Home is where the heart is....

Am I home or not?  The duplicity of my existence, torn between a settled home life in the woods of Nova Scotia, and the excitement and exotic life of flying helicopters off Africa's East Coast, snorkelling daily on world class reefs and mountain biking and night clubs and Swahili greetings with smiling kids, is becoming taxing.  As I sit in my living room of my rural home, my beautiful Les Paul and Fender Super Sonic amp still humming as they cool, surrounded by my furniture and my plates and dishes, my books and magazines and hiking boots and survival knives and tools and compasses and DVDs and stereo surround sound and big screen TV, my dress clothes and winter jackets and leather belts and shoes for evenings out and for days of leisure, my surfboards and wet suits and oil paintings, my souvenirs and reminders of time spent in Norway and Azerbaijan and Turkey and Romania and Cuba, my toys and distractions, my snowboard gear and gear for hunting and for fishing, and I wonder, really wonder, what do I need?  I've got my old mountain bike, a featherlight Norco Java frame, spray painted flat black, that I outfitted with full Shimano XTR gear and Race Face, Judy shocks with White Brothers innards, that I rode and raced and ran into black bears in the wilds of North Western Ontario and raced and placed, torn down and stuffed into a large hockey bag, to take back to Mtwara and my life there.  The mountain biking in Mtwara is world class, and I wish I had bothered hauling over a decent bike much sooner.

My time home has been fun.  My daughter and I did a ton of mountain biking, walks on Halifax's waterfront and downtown and lunches out and about.  I've gotten in some serious trout fishing deep in the Nova Scotia wilds, catching my limit with fair sized speckled trout, bodies gleaming, the tender pink meat providing some very memorable meals.  I threw a ton of lead down range practicing with my Winchester Alaskan .375 H&H and sighting in a new scope.  I brought in excavators and backhoes and made yet another attempt to repair some drainage issues that have plagued the house for twenty years, and perhaps the days of water in the basement after a heavy deluge are over.  I've given up on the impossibly sharp and robust steel of ESEE survival knives, despite being coated, the edges just rust too quickly, and go with a good 440C stainless steel instead, a nice Boker or SOG.  Too many survival courses under my belt and too much time spent in the wilds to be without a good knife!  I'll miss my green lush yard, sitting on my tranquil deck with a hot coffee and good book and watch the birds and squirrels frolic in the woods, but I am ready to go back to Africa, to flying, to my friends and life there.....

Headed back on Tuesday, time to start packing....

Mzungu Witch Doctor

Home and not much time for writing in my blog.  Mountain biking with my kid, and flyfishing for fresh brook trout, I did manage a little jam time with my Les Paul.  Not completely sober, I had fun with this one...

That new song re-done.....

Not getting a ton of positive feedback, but I guess I'm having fun.  Going to start calling my band "Mzungu Witch Doctor"

Limpopo Safari - Closure

After a stressful trip home, as no hunter wants an injured animal on his conscience, I received word that my kudu had been found.  The shot was as we surmised, going exactly where I had aimed, my countless shots fired at the range over the years for the sole purpose of being able to place the bullet exactly where I wanted, every time, to preclude a poor shot and suffering, resulted in taking out the left lung.  Had I placed the shot where I should have, had I surmised that the old kudu bull was more broadside than head on, despite the waning light and heavy brush, he would not have gone so far, and suffered less.  The old kudu male had made for a watering hole, and I will always feel sad about that trip he made.   But I don't regret the shot.  Animals die.  Death via starvation, or old and weak and taken by a leopard or lion, or worse, hyenas, must be horrendous, but I do wish I took him more honorably.  More quickly.  But I am a hunter, and if nothing else, practical.  Human encroachment, and dwindling habitat, will always take far more wildlife than a thousand hunters, and the habitat for these kudu, and all the plains game I took on this safari, exists solely for the purpose of their hunting.  If there was no money to be made in providing habitat for these beautiful animals, their remaining haunts would quickly be converted to something that did turn a profit, and as often as not, that would mean farming.  This old kudu bull has lived and bred and roamed these parts for years, and I'm sad to say, he'll roam here no longer.

The old bull's spiral horns, the most sought after horns by hunters in all of Africa, will go over fifty-six inches, and qualify for the Rowland Ward record book, as well as the Safari Club International record archives.   I wish only to have been able to place my hand on his still warm body, as with the other game I've taken, and pay my respects.

Limpopo Safari - Last Day

 

The evening was spent around the firepit, my hartebeest roasting over the hot coals, sipping South African beer, and reliving the day’s hunts and telling stories of past hunts.  While I’m impressed with the Old Spaniard, hunting this rough country in his late seventies, I can’t help but laugh when Kobus tells me that while guiding the Spaniard, he heard something and turned around to find two feet kicking in the air.  How the old fellow managed to fall into a warthog hole head first, we can only guess.  Kobus Senior tells of a lion hunt with himself, the client and another guide tracking a female lion for miles, until the lion tires of the chase and lies low in wait of her pursuers.  The deep growl at forty yards has everyone’s hair on end and rifles are raised.  But the client doesn’t shoot.  Kobus whispers to him, take the shot, but the client, terrified, asks him to shoot it.  “Shoot your own lion” Kobus tells him, but it doesn’t matter, the lion gives them no choice and comes.  Fast.  Both guides have their beads on the charging lion, waiting for the client to shoot, but then it’s quickly too close and both guides fire, the lion dropping dead at Kobus’s feet.  They turn to find the client had turned to run, dropped his rifle and tripped, and was too scared to get up.  He was crawling away.  I felt bad for the damage the man’s pride must have taken, but I don’t laugh too hard.  I’ve never been charged by a lion.

 

I mention the beautiful Bush Buck mount in my room and mention I’d like to take one if presented with the opportunity.  Both Kobus’s laugh.  Kobus Senior took that buck in the eighties, and while they often see them in the evenings, caught in the headlights, seeing them in the daylight is a rarity, and most hunters looking for bush buck go home empty handed.  There’s only been one taken here besides Kobus’s.

 

The morning is cold.  Dew forms on our eyelids in the thick fog and I shiver as we head up into the mountains.  Visibility is poor, but we head off just the same as the sky brightens, and the fog slowly burns off in the African sun.  In thick brush, what should pop out at under fifty yards but a bush buck.  Kobus is excited, the buck is very old with a rack for the record books, and I should take him.  I feel a little like I’m cheating, like I’m breaking some hunter’s code, as we have not tracked or hunted him, he just appeared.  Wrong place at the wrong time.  He heads into the brush and we move ahead a hundred yards, and the old male walks right across an opening broadside.  I raise the rifle and drop him in his tracks.  I console myself that at least he was moving when I shot, but there’s nowhere near the satisfaction that I gained from the difficult stalks thus far.

 

After taking the Bush Back back to camp and having some blesbuck for lunch, we head out again and scour the mountains for kudu.  I’m quite adept at ignoring the pain in my feet now, as we clock another twenty kilometres of up and down mountain ranges.  We spot two young kudu bulls in the next valley over, and decide to go the long way around the valley to close.  Enroute in the opposite direction, we spot a huge male feeding in the brush across the valley, at just over three hundred yards.  I just want to sit and watch him feed.  He is beautiful.  We plan a stalk and move as quietly as possible along the side of the mountain, attempting to work our way farther up the ridge and out of the kudu’s line of sight, before circumnavigating the valley and then working our way up the other side.   Just before moving out of sight, we glass back to check him, and of course, he is looking straight at us.  We continue with the plan, my legs and feet at their limit, but no kudu are to be found, and we head back to camp dejected.

The next day is much the same and my confidence is waning.  I’ve taken some incredible game, and each and every stalk is firmly ingrained in my memory as the finest hunting I’ve ever dreamed of.  I seriously don’t mind not taking a kudu.  This hunt has been successful beyond all imagining.  We’ve watched many fine kudu bulls, and blown many a stalk.  I remember Hemingway’s month long quest for kudu and I don’t mind, but we do not let up.  We get in the rough country again and put our feet to work, before first light as every morning this week.  By mid afternoon, I am seriously exhausted and I want to quit.  I want to sit by the fire and sip gin and tonics and relive the hunts I’ve had.  As we move along, the sun dropping below the horizon and the light quickly waning, and I tell Kobus that if we happen upon a kudu now, like we did the bush buck, I would not feel bad taking him, as we have hunted hard.  Not a second after the last syllable escaped my mouth, we happened upon a monster kudu bull, at less than fifty yards.

His rack is massive.  But he has seen us just as we saw him, and he tromps off snorting heavily.  We have dropped to our knees in the tall grass and we wait.  If he has gone, there is not enough daylight to stalk.  After maybe ten minutes, we raise our heads ever so slowly, and spot the tops of those amazing spiral horns about eighty yards off.  Kobus tells me we’ll have to stand up to shoot, and that I’ll have very little time.  I stand, rifle at the ready, and there he is, staring back at me at eighty yards, perfectly broadside, but I cannot see his body at all.  The grass is too high.  It’s just his beautiful kudu head, and he barks loudly at us. 

“I don’t have a shot” I tell Kobus. 

“Stay on him, maybe he’ll move into the open”

I know where his body is, I know where to put the bullet, but I don’t want him that bad.  Not bad enough to make a poor shot.  Not bad enough to risk injuring him.  It’s hunting, not shooting.  And he is gone.

We glass for awhile as I now feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins.  I breath deep to calm my nerves.   It is getting dark.

“There he is!” Kobus points.

My rifle up, I look through the scope at where Kobus is pointing.  There he is again, on the mountain side, in thick brush, at one hundred and sixty yards, facing us.  Watching us.  The light is still good enough for the frontal shot.  Everyone of the five animals I’ve taken this week has been a perfect shot.  Every one of the animals I’ve taken has dropped within five feet of where I had shot them.  I am confident.  I place the reticule centre of his chest, then slightly right as he appears ever so slightly quartering, but I’m not steady enough.  I take my eye away from the scope, knowing he won’t stand there forever, and it’s getting dark, but I want to take a good shot, one I am confident in.  I breath deep and aim again.  The reticule sits rock solid exactly where I want it and I squeeze.

 

His front knees buckle, he stumbles, and I lose him in the brush.  We listen and hear nothing.  He must be down.   Then Kobus tells me I was too far left, he saw the shot hit.  We drop and I draw the front of the kudu in the sand and showed Kobus where I was aiming, where I’m sure I hit.  Kobus confirms that that is exactly where I hit, but I should have been six inches right.  He was standing broadside, his front legs and head twisted towards us.  My heart sinks.  Kobus moves to where I shot, his feet in my tracks in the sand, and raises the rifle, looks through the scope, then turns and smiles reassuringly at me.  He confirms that I wouldn’t have been able to see the body for that bush, the kudu would have appeared to be straight on from where I shot.  Kobus could see the rump through brush, the kudu was completely  twisted, but I couldn’t see that at all.  We are quite confident though that the shot has taken the right lung and possibly the right shoulder.  Kobus tells me he made the exact shot on a kudu two years ago, exactly the same situation that I’m presented with, and the damn thing went for weeks.  Kudu are tough.

“Let’s not push him” Kobus advises.  “Let’s come back at first light”

 

My emotions are mixed.  I’m confident of the shot, but it was the wrong shot.  I know I can do nothing but wait till morning, and I feel very low.  In the morning, we head back with both Kobus Junior and Senior and two other trackers.  We find the scuff marks where the kudu was hit.  Within an hour,  Kobus Junior finds the blood trail.  It’s all rock and there’s very little spore.  We track the blood for three hundred yards, and then we lose it.  I have a long drive and an even longer flight to catch, I have to go.  Kobus Senior drives me back so I can have a quick shower and a change of clothes and off we drive to the airport, over three hours away.  He tells me he knows how I feel.  Being a professional hunter, he’s been in the same situation many times before on his own shots, and he reassures me that my marksmanship has been exemplary.  I’m appalled when he tells me that only losing one out of six animals taken is quite amazing.  One bullet per animal all week, dropping them in their tracks.  The guys hunting before me were averaging ten rounds per animal.  He gets many poor, poor hunters, and this sort of thing is surprisingly common.  It doesn’t make me feel any better.  No one wishes to injure an animal.  But ever cheery, he assures me he will find the kudu.  The country is remote, and if the kudu dies quickly, it may take awhile to find him, as kudu can cover many, many kilometres, but eventually they will.  I will have some piece of mind, and the rack.  It will be easier if the kudu bull is only injured.  He has had single lung shot animals recover, but being the dry season, there’s only a few water holes around, and if the kudu is still moving, they will check the watering holes in the evenings, and they will find him shortly.  I’m waiting.  

 

Limpopo Safari - Day Four. No kudu.

You get what you ask for.  I had requested the old school hunt, doing everything on foot.  After yesterday’s mileage, I was hurting this morning, but a few advil later, I sucked it up and we headed out before day break once again.  Typically the Potgieters use this tough little Yamaha Rhino four-wheeler to get you in the proper neck of their nine thousand acres ranch before setting off on foot, but we were plagued with a flat within a kilometre of leaving camp.  Kobus asked if I minded going on foot, and grinning from ear to ear, I hopped out.  Blisters be damned.

It’s difficult to describe the feeling, hunting in Africa, walking at an easy pace through the long grass, Kobus’s old and worn 30-06 draped casually over my shoulder, my early nineteenth century waxed cotton fedora keeping the rising African sun out of my eyes, and I notice the guide’s hand trailing through the long grass, striping the grains off the tops as he passes, and sprinkling them absent mindedly.  I’m surprised to find myself doing the same.  We cover many miles before we reach the foothills, and young Kobus, like a mountain goat, takes off straight up the side.  Thanking my youth of mountain climbing, I’m soon grabbing for lips and edges and struggling to keep up as we head straight up, climbing while trying to remain quiet, and keeping the strain on my burning thighs and broken blisters to a minimum.   We are soon on the top, and jumping from rock to rock and ducking the dried branches and keeping a wary eye, for we are in prime kudu territory now, but they are not here.  After another couple of hours, we have snuck across the mountain and start to head down the other side, far more precarious and painful than the climb, and eventually, painfully, once again we find ourselves out in the tall grass of the plains, and we walk and walk and walk.  The game is strangely absent today but I don’t mind.  I’m hunting in Africa.

After lunch, I concede that I feel forty years old, which isn’t bad considering I’m forty-six, but I ask Kobus if we can cut back on the walking and spend more time in the Rhino.  It’s like admitting defeat, but my body needs some respite.  Kobus isn’t dejected at all, and after walking back and repairing the flat Kobus takes to the mountains with the same vigour we did on foot, tackling impossibly steep rock strewn river beds, bouncing off rocks and through warthog holes, and I’m amazed at what the Rhino is capable of.  Kobus apologizes for not finding kudu, but I reassure him, that if it was a sure thing, it would not be a thing worth doing.  I want the hunt to be hard.  I want it to be difficult.  I don’t want a guarantee.

We eventually head back to the top of the valley were we saw the huge kudu the day prior, park the Rhino and head in on foot.  Despite thoroughly enjoying the off roading, this feels like proper hunting again. 

We do our best to determine where the kudu will come down from the mountain in the evening to the water hole and burrow in.  A Slender Mongoose dashes by, and Kobus calls him back, and the mongoose, confused, closes to about two feet, before casually sauntering off.  I hear some noise behind and turn to see a huge warthog, at less than ten feet, with tusks going over thirteen inches.  Kobus, excited, whisper for me to take him, but I am here for kudu.  The warthogs have terrible eyesite, but we can tell instantly when he winds us and he is off with a grunt.

As the sun sets, we stalk towards the waterhole in case the kudu has somehow gotten by us, but there’s nothing to be seen.  Some hartebeest off in the distance, and springbok prances by, an small duiker sprint about, but no kudu so we head back to the Rhino and camp.

Limpopo Safari - Day Three. Kudu bark.

It was a hard day of hunting.  Kobus Senior, my hunting guide to date, had to take the day to sort out billing with his Spanish clients, so I was to hunt with his twenty something year old son, Kobus Junior.  Despite Kobus Senior’s advanced age and recent hip replacement, he was a force to be reckoned with when it came to hiking through the brushveld, but Korbus Junior would raise the bar somewhat.  Kobus Junior had been guiding the Spaniards for the past ten days, taking a nice eland, and numerous warthogs.  The Spaniards were crazy for warthogs!  The Spaniards were a jovial bunch, a perpetually smiling eighty-five year old and his brother in law, who weren’t the best of marksmen.   Kobus Senior was forever ribbing them about their ten shots per animal, versus my single shot smack dab heart success, but I couldn’t join in the joking, as my next shot had every chance of ruining my perfect record thus far. 

I was awoken yet once again by a soft knock on the door, and quickly dressed and joined the charming Potgieter family;  Kobus Senior and his lovely wife Susan, and thee cutest couple in the world, Kobus Junoir and his wife Janita.  With Janita driving, Kobus Junior and I piled into the Yamaha Rhino four-wheeler and headed off in the dark.  Within half an hour and increasing light, Kobus spotted some male kudu tracks, and he gave Janita yet another kiss and sent her back to camp.  We set off immediately in the steep and rocky brushveld, Kobus tracking the kudu quickly, picking up scat and seeing how wet and warm it was, showing me where they’d been browsing.  I had my doubts, that perhaps it was all abit of showmanship for the out-of-towner, but within an hour of hard walking, we could hear them moving through the brush just ahead of us.  Within another hour of careful stalking, Kobus spotted one male in the thick brush at about three hundred yards watching for whatever was following, so we laid low behind some brush and waited him out.  After thirty minutes, the kudu finally moved out and started to head towards us, but quartering.  We figured he had to pass through one clearing that would give me a clear shot, but not for long as I wouldn’t be able to see his entire body the shooting lane was so small, and at one hundred and fifty yards, it wasn’t an easy shot, but Kobus was confident as my shooting thus far had been exemplary.  I sighted on the shooting lane and waited, and waited, and waited, and there he was, there was the heart shot, just atop the foreleg, coming into view, and the kudu stopped, and I aimed and exhaled and....he was gone.  It was not even a count of “one thou....” and that was it.  So we scrambled to place ourselves for another shot, and soon had a nice bead on him, but Kobus advised me to wait until he stopped.  I watched this beautiful creature move along, my reticule firmly planted on his heart, and waited, waited, and Kobus even whistled, but it was not to be.  And the kudu disappeared behind some brush.  At that point, the adrenaline was coursing through my veins.  I had never seen a kudu bull before, as large as an elk or moose, and infinitely more graceful, with those long spiral horns, Kobus guessing going well over fifty inches.  We moved quickly to reposition, but the second kudu made us and they were off.  It was difficult enough to stalk the wary kudu, but to go after spooked kudu was simply a waste of time.

 

Hunting in Africa is like nothing I’ve ever experienced.  My normal thrashing grounds, Nova Scotia, is thick brush, full of dead fall and marsh.  Unless you happen along a well used trail or road, or perhaps a rare stand of hard wood, you are not moving quietly through the Nova Scotia woods.  Stalking is tough.  And if you get a few hundred metres of visibility, consider yourself most fortunate, as it’s often down to the single digits.  In South Africa, the bush can be thick, but it’s relatively easy to move along noiselessly if one is careful, and while visibility is often below twenty metres, it frequently opens to a hundred, a few hundred, or even a thousand metres, and often, quite a lot more, with plenty of bushes and tall grass to make a stalk a viable reality.  And whereas a white tail deer in Nova Scotia is a rare site, in South Africa you will see a vast variety of exotic game, while not in every valley, quite frequently.  To hike though the South African brush, rifle in hand, with the warmth the sun and exotic calls of the birds, with the chance to see zebras and wildebeest and impala and warthog and kudu and blesbuck and leopards and lions, takes hunting to a level that is almost overwhelming.  One has to shake his head frequently and ask “Am I really here?  Am I really doing this?”

So giving the kudu a pass, Kobus points to a far off mountain and we make for it.  Along the way, a herd of thirty or more wildebeest passes through a wide open savana at our side and we stop and watch.  But the herd are curious and stop and actually close to within fifty yards of us, the large male presenting a perfect broadside shot, but I don’t take the bait.  As we hike, Kobus point out the various flowers and birds and their bizarre breeding habits, and I feel like I’m on an elementary school nature hike.  Being a smart ass, I point out some female kudu I spotted on a mountain top some two kilometres off to the right.  Kobus claims we can make it before lunch, but of course we have to walk down into the next valley first and make our way around, to make the most of the wind.  Some six kilometres later, we are on the kudu hill, and spot impala.  If the impala spot us and break, they’ll spook the kudu, so we wait them out.  A pair of warthog pass within ten feet totally unaware of our presence.  The impala moves off and we make towards the summit and the kudu, but they have us made at four hundred yards.  We close nevertheless.  At twenty yards, the kudu still haven’t broke, but they continue to watch us and start to bark in the deepest most impressive bark I’ve yet heard, then they break.  We work our way down the mountainside, and watch another trio of warthog feed  while waiting for our ride back to camp, and lunch.

I’m ready to call it a day but Kobus knows where a rather large kudu often spends his late afternoons, so reluctantly I pull on my footwear and off we go.  With Janita driving once again, we head off.  About a half hour later, Kobus spots blesbuck in the savannah a few kilometres off, so we head after them on foot.  I see no possible way to get within shooting range, but Kobus shows me that if you bend ninety degrees at the waist and walk in a duckwalk, you can keep your head below the top of the grass, so we do this for at least nine hundred metres.  My back aching and thighs giving out, they are still way out of range, so we literally crawl, through the thick grass, for another five hundred metres, no kidding!  Finally popping our heads up, the blesbuck are still at one hundred and sixty yards, but I decide to take the shot.  I’m not as steady as I’d like as my legs are quivering and my back is screaming, as I’m hunched over to shoot, but we identify that the old female has the largest rack, and it’s far better to take her than the lone male in the herd, leave him for breeding.  “Crack” of the rifle, “thump”, the sound of the bullet hitting, and down she goes.  It’s a little high to be considered a perfect shot, but the result is the same.

We call Janita to come back to collect the blesbuck and we head up the side of yet another mountain in search of kudu.   My back and thighs are screaming in protest, but we manage yet another mountain range, only to spook the largest male kudu myself, or my guide, had ever seen.  We watched in vain as he traipsed elegantly up and over the next ridge.  We stalked and followed his tracks through one valley and up the next hill, eventually working our way back around to the same valley we took the blesbuck, in the setting sun.  It was getting too dark and I just want to call Janita to come get us, but Kobus spots a herd of Grant’s Hartebeest, something very high on my wish list for their curved horns, at least three kilometres off.  I don’t see how we can feasibly get within range before it’s pitch black, but we're off!  Somehow Kobus gets me to just over a hundred yards and I can still make out enough details in the waning light to place the shot, and I aim, breath out and hold it, and squeeze, and make yet another text book shot dropping the most gorgeous hartebeest in her tracks.

 

Janita gets the Yamaha Rhino stuck in a warthog hole trying to get to us in the dark, and Kobus heads off into the night to help her, as I stand guard over the hartebeest in the pitch black, wondering if the smell of death will bring one of the many leopards we keep crossing paths with, or one of the many hyena packs, or perhaps even lions.  I have the gun, but I can't see to shoot.

I’m writing this back at the lodge so it must have worked out, my legs some twenty plus kilometres more tired than they were this morning.

Limpopo Safari - Day Two. Impala!

Woken by a soft knock on the door, I was up and dressed and at the breakfast table in under five minutes.  My legs were cramped from the day's previous hiking, with significantly more vertical component than I'm used to, coupled with some dehydration, so I started chugging water and electrolytes right away.  Kobus, my guide, had us on some kudu tracks within an hour, and we started stalking through the thick Limpopo brush yet again, my legs loosening up nicely.  It was a cool morning, only plus seven, but I was generating more than enough heat.  We managed to keep the wind in our favour but could not close on the big male, the sun was getting high and the heat was rapidly becoming uncomfortable, so we began our hike out, having only seen a few kudu females and one small male.   Kobus spotted a herd of impala, and we stalked crosswind to about seventy yards.  The herd was completely unaware of our presence, and the male, while no record, was a nice representative of the species, and was standing perfectly broadside.  I gently placed the crosshairs just above his heart, and squeezed the trigger.  The herd broke to the shot, not knowing where it had come from, heading directly for us, before veering off.  The male had dropped in his tracks. 

After a short break, letting the sun drop a tad closer to the horizon, we headed out after the elusive grey ghost once again, and after an hour, we spotted some Grant's Hartebeest and elected to make yet another stalk.  It was slow going, first moving out of view and downwind, and we crept ever carefully towards the herd.  Unfortunately all the Hartebeest turned out to be females, but there was a lone zebra stallion with the herd.  Kobus said he was quite old, and as he'd obviously been driven from his own herd, he didn't have long to live.  His hide looked beautiful, so we closed to ninety yards and I braced my rifle against a tree.  A lone Hartebeest blocked the shot, so we waited until he moved off, and with the old zebra quartering away, I once again placed the reticle over his heart and squeezed off the second shot of the day.  He didn't quite drop like the impala, kicking his legs up high and jumping about,  but within seconds, he dropped within three feet from where I first shot him.  The sun was setting, so we called for the truck, shook hands and took some quick photos.  It was far and away the most amazing day of hunting in my life.

Limpopo Safari - Day One

My pleasurable stay in Nairobi was extended somewhat, bringing the pleasurable down to merely tolerable.  Apparently the co-pilot never showed and the airline had some trouble locating a replacement, and it wasn't until hours later that we were airborne for South Africa.  My guide, a very friendly elderly gentleman, and his sweet wife, waited patiently at the airport for my early morning arrival, and we drove off into the South African night, not arriving at the hunting camp until six in the morning, everyone quite exhausted.  I was pleasantly surprised at the first world appearance of South Africa, as my African experience thus far was most definitely third world, but we could have been driving through Southern Ontario or Western Europe.  The camp is quite gorgeous, more than a few scales above our accommodations in Mtwara, but I was frustrated to find my Tanzanian sim card would not connect, that there was no wireless at camp, nor could I plug in any of my electric gadgets, as my universal adaptors don't jive with South African outlets, but I was here to hunt. 

A knock on my door woke me at eleven, feeling refreshed and invigorated, having slept like a baby.  The South African hospitality was out in full force, for the breakfast was incredible, and soon the amicable Kobus, my guide, and I headed off into the wilds of Africa.

First and foremost, I had to shoot.  The idea behind it is to make the customer comfortable with the rifle he'd be using to hunt, but the real reason is for the guide to gauge the customer's skill level, and just how close he had to get him to the game.  I put the first shot, at a hundred yards, smack dab in the middle of the black dot in the centre of the target.  The guide asked me to shoot again, and I did, and he frowned and walked towards the target.  Either I was very good or missed completely as he couldn't see where the second shot had hit from where we were shooting.  The two bullet holes were touching.  He smiled and claimed that I obviously wouldn't be having any problems, and he didn't even bother bringing his own gun along for the hunt, a standard for guides for follow up shots when the clients mess up.

Kobus had us on kudu within the first hour.  We glassed a herd of females in some thick brush, and as it was the rut, there was sure to be a male or two around, but we couldn't spot one.  There was also some zebra mixed into the herd, which the guide advised was very bad.  The kudu's incredible hearing coupled with the zebra's phenomenal eyesight would prove a difficult, if not impossible, stalk.  Regardless, we managed to stalk within thirty yards before the herd spooked and were off, but we still hadn't seen a male.  It was far and away our best chance, so we worked our way upwind and tried to close on them again.  I found some pleasure in spotting the herd before the guide, and we worked towards them again, but something besides us was after them and they broke again and headed over a ridge line.  We made our way towards the ridge, and eventually straight up the rock face, coming over the top for a phenomenal view of the Limpopo landscape, and glassed the low lands and drank the last of our water.  We eventually spotted the herd again, and a large bodied specimen, but we were unable to determine the sex as just the rump was showing, so we elected to close again.  Heel toe, heel toe, heel toe, softly and carefully planting each footstep as we made our way through the thick brush and down the hillside towards the herd.  This time we got quite close, but still couldn't locate a male in the thick bush, and after a good six or seven kilometres of hiking, we decided to call it a day on kudu.

On the hike out, we came across a herd of impala, and a fine looking lead male.  I had a shot but it would need to be threaded through a great deal of bush, and the slightest branch can set a spinning bullet off course, and the worst sin a hunter can commit is wounding an animal, so we elected to get in a better position.  The herd was well aware of our presence by now, the male thrashing his antlers against the trees and snorting loudly at us, but despite repositioning and chasing them for miles, a proper shot never did present.  The sun was now setting, and we headed back towards camp, but a pair of zebras soon crossed our path, with a clear shot well within my capability, but the guide assured me we could do much better, so I passed on yet another shot.  On the drive out, nearly dark, a warthog dashed across the dirt track, so we parked and made after it.  Within twenty minutes, we found him standing stone still facing us at twenty yards, an easy shot, but he was young and too small, so we passed again.

The game I had seen within only a few hours was far beyond any dream, and even though I had yet to take a shot, it was far and away my best day of hunting ever.  I sip my gin and tonic, my belly full of kudu meat from someone's previous hunt, and it's off to bed for an early start again tomorrow.