Arived on the afternoon of Thursday, 14th of July 2005 on a game farm in Kwa-Zulu Natal. After having unpacked all our gear, etc. in the beautifully situated and well equiped, self catering camp, we went to the shooting range to make sure that our rifles were still properly sighted in. Here we learned to our surprise that our guides only understand and talk Zulu and one or two of them perhaps a little bit English, no Afrikaans at all. Guides and staff on game farms dealing with clients should at least be fully bilingual. Eventually we managed to communicate in a South African 'mixed language' consisting of Zulu, Sotho, other black languages, English and Afrikaans words called 'Fanigalô'. We still had to use all sorts of hand signs to communicate reasonably well during our stay.
We went out after the shooting at the range just to see what the hunting area looked like more or less, but not one of us shot any game late that afternoon.

The whole area is one mountain following on the other from as low as 197 meters above sea level on the lowest points in the valleys up to 536 meters on some of the highest points according to the GPS system we had in one of our vehicles. Fortunately there are flat areas on the tops as well as in the valleys between these mountains. The mountain sides are also very well covered with vegetation and grass and Impalas, Kudus and Blue Wildebeest are available in reasonably large numbers over the entire area covering 10 450 acres. Grey Duiker, Mountain Reedbuck, Zebras, and Warthogs were fairly regularly seen during our stay. Other species like Nyala, Giraffe, Waterbuck and a few more were also seen on occasions.

Early Friday morning, as soon as we were able to see clearly (about 6:30am), out we went with our guides and the biltong (meat) hunt was on.
At 8:30am I shot my first Impala ram after a careful stalk where he was standing perfectly broadsided with a nice and clean one shot kill through the vitals. He dropped on the spot.
We had to remove his intestines and cover him up with grass underneath a shady shrub because it was so early in the hunt and I planned to continue my hunt immediately.
Fortunately the guides know the farm very well and would easily find the carcass again when we were to be picked up by our own vehicle about 3 hours later.

We continued our walk and stalk search for more game like Impala, Kudu and Blue Wildebeest. At about 9:15am my guide and I spotted two young Kudu bulls simultaneously, walking at an angle away from us. Due to the fact that it was on the edge of a mountain and quite rocky, the vegetation was not as thick as usual and I had a moment or so in which I could wait for the Kudus to cross a reasonably open passage through which I would be able to see them clearly.
They were both the same size and I decided to take the first one on entering the opening in the bush.
I shot him about in the middle of the left shoulder from this awkward, almost rear angle and he dropped in the opening. The second Kudu immediately disappeard over the edge of the mountain without me having any chance to take a shot at him too.
When we reached the young bull, distance roughly 97 paces, we found that the bullet exited neatly on the right hand side of his neck. Later the day when we slaugthered him we could see that the bullet penetrated in a straight line through the left shoulder, into the neck where two cervical vertebra were crushed before the exit.

What was strikingly in both cases above were the fact that not one of the animals travelled any distance whatsoever after they were shot. Also the fact that minimal meat damage was caused by the bullets used.

Both these kills were made by using a Brno .308 Win with a 1:10" twist and 130 gr GS Custom HV bullets loaded to a velocity of 3200 fps.

The following are a few pictures of the camp, hunting area, myself, guides and the young Kudu bull. Unfortunately no pictures were taken of the Impala's due to the fact that only our driver had a camera with him and we had in total 6 animals to slaughter on Friday afternoon which were shot by our group of 4 hunters earlier the day. Two hunters in our group were on a biltong hunt just the week before and were taking it easy as far as hunting goes.
A biltong hunt always ends up in a lot of meat to be processed and we prefer to do it ourselves the way we want it done.

The camp -
Dining and kitchen area as seen from the sleeping area.


The thatched 2 bed sleepers as seen from the dining and kitchen area above.

The braai/barbeque area -


Pool and parking area behind it -


Wild life and human activities in and around the camp -




An idea of the hunting area -














Me and my guide Nicolas and the young kudu bull -
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Here I'm supervising the initial skinning and cooling processes of the carcasses.

Jagter,

Thanks for the report, sounds like you had a great hunt. That camp certainly looks nice.

Regards,

Terry

P.S.
I edited your post so the pictures would post. In the future, when posting pics select "none" instead of "left" on the "Align Image" box.

Thanks Terry, appreciate your help.

It certainly was a wonderful hunt.

Great report! Thank you! The area looks very nice. I`ve always dreamed of hunting the Kwa-Zulu Natal..

Best regards Anders

Jagter,

That looks like a really beautiful place. Thanks for posting the pictures of your hunt.

BigBullet

Damn, nice steak!
Those baby giraffes are cute too...
Thanks for the nice report & nice shooting.

Jagter,
Nice report and pictures, the area seems very nice!!
What animal you prefer for biltong ? I have tried kudu and impala and they taste great.
Which is the type of hunt/animal locals hunters do more often?

L

Lorenzo,

Thanks, it is a very beautiful area, always makes the hunt a pleasant experience.

Your last question first:
The majority of our local hunts are walk and stalk type mainly due to dense bush coverage and mountaneous/rocky areas allowing limited access to vehicles and even the use of horses in many cases.
In the grasslands and open plains areas hunters are sometimes dropped of on convenient spots and the game might then be sort of herded by horsemen or by using bakkies(LDV's) in the direction of these convenient spots.

Impala are the most hunted local species for biltong and meat usage, then follows Kudu and I would say Eland, Springbuck, Blue Wildebeest, Blesbuck and also Gemsbuck.

We prefer Impala, Kudu and Eland.