walk into to see if any animals might be loitering in them. The first animal I was to take here would be a red hartebeest cow from a herd that we followed on a parallel course for probably 30 min before I had a chance to shoot. Since fairly large animals were the targets here, my plan was to just use my Mossberg 1500 in .338 win Mag caliber for all the hunting. This rifle plan worked well until the last day of hunting of which I’ll explain more later on. Anyway at the shot at the red hartebeest, the herd scattered and we saw there were more animals than we had known about, with them running in various directions and while I hit my animal well, we quickly lost sight of it in the confusion. Long story short is we did eventually find this cow dead, but in a direction different from where we thought she had run off. Lukas actually found her while doing a type of criss cross search pattern. After pictures were taken, and the cow loaded on the truck, Lukas then drove back to the main house to get it unloaded while Schalk and I did another bush walk to a different water pan where we planned to sit until Lukas returned with the truck.


My first warthog came later this same afternoon from another dried pan we snuck into. A bonus with this pig was that it was an old and skinny boar with worn down tusks that I was allowed to shot at no cost. Worked for me when that was offered and I wasted no time in getting off a shot when the chance came. I learned how tough these animals can be too, it took 3 rounds in the end from the .338 to finish this pig. Second animal in the bag and day one came to an end.


The next few days of hunting was to be more of the same, Drive out, spot animals, stalk some on foot if they were worthy, blow some stalks, miss some shots and so forth. On the third day I finally connected with a pair of gemsbok in the morning. The cow came first, a solo animal that Schalk found feeding calmly along, one we were able to get close to and I had this one down too with only one shot Now here I start to think maybe my gemsbok jinx is broken, I finally successfully get the first one I shoot.


More pictures, winch load it on the truck and Lukas again takes it back to the house for processing. During this we walk to another dried pan and find some undisturbed zebras in the middle of it so find a comfortable spot under some brush to just watch and wait and see what else might come in. Doesn’t take long a few gemsbok are seen, a shooter bull in the lead among the group. Sneaking a bit closer, I finally take a kneeling shot from my Bog Pod tripod shooting sticks and while I hit the bull, it turns out to be a shot to far back. I get off a second shot on this bull before he escapes into the brush on the far side, but by no means is this a sure thing yet. About this time Lukas is back with the truck and we all go looking for blood or any other sign of where this bull has gone. Initial searching is slim and now I think the jinx is back again. Due to Schalk and Lukas’s persistence and with the aid of King their tracking dog we do get on the trail of this bull. Eventually I get a second shot into its rear ham but it’s still running strong. Here is where youth and stamina take over as Schalk now runs after this bull and soon enough I hear a couple of shots and then he calls on the radio and says the bull is down. In all we spent over three hours trailing this animal but in the end it too is down and pictures are taken and then it’s loaded for the trip back to the house. Since this has taken us past noon, we all go back for lunch and rest break.


In the afternoon it’s back out again and this time a non-trophy kudu bull is what we are after. Haven’t seen many kudu bulls so far, and when a pair of good bulls are spotted the chase is on. They know they have been spotted and so we keep looking for them from the truck as they continue to evade us. After a time the bulls are seen again and soon enough a chance for a shot is there, albeit this is going to be a longgggggg shot, I’m guessing over 350 yards. After three shots I’m not sure I hit the targeted animal as they have had enough and run off again. Soon enough we get to where they were standing and look for proof of a hit. Nothing there, but Schalk sees one bull running to our left so we again give chase. Suddenly he stops the truck and we take off on foot thru the veldt and quickly stops again and tells me a bull is lying in the grass in front of us. At first I don’t see it, but then I catch a glimpse of its horn sticking above the grass and we figure it’s wounded and I get into position over the sticks for another shot. After the shot, maybe 50 yards at this point, the bull slumps and dies where it was lying. Turns out one of my first shots had broken the right rear leg and after the initial adrenaline rush the bull had enough and chose to lie down. While this was supposed to be a non-trophy also, it turns out this is to be the best animal taken hunting here at Masindi ranch in Namibia. Rough scoring in the field shows the horn length is probably low 50’s, a respectable bull. After we get it back to the main ranch house and a tape measure is produced and the bull re measured we find that the left horn is just barely under 56 inches in length and the right horn not far behind that. WOW, what a trophy this turns out to be and instead of a flat rug, which is why I wanted a non-trophy to start with, I change my plans on this bull and it is caped now for another eventual shoulder mount. More budget breaking decisions, but it’s too good an animal for just a euro mount (at least in my book).




Nothing is going to top this, but the hunting continues and on the last day I get a blue wildebeest cow, for another flat skin and euro horns.


Here bad luck strikes while we are taking pictures. I had hung my rifle by the sling over the tripod shooting sticks when a strong gust of wind blows them both over onto the rocks near where I had shot the wildebeest. The front of the scope bell gets a serious dent in it, but of bigger concern is what happened to the scopes zero? I decide that instead of wasting ammo on trying to check the zero I’ll simply switch to my other rifle for the last afternoon, as a warthog will be the only target we plan on trying to get. The plan for that is to use a stone blind in the large pan we are in and sneak in early in the afternoon and see if a shooter will come in before dark. That we do and over the course of several hours of waiting in the blind, finally a shooter pig comes in and I get a chance to nail this one too. One shot from the .270 while resting it on the window sill and the boar is mine as it drops in its tracks when hit by the bullet.


My last trophy of this trip. We load everything back on the truck and drive back to the ranch house. Another fine dinner is served and finally it’s off to bed after a nice hot shower.
The next day is Friday, the start of the long trip back home. First thing in the morning I settle my bill with Schalk and then we start the long drive back to the Windhoek airport so I can catch my 3 pm flight from there back to Johannesburg with connecting flights on British Airways thru London and then finally back to Seattle, Washington. But hold on here, it’s not that easy as it turns out. The 747-400 has mechanical issues shortly after takeoff and we have to return to Joberg’s airport. BA does put us all up in a local hotel and provide meals as well for the inconvenience. Eventually the plane is fixed and later that day leaves for London. In the end this delayed my return by almost 24 hours, but one good thing in this is that I convince the BA ticket folks that I shouldn’t have to pay the $80.00 firearms handling charge, and that is what happens, no fee was paid on the return trip. It’s just a long trip home with this delay, but I do get back and again BA does a great job of keeping track of any firearms they may be carrying and when I finally get to Seattle all bags are accounted for. The only repeated and constant question from all the BA folks I dealt with was about where was my ammo. Well I didn’t bring any back so that was an easy question, I have none and they all seemed happy when I gave that answer. In Seattle, immigration and customs are pretty smooth, no issues with the guns as I have my 4457 forms in order and soon enough am on the outside curb waiting for my daughter to pick me up. Once I finally get home I truly know this third African adventure is over and I had a great hunt and got some good animals in both countries I hunted. That’s about it folks.
Best regards to the AR family,
Willi

Again, congratulations on a successful safari (second on this trip)! Mission accomplished for sure! Great report and photos.

Best regards, D. Nelson

Nice report and some really nice game.
Those gemsbok are TOUGH! I had a very similar experience with mine.

Great report, thanks for that. Like it was said above, Gemsbok are tough.

Congratulations on a very nice kudu.

Congratulations on the fine trophies. Looks like you had a great time. Thanks for the report.

Sounds like you had a great time. You are right, Gemsbok are tough. Don't feel bad about your shooting. I hunt with a Remington 300 Ultra Mag and had to put three rounds in my first Gemsbok and two rounds in my second, My last Gemsbok dropped like a rock with a single shot that broke his neck.