something is wrong with that picture but i can't figure out what it is. oh hell, it's Brad smiling

505Gibbs....WOW!! you have scooped me, WELL DONE...Great Puku!!
I have been talking to Andrew for a couple of years, between some medical issues, about a safari to take Roan and Puku to wrap up my African 29!! Andrew must be egging you along to jack me up.....keep it up Andrew...this really has my attention!!,,,and now I am pre-committed for November with another big Honey Do!!...probably no Roan left for the Group anyway, EH??!!
Keep it up Guys...you are on a ROLL!!

Cheers,

quote:

it's Brad smiling

ya, that's what relief looks like on the outside. That little ordeal was a clusterf*ck!

[/QUOTE
ya, that's what relief looks like on the outside. That little ordeal was a clusterf*ck![/QUOTE]

Brad...Whats the story on the Puku?

Fantastic collection of game.

Congrats, Brad and Andrew.

quote:

Originally posted by safari-lawyer:
Fantastic collection of game.

Congrats, Brad and Andrew.

WHAT WILL SAID, WOW. CONGRATS

quote:

originally posted by matt u:
Brad...Whats the story on the Puku?

Man, just one of those times, I do not know that I have a clear explanation for what happened. We had seen this puku early in the day and had continued hunting, kind of leaving him in our back pocket. We never found another, and decided to come back and look for him at the end of the day. Well we found him and made a nice little stalk into a thicket and set up for the shot. He was with a group of rams and he posed for a perfect broadside shot at about 125 yards. I put the crosshairs behind his shoulder and squeezed, all of the rams shot 100 different directions thaen regrouped basically in the same area. We quickly scanned the group and found him standing looking around trying to figure out what happened. He appeared to be fine and my new BFF Andrew stated the obvious, "you missed". I quickly centered on his shoulder again, and literally just as I felt my hand tightening around the rifle, he turned a 180 and ran as the shot rang out. I saw him turn in my scope, so I knew I had missed again. Once again, Andrew, "you missed, again", Me, "thanks, dick". The Puku all ran about 74 yards to our left before standing around trying to figure what was going on (It is my observation that Puku are not the sharpest spoons in the drawer). We scanned through them again and couldn't find him, we finally realized we couldn't find him because he was one of the ones with his head down grazing! I conciously focused and made sure I was doing everything right before I squeezed the trigger on his shoulder for a third time. Well, the puku had finally had enough and they ran out of sight to our left. Andrew, "you missed again", me, "I know I f*#king missed again, quit telling me that and tell me where my bullet is hitting, high, low, left, right?". We trotted after the group, and just as we caught sight of them, a blood soaked puku jumped up in front of us and took off running, Andrew "thats him!", me, "really? the one covered in blood? running on 3 legs?". He stopped between 2 trees at about 80 yards and I hammered him in the shoulder putting him down. I was literally a wreck, it was like I was shooting blanks. When we got up to him. he literally had 4 bullet holes in his chest, 1 behind his shoulder (1st shot I presume), 1 between his right shoulder and brisket (2nd shot as he turned?), 1 high in his ribs behind his shoulder (3rd shot?), and the final one through the shoulder? I don't know what to say other than that, too much bullet maybe? bizarre.

Well done, guys.

quote:

Originally posted by 505 gibbs:

quote:

originally posted by matt u:
Brad...Whats the story on the Puku?

Man, just one of those times, I do not know that I have a clear explanation for what happened. We had seen this puku early in the day and had continued hunting, kind of leaving him in our back pocket. We never found another, and decided to come back and look for him at the end of the day. Well we found him and made a nice little stalk into a thicket and set up for the shot. He was with a group of rams and he posed for a perfect broadside shot at about 125 yards. I put the crosshairs behind his shoulder and squeezed, all of the rams shot 100 different directions thaen regrouped basically in the same area. We quickly scanned the group and found him standing looking around trying to figure out what happened. He appeared to be fine and my new BFF Andrew stated the obvious, "you missed". I quickly centered on his shoulder again, and literally just as I felt my hand tightening around the rifle, he turned a 180 and ran as the shot rang out. I saw him turn in my scope, so I knew I had missed again. Once again, Andrew, "you missed, again", Me, "thanks, dick". The Puku all ran about 74 yards to our left before standing around trying to figure what was going on (It is my observation that Puku are not the sharpest spoons in the drawer). We scanned through them again and couldn't find him, we finally realized we couldn't find him because he was one of the ones with his head down grazing! I conciously focused and made sure I was doing everything right before I squeezed the trigger on his shoulder for a third time. Well, the puku had finally had enough and they ran out of sight to our left. Andrew, "you missed again", me, "I know I f*#king missed again, quit telling me that and tell me where my bullet is hitting, high, low, left, right?". We trotted after the group, and just as we caught sight of them, a blood soaked puku jumped up in front of us and took off running, Andrew "thats him!", me, "really? the one covered in blood? running on 3 legs?". He stopped between 2 trees at about 80 yards and I hammered him in the shoulder putting him down. I was literally a wreck, it was like I was shooting blanks. When we got up to him. he literally had 4 bullet holes in his chest, 1 behind his shoulder (1st shot I presume), 1 between his right shoulder and brisket (2nd shot as he turned?), 1 high in his ribs behind his shoulder (3rd shot?), and the final one through the shoulder? I don't know what to say other than that, too much bullet maybe? bizarre.

Sounds more like you were shooting a big elk than a little antelope. Next time, take a .338!

quote:

Originally posted by DLS:
Next time, take a .338!

Or a .505 Gibbs, a.k.a. your 'handle'

Must say Brad's shooting was exemplary. He only loaded his rifle when he was in a shooting position and the target visible. Something his Father had taught him. He turned down what I thought was an excellent Buffalo because it was partially obscured by grass.

When we walked into Buffalo in the long grass and could have reached out and touched them he stood his ground.

It was a pleasure to hunt alongside him.

But it ain't over yet and we have The Day of The Jackal to come.

Great adventure ,i tried for a week to get a bushpig but not luck ,very intersting report ,nice photos congratulations.

In RSA they hunt them with dogs which increases your odds dramatically.

HUMMMMMM....never have heard of Puku in RSA. Who has them and where. That is a surprise!!

WOW, what else do you have on the bag with 505Gibbs...what a GREAT safari??!!

Were you actually hunting Sitatunga when you took the big red Piggy??
Cheers,

quote:

Originally posted by 505 gibbs:

quote:

originally posted by matt u:
Brad...Whats the story on the Puku?

Man, just one of those times, I do not know that I have a clear explanation for what happened. We had seen this puku early in the day and had continued hunting, kind of leaving him in our back pocket. We never found another, and decided to come back and look for him at the end of the day. Well we found him and made a nice little stalk into a thicket and set up for the shot. He was with a group of rams and he posed for a perfect broadside shot at about 125 yards. I put the crosshairs behind his shoulder and squeezed, all of the rams shot 100 different directions thaen regrouped basically in the same area. We quickly scanned the group and found him standing looking around trying to figure out what happened. He appeared to be fine and my new BFF Andrew stated the obvious, "you missed". I quickly centered on his shoulder again, and literally just as I felt my hand tightening around the rifle, he turned a 180 and ran as the shot rang out. I saw him turn in my scope, so I knew I had missed again. Once again, Andrew, "you missed, again", Me, "thanks, dick". The Puku all ran about 74 yards to our left before standing around trying to figure what was going on (It is my observation that Puku are not the sharpest spoons in the drawer). We scanned through them again and couldn't find him, we finally realized we couldn't find him because he was one of the ones with his head down grazing! I conciously focused and made sure I was doing everything right before I squeezed the trigger on his shoulder for a third time. Well, the puku had finally had enough and they ran out of sight to our left. Andrew, "you missed again", me, "I know I f*#king missed again, quit telling me that and tell me where my bullet is hitting, high, low, left, right?". We trotted after the group, and just as we caught sight of them, a blood soaked puku jumped up in front of us and took off running, Andrew "thats him!", me, "really? the one covered in blood? running on 3 legs?". He stopped between 2 trees at about 80 yards and I hammered him in the shoulder putting him down. I was literally a wreck, it was like I was shooting blanks. When we got up to him. he literally had 4 bullet holes in his chest, 1 behind his shoulder (1st shot I presume), 1 between his right shoulder and brisket (2nd shot as he turned?), 1 high in his ribs behind his shoulder (3rd shot?), and the final one through the shoulder? I don't know what to say other than that, too much bullet maybe? bizarre.

Joyce said she'll lend you her 7 x 57 next time. Her Puku dropped like it was hit with a Bazooka.

quote:

Joyce said she'll lend you her 7 x 57 next time. Her Puku dropped like it was hit with a Bazooka.

My apologies if I have in some way inferred that I or my equipment was competent, that was not my intention.

quote:

Originally posted by 505 gibbs:

quote:

Joyce said she'll lend you her 7 x 57 next time. Her Puku dropped like it was hit with a Bazooka.

My apologies if I have in some way inferred that I or my equipment was competent, that was not my intention.

Nothing seen anything like it. The Puku proved bullet proof. My initial reaction was that Dead Shot Brad has gone to pieces.

Congratulations to you both.
Amazing collection of quality trophies.
Counting the days until I get there.
Cheers
Steve

Looking forward to it mate.

Love the Bushpig....looks like one of Hooker's dates :-)

I guess all that is left is a few words about my hunt for a sitatunga. This trophy was probably my single most “desired”, although I was completely ignorant about what it would take and how it would fit
within the rest of the hunt.

Someone I know, who will remain nameless in the interest of not diverting the subject of this final “story”, had told me years ago that the only true sitatunga “hunting” was for forest sitatunga in
equatorial Africa. I was blessed enough to learn for myself, that this is not the case.

I have already told the story of attending a sitting in a fig tree on the first night, trying to get a look at a Sitatunga. Instead of being patient and not getting distracted, I allowed a 200 pound red,
black and white monster from the Pliocene Epoch draw me into a confrontation which promptly ended that sitting. Andrew and I realized very quickly (as I have previously stated), that we were either going to
have to concentrate on sitatunga and do all the other trophies “half assed”. Or, we were going to focus on the other trophies and hope there was time left to focus on the sitatunga at the end, I chose the
latter.

The “real” sitatunga hunting began around day 9 after taking the Sable, technically, this left 8 sittings (morning and evening) to get this done. We felt pretty good about it as during the previous days we
had set some trail cams in some promising areas, and set a couple of scouts out at others to try to locate a good bull. The cameras had not captured anything promising, which removed those areas. One of the
scouts, on the other hand had seen a “veewy beeg bool”. He had actually seen it out of the fig tree we had shot the pig out of the first night. This lead gave us a hot place to start the morning of day 9.

5am and we were up, had our coffee, put on the back pack and began the trek through the bush in the dark. We could hear elephants feeding in the trees to our left and hippos honking and splashing in the
river to our right. We found the tree and set up to wait for the sun to approach close enough that we could see something. Dawn arrived and we set glassing the tree line and what we could see of the reeds
along the river bank. We quickly realized that our view of the reeds (where we thought was the most likely spot), was obscured, as it sat lower than we anticipated. After about an hour of sitting, we made the
decision to move to an ant hill where we thought we would be able to see into the reeds better. We approached the ant hill from the flood plain side, so that anything in the reeds could not see us. We slowly
climbed the hill and peered over, exposing more and more as we didn’t see anything in the reeds. When our heads and shoulders were exposed above the top of the hill, Andrew was glassing to our left, I was
looking in the reeds directly in front of us, as I scanned to the right, the first sitatunga male I have ever seen stood up in the reeds 80 yards away and looked directly at me. I grabbed Andrews belt and he
turned and saw the Sitatunga. My first thought was, eesh, not quite as big as I thought. I looked at Andrew and could see the hesitation as well, he said “22”-23””, then the magic words, “He’s a
representative”. That was all I needed to hear, I replied “let him go”. We watched the male as he turned and ran head down, stopping a couple of times to look back at us before he stepped into the tree line.
Upon arriving back and lining the scout up for a picture comparison on Andrews computer, we determined that this probably was the “veewy beeg bool”, and just like that, we were out of fresh leads.

We ate lunch while discussing a few other swamps that had not been looked at and decided to go look at a couple to see if we saw any fresh sitatunga sign. Luck would have it that the first one we went to
was covered up with dung and tracks and we decided to sit that evening in a grove of trees to see what was there before determining whether to build a machan. We arrived in the trees around 3pm and settled in
to see what showed. Almost immediately, the sitatunga cows began to appear around the edges of the pot holes filled with reeds. We sat until dark and probably saw 8-10 cows along with a few youngsters, but no
males.

Dinner that night was exciting with the prospect of another sitting the next morning, and the hope that a male would appear. About 5 am we made our way into the same grove of trees and got situated to be
ready when the Lord pulled the curtain on what was about to prove to be a true masterpiece. As the shapes of the patches of reeds first started to become visible, a low lying layer of fog rolled over the flood
plain off of the river. It quickly swallowed the reeds leaving only the top halves visible. I raised my glasses to try and see what I could not make out with my naked eye. Through a small gap on our left
between the high grass and the reeds, I made out the top of a female sitatunga’s back gliding through the fog as she moved towards the reeds. Immediately behind her was an animal probably 40% larger in mass, as
soon as he was centered in the opening between the long grass and reeds, he raised his head and looked directly at us. My friends, this was not the little drowned rat sitatunga you see in so many trophy photos,
this was a truly magnificent beast with muscular broad shoulders, a massive neck and a surreal set of horns extending out of his head. The bases looked like they touched, the first curve extended well outside
his ears before sweeping back inwards to nearly touch, twist 180 degrees and then extend what seemed to be another foot and a half diagonally above his head. This, by all definitions of the word, was a “Bull”,
he stood there in the dusky fog, looking our way for 4-5 seconds, then followed the cow out of sight. I looked at Andrew, who lowered his glasses and the look on his face said it all. He immediately said “grab
the gun, we have to go now”, I replied, “let’s just wait, see if he comes back”. He put his finger in my face and said “we may never see that bull again, that was a monster, our best chance to kill that bull is
now, but we have to go, now.”. Realizing that Andrew was not asking my opinion, I grabbed my gun and we scurried quietly out of the grove of trees, backtracked to a clear area behind the tall grass and moved as
quickly and quietly as we could closer to the last place we had seen the bull about 175 yards away. We got to an ant hill and slowly made our way towards the top to peer over. Immediately we saw a nice male
walking into the reeds about 50 yards away, but he was not the same one. We glassed all around and caught 2 young males walking into the long grass to our left. There were miscellaneous females and youngsters
spread around the different patches of reeds and fortunately everything seemed oblivious to our presence. We sat for probably an hour picking everything apart, we found the male we had seen when we first
approached the ant hill feeding in the middle of the reeds. He looked like he found a high spot and we could see his head and horns picking through the reed tops feeding. Andrew said he was a pretty good male,
probably 25”, but how do you shoot something like that when you just watched a trophy of the quality we did, disappear into the fog. Looking back, I would have to assume that Andrew’s mind was in the same place
as he did not even present the possibility that we should kill this male, when we could have very easily. Unfortunately, after probably an hour and half, we resigned ourselves to the fact that the bull was gone
and we silently backed out of the area.

On the way back, we caught sight of a male sitatunga crossing the flood about 400 yards away. It slowly disappeared into some long grass and Andrew and I ran after to try and get a better look. We made it
to the grass edge and stopped to look through our glasses, we made out the male easing through the grass. Andrew said, “for anyone else, we would be shooting, but not after what we just saw”, I agreed and we
watched him ease into the brush. Afterwards, Andrew said he thought that one would go 24”-25”.

We got back to camp, realizing we had 4 more sittings, we felt confident the bull would show himself again and we would be ready. We went back and cleared a small area in the original grove of trees and set
up a fixed rest so the gun would be up and ready for the bull when he appeared. Andrew decided that it would be best to take dinner that evening with us and if the bull did not appear, we would spend the night
in the bush so there would be no noise from a vehicle the next morning.

Despite our efforts, and spending 2 nights in the bush, making as little noise as possible, the bull never returned. Andrew called it when he said “we may never see that bull again”. Despite not killing
him, hunting that animal put me in a place I have not been for years if not decades. I laid awake in the bush, staring at the stars for 2 nights seeing its form in the fog. I counted every step to our make
shift blind wondering if this would be the sitting where he re-appeared. The image of him standing quartered to me with his head up will be forever burned in my memory like a piece of exposed film. I told
Andrew before I left, and I meant it, for the first time in my life, killing him was not important, “just seeing him was enough”.

quote:

Originally posted by 505 gibbs:
My friends, this was not the little drowned rat sitatunga you see in so many trophy photos.

Thanks a lot!!

I understand Brad, really well written..

Butch

quote:

Originally posted by Frostbit:

quote:

Originally posted by 505 gibbs:
My friends, this was not the little drowned rat sitatunga you see in so many trophy photos.

Thanks a lot!!

Jim,

Note I sent Brad some pictures of some truly pathetic 'trophies' and the smallest being 11 or 12 inches.

Forget your elephant and buffalo for they are common.

I was in awe and this was an image that very few people are privileged to witness. The early morn was gloomy and out of focus, dark grey and foggy when the true ghost of Africa briefly made his appearence.

He was a king and it was good enough to be in his presence.

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:

quote:

Originally posted by Frostbit:

quote:

Originally posted by 505 gibbs:
My friends, this was not the little drowned rat sitatunga you see in so many trophy photos.

Thanks a lot!!

Jim,

Note I sent Brad some pictures of some truly pathetic 'trophies' and the smallest being 11 or 12 inches.

Just playing with Brad. He needs an open door in which to lob an occasional grenade.

Your description of the mist shrouded wetlands and the "king" appearing and disappearing is very vivid.

Glad you both got to share that sighting.

Love it, especially the pig, the sable and the roan!