By Ryan Phelan of Hotfire Safaris

In the early 2000s, I was running a private game reserve in the Tuli Block in Botswana. We had one particular elephant bull that was becoming a nuisance, as he was destroying our solar pumps and panels and threatening my fencing staff.

I brought this to the attention of the Botswana Game Department, and they proceeded to show me the ordinance that said I could go ahead and destroy the animal and notify them of the GPS location and mark the left and right tusks.

Being still fairly young, cocky and relatively inexperienced, I loaded up my 9.3×62 with four 286gr Barnes Super Solids and hopped on my motorbike to find a culprit elephant.

Once I reached the area that the fencing guys were working in, it did not take long to locate the offending bull. I parked the bike, loaded a round, and adjusted my scope power to minimum, this being 4x magnification. I started slowly after the bull, which was walking slowly into the wind in the scrub mopane.

I sensed the bull knew of my presence, but he was not too perturbed. Each time he walked I would run closer, and when he stopped to listen, I would stop. This continued for a while, until I thought I was close enough. I then remembered my PH mentor saying to me, “When you think you are at the right distance, get closer.” So I did. At approximately 18m, I rested on a scrub mopane and took aim on the bull that had stopped to listen.

He turned broad-side, and I just remembered my teachings: “Aim for the top of the back of the zygomatic arch.” I squeezed off. In a flash the bull turned 180 degrees, and I fired the second round in the same place on the other side of the head. He spun right around once more. I let fly the third round, upon which his back legs gave way, and I put the fourth round into the back of his head as it flung up into the sky. I was later to discover that this fourth round exited the front of his head.

I was left standing and shaking, with an empty rifle and many thoughts running through my head. I put a few more rounds into the rifle, cocked it and slowly headed up to the bull. He was dead!

At the end of the conflict, my emotions hit home, very hard. I had read all the books on the early ivory hunters, and all I wanted to do was hunt my own elephant. I had done it. But the feeling was not what I thought it would be. Here I was, a mere 24-year-old, and this bull a good 40 years old or more. I walked away quietly and sat down under a mopane tree to gather my thoughts and to thank the bull for giving me this opportunity that many people nowadays will not get. It was a very somber moment.

Thinking about the lessons learnt from this, I was fairly inexperienced and had gone out on my own. Secondly, using a scoped rifle at 18m is not ideal, especially when trying to put second, third and fourth shots in when there is just grey matter in your scope picture. What I did learn was that if you are to miss the brain, miss on the low side, as it clearly interrupts the blood flow to the brain and disorients the animal. This was what saved me.

However, the penetration of all the rounds was faultless, as was evident by the last shot entering the back of the head and exiting the forehead.

This area in Botswana had high numbers of elephants and they were, in a way, boxed in between the backline fence, which was the western edge of the Tuli block, and the South African game farms all bordering it across the Limpopo River. It was inevitable that human animal conflict would arise, and nothing was being done about the rising numbers. The reason cited for this was that funding for the game department was coming in in part from NGOs that were anti hunting or anti culling. They thus felt stuck between a hard place and a rock. Knowing numbers needed to be brought down but not being able to do it themselves. They thus were quite happy for any landowners etc in the area to deal with the problems themselves as it absolved them from being in hot water.

By Michael W. Mills, Maricopa, AZ, USA

Africa is a place that grows on you. The more I experience Africa, the more I want to return. Planning for my Africa 2022 trip started before I completed a hunt in 2021.

Fast forward a year, I’m in South Africa with my wife, Greeta, and long-time hunting partner, Bruce. After a few days in the Limpopo Province, attempting to add to my Tiny 10 goal by hunting klipspringer and duiker, then seeing the biggest kudu I’ve ever seen in the wild, a 59” brute, my attention turned to the Karoo and the main focus of the safari—springbok.

Concluding the Limpopo portion of our hunt, we left very early in the morning on the fourth day of a seven-day hunt, for the 12-hour overland trip south, in order to arrive as early in the afternoon as possible to get in some hunting time before dark. Two of those seven days were travel days – so hunting time was precious.

White Springbok

About The Karoo

The Great Karoo is a plateau region extending across a vast area and several provinces. It consists of open rolling grasslands interspersed with volcanic hills and the occasional tree; it’s quite different from the Limpopo bushveld. The Karoo is comparable to the landscapes of northeastern New Mexico, where I’ve hunted pronghorn antelope. While the landscapes may look similar, the similarity ends there, as the Karoo offers a far greater amount and variety of wildlife, and is the native range of springbok.

Operating in the Northern Cape Province, Julian (Jules) Theron, known as, “Jules of the Karoo,” owns the Plaatfontein farm, located near the town of De Aar. Jules has spent decades nurturing springbok development, and it shows. Jules’s relatives first came to this area in the 1840s. Now, five and six generations later, he and his son Izak continue the family’s commitment to the Karoo and springbok. There are an estimated 30,000 Springbok on Plaatfontein’s roughly 300,000 acres, making for good opportunity to see springbok without having to spend days locating animals.

The Springbok Hunt

The objective in the Karoo for both Bruce and me was to obtain Springbok Grand Slams. I trusted Numzaan Safaris and Jules of the Karoo would help make my dream a reality. That trust proved to be well placed.

A Springbok Grand Slam (“slam” hereafter) consists of the four colors variations of this species, the common, copper, white, and the smallest and more rare, black springbok. There are herds of common springbok only, but often we encountered mixed herds, some with all four colors.

A big plus for the hunt was our local tracker’s incredible eyesight accompanied by very good optics. In reality, he should be called an expert spotter, rather than a tracker.

With minimal cover, our stalks had to be well-planned. We found the springbok’s comfort zone was generally 250 to 300 yards.

We had less than three days to hunt. It’s recommended that five to seven days be allocated for the pursuit of a quality springbok slam, but we just didn’t have that luxury. One could complete a slam in a day, and some people have done so, but to secure large-horned trophies typically requires more time.

Hunting that first afternoon proved rewarding, relieving some pressure on this condensed hunt. Bruce connected with two springbok before dark, taking a nice common ram and adding a larger-than-normal white ram.

Simultaneously, after finding a small herd with a good common ram, Arnold Cloete, my PH, and I stalked slowly using a lone tree as cover. We got within 300 yards, but needed to get to a better shooting location. Leaving our tracker at the tree, we walked together in the open.

“Bend 90 degrees at your hips and grab my belt to stay immediately behind me,” he requested. “We’ll appear as a four-legged animal.” He held his shooting sticks high as we walked to simulate gemsbok horns. 

We made our way to a rock outcropping without disturbing the grazing herd, putting us in position to connect with the common springbok ram. I assumed the ram we were seeing was a representative animal for the species. That assumption was later corrected when Arnold put a tape to his horns; they measured just under 17 inches in length.

Common springbok are the most frequently seen and were the originating sub-species for the other springbok types. They also have the largest body and horn size.  Trophy pricing for the common springbok is generally in graduated cost as the horn length exceeds 14 inches. Rams larger than 17 inches are rare.  At the Theron Lodge we did see horns that measured close to 20 inches— those are exceptional horns!

The next morning Bruce completed his slam, having obtained a very nice assemblage of rams. Arnold wanted to begin the day looking for a respectable black ram, knowing that it might take time to locate, but we quickly shifted our attention to a white ram the tracker spotted in a distant pasture.  After shooting high, the ram moved off, requiring a short pursuit in the truck.  A follow-up shot and we had our second ram.

Shortly thereafter, good fortune was with us, and we found a large black ram. A quick stalk, and two rams were headed to the skinning shed. With these successes, the pressure was easing for getting my slam.

Black Wildebeest

Black Wildebeest – Greeta and Arnold

We started the day intending to hunt springbok all day, but our plans changed at lunch as management wanted us to turn our attention to pursuing black wildebeest, given the coordination of hunters. That gave me a chance to relax a little, as it was now my wife’s turn to be the hunter.

Greeta was hunting for the first time in Africa and was seeking a black wildebeest to continue moving our trophy collection towards the “Beest” Grand Slam completion. She had already taken her first Africa animal in Limpopo, a common blesbok.

After arriving to an area where black wildebeest have existed in their natural range for millennia, we glassed several lone bulls, and a short stalk ensued. While Greeta lined up vertically on the front leg, as instructed by Arnold, her shot was low and carved a light groove in his leg. What are the chances of a grazing shot that does not draw blood and only shaves off the hair? The way the animal reacted, Arnold thought it had been hit. But subsequent groundwork and glassing of the bull did not reveal any blood.  It was only later we would discover the groove in the hair.

Now spooked, those bulls joined a small herd of cows, circled around a small mountain, and headed over a shallow pass. Greeta and Arnold attempted a second stalk, but with disturbed animals, they couldn’t close the gap to a reasonable shooting distance before dark set in.

The focus of the morning on the final day of our hunt in the Karoo was to find a copper springbok. Arnold’s plan included a lunch away from the lodge to allow maximum time to get a copper and then get back on wildebeest.

Mornings are cool to cold on the Karoo in July; it’s the southern hemisphere’s winter. This particular dawn we had frost on windshields, and fog. In fact, the fog was so thick we had to delay getting into the field over an hour past the normal starting time.

Once afield, with the fog gradually burning off, we spotted several copper springbok in a mixed herd. We were facing into the sun and maneuvered to approach them from the east. As we moved into position they were gone. Springbok can run very fast, and this group, possibly spooked by our movement or a wind shift, had vanished.

Black Springbok

A little later a reasonable copper ram moved to within shooting distance. With the foggy overcast and the soft light, I questioned if it was a copper or a common. I was firmly told, “Remember Rule #1 and shoot.” My slam was completed.

Rule #1—trust & obey the PH—had come up at the beginning of the hunt, in Limpopo. After Greeta and I tuned in our rifles, Arnold sighted-in his .223, in addition to his heavy backup gun. I found that odd. He told me the first day in the field that my rifle was too much for the pygmy antelope, but perfect for springbok shot at longer distances. I had taken a RW record steenbok the prior year with that same rifle at short range and dismissed his comment.

He must have talked with Johan, the camp manager, as the correct calibers for various game was the topic of discussion at supper that night. Johan convinced me that hunting klipspringer and duiker with a smaller caliber was the correct thing to do. Now I understood why the .223 had come along on the hunt. Arnold was thinking ahead, knowing what caliber I was bringing to this safari. After making the decision to use his .223 for pygmy antelope, he reminded me of Rule #1. While it carried a serious tone, it became a running joke between us the subsequent few times I questioned what was going on.

Having completed my springbok slam, the day’s hunt plan was holding. We dropped the ram for skinning, then headed southwest for black wildebeest. We anticipated correctly that the herd would remain in the hilly area where we’d left them the evening before. True to form, our tracker sighted a herd first, several miles away. The herd included the bull Greeta had shot at the previous afternoon. The tracker, Arnold and Greeta set off on what would turn out to be a very careful two-hour stalk. With a little tree cover, they slowly worked their way along a depression that closed roughly a third of the gap to the herd, moved to a hill and then carefully moved again, further east to another smaller hill.

The herd had shifted during the stalk to the side of small mountain, unaware of the approaching hunters. The three stalkers remained out of sight and closely watched the wind, which remained favorable the entire stalk; they gradually closed to within 150 yards.

Arnold positioned her on a perfectly placed flat rock on that small hill, giving her a solid shooting platform. After the shot, Arnold summoned us on the radio with the good news and a request to bring the truck as close as possible in that rocky terrain. His plan had been executed perfectly and we completed our Karoo hunt with four hours to spare. What a relief!

Summary

Three of the four rams have larger-than-average to exceptional horn lengths and could score SCI Gold. My slam was completed in under two full hunting days. This is not the norm, and serves as a tribute to the tracker employed by Jules and Izak, and to Arnold’s excellent PH and people skills, a team effort for which I am very appreciative. The lesson? When on a tight timeline, the right team at the right place is critical.

A Kalahari Leopard 

By Ryan Phelan of Hotfire Safaris

Max was back! Back on his fourth adventure with Hotfire Safaris, this time in the vast Kalahari of Botswana. The quarry, a leopard.

We had ten days booked to search over a million acres of Kalahari in Unit KD6 for a majestic leopard, and we teamed up with good friend Adrian and his awesome hounds for the hunt.

The ‘Wag-n-Bietjie’ bush has small, black, hook-thorns that grab and hold you – the ‘wait-a-bit’ bush. Hurry up and wag-n-bietjie, aptly describes the ebb and flow of hunting leopard in the Kalahari bushveld. The highs and lows, the slow, frustrating nothing-happening periods suddenly broken by frantic, crazy, adrenalin-pumping action.

The planning and build-up was done, but the anticipation was heightened when we met Max at Johannesburg airport and set off on the road trip to Botswana. We were surprised during our drive to the camp to see the Kalahari transformed into a sea of long grass by an unusually wet season, when about a 1,000mm of rain had fallen. I feared that the odds had been heavily altered in favor of the quarry.

At the camp we settled around the fire with refreshments to discuss how the hunt would be conducted as this was a new type of adventure for Max. This hunt would be different from the normal leopard hunt where a bait is used to lure the cats. The wily Kalahari leopard in the KD6 area do not come to bait!

Adrian explained how his dogs operated, the different scenarios that could happen and how we would need to deal with each eventuality. He said that the scent-holding ability of the dry Kalahari sand is very low and makes it difficult for the dogs to work. It was therefore necessary for us to traverse the vast area by checking all the cut lines and sandy roads in an attempt to find the fresh tracks of a large male leopard. Trackers would then have to follow the track until we bumped the cat and the dogs could be released onto the fresh scent. The vehicles would follow as closely as possible for the safety of dogs, trackers, and hunters in the thick, thorny Kalahari bushveld.

Sounded easy at the time!

With plans all laid out and everyone understanding their roles during the hunt, we flattened a good, hearty Botswana beefsteak and turned in for the night. 

Day 1 started at first light, and the two vehicles went out in different directions to scout for fresh tracks. The KD6 area is loaded with predators of all types, from cheetah to wild dog, brown hyena to lynx, jackal, and the occasional wandering lion and, of course, leopards. So, scouting for leopard track was not as simple as it had sounded the previous evening.

Travel a short distance, stop, check the tracks. No, it’s brown hyena. Go, stop. No, it’s cheetah, and so on. I realised as we made our slow progress along the traverse, what a headache the numerous predators were for the local tribes folk living with their goats and cattle.

We had seen many different tracks when sunset brought Day 1 to a close, but the only fresh leopard track was a female. The traversing was, however, a good introduction to the area, conditions, and how the days would unfold.

Before daybreak on Day 2, we set out to look for tracks on a long cutline, which is a straight clear-cut line through the bushveld. We travelled about 280 kilometers, talked to some local villagers about leopard in their area without learning anything helpful, and found some decent leopard tracks that were, disappointingly, about two days old.

We were feeling very down when we got a call from the second vehicle informing us that they had picked up a fresh male leopard track some 60 kilometers away from our location. We hastily headed in their direction with revived enthusiasm and high expectations.

There we learned that the male leopard had killed a porcupine the evening before, rested, and then started moving again. The track looked good, but we only had about two and a half hours of daylight left when the 12 trackers eagerly got to work following the leopard tracks.

Tracking in a normal year in the Kalahari would be done by two to four trackers, but this year, because the incredible rains had resulted in a thick cover of long grass and crusted soil, a large team of highly skilled trackers was needed.

Tracking is slow going at the best of times, but it is incredible to watch these talented men methodically go about their work. They seem to understand the cat and see through its eyes, picking up on the slightest evidence of where it has moved in order to keep on following it. The pace quickened at times in more open areas and then ground to a halt when the track was lost. The group would then fan out, sometimes up to 400 meters apart and circle back, searching for a clue. A faint whistle in the distance would jolt the hunters parked in the shade of an acacia thorn tree, out of their daydreams. The track had been found, and off we would go again.

Hurry up and wait-a-bit.

When the giant red orb began descending in the western sky, we decided to GPS the spot and return the next morning to continue on the tracks. We were lucky to see a pack of wild dogs on our way back. A great sighting, but I pessimistically fretted that the wild dogs might push that leopard further and faster.

Later, after a few whiskeys and an incredible Botswana meat dish at a hot fire, we were off to bed after a hot shower to remove the Kalahari dust.

Day 3 was a cold start, a typical semi-desert chilly morning with a beautiful sunrise. It was back to the last GPS location and on with the tracking.

The day was long but when you walk with the trackers and see and learn from them, and try to understand what they are seeing, time passes quickly. We tracked the cat until dusk with only a short break for food and drinks during the peak heat of the day. Getting closer but still nowhere close enough to let the dogs loose.

We plotted the route of our two days’ tracking in the GPS and concluded that the cat was moving northwest in the direction of our camp, which was about 35 kilometers away. He was probably heading in that direction because of a higher concentration of wildlife attracted by the availability of water in the area around the camp. We did not know whether he would take a day to get there or make a kill en route and take longer, but we decided to look for his tracks in the vicinity of the camp over the next few days.

Needless to say, after that long day, a whiskey beckoned to settle the dust in the throat and boost the spirits again. 

Day 4. We started working outwards from camp in two directions and eventually we found a fresh cat track.

We could not decide whether or not it was the male leopard. We compared pictures and measurements of the various leopard tracks we had found. A leopard track in soft red sand pushes out to different dimensions compared with one on firmer sand. The debate raged on and by this point the dogs were baying for action, but we had to be careful. If we committed and released the dogs, there was no calling them off. We had to be sure of the size and sex of the leopard.

Finally, considering that it was only Day 4, we called it off on that track and headed for camp. The dogs would get their day!

Day 5. Dawn broke and we had mixed feelings; heightened concern about time whittling away, we were halfway through the hunt, as well as a strange sense that the big leopard was in the area, and this could be the day. 

Once again, we divided our forces to scour the dry sand roads for tracks. At 8.45 a.m.  a call came through from Patrick and Max. They had found a fresh track entering the area and fresh scat on the road. Adrian and I rushed to their area with the dogs to where the trackers were waiting, and confirmed that this was the leopard we were after, and off went the trackers. We were hopeful of catching the cat bedded up after a night hunting and feeding, as it was only 10.30 a.m.

The move and wait-a-bit scenario continued in the long grass throughout the day. The body language of the trackers soon started showing that things were heating-up. They even kicked into a jogtrot at times. 

We must have bumped the cat but not seen him at around 3.30 p.m. as evidenced by the lie-up area and running tracks. Things started to get real, and the pace quickened. The dogs in the vehicle also seemed to sense the presence of the cat, and started howling.

Then, at last shooting light, the dogs started consistently baying around a small grey bush and I realised that this was it.

‘Wait for my command! We don’t want a dog shot,’ I said to Max.

I spotted the head and neck of the cat. Max suddenly saw it as well and upped the shotgun.  ‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, the dogs are around it,’ I warned.

And then the cat lunged out at the dogs, causing them to back off slightly and a clear shooting lane opened up.

‘Sho..,’

Boom. Max was ready and dropped the hammer before I could finish the word. The cat spun around and took off for about 25 yards before crashing to the ground.

Just incredible, the sound of the dogs, the trackers elation, the dust in the air, dry throats, the palpable release of tension. It was done, and all were safe.

A clean kill.

A moment to remember for a thousand sunsets.

A few plains game animals were taken in the remaining days to round off an epic adventure.

A big thank you to Max and Hotfire Safaris yet again, as well as to Adrian and his hounds for making a joint success on this hunt.

A special dedication to Dutchess, a lovely young hound that was taken before her prime on this hunt. May she continue to run the scent in her star-life.