Please scroll down and read report in post 5 - I have put additional pictures. Somehow managed to screw up editing this one. Thanks, Mike


Kanana Plains Game

Hunt Dates – August 26 – September 2, 2013
Location – Kanana Ranch, Khanzi, Western Botswana
PH – Jason Bridger (Kanana Safaris)
Trackers – Morlen and Happy

Outfitter – Kanana Safaris
Booking Agent – Arjun Reddy, Hunters Network
Travel – Steve Turner, Travel with Guns


Equipment Used
AHR CZ 550 375 H&H with Swarovski Z6 1-6x24 illuminated scope
Ammo – Federal 300 grain A Frame


Background

Arjun Reddy emailed me information on a Botswana plains game package hunt at the end of 2012. I have previously hunted in the Save Conservancy with Save Safaris (excellent operators I would highly recommend). A friend of mine who is a bow hunter was interested in the Botswana package but was not 100 percent sure he could make it. I decided to backstop him and sign up for the hunt and if he wanted he could take my spot.

I met Jason Bridger briefly in Dallas but my main focus as DSC was drinking the Admiral’s (subsailor74) fine whiskey and impulse buying a VC double from Ken.

Arjun put me in touch with Steve Turner at Travel with Guns. I have previously done my own travel but given the regulatory and airline policy issues on traveling with firearms, I decided to use Steve Turner. Chatting with Steve I decided to add a four-day trip to Cape Town with a side trip to Gansbaai to do some shark diving.

After an uneventful Delta flight to Jo-burg I spent a night at Skyhouse and then went to Cape Town. Cape Town and the cape area is unbelievable. The cape coastline is probably the most beautiful and scenic area I have been too. The day trip to the Cape of Good Hope and the shark diving trip were the highlights. I recommend people go do the shark diving trip – the shark viewing from the deck is far better than the dive cage.

It is simply awesome seeing apex oceanic predator that is twice the weight of a cape buffalo and has teeth to put any lion (or more correctly pride of lions to shame) in its natural environment. Great white sharks being more mouthy than 4 month old german shepherd put on a great show when they feel like.

Travel with Guns and Africa Sky House provided excellent service. I expect side trips to Cape Town to be a regular feature of when I hunt Southern Africa.

Botswana Hunting

Will, a British student interning with Kanana Safaris, met me at Maun airport. Customs was pretty easy at Maun but it looked like the custom official enjoyed their official stamps and paperwork. I got numerous stamped copies of official paper work for $15 ammunition duty that was paid by credit card.

The drive to Kanana is three and half hours on a paved two-lane highway – there is only one road in Maun and if you get the direction right – south of Maun you will be in Ghanzi/Kanana. We did pulled over for speeding on a road on which we passed a total of less than 20 cars in either direction. Was pretty cool chatting with the local cops, testing their laser speed guns and watching them enforce the speed limit in an irrelevant world. They let us go with a warning as Will correctly said he had no money. The cops were amazingly chilled and friendly, no place else in Africa and definitely not in the US, would I ask a cop to show me that his laser speed gun was accurate.

Stopped in Ghanzi to see some caged lions and cheetahs and then made it to camp around dusk. Peter Scott, a friend of Arjun from Australia, was in camp bowing hunting. Met up with Jason and was shown to my accommodations. It was a nice tent with attached bathroom. Accommodations were very comfortable. From the first day to last the food in camp was excellent.



Day 1

First thing we did was check my rifle -AHR CZ 375 H&H. Jason Bridger is a serious gun, reloading and shooting enthusiast/nut. He has built a really nice shooting range – it would be perfect other than the local cheetah like to also use it as a lounging area and also occasionally mark it. We set up target at 100 yards and the gun shot spot on – one inch high at 100 yards as I had sighted it in on advice from Larry Shores. Thanks Larry. The Swarovski Z6 1-6x24 illuminated scope was well worth the money and a significant upgrade from the Trijicon. The scope was the stand out piece of equipment on the hunt and significantly improved my shooting performance.


Kanana operates on a former cattle ranch and is 100,000 acres of diverse geographic Kalahari grassland. It also used to be a photographic/eco tourism operation in the recent past. The ranch is high fenced but given its size, the game has all the space it needs to be self-sustaining. Just as a reference to its size – when we hunted the southern part of the ranch we did not drive back to the lodge for lunch, as it was over 30 km.

We started hunting by driving around looking primarily for eland and kudu. An hour into driving we ran into some bull eland and decided to stalk to get close to them. The eland bulls were in some think thorns/bush around 300-400 yards from the road. Jason made a plan to stalk like 200 yards to a large lead wood tree and then see where the eland bulls were. As we cut and got cut making our way thru the thorns and came to the lead wood tree, a large male eland bull who was bedding there got up to check out what the commotion was. Without much discussion the sticks went up and I took a relatively easy broadside shot on a standing eland that was looking at us. The shot was a good shot on the left shoulder and the A-frame bullet did its job. We found the eland dead around 50 paces from where it was shot. It was an excellent old blue bull. We took some pictures and headed back to camp. We had our eland shot and were back in camp by 10 am.







We left camp later that afternoon looking for anything other than eland to hunt. Jason mentioned that there were too many Blue Wildebeest and Gemsbok on the property and that I could shot some for cull. He also mentioned that he wanted to get rid of all wildebeest and gemsbok in the cattle operations. I said I was game for some cull shooting.

On our afternoon drive we ran into some wildebeest and I shot one. I had shot a wildebeest in 2011 in the Save Conservancy and it was a one shot kill. This one was hit well but did not go down right away. We tracked it for a while and spotted it again – it was like 75 yards ahead with its back to us and quartering left. I got back on the stick and hit him hard with the 300 grain A-frame. The wildebeest was flipped over by the impact and I saw all 4 legs go up. It was like the bullet impact lifted him and slammed him on his back. I was admiring the tremendous impact of the 375H&H and walking towards him when he got up and took off. It took another 2 rounds to bring him down for good. Then I realized that this wildebeest culling is not going to be simple and that I may have brought too few bullets (40 rounds).

Day 1 was an old eland and a tough wildebeest. Went back to camp and enjoyed a cold beer and a nice fire and some old India hunting stories from Peter Scott.

Day 2

I have chased Kudu in the Save Conservancy on my previous 2 safaris and never managed to get on the sticks. For me at least there was Kudu jinx and I did not expect to shoot one. As we drove around the second day Jason spotted a nice male and we stalked him thru some thick thorns. We got to around 175 yards and he was looking straight at us. Jason asked if I was comfortable shooting that far out and with the narrow covered profile the kudu was offering. I dialed the scope to 6x and illuminated the reticile and off the sticks was comfortable. The a-frame did its job again, the kudu ran less than 20 yards. The kudu was a beautiful old bull with nice horns that were worn at the tips. The kudu jinx was up and it was back to the skinning shed.





In the afternoon we went up to the cattle area to hunt some cull Wildebeest and Gemsbok. Shot a really nice female Gemsbok, she was really old but had nice horns. She as so old but we only took the horns and left the rest of the body for vultures as there was nothing but skin and bones on the cow.





Day 3

Spent the day looking for Zebra (disco donkey). Finally ran into a herd around 4 pm and stalked up. There was a 150-175 yard shot at a Zebra and the 375 did the job. Shot an old mare- again all skin and bones. We walked up to the dead zebra and the trackers went to fetch the truck. The herd stuck around and Jason and I decided to go take a look if there was another zebra/disco donkey to shoot Jason mentioned how he hated shooting zebra in the afternoon as they are hardy animals and there is risk of losing the skin to hyenas if there are not recovered that evening.

We followed the herd for what felt like 500 yards but in reality was much more. We gave up and walked back and ran into the trackers getting the truck. We then made our way back to the zebra but it turned out we had walked a fair bit in to find the herd and we did not know the spot at which we had left the dead zebra. Took like 15-20 minutes for Happy the bushman tracker to locate the dead Zebra and the Africa sunset was fast approaching. We mentioned that it would be a funny story if we managed to lose a dead zebra to a hyena but after thinking about it for second thought it would be even funnier if it happen to someone else.

Day 4

We focused on Hartebeest, something I had never hunted before. We went to the southern part of the concession where it is more open with pans (now dried) and large lead wood trees around with Hartebeest herds like to hang out.

It was a cold day with a front that had brought snow to Table Mountain at Cape Town, a 1000 miles to the south. The wind kept swirling and changing direction thru out the day. We managed all day to get into hartebeest herds and lone bulls chilling and bedding under the lead wood trees but they always seems to catch wind of us. Nothing was shot this day but it was the best day of hunting on the trip. We spent 12 hrs trying to get close enough to a hartebeest and kept running into them on half a dozen occasions but only managed to once get on the sticks and not long enough for a shot.

We must have walked between 7-10 miles but only had thorn scraped legs to show for it. A splendid day of hunting.



Day 5

Back after Hartebeest in the same area at the southern part of the concession. It was cold but the winds were not swirling. We got out before a pan and walked it. Spotted a herd of Hartebeest and stalked a few hundred yards. Got a bull looking at us from 180 yards. He was not in the open and was looking straight at us. Jason asked if I was comfortable making the shot and I said yes. Went up on the sticks and shot and killed the hartebeest with one shot. We were done by 8:30 am.

Rest of the day was spent hunting but we did not shoot anything.




Day 6 – Sunday Morning Coming Down

Jason and I started the day by saying a lot of people would be in church or headed to church at this time but we were out hunting. We drove around and early on spotted a lone bull wildebeest. He was standing in brush around 150 yards looking straight at us. Jason said are you comfortable shooting him and I said yes and shot him. Hit him hard and I was very confident in my shot and expected a dead wildebeest.

Jason who normally never brought his 416 righy for backup this time had it. We walked up towards the wildebeest and saw some blood and followed the trail. I was playing around with my iphone trying to film the dead wildebeest when we spotted him and he was not dead. As I had my iphone and not my rifle read to shoot, Jason whacked the wildebeest with the 416 rigby.

Now we had a fair bit of blood and we were following it. Jason asked again if I shot it well and I said yes. I asked him where he hit it and he said texas heart shot and that he had hit him well. We spilt up with Jason and Morlen the tracker parallel to my left and me lock step behind Happy as he was tracking the blood trail. We walked a couple of hundred yards in some brush with trees/shrubs around 6 feet tall. I was behind Happy the bushman tracker and there was a nice blood trail.

I had wisely put away the iphone and had the 375 in my hand. We kept walking, with Happy following a nice consistent blood trail. This went on for like 3-5 minutes and we walked a couple of hundred yards. Just them we come up to a small tree and Happy looks up and sees the wildebeest behind the tree in front of him coming towards us. I am literally right behind Happy. I am a good foot taller than happy and I have been focused intently looking at his head as he has been following the blood trail. I just see Happy freeze and a wildebeest behind a small tree/bush turning to come towards us.

The wildebeest is like 12-15 ft headed towards us. I see Happy’s head come up and over his head I see this black mass turning to get around the tree and come towards us. Less than a second – must have been a blink of an eye - I don’t see Happy anymore in front of me and I am instinctively shouldering the 375. I had not lowered the power of the scope from the first 150-yard shot and it was set at 6x and the reticle was illuminated. I just remember “red on black” as I put the red illuminated reticle on the black mass of wildebeest and shot. I shot the 3 rounds I had in the rifle in like less than 2 second. I was shooting with both eyes open and I recall seeing the wildebeest getting lifted off his left front and back legs as the first shot struck him. I don’t recall much of the impact of the second and third round as I was focused on “red on black.” My shooting of the wildebeest was to create a break to hold the wildebeest off and allow me to either high tail or side step my way out of his path.

All this shooting from spotting the wildebeest was around 3-4 seconds and inside of 3 gun lengths at best. As I run out of bullets I try and step back and see the wildebeest fall behind the tree. I take few steps back and I see Jason 15 ft from me at an 11 o’clock angle around 10 ft from the fallen wildebeest. I am stunned and I walk around Jason to see the wildebeest. Jason mentions that he had never seen Happy move that fast and I look around and see a stressed smiling Happy. I am now behind the wildebeest and Jason says put another round in him as he lay dying. I reach into my pocket load another 375 and as I head to shoot the wildebeest from like 10 ft he tries to get back on his legs and come at me. I shoot him and I walk back struggling to find another round in my pocket and say to Jason he is not dying with 5 375H&H A frames and a 416 rigby in him. Jason them walks to the same spot I was at and the dying wildebeest again tries to get back on his feet and come at Jason. Jason puts another 416 rigby in him that finally kills him. Took 5 375H&H A- frame and 2 416 Rigby TSX to kill this old bull.

I have hunted buffalo in the Save conservancy twice before and shot and killed 3 buffaloes (2 bulls and a cow) and this wildebeest was pound for pound tougher than any cape buffalo. Damn, I nearly got whacked on what was supposed to be a relatively easy plains game hunt!!

We went back to the skinning shed and the found that the first short was a solid hit and had taken out a lung and part of the heart. This old bull managed to live another 10-12 minutes after the first shot, another 4-5 minutes from the 416 texas heart shot and then took another 5 big bore rounds to finally die. He also tried to settle a score with Jason and me as he had every right too. I was much impressed and even though I am not a big taxidermy guy I have decided to mount this old warrior.





After a break at the skinning shed where I got to film a female warthogs and her babies who over time have become very friendly. They get fed scraps and it is interesting to observe their behavior as the came within ten feet of us. I think with time, you could hand feed these wild warthogs. Gave good insight into how the wolf became domesticated into the dog by ancient man feeding them scraps 10 to 15 thousand years back. However, warthogs are just to damn ugly to be domesticated into pets.



Went out in the afternoon and shot a nice cull gemsbok male with a broken horn. Decided to spend the rest of the day in a bow blind with a crossbow. Got to observe 2 male eland (one was a nice shooter) dominate a salt lick and intimidate and scary away a bunch of gemsbok.

Unwinding a PSE TAC-15 (Jason’s cross bow) at night in a blind with an iphone and a nokia cell phone for light was a harrowing experience to end an unbelievable day.

Day 7

Ran into a large herd of wildebeest in the morning as we drove around. We were on a slight incline on the road and Jason decided that I should alone walk down the road keeping a low profile and try and see if there was a shot for a cull wildebeest. I walked around 200-300 yards down the road and got pretty close to the wildebeest herd. I saw a nice wildebeest in the open around 100 yards away. I turned up the scope to 6x and illuminated it and aimed off hand for the shoulder. I hit the wildebeest solid and the whole herd broke and ran. The wildebeest I hit cut across the road like 50 yards in front of me after going a 360 circle run and I could see he was hit hard and running differently. He went another 200 yards and collapsed dead. We took some pictures and loaded him up.

As we were driving back to the skinning shed when we ran into a large herd of impala with a few nice males. We drove a little ahead and walked back and them started a short stalk. Got a nice shot at around 150 yards and shot a nice male impala. I love hunting impalas and it was a perfect male impala.

We were done by 8:30 with a wildebeest and an impala and went back to the skinning shed to feed the warthogs. I then went to a bow blind to sit with the PSE crossbow with Morlen. We were at the blind an hour when a herd of 100 plus wildebeest came to drink at the waterhole. It was an awesome sight seeing the wildebeest drinking within 10-15 feet of us as they wander into the water.

Waited for an old male and them shot him with the crossbow. It looked like a solid hit and we saw the wildebeest herd take off. We found the bolt after it had gone thru the wildebeest stuck in the mud by the water hole. There was gut material on the bolt but when we looked at the video we could see that the wildebeest was in a herd and only offered a front should/chest shot. The shot went thru the wildebeest from the left front and exited from the right gut area. We found some blood and decided to wait for 30 minutes. We looked around but could not find anything else so we called Jason and Happy. We then started a 3-mile walk thru some real thick thorns following a blood trail but finally came up empty ended. It was the first animal I have lost and I felt like crap.


Moved to another waterhole and got some great footage of two young kudu bulls playing around, mocking fighting and overall horsing around.

Day 8

Got into a herd of wildebeest and shot one cleanly with a one shot kill. Another old cull cow. Back to the skinning shed and feeding the warthogs.

Decided to sit in a blind with the crossbow. This time Jason sat with me. Pretty quite till 2 old warthogs came by – one was very old all skin and bones. I have always been skunked by warthogs in Zim. Jason said get the cross bow ready and shoot the old one – he did not expect the old warthog to survive till the rains. I shot him and he took off. I was very confident in the shot and Jason said we should wait and see what comes.

A herd of very pregnant gemsboks with a young male came and hung out for 30 minutes. The young male make decided to scare off a group of ostrich coming for a drink. A large herd of eland came and they sent one guy to check out the waterhole. After 30 minutes as the eland group was about to come the young male gemsbok went ballistic and ran around and scared off all game from the waterhole.

We continued to wait and a large male gemsbok walked into the picture. Jason said get ready – I thought we were hunting cull animals but Jason said this guy was a shooter and part of the package. I handed Jason the camera and got the crossbow. Jason said to wait till he went for the salt lick but this guy did not go to the salt and turned and was slowly walking away. Jason said to shoot and I had a shot at like 25 yards with his back to me and quartering to the left. I shot and thru the scope I saw a hit and a fair bit of blood. Jason was filing the shot. My gut was it was not a good shot and it was low. But there was blood and Jason was seeing that thru the camera lens.

The gemsbok ran like 25 yards and was looking broadside at us. I rushed for the trusty 375 that I had brought without thinking much and left it zipped and unloaded in a soft case. I unzipped the gun and aimed for the injured gemsbok hoping to finish him before we went on a 5-mile walk. Remembering from Arjun a story of shooting a 375H&H indoors and the house shaking - I wisely stuck the barrel outside the stone blind. The gemsbok was now turning and walking away and I hit with a texas heart shot. He went down but still managed to get up – I shot him twice again. Got out of the blind and headed towards him and he got up again and this time I put a 375 TSX that I had borrowed from Jason. Took 4 rounds from 375 plus the cross bow bolt but he was down and soon dead. Tough tough animal. We saw that the crossbow bolt had only sliced him with a large gash but that not penetrated him. I was glad I reached for the 375.

He was a large beautiful trophy. Looking around we found the warthog stone cold dead 50 yards from the blind. The gemsbok was large and I had him over 4 spans of my hand. We took some pictures of the gemsbok and warthog – beauty and the beast. Seeing a warthog up close – it will be my first and last warthog. Went back to the skinning shed and measured the gemsbok – he was slight over 40 inches with 8 inch bases. The female we shot on day two was 41.5 inches.

Decided to mount the gemsbok – so a hunt with intention to mount zero trophies yielded two pedestal mounts. Spent the rest of the day at a bow blind with main intention to take pictures and got some nice pictures of birds at a water hole, a quite way to unwind a memorable hunt.

Had an excellent hunt with Kanana Safaris and Jason Bridger. Anyone wanting to hunt plains game should look at Botswana. It’s open, clean and safe. The whole place feels very laid back and it is a country in which I plan to spend a fair bit of time in the near future traveling by myself (self drive). Kanana has some excellent kudu, gemsbok and eland and I think in next 1-4 years some monsters will be shot there. This is hands down the place for plains game hunting - just don’t get run over by a wildebeest.

Nice report. Great trophies.
Congrats

Enjoyed your hunt report and pics...Great time you had

Congratulations!

Roland

Congratulations on a great hunt. Well written report and pictures. Thanks for sharing.

Great report Mike - glad to see you had such great success, even if you left the double rifle behind. We will have to fix that next year.

I look forward to seeing you again in Dallas in January. I will have the Whiskey Box with me just like last year, and once again, the 18 year old single malt is on me!

Great report. Thanks for going back and adding all those additional pictures.

Mike - this story got even better when you added the rest of it. Way to go!
Dave

Admiral:

I am ready for Dallas. I will try and dig out some whiskey too. Been saving it for my dear uncle bob's wake - he is 89.

Lets hope issues in Save gets settled soon. I should coordinate my hunt around the time you are there - even if that means I have to hunt with Leon instead of Mike Payne my new favorite ph

A-frame recovered from the Eland. Overall very impressed with the A-frame. Normally I shoot Barnes TSX but was running low on ammo.

Wildebeest at waterhole. This was the wildebeest that was injured and not recovered.

My first injured animal in Africa - felt very depressed that I did not kill it and that it was not recovered.

Well done. Hard to believe it was a year ago right now that I was there.

Mike,
Great report. Oh, the flashbacks! It makes me smile to see Happy and Morlen. Those guys are magic! They can track low-flying birds.
Crazy story about the wildebeest. You'll never forget that. Congratulations.

Thanks for sharing. Good write up.

I've only read a few reports out of Kanana, but it sounds like a great outfit.

Congrats Mike.

Those A- Frames are the ticket.

The Cape Town trip seems fascinating.

On my first safari, I had a similar incident with a blue wildebeest. I shot it dead center of the chest with a 300 Win Mag. We followed it for a long way. Not sure how far, this was 1988. When we got close to it it was laying under a tree looking the other way. It jumped up and came for us similar to the charge in Black Death. I hammered it. I have never underestimated these animals again. I also do not understand how it survived the initial shot.

Mike, glad to read your report. I was there the last two days with you, my granddaughter Tori and I had a great hunt also, hope to see you again in our travels. I posted a report over at AH
Kanana is just a wonderful place with awesome people.

John

I am very happy you had a great hunt. It was really cool you got your granddaughter with you to Africa. She will remember the trip for the rest of her life.

It's pretty cool Jason and the Kanana crew are very accommodative to hunters bring their kids and grand kids with them. That in my books is a quality act on their part.

Look forward to reading your report.

Thanks,

Mike

Video footage of the 40 inch Gemsbok. Found out from Jason that there were some issues with the crossbow (limbs cracked) and it needed to go back to the dealer in South Africa. Explains why the crossbow shot low.

Footage of wildebeest at waterhole

Congrats on Your Safari. Very nice.