12 June 2019, 16:12
Charlie64RSA Part 1 - The dark side! We crossed the line & became biltong hunters!
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We transgressed. We transgressed heavily and we hunted a high fenced farm in RSA for meat animals and biltong. We hunted with a CZ 30.06 and we even used RSA PMP ammo (168 grain softs) and I wore two-tone 'made in RSA' short sleeve shirts and shorts! We drove back to Johannesburg with 150 kgs of game meat in cooler boxes in the back of the Landrover. And do you know what, we thoroughly enjoyed it!
I booked this short hunt break at HuntEx in Johannesburg in March last year, the annual RSA hunting and shooting show. Four or five days at Mangwe Safaris in Limpopo Province with PH Henna Du Plessis and his wife Candice. It would be self drive there and self catering by Anja and me and we got a 5% show discount!
Henna and Candice, ex Zimbabwe now in RSA, have 1.000 h at Zanzibar on the Limpopo River 500 km from Joburg. In addition to the hunting block they lease land and farm cash crops. Right now it was bell peppers / capsicum - green and red - with 3 tons being picked and trucked to market daily! Later in the season it will be onions. They manage 100 plus farm workers.
It was an easy but long drive out from Joburg with the last stretch being about 75 kms on graded dirt roads up to Zanzibar. I told my wife we were going on holiday to Zanzibar! And that's where we went! The camp was superb, with stilted chalets right on the banks of the Limpopo River, overlooking Botswana. We awoke each morning to the screams of the resident fish eagle and the honking of Nile geese. We fed the resident 12 ft fat croc the guts of the animals we shot and watched as he tore and gulped down lumps of intestine. We braaied oryx filets, beef steak and blesbok liver with onions and we drank Castle beers and great RSA red wines from The Cape. In the cold mornings we kicked the camp fire ashes back into life and drank steaming hot coffee huddled around the fire to take the edge off the winter morning's chill, crunching on home made buttermilk rusks.
The hunting was not easy, the bush was still very green and thick with visibility down to less than 30 meters. Anja 'shot' a blesbok for meat on day 1 and I 'shot' a young gemsbok bull, also for meat. We then 'hunted' hard for big old impala and zebra. We both took good old impala rams pushing 24" but the zebra eluded us. Piet and Harry were good trackers. With them we followed fresh zebra spoor from a water pan early one morning and caught up with the herd within two hours but the wind changed. We continued to track the herd the rest of the day and were close a few times with Anja on the sticks but no clear shot in the thick bush other than a straight on head shot which she didn't want to take. I wouldn't have either.
I'll let the pictures tell the rest of this story plus a few comments along the way and at the end. Here you go -
Some 'post its', thoughts and comments -
1/ high fence and 1.000 h - yes we all know the pros cons debates et cetera but I can tell you a herd of zebra will show you 1.000 h of thick bosveld and you will walk the farm! We did and Anja did not get a zebra.
2/ at one moment whilst walking / stalking, Henna jumped back and thrust the shooting sticks towards Anja and I! I was not immediately sure if he wanted me to take them and put them up for Anja or what. Then we saw it too. A large Mozambique spitting cobra laying at the base of a thorn bush a meter away. Despite the cold snakes were still about.
3/ RSA PHs - again here yes we all know and have heard if all - Land Cruisers, Jack Russells, Glocks on their hips and a license in a week. Well I can tell you Henna works very hard, as a farmer, a PH and a manager. Yes he carried a side arm and so would I, 250 kms from nowhere in the bush. He mentioned that in the last 5 years there have been 2 farm murders in his area, which is two too many, but as they are next to a heavily manned border post and no townships are nearby things are peaceful. We felt totally safe and relaxed - also driving the 500 kms out there and 500 kms back again. Henna and his wife are salt of the earth hard working farmers / hunters.
4/ PMP ammo works! The oryx dropped within 25 m to a double lung shot and both impala dropped within 20 m with the one bullet exiting and the other, Anja's ram, penetrating the whole body from front left shoulder to rear right hip. Made in RSA and very reasonably priced, PMP gets my vote. Also the .30-06 is an ideal thick bush plains caliber again IMO.
5/ Landrovers are great on rough dirt roads! We missed a turn on the way back and drove an unplanned extra 50 kms of tough, tough bush road through the middle of nowhere! We stopped to watch a troop of over 60 baboons feeding on some tree pods. We love our 1996 Landy 110!
6/ I bought myself a pair of Courtney boots. They wear well and are comfortable. Anja thinks they look 'nurdy' and calls them 'Kelly Family boots' after the 'alternative greeny musical Kelly Family' that hit Europe in the '90s. I like them - the boots not the Kelly's.
7/ impala are perhaps over looked and under rated. They are a magical bush animal with excellent senses of sight, smell and sound! There one moment and away with snorts and lengthy 5 m plus jumps the next. Rooibok in Afrikaans, impala in Zulu and Pala in Sotho. It was the end of the rut and we often heard the rams snorting and grunting in the bush. We were very lucky to take two loner, old rams, with great heads. Their necks were thick, their bellies rut stained yellow with urine and scent and their ankle glands swollen and sweet smelling! I never tire of hunting impala! We have hunted plenty plenty over the years. An old big headed impala ram is a special trophy!
8/ warthogs - surprisingly we only saw 3 or 4. Limpopo is a great area for big pig and I had assumed and hoped that we would get a couple of good tuskers but we didn't. There was a cattle farm a few kms away. I guess the owners were feeding the cattle and that's where the pigs will be hanging out.
We may go back next year for three or four days. We would again target zebra plus we would specifically target some of the more unusual animals that we can be baited and hunted at night - honey badger, jackal, genet and civet, maybe with a thermal hand held. That could be fun. They are all there. Tracks and droppings were frequent. Relaxing days at the camp fishing on the river and hunting small game at night! That could be a really enjoyable fun few days that wouldn't break the bank.
Thanks to Mangwe Safaris, Henna and Candice, and thanks to all / any AR readers that came along through this short report too!
Off to new adventures!
Part 2 to follow ....
