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Bushbuck, waterfowl, trout and oribi and all in 96 hours!





With the end of Ramadan falling before the weekend of the 16 and 17 June, I had agreed a short / long weekend hunt with Adrian Salter of "Adroda Safaris" in RSA. I have hunted with Adrian a number of times and enjoy his company and his enthusiasm and passion. In fact, same time last year I took a great tsessebe bull with him. This time I would fly in from Lagos to Joburg, drive down to the Midlands and use his guns.

This started off as Barbary sheep and scimitar oryx hunt, a couple of the more exotic animals, but the farm where we planned to hunt was recently sold and our booking was dropped. 'Shit happens'. Adrian suggested a quick and dirty buff hunt, but I was not keen and then we settled on an oribi hunt in Mpumalanga Province in RSA near Luneburg.

I have never hunted oribi and a mountain hunt would be great. But first we would spend a couple of days at Adrian's lodge in Nottingham Road in the Natal Midlands. I would self cater - Adrian is not a great cook and we agreed not to get a cook in for the couple of days.

Friday, I set off early in the Landy 110, and was heading south as the sun rose. Through the Free State and into KZN and the Natal Midlands, to arrive at Adrian's around midday.

I settled in to the lodge, said hi to Adrian's girlfriend and then saw all the dogs - new and old. Adrian runs a great cat (read leopard and caracal) pack, a smaller pig pack and also had 3 litters of pups - doggos (for bushpig), hounds and Jack Russells. Some 30 plus pups in total !











Bushbuck

I changed and with Ruger the a wire hair Jack Russell in tow (more on him later), we set off to check pig baits and a general late afternoon / early evening walk and stalk looking for bushbuck and other late in the day animals.

Driving and stalking some recently cut maize fields we spotted 5 duiker including a couple of good rams, but we were after something bigger. It was very relaxed, we chatted and joked and as the sun started to fall around 5.30 pm we headed home.

Now Adrian has a 3 km driveway to his lodge across some open hill pastures and then through very thick woodland and as we approached the wood section at last light, Adrian spotted a bushbuck ram. We stopped the cruiser and glassed. A decent ram. We left the vehicle and, with the .243 loaded and on 'safe', approached the ram, which was now nearly a dark silhouette with the lighter bank and hill behind him. On the sticks, I lined up on his head and scoped down his neck and squeezed. The ram dropped to the shot. A wonderful dark brown, nearly black, bushbuck ram, shot cleanly in the neck at his white collar breaking his spine.

I think that bushbuck are a superb animal and an outright trophy! Anja and I have taken a number of them in RSA, Zambia and Zim, but never have I seen one so rich dark in colour as this ram.

Pictures, by now in the dark, were taken and then Adrian skinned out the ram for a shoulder mount. Yes, another shoulder mount bushbuck ram!








As a side note, Ruger got himself into all the pictures and then, in the skinning shed, claimed the buck as his! Dogs! Don't you just love 'em especially terriers!





That evening over beers and a great rump steak braai, Adrian asked if I wanted to shoot some ducks early Saturday? Well, there is only one correct answer to that. Yes of course! And so plans were made.


The duck shoot!





Saturday morning, after a quick coffee and 10 minutes around the rekindled fire to dispel the early morning chill, we drove less than a few minutes to the neighbour's dairy farm and met Dan, the farmer / owner.








Dan had already put some decoys out on a farm pond / dam and giving us a case of 12 gauge numbers 4s, told us to head to the dam and we were good to go!

We picked a spot in the high dry reeds and with the sun rising at out back, did not have to wait long for the first spurwing to flight in! And then things got hot!








With Dan on the dam wall and us covering the other side, we enjoyed 2 1/2 hours of great wingshooting! Flights of spurwing up to 20 in number, frequent Egyptian geese honking up the valley, yellow bill teal winging in fast and low and pairs of African Shell Duck, quacking their arrival to the water. It was simply fantastic! We took birds flighting and crossing in, we shot spurwing overhead and teal out wide dropping birds both on the water and on the cattle pasture behind us. It was champagne shooting!

And then it was time to pick up. And in came Ruger the wire hair JR and proceeded to swim out and pick the waterfowl from the dam as good as any Lab or Springer that I have worked! It was a hoot to watch Ruger retrieving a spurwing twice his weight and size and then going back for another one! Fantastic!





Until, that is, he swam to the middle of the dam to retrieve the grandfather of all spurwing duck! A bird of some 7 kgs! Ruger took the bird in his mouth and turned back towards us and into the wind. And that was the problem. The wind simple kept pushing the bird back and big little Ruger could not fight the tide and the wind no matter what. After a 20-25 minute battle the little dog began to tire and Adrian became anxious. Try as hard as he could, Ruger could not beat the wind and tide and Adrian stripped down to his boxers and went for an early morning winter swim to save Ruger. With shouts of "I cannot breath!" and descriptions of body parts rapidly shrinking in the icy water, Adrian waded / swam out and rescued Ruger and hauled in the trophy spurwing duck! Ruger then shook himself off, ran a few yards up the bank and promptly went in for a yellow bill, whilst Adrian, now blue in colour, warmed up in the morning sunsine. Btw we are mounting that spurwing to remember the occassion plus he really was a monster of a duck with huge spurs and a massive head! He'll make an impressive mount.








As we laid down a bag of 30 odd birds, Dan casually suggest that we could try for a MacNab and with that the seeds were sown!

















A MacNab!


Officially a salmon on a fly, a brace of grouse and a red stag all to be taken in Scotland between sunrise and sunset.

We, however, would go for an African version being a brace of duck or geese (we had both in the bag already), a trout on a fly and then a buck! Game on!

Back at the lodge, I fried up a breakfast whilst Adrian sorted out the fishing gear and then we headed to a nearby lake that holds rainbows and some brown trout.





Two men were fishing the dam, one from the bank and the other from an inflatable boat. They had been there a day or two and other than a few knocks and two lost hook ups, they had not caught. I felt eyes on me whilst we tackled up.

I assembled the loaner rod, a 10 ft 4 weight Stealth rod and mounted the reel with a fast sinking line and a 12 ft 6 lb tippet, to which I tied a Mrs Simpson.

Some 25 minutes and 40 to 50 casts later and a light pull resulted in a hook up and Adrian helped me net a 4-5 lb hen fish dripping eggs. We just managed a quick picture before the hen wriggled loose and was away with a splash!





With the two other anglers looking confused, I broke down the rod and we jumped in the cruiser and headed up a rugged track into the hills in search of a vallie (grey rhebuck / vaal rhebok or Vaalribbok in Afrikaans).

It was not long before we spotted one and after a short stalk and a missed shot, followed by a second missed shot (albeit at 380m), I managed to anchor the ram with a downhill shot to his shoulder. And what a super ram he was! We did pictures, which Ruger bombed, and then loaded the buck with handshakes and smiles and headed home.








Despite not planning or even thinking of a MacNab challenge, following Dan's suggesting, Diana and the other hunting and angling deities had smiled on us and we had managed an African MacNab. A brace of yellow billed teal, a good sized rainbow trout to a Mrs Simpson and a 9 1/2 inch vaalie to a .243. What a great and memorable day! Thank you Dan for the idea and Adrian for bringing it to life!

That evening we enjoyed a bushbuck potjie and a few celebratory beers before calling it an early night.


No hunting on Sundays, but I could fish instead!





"Left at the gate, left at the 'T junction', right onto the district road and then right at the tar road and straight on till you see the STB sign and then phone the farmer."

I set off alone at 09.30. Either I would be there in 25 mins or I would be horribly lost!

It was a pleasant but dusty drive and the directions were perfect. Craig opened the gate for me and I followed his Mahindra to the paddock gate and the trout dam.





"Try the cliff wall. It's deep there. Their main diet is minnows. Please close the gate on your way out as I have livestock in the fields." And with that he left me and I was on my own bar 20 odd young bullocks near me and a dozen waterbuck grazing the far hillside.











I again rigged up the 4 weight with a 4 lb tippet this time and started fishing. Casting out, counting to 10 and stripping back fast. Half an hour later and I was in to a feisty 5 lb rainbow hen that thrashed, jumped and put up a great fight on the surface. The tippet held and before long she was on her side and I claimed her as caught before releasing her back into the cold, clear water.








I switched the Mrs Simpson for a minnow fly and some 25 casts later I hooked and caught another rainbow of about 6 lbs. I was smiling!

I made my way along the waters edge at the base of the cliff, casting and stripping back and then walked back to the start of the cliff to fish the stretch again.





Breaking off the minnow pattern on a submerged tree stump, I tied on a 2 inch egg sucking black leech pattern and started casting.

Three or four deep casts in and I lifted into a snag and had hooked into a decent sizes fish. With the fish dogging it out deep it was clearly a brown and it felt big! 15 minutes later when the trout came up to the surface my heart jumped to my throat! I was looking at a double figure brown and I was fishing a 4 lb tippet and had no net!




(To put this picture into context the fly in the trout's mouth measures about 2 inches!)


Long and short was that I landed him but bar a few failed pictures and a measurement against the rod, I could not get a good picture shot! You try and hold a 10 - 12 lb trout as thick as my calf, at the bottom of a cliff face and take an iPhone selfie! It was never going to happen other than the trout's head when I removed the fly. I did however later confirm the measurement at 80 cm. The trout of my lifetime ! I would put him at 12 lb. I was on Cloud 9!






After that fish there remained nothing other than to pack up and, after thanking the farmer, I drove back to Nottingham Road and Adrian's lodge and shared my news and joy! Awesome!

That afternoon we drove to Dundee and overnighted on a game farm where Tyrone Milne of 'Chumlet Safaris' was guiding a Miami based client accompanied by his wife and two small children. It was pleasant sharing their camp fire and talking global hunting. Thanks to Chris, Tyrone and his client for letting Adrian and I overnight.



Oribi in the Mpumalanga mountains.





On Monday morning, we breakfasted, loaded up on farm biltong and chilli bites from the butchery and drove two hours to Luneburg to Horst Filter's farm. Originally from Germany, the family settled in RSA four generations back but still speaks German and is proud of its German lines.

Horst and his son Bernhard, would guide me on an oribi in the mountains. First Horst was pleased to show me about his farm and his 'semi domesticated' bushpig - inc a 70-80 kg boar that any hunter would be pleased to take !!




As a side note, Adrian guided Bernhard, who is a wheelchair hunter, on a bow hunt Cape buff a couple of months ago and Bernhard was pleased and proud to tell me the story. He is also a taxidermist and showed me some of his work which was very impressive.

With the TOPS permit in hand, we set off up the mountain and were soon glassing for oribi. Despite a strong wind, after a couple of hours Horst spotted an ear in some long grass and we stalked in for a better look. Suddenly not one but three oribi bolted away from us - a ewe, a great ram and last years kid. And away they went. We followed and stalked after them but never picked them up. They were away into the next valley and it was like needles and haystacks!





We started afresh and it was not too long before we glassed a pair of oribi bedded again in long grass sheltering from the wind.

A slow walk / stalk in at an angle and then on the sticks with the .243 and a 120m shoulder shot and we had our oribi. I was thrilled. Not a monster trophy oribi but a good representative ram and heck in my book any mature oribi has to be a very special trophy. With 'Waidmannsheils'and 'Waidmannsdanks', pictures were taken and we carefully loaded the small antelope and returned to the farm where we shared stories and laughter over the kitchen table with fresh coffee and fresh farm bread and sausage and Wurst. It was a wonderful moment to share a home cooked / baked meal between 4 like minded hunters.








At 14.00, permit and oribi cape and skull/horns in hand, I drove via Newcastle and Donclaire Taxidermy, back to Joburg where I emptied the Landy and then literally fell into bed!

Four days, 1.450 kms driving, a solid chocolate bushbuck, a MacNab inc a 9 1/2 inch vaalie, a log of a brown trout and then an oribi on the Monday in the mountains - and all shared with friends and laughter - wow, what more could I ask for! What a great long short weekend hunt!

Many thanks to Adrian, Dan and Horst and Bernhard for making it happen and thanks to all AR readers for coming along too!

For those that may have wondered, bar a 5 strand cattle fence on the vaalie property all the hunts were on non-fenced properties where the game comes and goes. The trout may have been stocked at some point but that monster brownie was at least 5-6 years plus and was not recently stocked. A monster! And none of the birds were ringed or tagged either so we'll call them and the other fish and game wild as wild can be!

It was a weekend that I will not forget quickly and one that I am only to pleased to share!


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As a ps, we called in on Basil Mayne in Nottingham Road. Basil owns and runs 'Redline Footwear', a small business manufacturing hunting boots and winter ugg boots with zebra, unguni and buff hide. He also makes hunting knives and I picked up 3 knives whilst I was there. One for me ( last oribi picture ) and one each for my boys. As a plug, if you are in or near Nottingham Road, drop by and have a look. Chances are you will buy something - it's that good! And no, I am not on commission!!

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Beautiful photos, I've never considered fly fishing there. Love that old dark bushbuck.

Looks like you had a great hunt. Congratulations.

Very Cool!

A great trip report - thanks for posting. What a great weekend!

Splendid !

You’re cool Charlie.
Great report, awesome bushbuck.
Kind regards
Jytte

Great trip and report. Thanks for sharing!

What a wonderful report.

JCHB

Excellent weekend - congrats.

What a trip! Well done Charlie!

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Thanks for the great comments and feedback.

It really was a memorable weekend with super trophies and meeting great people that share my / our passion.

And I am proud and happy to share the story and the pictures!

Cheers

Charlie

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Heck of a weekend Charlie. Great story and pictures.
Very much enjoyed them, and seeing the trout. Dandies!

Thanks for sharing with us.

George

You are the man Charlie. Bloody well done. That brown is huge and you took some wonderful animals. Shame about the Land Rover and we can always photoshop that out for you.

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Andrew it's only Landy owners that get to catch trout like that !! You don't know what you are missing out on !!!

Cheers

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What? No warties?

Love to see my loved Dogos Argentinos over there ,great ranch security too .Great report Charlie .
Cheers Juan