It must be the season to have a good hunt with Christ Troskie Safaris Africa.

Everything went smoothly and many thanks to Chris and Sabina for running such a professional outfit considering they are fully booked this season.

I just got in and Jet Lag prevents me from sleeping so here are my photos. Please keep in mind I AM NOT A TROPHY HUNTER. Rifle is a custom FN Mauser 98 in 9.3x62 with 286 Woodleigh PPSN projectiles.


50" 1.5 curl Kudu. This big boy dressed out at 180kg and was taken at 237 yards (lasered) hitting both lungs. Dead after running 40 metres.

A bit of showing off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-JmvBbw_8Q



Chris's area is teeming with outstanding Warthog but I chose to shoot this fellow as a friend simply needed a set of tusks. 50 metres shot through both lungs, DRT.


Old female Impala with very worn teeth and poor condition shot with express sights at 25 metres. Miss Walker the Jack Russell followed her blood trail like a bullet out of a gun and took us straight to the animal who had been transfixed lengthwise by the Woodleigh but still managed to disappear into the Bush.


This was the culmination of my hunt with Chris. A 2.5 hour tracking job following a very wary and 'spooked' Eland. The whole thing was an amazing team effort. Charles the tracker was (as my teenage kids would say) 'in the zone' tracking this animal without a break or stop. Chris helped find the spoor the three times we temporarily lost it.

With eight minutes till darknes (and night does come quickly in Africa) we bumped the Eland and it was all over in about 3 seconds.

Charles came to a gentle glideing halt and calmly pointed at the Eland which saw us at the same time. Chris went into his characteristic 3/4 crouch and without looking sideways put the shooting sticks out for me to his right. The Eland took off to our left. I put my rifle on the sticks and the Eland changed direction back towards our right. I leveled the 9.3 and looked throught the customised Leupold 1-4x20 with #4 reticle just as the approx. 750kg beast dissappeared behind a bush. I started to swing to the right. Chris was shouting, 'shoot it, shoot it, shoot it'. The Eland came out like a rocket from behind the bush in that typical stiff legged trot they use to eat up ground. I continued to swing the Mauser left to right with the horizontal cross hair midline on the Eland's body. When the vertical cross hair came onto the front of the shoulder I fired off my shot. I must have continued my swing as the shot entered the neck. The huge animal half cartwheeled, half jack knifed over itself in a cloud of dust. It lay stiff as a board with its legs pointing towards us and its head faceing back the way it had come. DRT at a distance from us of 40 metres.

A mate of mine had just lost an Eland in Zim and I was going to take no chances. I stepped left from the sticks shouting 'It's still alive' and placed another round fired off hand between the front legs which penetrated completely through the animal and exited between the shoulder blades. I knew then the 9.3 and 286 Woodleighs were more than enough gun for Eland. I would invite Chris to add any comments if he so chooses.

We were all ecstatic at the culmination of the hunt and the animal dressed out at 385kg. It was a 3/4 Livingstone Eland and the farm manger estimated its age at 7-8 years.

Many thanks again to Chris, Sabina, Charles, Miss Walker (The Blood Dog) and all the staff for a great week.

Code4: Great post. Thanks for taking the time while exhausted. Fine trophies and that eland was an outstanding finish on a great hunt. I have not hunted with Chris, but he has personally answered e-mails and seems like "the pure quill".

Code4,
Love that Eland. I may go after one of those some day. Glad to see you enjoyed your hunt.

Nice animals.

Brett

Cool
Looks like a great time

quote:

Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
Code4: Great post. Thanks for taking the time while exhausted. Fine trophies and that eland was an outstanding finish on a great hunt. I have not hunted with Chris, but he has personally answered e-mails and seems like "the pure quill".

Bill, it might be time to stop emailing and just go .......

Congrats!

Thanks for sharing your hunt as I enjoyed the story and pics!

Good job...

Great pictures. I am glad you had a good hunt.

I sure love to hear about the Jack Russels... Good shooting and Chris the best with the rest of the season..

Mike

The Jack Russell is 'Miss Walker' (I know what happened to Johnny, but we won't go there). She is almost fully trained as a Blood Spoor dog.

The harness she wears is so you can pick her up very quickly (like a handbag) and put her back in the hunting truck.

When I shot the old female cull Impala, it took off into the thick Bushveldt we were hunting and led us a merry chase. Miss Walker was a changed dog once she got the blood trail and took off like a rocket with Chris and myself running along trying to keep her in sight. We lost her once, Chris whistled and she came back straight away, only to lead us on again to the dead animal.

Marvelous dogs Jack Russels. We had a male ourselves once who died in heroic circumstances attacking a poisonous Red Belly Black snake lying 1 metre from my four year old son. We can't bring ourselves to own another. Gutsy dogs.

Congrats on your hunt with Chris. Ms. Walker definately made good company. We spoiled her for two weeks much to the raised eyebrows of Chris and Sabina. What can I say; my JRT/Feist was at home and she was great company. Man, does she like biltong...lol.
Cheers,
David

Very nice trophies and great shooting. Looks like you had a great time and hunt! Thanks for sharing.

Looks like you had a fantastic time. Congratulations on your successful Safari!

great hunt.good looking animals

Enjoyed your photos and the description of the eland hunt. Congratulations on a fine hunt. Now go get some rest!

quote:

Originally posted by L. David Keith:
Ms. Walker definately made good company. We spoiled her for two weeks much to the raised eyebrows of Chris and Sabina. What can I say; my JRT/Feist was at home and she was great company. Man, does she like biltong...lol.
Cheers,
David

Hey David, you are right - you did spoil Ms. Walker rotten... This afternoon on the way back from Natal after fetching your trophies, Sabina offered Ms. Walker hamburger leftovers but she was SO not interested - probably dreaming of her Tennessee friend and BILTONG...

As you know we're off to Botswana on Friday for our next hunt and regrettably she ain't going with (red tape and vetinary restrictions)... Well, she'll just have to learn how to eat dogfood again...