OUTFITTER: KMG Safaris
PH: Marius Goosen
TARGET SPECIES: Blue Duiker for myself and caracal for my wife
SPECIES OF INTEREST: Kudu, bushbuck, bushpig, jackal
HUNTING AREA: Various concessions in the Eastern Cape between Port Alfred, Grahamstown and East London
RIFLES:
Ruger 77/44 in 44 Magnum with 180gr Peregrine Hog bullets
Ruger no1 in 338WM with 250gr Nosler Accubond bullets
Fabarm 12g shotgun
TRAVEL:Toyota Land Cruiser Prado on the scenic route
HUNTING VEHICLE: Toyota Land Cruiser truck

Over the last couple of years our quest to collect new species has decidely lost momentum, having small kids makes embarking on a quest for adventure much more difficult. The unplanned arrival of twins made home renovations a necessity with the offshoot of a bigger trophy room arising from the rubble.

As you might agree empty walls in a trophy room necessitates a quest to collect trophies to correct the deficiency.

I have always been interested in the small antelope and still have a couple to collect, it was quite easy to nudge my wife in the direction of caracal with dogs. She loves hunting predators and loves dogs at the same time.

We have our own blood tracking hound but have never hunted with a pack of hounds and were keen to experience it.

KMG Safaris has previously provided us both with the opportunity to hunt oribi in consecutive years and we collected wonderful trophies. Opportunity to hunt oribi in the RSA is fairly exclusive and we were grateful for the privilege to collect them.

Discussing our requirements Marius suggested that we hunt blue duiker from a blind over water.
The advantage is that trophy quality can be judged, hunting blue duiker with hounds entails shooting with a shotgun at blue streaks and then sexing, sizing and aging in retrospect if you hit.
My skill at shotgunning would also leave the blue duiker with a significant safety margin as it runs past.

We have more than usual options for travelling as we live in South Africa. I hate flying with rifles and travelling by road would give me the opportunity to see a couple of places mentioned in the history books. Thus the decision was made to drive down from Pretoria to Grahamstown over 2 days taking the scenic route skirting the Drakensberg Mountains.




Despite the fact that our country is apparently doomed it was a pleasure to drive on decent roads, wait at delays with road works in progress to improve the road network and to be met with a smile wherever we went.





We arrived at the lodge Sunday afternoon and were quickly given opportunity to check the rifles before dark. The facilties were absolutely top notch in a beautiful setting on the edge of a kloof.

Monday morning long before first light we left for the blue duiker concession close to East London.
The concession consisted of deep kloofs and thick forest, absolutely gorgeous blue duiker habitat.
This was soon confirmed by the owner who is also an avid hunter and monitors his property closely with trailcams.

By 09:00 we were ensconed in a well built brush blind with chairs overlooking a small water hole deep in the forest cradled high against a mountain. The day had dawned to be clear but cool and we were quite comfortable in the blind. Slowly the natural sounds started again and the birds started frequenting the waterhole, it was excuisite to watch the Knysna Louries with their bright red plumage in flight going about their business. It must probably be part of nature's wonder that such a beautiful bird has got such a horrible sounding call.

I suspect that all the 24h shifts I worked earlier in my life has messed permanently with my wiring, put me in a blind and I start napping no matter what the hour. Waking up from such a catnap the sky was overcast and the wind was blustering. Eventually the suspicion that there is drops falling gave way to the realisation that there is really drops falling from the clouds. This develops into rain driven by an ice cold wind.

Now my dark sense of humour starts taking hold of me. Why does one hunt? Here we are sitting in an ice cold rain shower, the wind blowing down my neck waiting for an elusive miniature antelope to appear from the forest. Mauritius is a 3 hour flight from home, we could have been in a smart tropical hotel enjoying buffet meals and free watersports rather than this. My suppressed laughter is infectious and soon we are giggling like school kids trying to maintain decorum. All 3 of us has realised the futility of our exercise but nobody has the guts to say, damnit, let's go and have coffee!

Scrounging a cup of coffee from the owner we had the entertainment of watching his 2 captive blue duiker in a small camp next to his house. Interesting enough he feeds them raw chicken eggs which they eat readily, duikers are an interesting family of antelope......

After the rain shower we thought that hunting opportunities would be slow for the rest of the day with all the moisture in the forests. Despite that we ended up in another blind. A lot of fiddling is required to settle in. A bunch of twigs is in the way and I walk around the blind to open up the shooting lanes. I get back in, the plastic bags we are sitting on to keep the wet earth away are noisy. I remove my bag and neatly (read noisily) fold it. The morning, driving in the dark I forgot to put batteries in our electronic hearing protection, now I start fiddling with batteries old and new.

The next moment Marius hisses 'duiker', I freeze, he whispers 'it is a shooter'. Batteries and electronics falls on the ground as I grab my 77/44. Marius had warned me to shoot the duiker on the way to the water, as soon as they had drunk they streak straight back into the forest without a shot opportunity. By the time I am in a shooting position the duiker is already drinking, the duiker is facing me straight on. The only shot presented is over the head into the body, it flashes through my mind that if the duiker lifts its head as I shoot the skull will be ruined.

Gently I squeeze off the shot and the duiker collapses right there. Despite poor weather and horrible blind etiquette we collected an old warrior of a ram.





On the way back to camp, while filling up with diesel, Marius starts speaking to the various houndsmen. Nobody is aware of any specific cat but will start looking for spoor and sign the next day. We decide to hunt bushbuck the next day seeing that we have no fresh information on any caracal to move in any direction.

The morning dawns cold and clear with mist lying low in the valleys, simply one of those magnificent scenic days that makes living life worth all the trouble. Seeing that we are waiting for the sun to reach into the kloofs for the bushbuck to start moving and sun themselves we have time for a favourite activity - drinking lots of coffee.



We drive to a next door property with me on gate duty. I get out of the car in 'bushbuck in the mist' mode and open and close the gate. Getting back to the Land Cruiser they have switched to 'hound and caracal' mode, Marius got a call on his mobile that a pack is trailing and we need to come now!
In 'caracal and hound' mode you run rather than walk back to open the gate again.



After a quick 45 minute drive down to the rolling coastal plain we meet up with the houndsman tracking a lynx in a thickly wooded drainage line. The cat trees in dense woods and we quietly approach. I found it quite amusing to see dogs break away from the pack and come and circle us as if to hurry us along. The dogs are howling at the base of a densely leaved tree, it then takes quite a while to find a shooting lane. A sequence then follows of BOOM, THUMP, SPLASH.






Unknown to us in the thick woods the tree is on the edge of a drainage line with a 12 foot drop down to the water. For a second I thought the cat wounded but that is soon dispelled with the dogs circling and howling around the dead cat.



Like their domestic relatives a caracal simply looks awful when wet. On the back of the truck Marius carefully positions the caracal in a photographic pose. We drive back to camp and getting there his plan becomes clear, the cat has now stiffened up and is placed upon a cooler box in 'the' position and a fan is aimed blowing at him to dry him out. Marius uses his dogs brush to attempt to detangle and fluff out the cats coat. Eventually we transfer the cat to some rocks and some trophy pictures is collected of a now slightly damp rather scruffy cat.











The next couple of days we look for bushbuck and kudu interspersed with some jackal calling. We saw lots of animals but nothing worthy of collecting. Not that it surprised me, collecting two such trophies within the first 2 days uses an extraodinary amount of luck and only so much luck is available for a given hunt.

We experienced it as a hugely successful hunt, collecting the blue duiker was very interesting and rewarding. Hearing the hounds baying their quarry awakens something deeply hidden in my DNA helixes from days long gone by in our prehistoric past and I enjoyed it immensely.

Congratulations on the safari and the twins!

Wizezilla had triplets for us but that was over 37 years ago.

Great report for some interesting animals!
A trip made all the more special sharing it with your spouse. I've also discovered that a shared experience makes the enjoyment twice as rewarding.

JCHB

Well Done

quote:

Originally posted by Fjold:
Congratulations on the safari and the twins!

Wizezilla had triplets for us but that was over 37 years ago.

Triplets would probably have broken my moral backbone and I would have absconded into the wilderness.....

I stand in awe.

Great trophies!

If either of my children had been twins they would still be looking for me!!!!!


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