Journal of My
South African Safari
Summer 2006
Day 1 – Tuesday, 16 May
2006:
I
Flew out of Atlanta International this morning at 10:30 am. Just as my dad
suspected, I sat next to a good looking girl from
Day 2 – Wednesday, 17 May
2006:
I
woke up on the plane, with an hour of flight left, which I again spent talking
with Katie. When we landed, I got off the plane and stood in line for half an
hour waiting to get my passport checked, but going through customs was a
breeze, and it didn’t even take a minute. “Nothing to
declare?” “Nope.” “Okay. Have a nice day.” As I
walked out of customs, a pleasant looking man in a camouflage vest came up and
said, “You must be Exley. I’m Nick.” He seems really cool.
While there, we met up with Terry and Monica, as well as their friend Dave. We
drove through
Day 3 – Thursday 18 May,
2006:
We
woke up at 6 in the morning and had a light breakfast of cereal, and then we
hit the hill around 6:30. We didn’t see much until the sun rose around 7,
but after that, it was crazy. We stalked all sorts of creatures, and saw a nice
herd of giraffe early. After those, we drove around looking for springbok for
Terry or Dave to shoot. Terry planned to shoot his with a bow, which is damn
near impossible as they don’t like to let people within 400m. We were
driving through some rocks, and all of a sudden, we saw a small group of
springbok. Terry and Dave hopped out with Nick, and they saw one big ram bedded
down under a tree. They stalked it to 35 yards, which was very impressive in
itself, and Terry missed the first shot while the ram was bedded down. It
hopped up and ran out to about 60 yards, where Terry missed again and it ran off.
Terry came back to the truck and Dave and Nick pursued it. We were chilling in
the truck when we heard Dave’s enormous pistol go off again. We raced
towards the sound in the Land Cruiser, but we couldn’t find them, and by
the time we did, they had dragged the springbok almost back to where the truck
had been before they shot. We took that springbok back to camp, where Sammy
skinned it while we ate lunch. Dave is going to have it shoulder mounted. After
lunch I took a nap, and at 2:45, we went back out to hunt. We went to the same
place that Dave shot the wildebeest, and we got into the rocks and saw some
great blesbok. Dave almost took another shot on one of those, and Terry came
close to taking one, too, with his bow. We spent the rest of daylight stalking
(or trying to) springbok, wildebeest, and white blesbok. At sundown, we started
heading back to camp for dinner, and we spotted a jackal, which Nick shot out
of the window of the truck at 350 meters with the .300 Win Mag.
When we got to where it was, it had run off leaving a great blood trail, but it
was too dark to track, which left everybody a bit down. No hunter likes the
thought of an animal suffering after a botched shot. We made it back to dinner
around 6:30.
Day 4 – Friday, 19 May 2006:
Today
Dave shot a white blesbok. It was beautiful, but his first shot hit it in the
shoulder and was hardly even debilitating. He took off with the rest of the
blesbok, and we couldn’t get anywhere near it for hours. Dave set up for
a shot probably ten times, and couldn’t get it off fast enough. The rest
of the herd surrounded the wounded one preventing a shot, and about an hour
after that, we got a clear shot and Dave hit it again, in the stomach this
time, which failed to kill it, as well. Five minutes later, he finally managed
to drop it with an excellent shot to the lungs. The animal was beautiful, but
wounding it and it suffering took a lot of the joy and pride out of it,
especially for Dave. It is incredible how strong the will to live is among the
animals of the highveld. It started raining and the wind was up really high
while we were chasing the wounded blesbok.
After
lunch, we went back up top, and we tried to get Terry a wildebeest. We tried
several times to get him a shot with his bow, but we could never get any
animals to go closer than 60 or 70 meters, which is well outside bow range.
Eventually, he gave up on trying to kill it with his bow, so he decided he
would use Nick’s .300 Win Mag. We put a bipod
on the rifle, and dropped Terry off about 300 meters from a huge herd of
wildebeest. They took off running when we did that, but we managed to cut them
off and turn them back towards Terry with the Land Cruiser. Richard, Dave,
Monica and I parked over towards the fence in the Cruiser, and waited for Terry
to shoot. We waited for what seemed forever while the wildebeest circled in a
huge bunch about 250 meters from Terry and Nick. Eventually, one wildebeest
took off running perpendicular to Terry’s line of fire, and they all
strung out in a single file line. They stopped running and stood still in a
single file, and we watched with binoculars while Terry dialed in on a huge
bull. From 150 meters from Terry and 300 meters from the animals, we watched
Terry shoot, and the big bull just dropped. We drove over there, and the shot
was perfect. At 250 meters, Terry nailed the bull in the perfect spot, 6 inches
behind the shoulder crease and halfway up the side. It was a double lung shot,
and the bull didn’t make it 30 seconds. It was huge, and it took almost
all of us to load it up into the truck. My camera was out of batteries, and so
I did not get any pictures of Terry’s enormous wildebeest. After killing
that, we drove back to camp, where I promptly fell asleep for 45 minutes. We
ate a great dinner of mashed potatoes and gemsbok sausage, stayed up for a
little while (until 9:00 or so,) and then just passed out. Everybody is
terribly exhausted when we finish for the day almost every day.
Day 5 – Saturday, 20 May
2006
We
woke early this morning and went hunting again. It was wet and cold, and we
were leaving at 9:30 in the morning, so Nick and Terry hunted hard in hopes
that they could kill a Springbok before we had to leave. The two of them were
crawling around in the rain and mud and having no luck at all, when finally
Nick spotted something and we dropped them off and they snuck around for a few
minutes trying to get Terry a shot. Right as we were beginning to lose faith
that Terry would get his shot, he shot, and he dropped a beautiful springbok
ram on the spot. We rushed down for pictures, and we managed to get several
while the fan was still up. Very cool. We then left the highveld and spent most
of the rest of the day driving from the highveld near
Day 6 – Sunday, 21 May 2006
We
got to sleep in this morning, not rising until 7, since there was not much to
do early, and we wanted to take Terry and Monica to their blind, but they had
no need to get there that early. The blind was very cool, half underground and
half above. The whole thing was covered with chopped reeds to hide it. It was
really quite a thing.
We left Terry and Monica there all
day, and Dave, Nick and I drove around looking to get an impala, warthog, and
kudu for Dave. We hunted all day and the only thing we killed was time. Well,
actually I killed a tick. But that was it. Oh well. Dinner was steak cooked
over a fire.
Day 7 – Monday, 22 May 2006
We woke
early again this morning, getting up at 6 for 6:30 breakfast and we were on the
truck at 6:45 hunting. We hunted all morning, or tried to, driving around and
seeing very little. We still hunted for about 45 minutes by a water hole, and
on the way out I tripped on a rock and fell into a thorn bush. I got 50 or 60
sandspur like things in my hand, and that made me jump up, just enough to catch
a branch to the face and knock my hat off. I really looked the fool standing
there with my hat on the ground, face bleeding, pulling sandspurs out of my hand.
We had pineapple and salami pizzas for lunch, and then I went and grabbed a
shower and listened to music until around 2, when we went back out to hunt some
more. We hunted all evening, to no avail, but it was, like always, a lot of
fun.
Day 8 – Tuesday, 23 May 2006
Day 9 – Wednesday, 24 May
2006
It’s
Jesse’s birthday today, and I feel really bad, but I can’t call him
or anything. I don’t have access to a phone or even email, so too bad. We
got up at the usual time, ate breakfast and left the camp around 6:45. We had
driven around for quite some time in the lowlands looking for a kudu for Dave
to shoot, and it was getting to be around 7:55. We came around a corner and
there was a big cat in the road. This was perfect impala country as well, so I
already had the rifle out and ready, and Nick slammed on the brakes about 80
yards past where it crossed the road. He tapped on the window and whispered
with great urgency. “Exley, shoot that lynx!” He pulled out the
North American Jackrabbit call and did the world renowned “Jackrabbit in
Distress” call that he does so well. It is the most hideous noise in the
history of mankind, I think. After about a minute of sitting there turned
around with the bipod on the back of the seat and the .300 facing out the back
of the truck, I saw the rooikat (Afrikaans for
“red cat” or caracal) come back into the road. I centered the
crosshairs on his shoulder and squeezed very lightly, remembering this time
that Nick’s .300 has a very nice custom 2 pound trigger. The cat must
have stepped forward right as I shot, but when the bullet got where it was
going, it jumped about 3 feet straight into the air, and it immediately ran off
into the woods to the right. The shot felt good to me, and I was relatively
confident about where the bullet had gone, but Nick said, “Damnit! Low!” and we took off in the direction of the
shot. The walk down to where the cat had crossed was horrible. I was dreading
the chewing out I was gonna get from Nick for missing
that huge lynx, but right as we got there, he goes, “Yes, that’s
good blood!” and there it was, blood all over the ground, dark blood from
the chest, bright red frothy lung blood, everywhere. We walked off into the
dense brush after it, and we were pretty much on edge. I had no desire to come
face to face with a wounded rooikat, regardless of
what kind of heat I was packing. And on top of that, Nick took the rifle, in
case the lynx attacked. I was walking into the bush behind Nick, who had the
rifle, totally unarmed (well, I had my skinning knife, which I was fingering
edgily) and looking for a wounded predator. The blood trail was really good and
easy to follow, and all of a sudden, Nick stood dead still. “Look in
there, he whispered.” I did, and as I did, I relaxed. There was my rooikat, on its side, with its liver and several chunks of
other organs coming out of a big hole in the side. The exit wound was only half
the size of the liver, but somehow the liver completely came out and was
hanging out the cat’s side, without any damage. However, the cat was very
dead, and Nick and I carried him the 60 or so yards back out to the road, where
we took a boatload of photos. I was truly ecstatic, and as Nick suggested, I
definitely wanted to have the cat full mounted. It was huge. For the rest of
the day, I was in high spirits, and the luck continued. That evening, Dave
killed a really nice gemsbok, although it was the only one of his animals that
didn’t make the book under the Rowland Ward scoring system. It was still
a really nice gemsbok.
Day 10 – Thursday, 25 May
2006
Day 11- Friday, 26 May 2006
Day 12 – Saturday, 27 May
2006
Dave
killed a really nice Vlakvaark today. We were walking
through the big field (questionable word there, it is just less densely
scrubbed than the rest of the bosveld) hoping to jump
a nice impala or that 50 inch kudu Dave wants so bad, when all of a sudden Alpheus, our black tracker, slammed on his brakes and Nick
ran right into him. Nick peeked around the side with his binoculars and started
wigging out. I’ve never seen anybody set up shooting sticks that fast in
my life. He pulled Dave around, and Dave set up quickly, and boom! I had no
idea what they were shooting at this point, but I looked around and saw a huge
warthog lying on the ground flipping around. It seemed like it was as hard to
kill as a
Day 13 – Sunday, 28 May 2006
We
hunted this morning until about 9:30 when Dave killed a huge blue wildebeest.
That makes 7 animals for him. A white blesbok, black and blue wildebeest,
gemsbok, impala, warthog, and springbok. After that, he and Nick went back to
Day 14 – Monday, 29 May 2006
Today
was my first day of real work for Angus, and I had a pretty good day. I woke up
at 6:00, got up at 6:30, and was out running errands with Sammy by 7:00. First
we went around and took food to all the troughs that are near the blinds. After
Sammy and I got done checking the blinds and laying the food out, I had
breakfast with Angus, Jenny, Grant, and Sarah, and then Angus and I went and
took food to the troughs on the other property, and we went and checked on the
staff doing their work and stuff like that. Then we had lunch.
After
lunch, we went over to the land that Angus leases to raise cattle. It is owned
by an Afrikaans man who inherited it from his father, and he lives on a 3000
acre ranch, with his wife and three kids, and he lives in a small brick and
stucco house with no plumbing or electricity, and corrugated steel siding for
doors.
After
leaving the cattle farm, we went to Ellisras and ran errands, which was a good
time, except people kept talking to me in Afrikaans, which I obviously
didn’t understand. It was pretty awkward, because all I could do was gape
at them and say, “Sorry, I can’t understand you.” Then we
picked up a cruiser at the dealership, and I ended up driving back 40
kilometers from Ellisras to the ranch, which was funny on the wrong side of the
road. And with a manual, the stick is in the middle still, and since the
driver’s side is the right side, the stick is on the left, which was
weird. I’ve never operated a stick shift with my left hand. After we got
back, we sat around and had a beer, and then we had dinner.
Day 15 – Tuesday, 30 May
2006
I
got up at 6:40 today, got dressed, and hit the field. I walked the 4 kilometer
perimeter of the swartwitpens (sable) pen because
somewhere on the fence, there was a short on the tripwire electric fencing, and
it was only running about 1000 volts and 1 amp, which is an absolutely
worthless electric fence. I started at the southwest corner, and walked east
along the south fence and continued that way. 200 meters from the corner at
which I started, after shoveling dirt, moving sticks, and cleaning the fence
for 2 hours, I discovered the cause of the short. If I had gone the other way,
I would have found it in ten minutes, and then got to sleep until 9. After
that, I hopped in the cruiser with Angus, and we took Sammy over to this one
spot on the fence where I’d smelled something dead. When we got there,
the wind had changed, and I didn’t smell it, but Sammy walked into the
woods, and just as Angus and I were fixing to give up, Sammy hollered, and we
went into the woods. He was standing 30 meters into the bush from where I had
originally smelled it, and there was a vlakvaark/estervark
burrow and it reeked of death. Angus thought that the neighbors had shot a vlakvaark and it came back under the fence, and bedded up
in the burrow and died. It smelled like it had been dead for a few days. After
that, we met back up with Jenny, and we hopped in the VW bus, with sandwiches,
and headed on an hour drive to a cattle auction where this Afrikaans guy was
selling off about 300 head of cattle. We had been there for an hour and were
half an hour into the auction that I understood none of when Angus informed me
that the sale had been called off. One of the bulls had tested positive for
brucellosis or something like that, and they had no idea how much of the herd
was contaminated. So the auction lasted until 11:30 instead of 4:30, and we
went around looking at the cattle for a little while longer, and then we came
back to Mpofu.
I emailed for a little while and then we had lunch and a rest.
That
afternoon, I fixed new license plates onto Angus’s cruiser, and in doing
so, I managed to break 3 drill bits drilling through the steel bumpers so I
could attach them. Then I got a brand new bit from Jenny, and it went through
it like it was butter. Good stuff. After that, we had dinner, and then I
borrowed a book from Angus called The Washing of the Spears about the
rise and fall of the Zulu empire in southern
Day 16 – Wednesday, 31 May
2006
I
woke up this morning at 6:55, which is the latest I’ve slept since I got
here. I had a glass of water, and then Angus and I went and drove around for a
while working on stuff, and putting out feed. We found the carcass of a
waterbuck over by Pig Paradise, and so Nick and I are to sit out there tonight
and shoot jackals. After breakfast, I was sent down to the lodge to work on a
messed up toilet, a leaky sink, and re-lash the handrail of the stairs. I did
some damn-good lashing if I may say so myself. Neither Nick nor I could figure
out how to get the porcelain thing under the sink off, so he called his plumber
friend, and we were to do that after lunch. After lunch, I plugged my laptop in
to the adaptor to charge my iPod before we went
jackal shooting. As soon as I plugged the adaptor in, blue smoke started coming
out of it, and before I had a chance to do anything, flames burst out of the
adaptor, and it got really smoky and acrid in my room. Apparently, I also picked
up a new nickname today, courtesy of Nick. I am now DT McCormick, because I
supposedly use lots of duct tape. Jenny tacked on that it could also stand for
Dog Turd, since I tracked a little orb of shit
through the house this morning, and Angus had to wait for me while I cleaned it
up.
Nick
and I worked on the toilet after lunch. It turned out that the person who
installed the tank used the wrong size trap, and it creased, which causes it to
tear and then whenever the water was turned on, the sink leaked. We could not
really fix it today, so Nick said he’d buy a new trap next time he went
to town. After fixing as much of the sink as we could, we went out and Nick
shot his bow for a little while. He is a damn good shot. He was hitting a
burlap sack target at 75 yards with his bow, and hitting it dead-nuts in the
spot he called. That’s ridiculous. After he got through shooting his bow,
we went back up to camp and got the quad. We took it down to Pig Paradise and
we got out, sat in the blind for a while, then Nick started doing the predator
calls. He eventually decided that we didn’t have a long enough line of
sight from there and that we should sit in the road. We did that until it was
getting dark, and then we hopped back on the quad to head to the house. I was
sitting on the back with the .270 in my lap, and right as we crossed the big
field, Nick slammed the brakes and pointed off to the right. I drew a bead on
the jackal, but I could not get a stable shot since I was twisted around
something like 60 degrees to my right. It’s a shame that the jackal
wasn’t on the other side of the quad, or he’d be dead as hell right
now. Right as he took of running, Nick said to hurry and shoot, so I did, but I
missed by quite a bit. Nick ragged on me tons for missing, which was something
I certainly felt like I had earned. I hate missing with a rifle. I really
should have not taken that shot, since I knew from the get go that I
couldn’t hit it. Oh well, too late now, but I’m sure I’ll
have another chance. Dinner was pork, and it was really good. Then I sat in
front of the tube with Angus and Jenny, and we chilled for a while.
Day 17 – Thursday, 1 June
2006
I
woke up this morning at 6:45, and at 7, Angus and I went out to work. We went down
to the lodge where we put some radios on chargers and the extra battery for the
DeWalt drill. Then I came back up to the house, and I
fixed a sliding glass door for Jenny. I spent the rest of the early morning
doing odd jobs around the house, and then we had breakfast at 9. After that,
Angus and Jenny left, and I was set to work with a nice task list. First, I was
to fix the wooden desk that Puzzle the Great Dane broke. And the difficulty on
that was that I had to do it while keeping him from slobbering on me. Yuk! As
soon as I fixed the desk, I got to work fixing the picket fence with screws,
since the nails were pulling out when the wood warped. I would go along a
section of the fence drilling holes in the wood, and then come by again putting
screws in the drill holes. It was a pretty efficient system until the drill
battery died. I went down to the lodge to swap it out for the other one only to
learn that the other one couldn’t hold a charge. So I was unable to do
any more of that until the drained battery had charged up. I set to work
sanding the water tower down, since it was rusted over really badly. As soon as
I finish the sanding part, which is about halfway done as of Thursday night, I
am put fresh primer and paint on it, in hopes that it will not rust so much
anymore. That job took up the entire rest of the morning, through about 1:30
when I took a half hour lunch break, and starting back up around two, I worked
on it more until around 4. It is really slow going, and it’s a big thing
to sand down, but I think I’ll be able to finish sanding it in the
morning tomorrow, and then put the primer on it in the afternoon.
When I
went down to the lodge again to pick up the battery for the drill, I was
barefoot, and standing on the concrete pad I decided to play with the electric
fence which is running about 8,000 volts. The shock was insulated by the
concrete, so it wasn’t that bad, and I kinda
laughed it off, and went and got the battery. On the way out, I decided to
touch it while standing on the ground in my bare feet. Before I even touched
the wire, a lightning bolt jumped from the live wire and into my finger,
burning it, and throwing my body away from the fence. It was cool in a
masochistic sort of way, but I don’t think I’ll do that anymore. I
just had to see how powerful it actually was, and the consensus is that
it’s powerful enough to keep me out of just about anywhere.
Angus and
Jenny got home around 4:15, and Angus made a few phone calls before we went out
to set the pipe guns to kill the animals that are digging under the fence. Damn
things. It’s mostly the porcupines, and then the caracals and the jackals
can get through their trenches under the electric fence to eat the baby sables.
We
went out to put the pipe guns out, and then we went to the sable pen to put
some food out, and Kubu the Jack Russell jumped into
a fold in the fabric of the pen’s fence, and we helped her dig around in
there with a stick, and she came out a minute later with a rat in her mouth.
She seems to be a great rat dog, and Angus said she’s a great tracker,
too. The pipe guns are of a great design, and I’m excited to see the
results of one. I got an email from my mom informing me that Clemson is ranked
#1 in the nation going into NCAAs, which is awesome.
We get ESPN here, so I may have a chance to watch a game or two.
Day 18 – Friday, 2 June 2006
7am
start to the day again. Seeing the sunrise is a normal occurrence for me now,
although before I came to
Angus
and I went out around 8, and we took food to the troughs. While we were out, he
had me shoot a few doves with the .22 that he plans to use to catch jackals. 4
out of 5 were dead when they hit the ground, but the other one, I had to pop
its head off with my thumb, since the shot apparently only hit it through the
wing. We had breakfast after that, late, around 11, and then I went and worked
on sanding the water tower some more. I worked on that until I finished it
around 2, and then I went for a 30 minute run. After the run, I grabbed a cold
shower, and then Nick and I went over to another property to scout it out for
hunting later in the season. We saw a helluva big
impala, and he was going to have me shoot it, but it made tracks before we
could get a shot. Oh well. We drove around there for a good while, and then we
came back to camp.
Day 19 – Saturday, 3 June
2006
I
slept in until almost 8 this morning, and screwed around for the majority of
the morning. Then we went over to the cattle ranch to check on things over
there. We got back around 2.
Day 20 – Sunday, 4 June 2006
Slept
in until around 8 again, and then I got up and chilled out for most of the day.
Sundays are lazy days on the farm, and since the staff is all gone for the
weekend. Talked to Caroline today, which was really nice, even though the convo was only about 5 minutes long. She thought she had
free international on her phone, but it was really just free long distance.
Hah. Funny in an unfortunate kind of way. We didn’t talk about all that
much, since it was only about 5 minutes, but it was really nice to hear her
voice. Started a new get in shape regimen today, doing 275 pushups throughout
the afternoon (50, 45, 40 . . . down to 5) and running about 6 miles and doing
a ton of abs and stuff.
Day 21 – Monday, 5 June 2006
Got
up at 7 this morning, and worked with Ezekiel on the sink down in the lodge.
It’s a shame we don’t speak any of eachother’s
languages because he seems pretty cool. After breakfast, I worked on putting
primer on the two water towers, and got most of that finished by dinnertime. We
watched tv for a while, and then I went to bed. Did
125 pushups (50, 50 ,25) and some abs. Didn’t run.
Day 22 – Tuesday, 6 June
Got
up at 7 again, and did odd chores around the house for a while. I tacked up
some coaxial cable and stuff like that. After breakfast I finished putting
primer on the water towers until lunch. Angus and Jenny went to town after
lunch and I started painting the water towers. I worked on that from lunch
until 5, and I got it about half way done, maybe a little more, as I almost
finished the small one and got all of the big one that I could reach from the
ground. Didn’t run again today, as I’m working almost all through
the light hours or else I’ve just eaten. I need to figure something out
so I can start running daily. Guess I should talk to Angus about that.
Day 23 – Wednesday, 7 June
2006
Today
was game capture day at Mpofu and Zumbo,
so we got up at regular time and did farm chores until around 8:20 and then we
went back to the house for a hearty breakfast. The chopper and the vet were
supposed to arrive at 9, but both were a little late, and we didn’t get
started until close to 10. First, we darted and tagged two young zebra who were
members of the tame herd that is not to be shot. Then I got to take my first
ride in a helicopter from Mpofu over to Zumbo on Chris’s game capture chopper, and it was
incredible. The sensation that comes from lifting almost vertically and with
that much acceleration is utterly amazing. The first thing I said to Chris once
we took off was “I have got to get me one of these!” It was a
blast. We then landed at Zumbo and Chris and the Neil
the vet went up in the chopper and darted sable, which we carried around in
stretchers through the thorny bush to get them back to the cruiser. They darted
two, and then we went back to Nick and Sarah’s house while Neil made new
tranquilizer darts.
We darted
two more sable, bringing the total up to 4, and then I drove Chris’s bakke back to the place where he’d parked his
helicopter trailer, and then he flew me back to Mpofu
across the
Day 24 – Thursday, 8 June
2006
We
went to town today, where I changed USD 200 to rand, equaling 1250 or so, and
then I bought some postage, the hunting license for the caracal I shot two
weeks ago, which I now have to say I shot between 8 June and 31 July or
something like that. The license was 30 rand, which is like 5 dollars. Not a
bad deal. Then we went and ran some errands.
I also
got to meet a count and a baron from
Day 25 – Friday, 9 June 2006
After
getting up around 7 and painting on the water towers until about 8, Angus and I
went to another cattle auction; only this one didn’t get cancelled due to
disease. I tore my leg open pretty good this morning, too, while I was
painting. Right as I got out there, Puzzle came up and decided to slobber me
like he always does, so I grabbed the paint can, the brush and the paint cup,
and I hopped up onto the tower and started climbing. He still was tall enough
to slobber me, so I jumped from one rail to another and fell, landing with a
square rail between my legs, but I managed to land on my thigh instead of my
crotch, so instead of racking myself, I just tore a huge chunk of skin off my
inner thigh and left a nice swath of skin, hair, and blood on the rail. I kept
painting though and it hasn’t been too bad all day. Walking hurts and
sitting on it kills, but apart from that, it’s fine. Angus bought 10 nice
cows, all of them with calves, and that killed most of the day. We also got to
spend 4 hours in the bakke driving between Mpofu and Potgeitersrus and back.
We had nice grits and sausage when we got back. Nick and the Hillers are
supposed to arrive here around midnight, but they will probably be later than
that since customs is being customs and not letting the Hillers through,
although it is apparently kinda their fault for not
pre-approving their firearms, which they could have done.
Day 26 – Saturday, 10 June
2006
Day 27 – Sunday, 11 June
2006
We
got up at 7 again, and took the clients out to the blinds where they would be
hunting. I went out with Rocky and his .300 Weatherby
to River Bottom blind, and I got to spend the entire day there. He was hell
bent on shooting something, and everything that came in, he wanted to whack. I
was supposed to be getting him this one old waterbuck that Angus wants to get
rid of.
Day 28 – Monday, 12 June
2006
After
getting up at the usual time and taking a shower, I went down to camp for
breakfast, and then we took the hunters out to the blinds. Angus and I then
drove around putting out feed and checking water at the water holes, and when
we got back from that, this young guy John was here with a Mack Truck load of
hay bails that we unloaded. If I had known that I’d be doing that, I
would have skipped my pushups this morning, but I didn’t, so my arms were
killing me. Oh well. We went and got Rocky and Tony for lunch, ate, and then
took them back out. Then we went up to the house and relaxed for quite some
time.
Day 29 – Tuesday, 13 June
2006
We
were going out like usual this morning, and Angus was expecting to go to town,
when we saw a dig hole coming out of the sable kraal. We looked closely, and it
was a brown hyena dig, and it ended up getting shocked by the live wire and
staying in the pen. That led to an all out war on the hyena, as the sable
calves are worth about 10,000 US each alive, and 0 dead. We spend the entire
day hunting the sable pen. I had Angus’s .243 Win 70, and around 4:00,
after hunting all day, we saw the hyena. I didn’t get a shot at first,
and so I went running back to the fence. It came out about 200m down, and
started trying to dig out. I freaked, expecting it to get out before I had a
chance to shoot, and my first shot was pretty bad. I think I missed it, but if
I hit it, it didn’t drop. It ran into the woods and came back and started
digging again. I was lining up for another shot, and it started running, so I
shot at it on the run, and I missed again. That pissed the shit out of made me
really mad, as I really hate missing animals, but it’s even worse when
it’s something that important. That could have been a $10,000 mistake. We
continued hunting it until it got dark, and I plan to go back out with the .375
H&H tomorrow morning and hunt it all day. I hope I do a better job of
killing it this time.
Day 30 – Wednesday, 14 June
2006
The
hyena dug out of the pen last night.
Day 31 – Thursday, 15 June
2006
We
took everybody over to Diepspruit this afternoon. I
drove one of the cruisers, and followed behind Angus and Brian Roddy, in the Corsa and the other
Cruiser respectively. There was a ton of dust coming up behind those two
trucks, and Tony and I drove for an hour on a bumpy dirt road with about 15
meters of visibility. That was some scary driving. Tony was talking most of the
time about how he didn’t like all the dust or not being able to see, but
he’s a lot of fun to talk to, and he’s got some interesting stuff
to say. As soon as we were all set up and good to go at Diepspruit,
Angus and I hit the road back to Mpofu where we spent
the night. Angus plans to commute the hour drive between the two every day, so
he can see Heather and Sean and Ethan, who are all in town.
Day 32 – Friday, 16 June
2006
Angus
and I got up at Mpofu, and we went and ran errands
for a while, and I tried to check the internet, but the internet kept messing
up. It was being a real pain in the ass, so eventually we just gave up on that,
and went and got everything else. As soon as we got ready to go, we went and
drove back to Diepspruit. The drive is about an hour
and it’s usually mostly on the dirt road, but we drove through Ellisras
this time so as to get some diesel for the Corsa.
This added a bit of time to the drive but it was on the paved road, so it was a
more pleasant drive than the dirt road way. I broke fast on Doritos, Coke,
biltong, and a snickers bar. We got to Diepspruit
around 11, and then we hunted for the rest of the day. It seemed like the roads
at Diepspruit have been cleaned up a lot and the
branches and thorns don’t quite jump out at you like they did last time
we were here. Or maybe I’m just looking out for it now. I have Chap Stick
this time, too, which makes the ride nicer. Tony cooked dinner, which was
chicken soup, and it was really damn good. After dinner, we all sat around the
tube and watched Cool Hand Luke on Turner Classic Movies. The shit of it is
that we can get TCM but not the damn College World Series.
Day 33 – Saturday, 17 June
2006
I
woke up at 5:25 this morning and I couldn’t sleep, so I went and sat
outside until everybody else woke up around 6:15 or 6:20. They grabbed some
coffee, and talked and stood around for a few minutes, and then Nick, Reon, Paul, Brian, and Bob all went out hunting, and I stayed
in the lodge to wait for Rocky to get up so I can take him out to sit in a
blind and make sure he doesn’t shoot anything that he isn’t
supposed to.
Day 34 – Sunday, 18 June
2006
Day 35 – Monday, 19 June
2006
We
got up around 6:00 this morning and went out rifle hunting early with Jim. He
is one of those guys who doesn’t want to sit in a stand all day, so we
dropped him off in there around 7:45 and were to pick him up at 11. During this
time, we were driving Rocky around looking for a steenbok or a waterbuck. We
drove around until around 8:30, and then we picked up Tony and took Rocky and
him up to the double bull blind near the water pump up in the hills. We dropped
the two of them off, and then Reon and I went looking
for a rooibok. We didn’t find one. But we did
find a dead baby mountain reedbuck, which was really sad, but it was beautiful,
too. Reon is going to have it skinned out for a full
mount, and he may give it to Rocky, or something. We went back and picked Jim
up at 11 or 11:15 and took him back to camp, where we chilled for a while and
had lunch. I messed around with my iPod for a long
time, since it quit working, and I never got it interfacing with the computer
again, but I did get it working again. After that, I took a nap out in the
yard, lying on that big log in the sun. I woke up around 2:30 when Reon came outside and we went back out with plans of
shooting an impala. We hopped in the bakke with the
.375 H&H, which is a K98 make (the old German WW2 sniper rifle that was
originally made by Mauser, I think). About ten
minutes into the drive, Reon and I both looked off to
the left and saw what we assumed was a nice big steenbok, and we stopped the
truck. He pulled up a little more to get a look at it after it ran behind an
Acacia tree, and we saw two black tufts of hair sticking up out of the red
body, and we both quickly realized it was a rooikat,
another caracal. I immediately jacked a round into the rifle, and popped the
scope caps up to whack it. It was only about 15 meters away, and it was sitting
dead still and looking at us. Right as I put the rifle up, Reon
said, “Exley, may I please shoot it, since you’ve already got one
and I’ve never shot one.” I was happy with that, as I was only
going to shoot it to get rid of it, since I could not afford to mount another
one. I handed him the rifle and he leaned over and put the end of the barrel
right in front of my face. It was a big rifle, so I plugged my ears and BOOM!
The cat dropped immediately, as it should have, having been shot with an
elephant rifle and soft tip bullets. We tossed it in the back of the bakke (it wasn’t as big as mine, but the markings
were striking.) and headed on back towards the skinning shed to have it skinned
out for a full mount. On the way back we saw a few impala off to the left of
the road, and we hopped out to stalk them. When I got the rifle up, they turned
out not to be big enough to shoot, so we walked a little closer and they ran
off across the road. We followed them over towards the water hole, where we saw
a huge impala ram. We stalked down to about 80 meters, and I set the rifle on a
branch from a thorn tree, it was pretty wobbly, but it was doin’
okay, and I lined up on the impala. It was directly behind a small one, that
was maybe 15 inches, so I waited a second, and it moved out from behind it.
BOOM! WHAP! I shot and I heard the bullet smack the impala. It ran off into the
bush, and Reon and I could barely control ourselves
walking over there. I actually ran the last few steps, and we looked around for
a few minutes, before we found any blood. We tracked for a few minutes, and
then we found it, dead as a doorknob, laying in the brush. I took the rifle and
Reon’s binoculars back to the bakke and brought it in to the water hole, so we
wouldn’t have to carry it a long way. We tossed it on the back of the
truck and took the two animals to the camp, and then to the skinning shed. We
took a lot of pictures at the camp, and got some good ones of Reon’s caracal riding my impala. We took the animals
over to the skinning shed and then we chilled there for a while and shot the
shit with the skinners. When they finished skinning them, Reon
informed me that since this was my first African game animal, I would be
cooking and eating the testicles tonight, which I did. I sliced them up as soon
as I got back to the camp, and then we went out and fetched Tony and Rocky, and
when I got back, I sautéed some onions, and then tossed the slices in
and cooked them up. We took some pictures of it, and then I ate them, and they
were actually pretty good. The impala ended up being 24 ¼ inches, and 23
¾ or 7/8 makes Roland Ward book. So my impala was pretty big. The whole
day was awesome, and so now I have either one or two more animals to shoot this
summer.
Day 57 – Tuesday, 11 July
2006
Haven’t
done any writing in a long time, but things have been going well. Doing a lot
of work around the farm, like pouring concrete water traps, trying (as of now
unsuccessfully) to trap a tarantaal, and feeding around
the farm. The last group was a bunch of recurve bow
hunters who were pretty cool, but only two of them actually hunted with recurves. They shot a good bit, and while they were here I
killed a puff adder. It was really big, but I never got around to skinning it.
I went out partying with Grant and his buddy Andrew last Friday night in
Ellisras and got toasted, but we had a really good time. Angus has been away
with Arn and Mary Lavington,
so I’ve been working with Nick and Reon.
This
morning I got up and messed around with the concrete traps and put up some
pictures in the lodge before breakfast. Then Jenny and I went to Ellisras and
picked up the double cab which I brought back here. Once I got back, I had lunch
and did some odd jobs and then went running. I’ve actually been doing a
good bit of that recently. Then we chilled at the house until Nick and Sarah
got here with the new group of clients. I’m really looking forward to
heading into the mountains tomorrow with Nick, Sarah, and the Hunts. Should be
a lot of fun.
Day 58 – Wednesday, 12 July
2006
We
drove up to the mountains this morning and got there around noon. We hunted in
the afternoon and it is absolutely amazing here. The scenery is fantastic, just
like Nick said it would be, and I’m really glad I charged up my camera.
We hiked around, as there are no real roads in the area, and we saw a good bit
of game. Sitting on the cliff we saw a klipspringer down by the river, which
was cool. We saw some kudu cows down in the bottom, as well as bushbuck, and a
young kudu bull. Later on in the afternoon, Lance shot a Wildebeest, and we
were a long way from the road, so we had to gut it and cut it up so we could
carry it out to the road. Things are going well, and I am really enjoying being
in the mountains where it is as rustic as it is.
Day 59 – Thursday, 13 July
2006
We
got up at 6:00 and were out walking by 6:45. We walked all morning, and we
didn’t see much at all, but we had some nice hiking. We saw a baby berg
adder in the rocks, and not much else. After that, we decided it would be
better if we drove around in the bakke and looked for
game. Got some really good photos today of the valley, and then this evening we
sat out in a rock outcropping across a valley from a saltlick. We saw a ton of
kudu cows and one small bull, but that’s it. We sat around the fire for a
while and had gemsbok sausage and mashed potatoes.
Day 60 – Friday, 14 July
2006
Woke
up at the same time, and hiked all around in the hills. It was a lot of work,
and we saw some baboons (bobbejaan, kees) and Lance considered shooting one of those, but he
ended up passing on it in hopes of a kudu bull. We cut from the kees spot up into a valley where we ran into some zebra,
one of which, a stallion, he whacked. He shot it with the 180 grain Nossler Partition out of Nick’s .300. Nick has always
said that that bullet is a piece, and it proved its weakness today. It hit a
twig on the way over and shattered, peppering the zebra with buckshot.
Fortunately, the core still center punched the zebra. Dropped it in 200 meters.
Sarah locked the keys in the bakke and we had to wait
out in the woods with the dead critter while she found someone in town to pick
her lock.
Day 61 – Saturday, 15 July
2006
We
awoke at the regular time and were out in the bush and hiking early again. We
walked the fenceline and went over and over ridges,
and Lance was pretty worn out by the time we spotted two nice kudu bulls around
9:30. He quickly piped up and was doing fine again until Nick told him that the
bulls were out of range by nearly 200 meters. We walked along the ridge back to
the cliffs where we saw another klipspringer. We chilled out in camp from 11 to
2:30 and I took a nice nap. Then Nick and Lance headed down to a saltlick to
give the kudu one last shot. Robin and I chilled in camp with Sarah for a
little while, where I demonstrated my adaptation to spending lots of time with
Nick and fell asleep with my eyes wide open. Sarah was a little freaked out, I
think. Robin and I were back up in the tower and waiting to see if there was
anything worth shooting, and right before sunset we heard a shot. It was Nick
and Lance, and they whacked a nice kudu bull. It turned out to be 54.5. After
loading that up, we returned to Bitterfontein, and
had dinner with the whole crew. I ate a whole lot, as I was pretty tired from
walking the hills all day.
I
like the guys who are in camp right now, and I wish I could spend more time
with them, but I am headed to Pilansberg tomorrow
with Nick, Robin and Lance. It will be nice to see some of the country, too.
Well, it’s late, and I need some sleep. It’s been a really hard
day. And I still smell like a dead zebra.
Day 62 – Sunday, 16 July
2006
First
day in Pilansberg, and we spent most of the day in
transit. We got to Pilansberg in the evening, and we
went on a game drive where we saw an elephant, a rhino, and some other stuff.
It was pretty cool. Nick and I watched The Dukes of Hazzard,
which he thought was absolutely hilarious, and I had quite a good time watching
it again, too.
Day 63 – Monday, 17 July
2006
We
woke up early and went out on another game drive. We took up some huge lion
tracks, and we followed those down a dirt road until they went off into the
bush. We were a bit disappointed, but we continued on along the road, and a few
minutes later we came around a corner, and bam! There were a pair of lions
standing slap in the middle of the road. They were two young males, but they
were absolutely huge. We stopped and took a ton of pictures, and then when they
walked out of the road and into the grass to go around us, Lance stuck his head
out of the window to get a picture. The bigger of the two lions roared and
lunged at him, but didn’t follow through with it. I’ve never seen a
guy Lance’s size jump back that quickly. We drove down to
Day 64 – Tuesday, 18 July
2006
We got up early, err, kinda,
and went for another game drive, and then we left the park and headed to Lesedi, the cultural village. That was a really neat
experience, and I learned a lot about some of the African cultures, as well as
some Hispanic culture. There was a really big group of Spanish speakers there,
and there was a girl with them who I went up to and talked to her a couple of
times. The first time was weak, consisting only of “Excusame,
de donde eres?” to
which she replied “
Day 65 – Wednesday, 19 July
2006
We
were supposed to be ready for breakfast at 7, so we could get going, but of
course lance and robin were not ready until 7:45. oh well. We left Lesedi and went to the Cradle of Humankind. That is where
Australopithecus Africanus and all of those other
ape-man things were found. Lance was pulling the “this is not real. What
happened to Adam and Eve?” thing. I didn’t say anything. I quite
enjoyed the tour of the Sterkfontain caves.
After
Sterkfontain we went to Highveld Taxidermists, and it
was absolutely amazing. Dieter’s trophy room is mind-boggling. I took a
few photos, but they won’t do it justice. There is a 27 or so inch impala
in there as well as a full mounted elephant, and almost every animal I could
imagine. It was truly amazing. There is an entire room of finished mounts, and
it was ridiculous. The animals in there are unbelievable. The taxidermists was
really cool, but we didn’t get to stay too long, as we had to head to Cullinen to go tour the diamond mine. The tour of the
diamond mine was really cool as well, but I would have rather spent time at the
taxidermist looking at all the animals.
Well,
we went to
Day 66 – Thursday, 20 July
2006
We
slept I a little bed and breakfast and woke up late this morning, around 7:45. we had breakfast, and then we goofed around there for a
while before heading out.
We
left Cullinan and headed into
Day 70 – Monday, 24 July
2006
Andy
McDowell and his buddy Mike are the clients for this week. Andy is
Monte’s kid, and Monte is off with Angus hunting the cool stuff right
now: leopard, bosvark, and lion. He wounded and lost
his leopard and he’s hunting the bushpig
tonight. I hope all goes well with that. Andy and Mike are cool guys. We made
and played with blowguns last night, and I ended up getting shot several times
with our homemade darts which proved quite deadly. We came to another
concession today, and it’s really cool. It’s owned by a guy named
Archie Leach, and both he and his wife were really nice as well. I spent most
of the day sleeping while Andy and Mike were out together in a blind. Tomorrow,
I must wake up early (5:20 or so), and take Mike out and sit with him in a
blind until 11 or so, so I really have to get off to bed now.
Day 71 – Tuesday, 25 July
2006
Mike
and I were up before first light, and we were out and in the blind by 6. We
were just sittin around, and we were starting to get
antsy by around 8:30. I told Mike we oughta wait a
little longer, and just as he had about had me talked into breakfast, I looked
out the window and saw a few warthogs coming in to take food and water. There
were none there worth shooting, but we sat around and watched them eat for a
while, and while they were sitting there eating, Mike looked out and saw a
couple of ears. “KUDU!!” I looked and it was just a few cows, and I
figured there would be nothing of it, but that we oughta
wait for a little while and see if anything else comes in. Mike was looking off
to the left and I was looking off to the right, and suddenly I saw some horns
coming in. “psst, mike, there’s a bull
coming in . . . shit, he’s a young’n.
maybe 18 months.” We waited a few minutes and he said to me, “look
out to the right and see if that big bull I saw with this group yesterday
isn’t there.” Sure enough, it was. It was quite a nice bull, and I
nearly crapped myself when I saw it. It looked absolutely enormous. As he
walked into the feeder, Mike looked over at me and said, “is it a
shooter?” “DEFINITELY” “you sure?” “Yeah,
shoot it. I think he’ll go 48 or 50. is that good enough?”
“yeah. Get the camera goin” I got the
camera rolling and he shot his bow, shooting too far forward by about 6 inches
and about 3 inches high. As we watched the instant replay, he was freaking
about whether the shot was good, and I was freaking about whether the kudu was
as big as I’d thought it really was. We were both nervous as hell, and
after a half hour, sarah and the boys showed up to
track it, and with the help of the Vektor .375
H&H they sent it off to kudu heaven. We got some really good video of the
bow shot, and then Andy filmed Mike talking about it at the recovery. We went
back to camp for a while, and then Mike and I went back out and sat in the
blind again for the afternoon. When we got back to camp, Mike tried to show
Monte the shot, and it turned out that Andy and Mike had somehow managed to
film the recovery over the shot. Oops. Dinner was nice, and then I helped Salamina wash the dishes, and then we went out to sit
around the fire.
Day 72 – Wednesday, 26 July
2006
We
slept in somewhat this morning, as there was no water and nobody was in a hurry
to do anything. Mike and I went out to a stand after breakfast, while Andy
stayed back with Angus, Nick and Monte to hunt nare.
Around 11:30 we heard a gunshot, which we figured was not a terribly good
thing. However, half an hour later nick came and got Mike and I to see the
extremely large and extremely dead cape buffalo. It turned out that
Andy’s shot had done the trick and the rifle shot was only to stop the
full on charge of another buffalo. Angus shot into the ground in front of a
younger bull charging at full speed when it was only 15 yards or so away. I
think in his place I would have lost my composure and shot the other one
between the eyes.
Mike
and I went back out after we got photos and stuff and we moved into a different
blind. We sat there all afternoon and evening and I had a chance to finish my
book. Around 5:15, a big warthog came in and Mike zapped it. It was quite a
tracking job as the two blade broadhead he was using doesn’t make for a
terribly nice blood trail, but we managed to track it, mostly with nick using
spoor and me using blood to track it. Mike is colorblind so he couldn’t
see much blood, but he did a good job picking up spots in the sand that I
didn’t notice. He just couldn’t see them on blades of grass. Once
we found that we went and got Andy and Monte from their blind and on the way
back to camp we ran into a noku. Andy missed it through the quills, and Monte
nailed it up the poop chute and out the mouth, knocking some teeth out in the
process.
Day 76 – Sunday, 30 July
2006
We
got up early and went hunting again. This time I was with Andy. We hadn’t
seen a whole lot early, but then all of a sudden everything started coming in.
First it was some springbok, then the blesbok followed them in, and there were
hundreds of them everywhere. Andy wanted to wait for a black wildebeest to come
in, and sure enough, his patience paid off. The herd started coming in, and all
of a sudden we were surrounded. We couldn’t get the combo of a shot and a
video of any one bull for quite some time, and eventually I had the camera on
one in a position where I could hardly even see the screen. I asked Andy if I
was on the right one and he nodded and shot, only it
turned out that the camera was actually on a cow standing to the left of the
bull. No good video there. Oops. We cooked dinner over the fire as there was no
power all day, and later in the evening I called Caroline to wish her happy
birthday, but I couldn’t get hold of her.
Day 77 – Monday, 31 July
2006
We’ve
been up in the highveld for a while and I’ve been sitting in the stands
with Andy and Mike, which I’ve been quite enjoying. Monte and Andy and
Mike decided to moer a chicken that had been keeping Monte up, and they got it
on video and all that. Funny part was that after they killed it, it turned out
the landowner had been joking when he said they could kill it. Guess he learned
a lesson about telling Monte he could do something. This morning Andy let me
shoot his bow since we got to sleep in as Andy had killed everything he wanted
to in the highveld, a springbok and a black wildebeest. His bow pulls 83
pounds, and I learned that being strong enough to bull 73 doesn’t mean
you can pull 83. I pulled it once, and then let it down on accident since the
valley is so little. I pulled it the second time but was struggling to hold it
back so I botched the shot, not even looking through the peep sight. I missed
the foam block at 5m. oops. I managed to spend most of the morning finishing up
the website for Bob’s PRTM class, and then after lunch, Mike and I went
to another property to hunt free roaming black wildebeest. I’ve only got
two more days here before leaving SA, and one of them I’m supposedly
going to get to spend stalking and whacking a springbok. That’ll be
really cool.
The
other farm was really cool, what with the wild wildebeest and all. We sat
around doing nothing for a while in a double bull blind with one chair, so I
sat on a rock I had found outside and relocated. I worked on the website for a
long time and then all of a sudden we saw the wildebeest up on the hill above
us. They started coming in to drink out of the pond we were sitting 20 yards
away from, and suddenly we were absolutely surrounded by wildebeest. Mike got
me filming, and I got some really good footage of the herd, and then all of a
sudden we see two big bulls come in to drink. Everything cleared out except for
the two of them, and I looked over at him and said “shoot one of
those” right as he said “I’m gonna
shoot one of those.” Neither of us could tell much of a difference
between the two so he decided to shoot the one that gave the best shot.
Eventually, one turned around and walked away from the pond, and I kept the
camera on the one standing all alone and drinking. Mike asked, “you got him?” and I did, so he drilled it. He hit it
perfect, and the wildebeest dropped within 100 yards. I guess I did alright on
the camera, and I managed to get everything from the shot until when he died.
After that, we went back to camp and got Sarah, and we all piled into the
double cab and “took Sarah out to dinner” which basically meant she
got to sit in the front seat of the cruiser while Monte, Andy, Mike and I all
piled into the back, and Monte paid for dinner, which was a really nice dinner.
By the time we got back from dinner, we were all pooped, and we went straight
to bed.
Day 78 – Tuesday, 1 August
2006
Nick,
Nico, Monte, and I went over to the other wildebeest
place this morning to finish off the wildebeest that Monte had wounded the
previous evening. It was hit high and forward and we were hardly expecting much
success looking for it among a herd of hundreds, but all of a sudden, right
after we’d gotten there, Monte said “Look, there he is. He’s
the one with the arrow sticking out of him and the foamy blood running down to
his ankle.” And sure enough, there it was. The fletching on the arrow had
stuck in his skin and held the arrow from passing completely through, so the
bull had all of an arrow but the nock and the fletching sticking out the exit
wound in his shoulder. We chased the herd for a while until Nick managed to get
a clear shot at the still wildebeest. The whole time I was working his range
finder and his first shot was at 348 yards. He drilled it but it didn’t
quite fall. They all ran in a big circle as wildebeest are so prone to do, and
then Nick had another shot at 295 yards which he also drilled. We drove over
and recovered the nice wildebeest, and then I told Nick that after that
impressive shooting, he had almost made up for missing the jackals earlier this
season.
On
the way back to camp, we stopped by Nico’s
brother’s farm, where I was supposed to kill my springbok. We drove
around for a while, and then we saw a nice ram with two ewes and a black ram, all
of them running with a big herd of blesbok. Monte, Nick, and I piled out of the
cruiser and began the arduous process of stalking the keen eyed animals in the
short grass. After several hundred yards of belly crawling and relocating time
and time again, we found a rock and set a small sandbag up on it. I aligned the
cross hairs on the springbok’s rear end while he was feeding away from
me, and closed the bolt on the rifle. As soon as he turned broadside, I took
the shot, and the springbok didn’t even move. I had jerked the trigger bad, and missed behind him, but in the strong wind he
didn’t even notice the shot. The other springbok behind him did, however,
and they took off. He followed as did the blesbok. We stalked them for another
20 minutes or so until it started raining and I was starting to get a bit
pessimistic about my chances of killing him. After all, I’d had my chance
and bungled it because I was too excited. The whole herd of blesbok and
springbok ran over the hill and down the other side, and we followed them and
set up about halfway down the hill. The angle was really bad, so we had Nico pull the cruiser down below them so they would come
back above us and be sky lined. They bolted when the cruiser came into view,
but fortunately they stopped up on top of the ridge again. I didn’t have
a clear shot, and it was raining pretty heavily, so Monte put the video camera
away. Suddenly, the blesbok cleared, and there he was, facing away from me and
with another young ram between us, but in a good position nonetheless. The
other springbok moved, and he started to turn. Nick said, “aim four
inches left of the crease to compensate for that wind and the
quartering.” I aimed four inches behind the crease and even with the
black stripe running along the leg. He was slightly quartering away, and I
snapped the bolt shut and squeezed the trigger. I was really relaxed this time
and just barely put pressure on his wonderfully sensitive trigger. The rifle
went off, and the only thing I saw was stars. I had relaxed a little too much
and the scope had nailed me in the forehead, leaving the sensation of being hit
in the face with a hammer. Nick said, “Nice shot. You got him.” We
ran up to where he was to get the photos taken while his fan was still up, and
Nick busted his butt on the way up. He tripped and fell on a clod of dirt in
his haste to get up there. The springbok was really nice, and we got some good
pictures of him. It turned out I had X ringed him for the quartering away shot.
The entrance was four inches back from the crease and the exit was right
through the shoulder. I yet again learned a lesson about karma, only this time
it came in a pair. The first part was that I had been hassling Nick about
missing jackals not an hour before the springbok, and then I missed him
completely, and the second was the scope ring. The previous night, I had been
telling everybody about a friend of mine whom I had taken shooting, and when
she went to shoot the .270 off a rest, it ringed her in the forehead and split
it. I joked around about getting ringed that night, and then the next day I
managed to split my own forehead with the scope while shooting the exact same
position.