(July, 2019)

The lunar landscape in front of us told the story. We'd just driven the bakkie slowly, gently across a rock strewn plain for the past 90 minutes. The old Hi-Lux truly embodied the phrase "it's not the age...it's the miles". With over 650,000 km on the clock, the Hi-Lux Raider lived up to its name and we raided into an unknown land. That truck was part of my first safari in 2012...my second in 2014...and now we bounced, creaked and groaned our way across this arid moonscape. Red dust bloomed, driven by brutal gusts of wind that cut through three layers of clothes.

It had already been a long day, starting at 5am. Sorta. It was dark when we loaded the truck and somehow I'd managed to stumble backwards. Into a water pipe joint. Breaking it, of course...where it spewed it's endless contents without control and at full pressure directly into the open front door of the Raider. For a solid 15-20 seconds.

Craig thanked me for my generous nature, cleaning the interior of the truck out for the first time in the better part of six years. Wandeelay, my one-eyed tracker, took the towel I'd fished from my room and began to dry out the interior. Even in the dark, that one-eyed man had better vision than my 50 year old laser etched 20-15 vision gave me.

This was to be an interesting hunt. I'd hunted the lands of Leopard's Valley twice before and I'd hunted the lands surrounding as well. I love this place...but we weren't hunting here. I'd thrown the dice, asking Craig Done (my PH) to find something different. A few shortened conversations had us chanting Vaal.

Vaaaaaal. Vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal Rheebok.

Did I have any idea what I was really asking for?

A dustdevil spun up in front of us, whipping the red dirt into a frenzy. The ball joints of the Raider creaked. How Wandeelay managed to hang onto the bakkie rails...wait, he was sitting in the back seat. Smart man that one.

A herd of Black Wildebeest scampered off, 600+ yards away they were. We passed a small mound of obviously man set rocks...passed more rocks on the ground...passed more dirt...passed more...well, crap. It was a lunar landscape. Armstrong never passed here...lucky bastard.

Ahead of us lay three fingers...valleys they were. We could watch the wind gust and whip up the dirt, rocking through the canyons. We ate lunch in the truck, pointing at the valleys, the foothills, the mountain tops...fingers tracing the imaginary topo lines ahead of us, outlining the path we would take. This...This...

Was going to suck.

I'm no stranger to high mountains. I spent my juniorhood backpacking the Sierra's and not that far back I enjoyed (yes, enjoyed) a goat hunt in Alaska. The 9 1/4" Goat holds its head high in my trophy room. I turned 50 but there's still some fight left to go. Heck, how much harder was this going to be than Chukkar hunting anyway?

After a lunch we packed in, started walking. And walking. And walking some more. I suppose it was 10 miles (more like 2) before we found our way to the foothill part of the journey. Vaal was up in them thar hills. Vaaaaaaaaaaaal...

Come now, say it with me. Vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal.

We started up the hills, paused a few times...started glassing. The second PH at Leopards Valley - Ryan...or was it Jim? Wait, Ryan. No, ehhh. Ok, so That Guy made some prophetic words. "They start running when you open your door in the morning". Damned if we didn't see a set of duff gray tails disappearing over the horizon. We leaned back, buttoned up, breathed deep as the Klipspringer watched and laughed.

And laughed some more and the unusual bi-peds staggering their ways along. What were those pointy sticks and shiny things they were carrying anyhows?

A quick plan was discussed. Vaal could wait a minute. Or three. They were perhaps 400 yards out - in the wind too far to really take a shot with an unfamiliar rifle and questionable ammo. But that's another story. We'd put a stalk on the Klippy's - there were three of them, two males and a female. Besides, they were in the direction we wanted to go. See, we'd take the gully in front of us, walk up it a ways until we were out of sight, come up out of sight of the Klippy's and skirt the mountain, low and slow like.

The lead male played down on his rock, looking straight at us while the younger two scampered around, chasing each other.

See, we were smarter though. We was hunting. We dropped down out of sight and out of the wind, scrabbling up and down the deep was. Craig said something to Wendy (*I swear, that's how it always sounded to my American ears) and Wendy stopped to reach down a particularly vertical 3 foot (meter) high shelf to help me up. I handed the borrowed Mauser up to Wendy and scrabbled up...my knees and vertigo starting to talk to me. See, goat hunt in Alaska or not, I still don't like exposed heights.

Come to think of it, I didn't get the rifle back until after we started the final stalk. I wonder how that happened?

Hand over hand, my knees dragging up the wash, we skipped up the mountain, out of sight of the Klippy's, working slowly and quietly. A hundred or two hundred yards later, Wendy helped me up the last shelf and handed me back the rifle. I smiled and took it - yeah, I'm not too proud. Wendy is a lovely man.

Hushed voices, we talked about our final stalk. We were still out of sight, low and slow. Inch by inch we crawled. We crawled shielded behind this short two foot shelf...my knees were barking. Above us, somewhere the Klippy's ...

And he was still sitting on his throne. With two others dancing around. Watching us.

Seriously. Watching us. Laughing I'm sure.

Craig pushed his camelbak forward as a rest and I tried, I tried to get comfortable. The angle wasn't right. I shifted, no good. Handed the rifle back to Craig, moved, reset, tried again. No go. Shift another 5 feet forward, the prone should be better there, no go.

Somewhere above us, the Klippy stood up, cocked its head, spun around two or three times slowly and settled back down, staring straight at us. The others danced around.

I don't know how long we screwed around trying to set up but by the end of it we more acting an episode of the Keystone Cops than hunting. I had a front rest set up with a braced tripod, another set of sticks just forward of the trigger guard, wedged into place with my left hand, rifle in my shoulder and heavily leaning forward. We'd spend 20 minutes now, maybe more, setting up. It also gave us plenty of time to study the Klippy's. The old guy rested on his throne, one horn busted short.

Take Him. Whispered Craig. Little point whispering at 200 yards in the wind. We'd made so much noise...heck, we weren't even bothering to crouch anymore.

The Klippy just kept watching us...I think he yawned...or maybe got cold on the rock. He stood up and stretched...my rest was rock stable as I sent the first round straight over his back. I'd love to give some kind of excuse...I mean, it was a borrowed rifle (a 40 year old Musgrave Mauser) with questionable ammo (it sure felt soft on the recoil and loaded light) and the wind WAS doing a proper thing.

He just looked at us. He KEPT looking us. He just...STOOD there.

"Well, reload" said Craig.

Wendy said nothing.

The second shot was on target and I watched the Klippy give a short sprint before collapsing and rolling down the hill.



Sometimes, the hunt isn't what you expected. Sometimes you just accept what Mother Africa has to offer.

The Vaal? Ahhh...that's another story.

PS: That pipe with the ice-cold morning water flowing its veins...was counter sunk and double safety wired shut. One of Dave's ranch hands asked "How DID he manage to break that"?

I still don't know...


PPS: this thread is created for ANYONE and EVERYONE to post. One Picture, One Story. Those are the only rules!

Great story and great pic of a wonderful trophy!

I was prone, laying in the shadow of a setting sun trying to pick up a duff grey body on a gray patch of shale.

“No, the smaller patch to the right”.

Wait, what?

***
The toll of the previous day had krept into our bones and knees. We’d hunted hard the day before chasing the Vaalies up and over ridge lines and broken mountain valleys. The winds were constant, hard enough that we couldn’t whisper or talk to each other without considerable effort. Gusts would push us around on the unstable surfaces, rocks slid under feet, tumbling down steep surfaces hundreds of feet into the waiting valleys below.

A wrong step here was going to hurt and had real potential to be hunt ending.

We walked and glassed and walked and glassed and then we walked some more. Sidehilling around the mountains we’d gently look around each “corner” only to see the Vallies running away, 700 yards away and showing no signs of stopping. We’d pulled out the spotter on this group and knew there was a shooter in the bunch…representative but not world class.

Earlier we’d stumbled across the Klippy’s, shooting a wonderful trophy. We hadn’t intended to hunt the Klippy but sometimes that's the gift of wild Africa.

We were hunting an area of 20,000+ hectares surrounded but legitimate mountains. So far we’d seen herds of Black Wildebeest (as in 50-60 together), Steenboks, Springers, many bunches of Blesboks and more than a few Vaals (mostly females). This was an “altitude” hunt and at 7,000 feet of elevation and I could definitely feel it in my lungs. Slow and steady…we trundled the bakkie along rough roads and no roads and the wind never, ever let up. Dust Devil’s spun and danced about on the red martian soil.

We started walking down off the mountain - and it was nasty. I’d slipped and fallen three times the day before on the unsteady ground, thankfully doing no more damage than a slightly scuffed palm and new ding in the borrowed Musgrave Mauser. We’d driven more than 60 miles and hiked a dozen more in search. Other than a couple candy bar wrappers and some windburn on our faces we had little to show for it.

Craig and Wendy spoke in Afrikaans about what to do next. Earlier that morning with the frost still on the ground we’d put a stalk on a group of Vaalies, working through a riverbed of tall grasses that reached high over our heads. Three females and a shooter buck. We saw the females disappear over a ridgeline after an hours work but never did see the male a second time (the first was through the spotter…). We chased that group for another 45 minutes, eventually calling it quits while two wonderful Kudu bulls fed down below us.

We could go back to the spot in the morning, maybe see if that first shooter had decided to come back out and play. Or we could go to a new spot a few miles away. It was the last “road” we hadn’t looked. Craig hadn’t been up that road at all. He’d seen it but had no expectations.

Craig looked at me - roll the dice time. “Let’s do the new spot.” I said. Wendy wasn’t sure about that decision and wanted to go back to the one we saw in the morning. I wasn’t sure either but I did know this: I came to Africa to see as much of the area as I could. So, unknown or not, this was new and I was enjoying the scenery as much as anything else.

Craig spun a finger in little circles and we loaded up.

It’s worth noting how unique and special this area was that we were hunting. We were nearly 3 hours and 300km + out of Leopards Valley, in a totally different area of South Africa. Craig had packed a cooler of food, a case of bottled water and some assorted snax for the trip. We were staying at a place called Diepkloof, outside of Nieu Bethesda (home of the Owl House) in the “higher mountains” of South Africa. So far, we’d hunted lowlands for plains game and this was the equivalent of Mountain Hunting. In more ways than one, if the Klipspringers were the Sheep of the South African Mountain Hunting, then the Vaal were the Goats.

Diepkloof was this…well, I’m not exactly sure what to call it. Community isn’t quite right but it is a series of homes in a compound that we had access to. Allegedly a getaway place for some aristocracy it was amazingly beautiful in an artsy kind of way. It had been arranged for us to stay there while we hunted the Vaal. The rooms were lovely and well appointed even if the solar hot water did run out 30 seconds into a shower. Ok, that was, ahhh, bracing. I shivered into the bed trying to warm for 10 minutes.

The thought was that we would be done with the hunt somewhat quickly and had only planned for an overnight on food. Now, with the 2nd day coming to a close we’d decided to call an audible. If we didn’t get a Vaal today (*and it wasn’t looking good) then we’d head into Nieu Bethesda for a resupply and try for the third day.

Eventually, closing in on 3:45pm we’d parked the bakkie on the backside of a bluff…the sun to the right of us cast shadows racing towards us. A few words were spoken - Wendy walked straight out towards the edge of a cliff face while Craig and I went right and up a ways towards the foothills of the mountain.

The radio clicked, a few senseless words were spoken and then Craig had the binoculars out. In the growing shadows, 400 yards out were a couple of Vaal. We could see some great mass on one of them as his horns disappeared just over the ears. He was thick though. We needed to get closer.

Of course they were already staring at us and started to move down the mountain. We backed off, traced an arc that would be out of site and started to move down the backside of the bluff we were on. Maybe we could cut them off. Craig looked at his watch and I saw the mountain far away start to turn to gold in the light.

It was beautiful.

The pain in our legs and knees vanished as we started to double-time the next half mile after the Vaal. Maybe we could pick them up again when we came out on the far end of the bluff. Slowly, slowly…we crept to the edge…and nothing. They’d turned back the way they started while we were hidden and were headed the other way. Craig looked sullen. I felt the pain in my knees coming back. Only one thing to do…

Double back, eat that half mile of walking and then add another mile+ to the stalk as quickly as we could. Perhaps we could catch them at the far side of the bluff. So that’s what we did.

The bakkie, once warm in the sun, was now bathed in the dark. Shadows cast from the mountains to our right grew out into the plains below, gaining hundreds of yards of distance every few seconds. By now half the valley below had changed colors, everything a grey duff tone. The sunlight transformed the far away mountain face into a golden temple. It was truly beautiful and, tired as I was, enjoyed the stalk through Eden. A cliff face of sorts lay 200 yards in front of us…we were on top of it and the Vaal were somewhere below that. If we were lucky, maybe they’d be sitting there at the base…bedded down.

We weren’t that lucky. Duff tails 250 yards out and moving quickly told the story.

Craig tossed his camelbak to the ground on the edge of cliff and I went prone. I turned the scope down to 6x to broaden the field of view. “They’re in the small gray patch of rocks to the right”. Oh, that was helpful. Trying to pick up the gray Vaal in this light…on a gray patch of rocks…I shifted the rifle to the left to look at the patch of rocks and Craig pulled the bag back “No, not that patch of rocks, this one”.

I don’t know how but he had moved the bag exactly enough to have my scope dialed into the middle of the smaller of the two gray sandy patches of rocks. Right at the bottom of my scope, movement. There they were…at the bottom of the gray…moving into the center of the gray. I spun the scope to 10x and settled…“RANGE”.

“320”

In my mind, as well walked up to that cliff my mind had been doing all sorts of mental gymnastics. I’d fired perhaps 10 rounds of this ammo. The night before, after the Klippy and after my trips and falls we’d taken the time to resight the rifle. In Diepkloof the Mauser barked twice, delivering a 3/4” group at 100 yards 1.5” high and slightly left. Two clicks had us dead on and I’d finally come to peace with the two-stage military trigger. But the ammo, the 150 grain blue box ammo…it felt and sounded soft. My best guesstimate was 2,650 fps.

The Leupold VX3 3-10 on this rifle had the standard Leupold duplex…which also meant that the bottom of the crosshairs was…2.89 MOA I think down or nearly 9” at 300 yards for a 30-’06 shooting a 180 gr. bullets at max hunting loads. For once, reading the manual on a scope actually had value. Except this was a soft load…and it was a a 150gr. bullet.

I held the bottom duplex crosshairs about 3” over the back of the Vaal and took up the slack of the long second stage of the trigger. I remember the sear breaking, the rifle jumped…and the longest second of my life transpiring.

“HIT!” Craig said, astonished.

“He’s down. He’s DOWN!”

In what seemed an eternity, I found the Vaal in the scope and loaded a second round, ready. He was down, blood clearly splashed on the distant rocks. I slowly rolled over from the prone position and looked up into the deepening blue sky. Craig was laying on his back as well and we both started laughing. Great laughter and tears of relief. We finally started to breathe again.

It took us a good 15 minutes to walk up to the Vaal. The pain and frustration in our bodies replaced by euphoria of working hard.





Yeah, it was kinda like that. The celebration went deep into the night as a third bottle of wine was uncorked in Neiu Bethesda at the Neiu Karoo Country Restaurant.

Craig looked at me and said "So, shall we go for the Mountain Trifecta and finish this right?"

Robert,

Great read and the trophies are wonderful. The Vallie is a giant. Plz tell me you are doing a life size mount.

One question? With the rifles I know you have why were you shooting a camp rifle?

Mark

Hi Mark,

This is going to be a Wall pedestal along with the Klipspringer and a Mountain Reedbuck. I’ve got a special place picked out for the Trifecta.

As to the rifle: well, three reasons.

First: the changes in SAA and their transport really annoyed me.

Second: this was a short notice Cancellation Hunt (more on that later) and I didn’t have time to get rifle import taken care of.

Third: the rifle I was supposed to use was Craigs personal known tack driving Schutz & Larsen with a suppressor on it. Something happened to it and it wouldn’t group (6-8” groups). My options were either a .375 H&H or the Mauser ‘06. When I saw what the Mauser was doing off the bench it was the obvious choice.

It all worked out great. Old faithful the Musgrave was a very happy hunting choice.

More to come!

Lovely read. That vaalie is a real stud. Still on my bucket list.

Another great pic and story. Hunting Vaalies is, in my estimation, one of the pinnacles of African plains game hunting. Great little animals, wide open big country and great shooting situations-all combine for an epic African hunting experience.

Thanks UEG. The Vaalie hunt was truly one I am going to treasure. Such an amazing and unexpected experience.

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing.


Ski+3
Whitefish, MT