Serval: Something for everyone – the season in full swing
Earlier this year while heading southwest of Joburg to collect a consignment of trophies to ship, I came across what was undoubtedly my finest roadkill specimen to date. The sun was just rising and the road kill was fresh – not your regular activity when road tripping. But it’s something I started (collecting roadkill) since being a ‘lighty’ (southern African term for a kid) while driving around with my dad. The kills had to be intact and not too smelly, otherwise I just kept a bunch of feathers, for example, guinea fowl or owls. I’d skin colorful breast feathers and dry the wings; it was my way of appreciating forever the different species. Odd – but that’s me.
I was back in the Limpopo province hunting with Monkane Safari owned and operated by Kereneels Verjon. It was my first day on what would turn out to be a marvelous safari filled with high drama and lots of surprises. The kick-start of the adventure was to find me a mature, trophy-quality nyala bull. We started out well before daybreak after a delicious breakfast prepared by a master chef. We were in the truck heading to a beautiful property known to have a tremendous number of quality nyala bulls.
It was a long drive to get to this paradise, but it was well worth the trip. We arrived as day was breaking, cascading sunshine across the rolling hills. We had barely got started when we saw a large nyala working his way up a dry riverbed. I had seen nyala before on another safari, but this bull dwarfed what I had seen before. We barely slowed down to take a look at the bull before it was decided to move along – he just wasn’t what we were looking for. I was shocked! It sure looked like a shooter bull to me. I was aware of the old saying never turn down an animal on the first day that you would shoot on your last day. We were barely ten to fifteen minutes into our hunt, but that bull had tall horns that just spiraled straight up. It was quite an impressive specimen. I immediately asked my PH Gerhard Smit why we had passed on this bull.
Gerhard smiled and explained that he was a good bull, but we could do better, especially on this property. The farm we were on was huge – it was vast, covering miles and miles. The property had an enormous lake surrounded by rolling hills and a small mountain range. The various vistas were stunning. Every picture looked like a post card. I knew the property was massive, but I still thought the bull was large enough to make the SCI record book, which is what I wanted.
My daughter Misty was with me on this safari as an observer. She looked at me and raised her eyebrows. I knew what she was thinking – Dad that was a big one! We drove for hours crisscrossing through the veld. We spotted plenty of game and stopped to look at zebra and giraffe which seemed to be everywhere. We even saw two kudu bulls that were each well over 50” of curving horns. I was tempted to go off script and attempt to take one of those massive bulls, but I had a nice kudu mounted at home. I had a full dance card hunting new species of game that I had never hunted. Africa is funny that way. You never know what you might encounter that could change your whole safari. I showed great restraint as I asked my guide to stop the driver so we could judge these two incredible bulls. Gerhard confirmed that they would stretch the tape into the mid 50” range, which is an extraordinary bull. I took a deep breath, exhaled, and told Gerhard that I already had taken a good kudu, but truth was the one I had at home was not nearly as nice as these two magnificent animals.
The bulls spooked, as they didn’t enjoy our attention and off they went. We proceeded onward but my mind drifted back to the kudus. We saw many nyala, but most were small males, some very nice, but we hadn’t found anything anyway as nice as the first one we saw. The search continued as we drove across the property to a large lake. I learned that a hippo actually lived somewhere in the lake and had caused problems as it had chased off some folks who had stopped to admire the view and drink in the serenity of the scenery. We skirted along an embankment and moved back into some trees. We saw a couple of good nyala and stopped to take a closer look.
Misty and Darrell Sterling – father and daughter hunting together.
I grabbed my Ruger .30-06, my daughter decided to film using the latest i-Phone which she dug out of her pocket, my PH grabbed the shooting sticks, and we headed off into the bush. We didn’t have to go far until we saw the nyala. I was excited as I thought that this would be the one for me. But Gerhard just looked and turned, saying let’s go. We quickly loaded up and was back cruising the veld.
“I thought he was a good shooter bull,” I persisted.
“We can do better,” my PH replied, “as we have all day.” I told my daughter this is what makes a good guide. He could have easily let me shoot any number of bulls we had seen, and I would have been happy, but Gerhard knew the area had really high record-book trophies, and if we were selective and passed enough bulls sooner or later, we were likely to be rewarded. I patted Gerhard on the back and told him I was glad he was my PH and I was sure we were going to have a great safari together!
A picky PH is a major key to any successful hunt. It was now past lunch and there were talks where we might stop to eat. We had hunted hard for the past five hours. I wasn’t opposed to stopping to eat. We wound around a bend in the road and came to a complete stop, as slightly ahead of us on the left were three large nyala bulls. My pulse immediately started racing. Gerhard seemed skeptical but I was pumped.
“There we go!” I said. Once again Gerhard said, “Let’s go take a better look.” We quietly piled out of the truck which then continued on. The bulls were close to the road, but they never really spooked. They simply moved off into the thicker bush. We made our way over, and although they weren’t too far away from us, they were hard to see very well as the bush was incredibly dense.
I thought all three bulls looked great I just needed to know if we had finally found a nyala big enough to satisfy Gerhard. We looked them over for what seemed like forever, when Gerhard gave me a single nod of approval.
“The one on the left is a good bull.” My mouth immediately went dry. We crept around as the bulls moved even deeper into the bush Gerhard threw up the shooting sticks but when I got up on them, I was way too high up as the bulls went down a little ridge in front of us. We moved around. I dropped down to my knee, preparing for a shot in a kneeling position if I could find the bulls in my scope. It was tough trying to scan through the super-thick brush. I found the bull, but they kept changing positions and moving around. I finally zeroed in on the correct one. Gerhard and I discussed which bull I was on to make sure it was indeed the correct one. I was ready to shoot but I had to hold as there was another nyala directly behind my bull. The bulls were in no hurry and just milled about. My eyes got tired of looking though the scope. I had to pull off and let my eyes rest, and when I thought the animals moved I returned to the scope.
I said again to Gerhard, “I’m on him.”
“Just wait, he’s starting to clear, wait.” I saw the other bull finally move from behind my bull.
“I got em. I’m gonna take him,” I whispered. Gerhard said, “You’re clear.” Finally, I was able to gently squeeze the trigger. The gun barked in my hands. The target in the scope was gone. The bush I was shooting through was so thick I wasn’t even sure I hit him, my bullet could have easily struck a branch and just whizzed by the bull. My PH told me to wait while he got the trackers to go look for sign. A moment later they were standing where I had I shot into the brush.
Above: Placid, peaceful lake on the property.
Left: A beautiful pair of bell-shaped horns.
I left my position and went to where the trackers where checking for sign. I was frustrated, thinking that I shouldn’t have pulled the trigger, when they found blood. The tracker said that he saw two bulls running away. The men didn’t go but twenty yards and found my bull piled up in the thick bush.
We couldn’t see him from where we had been standing, it was just that darn thick in there. The sight picture I had in my scope had been clear, the shot was close, but with so much foliage you can’t help but question yourself when you don’t walk straight up to find a downed animal, and we had no blood. When we found the bull, he was still alive but couldn’t get up as he was mortally wounded, so with my PH’s OK I put in two more rounds to end it.
It was the first hunt that I had completed with my daughter, who was fascinated with the hunt. She was by my side the whole safari. The bull was a real trophy with beautiful, bell-shaped horns. I have had the good fortune of eating a lot of wild game meat, but nyala, I believe, is the tastiest meat I have ever had the pleasure of eating. It was just fantastic. I gorged like a man starving to death and ate until my stomach ached. It was delicious. Hunting with my daughter, taking a huge trophy bull, and eating the best wild game meat, it is no wonder why I love hunting so much.
If you want to take a monster nyala bull, I highly recommend booking a hunt with Monkane Safaris.
You haven’t lived if you haven’t been to a Durty Nelly’s Irish Pub sing-along in the company of Africa’s PHs (professional hunters).
“Back in the days,” the biennial Game Conservation International convention (a.k.a. GAMECOIN) in San Antonio drew sportsmen and outfitters from all over the world. The venue was equally appreciated by a generation of wildlife artists, such as Bob Kuhn, Guy Coheleach, and Terry Mathews, whose early fans and customers were the welcoming, well-heeled members of the international hunting fraternity.
It’s noteworthy that Mathews is one of the few individuals in Africa who could attend such conventions as either – or both – PH and artist. (Zimbabwe-born sculptor John Tolmay would be another.) In fact, he attended GAMECOIN’s second conference as a PH, and started exhibiting his sculpture in 1971.
Not surprisingly, his is an interesting story, for Mathews was born in England (1931); raised in the Uganda Protectorate in the company of the country’s highly esteemed Chief Game Warden, Captain Charles Pitman; and educated in Kenya where he still lives today.
Mathews dreamed of following in his mentor’s footsteps and becoming a game warden in Kenya. But life was such that he became a survey cadet and married man instead. And then, like other young men determined to make a life in the bush and earn a living, Mathews joined the legendary safari outfitter, Safariland, in 1955, before moving on to Ker & Downey Safaris a year later.
This was the era of PHs whose names still sing “safari”: J.A. Hunter, Tony Archer, Tony Dyer, Harry Selby, John Sutton, and Eric Rundgren, to name a few. It was also the era of movies and their stars coming out to Africa, first for filming and then for big-game hunting. Think Hatari and Hardy Krüger. Already as a trainee hunter, Mathews was “the wildlife man” for the film Safari, starring Victor Mature and Janet Leigh. Other “credits” include Call Me Bwana with Bob Hope and Anita Eckberg, and Africa–Texas Style with Hugh O’Brien.
His clientele would include Stewart Granger, Robert Montgomery, and Bing Crosby who hunted seven times with Terry, as well as Texas governor John Connally, and Philip Morris CEO Joseph H. Cullman who returned a dozen times.
Mathews was one of the original members of the East African Professional Hunter’s Association (EAPHA), which disbanded in 1977 when Kenya closed trophy-hunting safaris for good, and one of the founding members of the International Professional Hunters Association (IPHA).
Many did not suspect that this white hunter’s hobby was sculpting animals in clay and latex. Hunting the Big Five, confronting them, understanding shot placement, field dressing and skinning them for taxidermy were all great classrooms for studying animal behavior and anatomy. Still, Mathews says his work is “not strictly representational.” The artist is as interested in moods and movement as in tail length and bones.
By 1967, he and his wife, Jeanne, had formed Mathews Safaris – still in the family today – organizing both hunting and photographic safaris. But art overtook pursuing dangerous game with dangerous clients when a wingshooting accident in 1968 left him blind in his master eye. His American hunter had swung and shot at a francolin that flew behind the advancing line of drivers and guns. Although he saw it coming and covered his face with his hands, Mathews was hit by 39 pellets, including the one that reached his eye. His black eye patch would become as notorious as Moshe Dayan’s.
Mathews listened to Major W. G. “Johnny” Raw, manager of Rowland Ward in Nairobi and early compiler of its Records of Big Game, when he suggested the artist start casting his sculpture in bronze. Mathews’s first bronze-cast sculpture, Striding Out, was already of an outraged elephant.
Within a few years, with the hunting community as his springboard, Mathews was a success. His works have been shown in over 30 exhibitions on three continents.
In the late 1990s, Tuscaloosa, Alabama businessman, Jack Warner, commissioned the artist to sculpt his biggest work: the monumental bronze elephant – 24 feet from the tip of its raised trunk to its human heart-sized toe – that would be baptized Tuska. It took Rungwe Kingdon’s fine-art foundry in England six weeks to cast in bronze the 11 pieces that comprise Tuska, the heaviest weighing two tons.
In September, 2000, Mathews and one of his five sons spent 10 days in Tuscaloosa to complete the installation and attend the unveiling of the seven-ton, 19-foot-tall statue at the city’s NorthRiver Yacht Club, where Tuska remained for more than 20 years. They attended a football game at the University of Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium, although Mathews didn’t understand much, despite American GIs showing him the game when he was a youth in England during World War II. In a recent interview, he recalled Southern hospitality and Southern cuisine.
The Westervelt Company recently gifted Tuska to the U of A’s stadium and its Crimson Tide team, specifically, to the front of the stadium on the southeast corner of University Boulevard and Wallace Wade Avenue. The $415,000 project, paid mostly from donated funds, includes new sidewalks, landscaping, and lighting for viewing the sculpture after dark.
You can watch a short film on the elephant’s 10-mile “move” on YouTube.
At 90 years old, I wonder whether Terry Mathews, a British-born African sculptor, could ever have imagined that his African elephant would become the icon of an American football team!
I wish there were a YouTube of even 10 minutes of an after-convention evening at Durty Nelly’s, before the hairy-chested Southern African PHs got notoriously out of hand; more than one ended up in the San Antonio River. I see myself in the old mirror over the piano, carrying a black leather purse that was an actual working clock with Roman numerals. When it struck midnight, it was time to take off the glass slippers and go home.
As the wife of professional hunter Rudy Lubin, Brooke Chilvers attended international hunting conventions for 28 years, but GAMECOIN only twice.
I have had a love of the outdoors since I was a child. Splitting time between hunting and fishing, my early days were always filled with adventures. After high school, I joined the United States Marine Corps and I had the honor to serve my country overseas for two and a half years. It was this experience that gave me a passion for travel and other cultures. After being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps I attended college in the state of Pennsylvania where I started the part-time hobby of taxidermy. Always being very artistic, I picked up the art of taxidermy quickly. After beginning with the typical whitetail deer mounts, my passion for the art quickly evolved into larger animals and more complex designs. That one small decision of picking up a new hobby has turned into a life-changing career for me as well as my staff.
How many years in business?
We are now beginning our 17th year at Artistic Visions Wildlife.
From a single car garage in a rental home to a new 8,000 square foot facility, Artistic Visions has grown beyond our wildest expectations. We are proud to have been featured a total of nine times thus far on the cover of Taxidermy Today magazine – the world’s foremost taxidermy magazine – as an African and life-size specialist, as well as being selected for multiple in-store demonstrations at Cabela’s for their staff and customers.
What are your favorite mounts and why?
Our personal favorite mounts are any African species. Specifically, we like “stacked” style pedestals where we can put multiple animals from the same habitat on a base to create a beautiful scene that tells a story, as well as it being space-saving in a client’s trophy room. Another favorite of ours is anything life-size. Taxidermy preserves and celebrates the memories created on a hunt, and nothing does this in the taxidermy world as well as a life-size mount. It allows the viewer to fully appreciate the actual size and beauty of each trophy. It is the most difficult of all taxidermy styles because of the increased detail and artistry that is needed for each piece to bring that species “back to life”. That is why many other studios either don’t specialize in life-size mounts or don’t take them in at all.
Africa is our passion and is something we hold near and dear to our hearts. My wife Samantha and I have personally been to the Dark Continent over 15 times so far. All of the staff at Artistic Visions Wildlife have experienced Africa at least once to learn and understand the amazing and majestic creatures of Africa in their natural environment. Artistic Visions handles approximately 350 African mounts a year with an average of 8-10 month turnaround on almost all mounts. After nearly two decades of dealing with the chaos of African imports, we have streamlined and simplified the process to make it as painless and efficient as possible for our clients.
I am extremely proud of each and every one of my staff members who work hard to handle our clients’ trophy needs. They are the heart of our company and the reason for our success.
Using only the highest quality materials and continually studying and training in the art of taxidermy, Artistic Visions strives to keep increasing the standards for quality and customer service that our customers deserve.
Any specialty areas you have in the business?
Cape buffalos are some of the fiercest animals on earth and it is our mission to recreate that “owed money” look. From the elegant gaze of a greater kudu to the regal stance of a giant sable, Artistic Visions takes the utmost pride in complementing your trip of a lifetime. Wildlife Artistry is more than a career for us at Artistic Visions Wildlife, it is our passion. This is what separates us from other taxidermy studios. With extensive accolades and awards in the career of professional wildlife artistry, Artistic Visions is able to accommodate all your African taxidermy needs. No task is too big or too small, with limitless possibilities of custom creations.
Let your imagination complete your perfect vision.
I often use this recipe when out hunting. It is simple and quick, very tasty and can be served as a starter on toasted bread, or if you have enough birds, as the main meal together with a salad. The most time consuming part of this recipe is removing the breasts, and slicing up the ingredients. The cooking is done in a matter of minutes.
Everything tastes better in the bush, and serving at least a portion of the morning’s bag is what hunting is about. Clients always enjoy tasting the fruit of their labor, and why bother to hunt and not utilize what nature has give us?
The first question hunters ask as they see me cleaning the birds is what about the hanging and maturation of the meat. Well the proof is in the eating. Of course, allowing the enzymes within the meat to do their work ripens the meat, making it softer and tastier. This takes a couple of days, at best. The trick with fresh birds is threefold: Firstly to use freshly shot birds that have not yet stiffened, secondly to use breast meat that has not been bruised and bloodied by shot, and thirdly, not to overcook. The last cannot be stressed enough. The meat will become stringy, tough and dry if cooked too long.
Ruger retrieving a guineafowl.
How much chilli to add is always a contentious issue. The Scoville Scale measures the pungency of chilli peppers, and people who regularly eat spicy food have the ability to progress up this scale. Their tolerance of capsicoids increases, and what will have some sweating and reaching for a glass of cold milk will hardly be noticed by others. Does the addition of chilli mask the flavour of the guineafowl you ask, and the answer depends on your taste buds. My personal view is that he who cooks determines the heat. When I cook I like to taste the chilli, and a light sweat on my temples only adds to the ambiance.
Ingredients
4 guineafowl breasts off the bone, enough for 12 servings
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 chilli, deseeded and chopped fine
2 tablespoon olive oil
2 gloves garlic, chopped fine
1 knob ginger, chopped fine
1 medium onion chopped fine
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 loaf French bread, sliced and toasted over hot coals
Chutney
Method
The secret to this dish is to have enough heat, stir continuously and have a taster or two.
Slice the guinea breasts across their breadth, into more or less equal thickness. Heat the oil in a wok. When the oil is hot, add the curry powder, salt and pepper to release the flavour. Then add the onions, chilli, garlic and ginger, stirring regularly ensuring the onions are coated with the oil and spices. As the onions begin to change colour, add the guinea breasts. Keep stirring, ensuring that the meat is separated and well coated by the oil/onion/spice mixture. Taste, adding salt if necessary, and when it is just cooked, remove from the pan.
To serve, place a teaspoon of chutney on each slice of toast, add the guineafowl, and serve.
Signed copies of Everyday Venison and South African Gamebird Recipes, by Leslie van der Merwe, are available from www.gamechef.co.za
It all started when I bought a ‘slightly’ damaged AyA number 2 shotgun from a friend who had burst the one barrel near the muzzle with a bad reload. I paid R100 for it and had the gun sent off to AyA in Spain for a new set of barrels. Somehow, the gun was ‘lost’ in transit and it was only over a year later that it was finally returned – without the new barrels. Instead of going through the whole exercise again, I decided to cut the barrels down to 18” (46cm) and use the gun like that.
After shooting a few guinea fowl and francolin – as well as a warthog and bushpig – with factory slugs, the gun was stored at the back of my safe in favour of other shotguns and rifles.
During 1985, while doing game control work in the Lowveld, I again put the AyA to work as a back-up weapon for lion and leopard, using both buckshot and slug loads.
While employed as a field guide conducting wilderness trails in the Timbavati on behalf of the Wilderness Leadership School, I had a very narrow shave with a lioness and her cubs. It was about midday and I was leading a group of six trailists back to camp after a morning walk. Having seen no game for quite a while, the group had become a bit disinterested and unobservant in the heat of the day. We were all looking forward to getting back to camp and enjoying a late brunch. Our route took us through a patch of fairly thick acacia scrub, where I suddenly noticed a lion cub under a bush about 5m away.
I knew that the mother, and perhaps the rest of the pride, had to be somewhere close by, and I stopped abruptly, causing the rest of the party to literally bump into me. However, I could see no sign of the lions. The cub then ran off and I stared in the direction it was going. Sure enough, there was the lioness asleep under a bush in the long grass, about 25m away. She had her back to me and was so well camouflaged and blended so well in the grass that I would normally not have seen her. I whispered to the people to freeze, which they did.
Mama woke up when the cub reached her and started turning towards us. I could actually see her eyes focus on me. Then, suddenly, she was up and coming with a growl that sounded like a four-letter word! I shouted at her at the top of my voice and she stopped, tail stiff and eyes yellow, growling in a loud, unladylike manner. We stood staring at each other for what seemed like two or three years! I decided to get my party out of there. With my rifle (a .375 H&H, by Whitworth) trained on her, I whispered to the group to back off slowly. This they did, without further encouragement. When they were about 30m away, I decided to move back. I now had a problem: if she charged, she was too close for me to fire a warning shot. I would never be able to reload in time if she still came on. I did not want to shoot a lioness with small cubs.
On about my third or fourth backward step, she decided to encourage me to move faster and began her charge. I shouted, but she had heard that one before and took no notice. In desperation, I flung my hat at her. This did the trick and she swerved at about 5m and ran past, with her cubs in tow.
Then and there, my heart yearned for the Rigby .450/400 double rifle I had recently sold. I needed a double-barrel weapon for that quick second shot which is so essential in these situations.
Out came the AyA again, but I was not too happy with the factory slug loads, so I started experimenting. I bought an RCBS slug mould and modified it to cast a 580-grain lino-type slug. Each slug was annealed to make it harder. I then bought a few Armour Brass 12g cases and experimented with different wads to find the best way of seating the slugs into the cases. I had a friend turn out some loading tools for this cannon and began loading. To the AyA I fitted a set of express sights and after roughly bore-sighting, I zeroed the gun with factory Brenneke slugs.
A friend and fellow PH, Frank Schimper and I then took ourselves off to the range with all the reloading paraphernalia, chronograph, etc. I started by checking the factory loads, which clocked an average of 1 221 fps through the AyA. I began by loading 20 grains of MS200, which averaged 821 fps and slowly worked up to 30 grains, which gave me 1 217 fps, almost duplicating factory ballistics with a heavier slug, giving approximately 1 800 ft/lbs muzzle energy.
The penetration test was amazing. The Brenneke slug went through five water-soaked directories. The 30–grain load went through eight directories and a half-metre into the soft clay bank behind – this from a range of 25m. The slug was un-deformed, apart from a few chips caused by hitting stones. Both Frank and I were impressed by this.
I have since experimented further and have taken loads up to 36 grains, which gave me an average of 1 350 fps and a muzzle energy of about 2 348ft/lbs. Accuracy from these loads was quite acceptable up to 50m.
The AyA became my ‘poor man’s double’ and regularly went with me as a defensive weapon on wilderness trails. At all times I felt safe and comfortable with this ‘cannon’.
Just a word of warning:
I worked carefully with my loads and checked for signs of pressure. Loads that were safe in my AyA may not be suitable in any other gun. Remember, too, that the AyA had no chokes for the slugs to pass through, as these were cut off. Never fire hardened and lino-type slugs through choked barrels.
To order Campfire Thoughts & Reminiscences – the complete book with illustrations, (US $15 excluding S&H) contact Andrew Meyer at andrewisikhova@icloud.com
