Vision of an African Safari

May 4, 2018 | News

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Namibia: 2016
Vision of an African Safari
By Jofie Lamprecht

An email notification dings in my inbox – a safari enquiry. I answer, and the correspondence starts. An email unanswered for more than 18 hours equals a lost safari. That’s my thought.

Patrick had a lot of questions, so I sent him our “Safari Preparation Guideline” – 20 pages of answers to questions most people ask, whether it’s their first or twentieth safari.

Personal information needed: Dietary and safari requirements, and medical information. Travel advice: insurance, travel documents, traveling with firearms and photographic equipment, and immigration forms. Particulars on daily routine: recommended reading, safari payments, gratuities, donations, shopping, climate gear guide, what to pack, and taxidermy information.

Patrick was full of questions. Back and forth, dates, deposit, contract – finally all done. All we had to look forward to was safari.

Having received passports from newly married Patrick and Darby before their arrival, I knew what they looked like – the brunette versions of Barbie and Ken… Both handsome and extraordinarily beautiful is an understatement!

Patrick had seen a National Geographic documentary about kudu a couple of years before. This was his first hunt as well as first safari, but our nemesis was a giant 200-pound black wildebeest. We could simply not get one in the salt – no matter distance or situation. The first three days were almost Patrick’s last. The usual upbeat safari-talk was low and muted. There was little talk around the dining tables – it felt like day 13 of a 14-day elephant or leopard hunt with no success…

Then Day 4 saw us beat our antagonist, and the joys of safari started in earnest. Everything was new; no trophy was uninteresting. Now excited, we started enjoying the wondrous magic of Africa.

At the top of Patrick’s trophy list was the object of his desire – the “grey ghost”. We hunted hard, Patrick and Darby up for any physical exertion I proposed. We drove, parked and walked until we were successful. Our trophy tally climbed, and Africa’s magic infected the couple – a honeymoon on safari.

The purple-pink dusk of evening was setting in as we were rounding the edge of a granite kopje in an area often called ‘The land God made in anger’ – western Namibia’s Khomas Hochland. A tap on the roof of the truck from Daniel, the resident tracker brought us to a halt. I stepped out, and saw a finger pointing at our 11 o’clock. I started scanning, understanding from the angle and direction that we were looking for the “grey ghost”. The kopje had a small plateau, falling to vertical cliffs below, which is where the vegetation started. Camphor bush was mixed with a variety of other edible bushes, and this is what the “ghost” fed on. The sun had set behind the kopje, casting a shadow on our side, cutting the light now by several stops. Then a jerk of turning horns caught my attention. An old kudu bull straightened his head to start walking, relying on his cryptic colors. Shooting sticks, rifle, and no time to lose. We set off through the formidable theater strewn with ankle-twisting rocks.

I set our course to intercept the kudu’s descent, hoping to get to the ledge that overlooked the next valley and hoping to get a chance. With the light waning, we were holding our breaths the whole way. We crested the valley – nothing. We stood for the last minutes of light for the bull to emerge out of nowhere, but to no avail.

A sable was on also our trophy list, so we moved to an area where they were more prevalent. The Land Cruiser churned up a steep mountain, careful not to spin the tires, or wear them out faster than need be. Another tap on the roof stopped us on the ascent. Daniel pointed across a vast valley. “I think there is something under that tree.” Irritated, I got out. The opposite mountain was more than two miles distant. There is absolutely no way anyone could see anything while bouncing around in the back of the Cruiser. Raising my optics I scanned the opposite ridge with squinted eyes.

“Where?” I asked, still irritated.

“There is a large Camel thorn tree just under the ridge. In its shade I think something is lying there.”

Scanning, I found the tree, and looked.

“There is something, but I don’t know.” I took the shooting sticks to stabilize my binoculars, and focused on the spot. The sweep of a horn caught my eye, in the black-on-black shadow of the hot, late morning.

“Sable!” I said to Patrick. “My goodness, that is a long way off.” I congratulated Daniel on seeing so far – irritation gone. Patrick had a look. Big tree, shadow. Yes. There.

“I can’t see what it is, but how the hell are we going to get there?” he asked.

We studied the terrain and we worked out that there was a road to our left of the bull. We could drive around till we were able to get closer. Swinging the Cruiser around, our tires ate rocks until we were near enough. We needed to hurry. In the next hour or so our quarry was going to get up from his siesta and start feeding. We knew exactly where he was – “Let’s move.” We got out of the Cruiser and dropped down our first ravine. With rocks underfoot we had to be careful not to fall, or make too much noise. Our wind was decent, but not great. We were approaching from the downhill side – not good, but better than nothing.

We got to the bottom of the ravine. Which of the valleys was going to take us up to this animal and which would bust us? I chose, and we started climbing. Slow, sure, with secure footing, we crept up. After almost an hour of down-and-up we got to the rim of the ridge. My first clue was the giant acacia we had previously seen across the valley. I found a camphor bush that we could crawl up behind to avoid detection. Peeking around the bush I saw what we were looking for – at 80 yards, in the shade where we had first spotted him. My breath caught – WOW! What a magnificent, old and long trophy, at least 44 inches. We had found a beauty. I paused. The sable turned his head slightly. NO. Can’t be…

His left horn, magnificent. His right – a stump of 12 to 13 inches, probably broken in conflict. My heart sank. I slid down to Patrick. “Look,” I said, “I made a mistake. He only has one horn, the other is broken. Let’s go and find you another.” Patrick looked at me. “Can I see him?” We crept up to behind our vantage point and sat there in silence.

“We hunted him,” Patrick said. “He is ours, and I would like to take him as my trophy.” I was stunned for a second. For most European hunters, a broken trophy shows character. For Americans, symmetry or close to, it was preferred.

I unscrewed my African Sporting Creations carbon-fiber shooting sticks and we prepared. “You are going to shoot sitting flat on your butt. I will crawl over into that bush – no thorns – and set up the sticks. Get to me and then get on the sticks. Get comfortable, and shoot when you ready. He does not know we are here.”

Silently we made our moves, and were ready. “Shoot right in the middle of his shoulder.” As the shot broke, so did our objective, jumping straight up with a clatter and crashing down the valley and out of sight. We all burst through the bush to see where he had gone, and found him standing motionless across the valley. Patrick raised his rifle, but I held up my hand. “Wait!” And as we watched, with a gentle sway, over he went.

What a stalk! Sweat fell from our brows, all forgotten in the elation of the successful hunt, a feeling that is incomprehensible, impossible to describe to non-hunters.

One of the challenges in the land God made in anger is getting a vehicle in to load your trophy. With bushes scratching down the side of the Cruiser, low gears engaged, we inched down the mountain to collect our prize.

After lunch we went in search of Namibia’s endemic Hartmann’s zebra. In most places in this area this is not a problem at all – the retrieval is the only issue, and by late afternoon we had collected a splendid, large Hartmann’s zebra stallion.

Rushing to get back to where we had hunted the evening before, and passing on a old, but not huge kudu bull along the way – we approached the kopje where the grey ghost had evaded us just 23 hours earlier. Reaching the foot of the kopje we got out and started scanning. Within 30 feet of where we saw the bull the previous evening was not just one, but three kudu bulls, two of them shooters. The one that had caught my attention the previous day with the bold, out-swept horn-tips was the chosen one.

The sticks went up and Patrick got set. A 150-yard shot. Having attended the SAAM (Sportsman’s All-weather All-terrain Marksmanship) shooting school in Texas, this was a simple chip shot for Patrick. As he settled on the sticks I could feel the tension, hunched shoulders and rapid breathing. I put my hand on his shoulder.

“Lift your head, take a deep breath, aim and shoot when you are ready”. He did just that. I crawled in under his elbow to give him extra support.

The shot broke, and so did the three kudu bulls, taking the same direction as the previous evening. Light was not in our favor, so we scooted double time up the rubble to the same point. I got to the edge of the next valley first – huffing and puffing from excitement.

To my right he lay, though not as majestic as when he was standing. I turned and looked Patrick, smiled and pointed, and slapped him on the back. Emotion showed on his face as his vision of an African safari was realized at last light, on the last night.

We left Patrick there. We left him on bent knee in appreciation of the life that he took, the animal that drew him to Africa, hand outstretched on the cooling neck.

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Custodians of Wilderness: The Sabie Game Park, Mozambique.

May 1, 2018 | News

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Western world has always tried to impose on Africa its principles of natural resource management. Using the sensationalist Western media, cuddly cartoon characters and social media, public opinion is systematically manipulated. Preservationism, the idea that wildlife should roam free in some kind of idyllic Eden with no human influence, is presented as the only doctrine. This ideology has given rise to the indignant keyboard conservationist whose animal rights mantra rings out across cyberspace, crowding out any rational discourse. But should Africa be dictated to on how to manage its natural resources using punitive foreign laws? The continent does have its challenges. Wildlife and wilderness is under threat from many quarters but there are practical ways of dealing with these issues.

The Transfrontier Park concept, where adjoining national parks from two or more neighboring countries are combined to form a single conservation unit, is based on the principle that ecosystems should transcend national borders. The collaborative management of the single unit is key to its success. A Transfrontier Conservation Area differs from a Transfrontier Park in that it comprises different component areas such as the Transfrontier Park itself, private game reserves, communal areas and safari hunting concessions. Free movement of animals between the different sectors may not always be possible because of man-made barriers such as fences, major highways and railway lines. The overall objective is to establish large conservation areas by integrating vast landscapes and re-connecting ecological systems.

The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park aims to link various national parks in South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe into an area of around 14 000 sq. miles in extent. The larger Great Limpopo transfrontier conservation area will eventually cover an area of almost 39 000 sq. miles. With the transfrontier park at its core, it will include bordering communal areas and private game reserves and conservancies.

In February 2017, the 600 000 acre Greater Libombo Conservancy was incorporated into the Great Limpopo Transfrontier conservation Area. Within the Greater Libombo Conservancy lies the Sabie Game Park, extending over 75 000 acres.

Before the independence and civil wars in Mozambique, which spanned 25 years, most of the properties bordering South Africa’s Kruger National Park were cattle ranches. The larger animals such as lion, elephant, and leopard were deemed pests and were eliminated by the ranchers. When war broke out in 1964, anarchy reigned as wildlife across the region was slaughtered to feed the forces on both sides. The unsustainable bushmeat trade thrived.

Established in 2001, the initial aim of the Sabie Game Park was to create an upmarket eco-tourism destination. This model, however, was not viable and in 2007 the current directors decided to convert the area into a safari hunting concession.

Five water points were established in strategic positions across the reserve to provide year-round water for the animals. The flow of water into these waterholes is regulated so as not to attract too many elephants from the Kruger National Park, which would have an adverse effect on the vegetation. With the provision of water and by securing the habitat, wildlife numbers and diversity flourished.

The Sabie Game Park is committed to community upliftment projects with five major villages outside of the reserve. Sourcing clean, fresh water is a perennial problem, and the reserve has drilled 15 boreholes across the area for the people. A further community benefit is the provision of meat from the animals that are hunted in the reserve. The meat is given to the kids after school for two reasons. The first is to encourage the kids to go to school, and the second is to make sure that the meat goes back to the family. When the Sabie Game Park was established there were a number of families living within the boundaries of the reserve that needed to be relocated. An equitable resolution was agreed upon, and the park undertook to build 15 new houses outside of the reserve for the displaced families. Food security is a fundamental component of any community-based natural resource management program. The reserve is proactive in helping the local communities develop their farming skills.

The Sabie Game Park has secured from the government a safari hunting quota outside of the reserve, for the local communities. The wildlife has been given an economic value, and the people now view these animals as their own and in the same light as their cattle. The incentive to develop game populations across the region has been enhanced.

Game populations, including the vulnerable black and white rhino, increased rapidly with the rehabilitation of the conservancy. These successes, however, brought problems in the form of rhino poachers. The outsourcing of complete anti-poaching solutions is an emerging trend in Africa. The practice allows the operations to concentrate on their core business and responsibilities. The Dyck Advisory Group, or DAG for short, is a company that provides a comprehensive, turnkey anti-poaching service. DAG has teamed up with the Sabie Game Park in order to tackle the poaching threat across the region.

Aerial surveillance of the rhino population is carried out with the use of a Bat Hawk aircraft. Two flights a day are made over the reserve to look for rhino. If a rhino is spotted, a ground team is positioned to monitor the rhino while it is in the area. In addition to this, DAG is committed to fighting the rhino poaching scourge affecting the sub-region. Their strategy is based on early detection, rapid reaction. Aircraft, helicopters, vehicles, armed game scouts and trackers with tracker dogs are deployed in the fight against rhino poaching.

The Sabie Game Park, a hunting reserve, is home to the only resident population of rhino in Mozambique. Its success has been made possible through controlled, sustainable safari hunting. Without the revenue from safari hunting the reserve would simply not survive. Across the continent of Africa, repressive foreign laws and controls are stifling the conservation efforts of custodial organizations such as the Sabie Game Park.

The “Sabie Game Park, Mozambique” is the Hunter Proud Foundation’s latest documentary in the Custodians of Wilderness series. The movie can be watched here: https://vimeo.com/251291744[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”14850,14851,14852,14853,14854,14855,14856,14857,14858″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Great Man, Great PH, Great Friend

Apr 29, 2018 | News

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]January 20, 2018
Great Man, Great PH, Great Friend
By Lowell C. Douglas

I lost a dear friend yesterday – a true gentleman by royal standards, for he took the Queen and many of her subjects on safari. He has been written about by the most famous wildlife authors – Robert Ruark in “Something of Value” – and Ernest Hemingway. He was the author of many periodicals and short stories about Africa and its glorious animal life, and was a conservationist to the core. He was the ultimate friend, and he was a true family man – and that was hard to accomplish when he was so often on safari.
Besides Ernest Hemingway and Robert Ruark, he guided some of the most famous people in the world – English royalty, Juan Carlos King of Spain, and so many more, yet he made me feel that we were the closest of friends. I had five three-week safaris with Harry in Botswana and Kenya, and that was when Kenya was the African movie capital of the world.

This gentleman of all gentlemen – a wildlife conservationist who will be forever honored as such – is a friend I’ll never forget. When I flew into Nairobi, Kenya, or into Johannesburg, South Africa, he was always there to meet my plane. We shared the same respect for all fauna and flora. We both wanted the old days to live forever, for our kids, and for every person that loved the wild. We faced almost certain death together in stopping charges from elephant, lion, and buffalo, but we closed each night with toasts of thanks to the good Lord and our good fortune.

Harry literally wrote the book on conservation and the saving of all wildlife species – and that was hard to do with the encroachment of civilization and tourists. Of course there is still the awful poaching of elephant and rhino for tusks and horns to be sold to China. Ninety per cent of all poachers work for corrupt governments; portions of wildlife parks are shut down by the governments because of alleged need for road repairs, so the government poachers can slaughter the government’s quotas for shipments of rhino horns and ivory to China. It is a mess. But there are more elephant alive and well in all of southern Africa today than when I first hunted them in 1973, thanks to the political presence of Harry. “You have to give some ivory to the government leaders to protect most of the herds.” SHAME.

Harry loved to tell the story of his early days in Kenya when Princess Elizabeth came on safari. The now Queen is an avid markswoman, and she is and was a hunter, as well as an outdoor enthusiast who loved to just sit and view the wildlife of Africa.

On an auspicious occasion she stayed at the newly opened “Treetops” in Kenya. There, all guests were treated to lodging in the finest raised bedrooms that overlooked a favorite waterhole. When guests were finally readied for bed, an elderly Kenyan ex-soldier would patrol the area with a double side-by-side .458 to prevent any potential trouble that ventured too close.
It was there at Treetops on 6 February, 1952 that the young Princess Elizabeth was told her father, King George Vl was dead.
Her bodyguard at the time, hunter Jim Corbett, wrote in the visitor’s log book:
“For the first time in the history of the world a young girl climbed into a tree, one day a Princess, and after having what she described as her ‘most thrilling experience’, she climbed down from the tree next day a Queen – God bless her.”

As far as I know, no client was ever killed or injured on one of Harry’s safaris, but many suffered mild heart flutters from being scared to death. I had two of those flutters. One was when we were on an elephant hunt where we had tracked an elephant for eleven hours through rather thick brush, but we never got a high-percentage shot. Finally, we were within twenty metres of him. But that 20 metres was uphill to him, and that meant that if the first shot didn’t bring him down, he would seek his escape downhill. After keeping very still for about 20 minutes, he suddenly whirled to face our direction – trunk raised for a better whiff of our scent. He couldn’t make up his mind to charge or not. Thank goodness elephant’s eyesight is very poor. Harry held his double rifle to his shoulder and clicked off the safety, and I did the same. At the sound of our double clicks, the elephant flared his ears and took a step towards us. Harry whispered, “Wait! But be ready! Aim slightly below the middle of his eyes if he comes – but wait until he comes halfway.” My mathematics came into play – He’s just over 20 metres away now – that’d be a shot at ten metres! I obeyed.

The elephant suddenly stretched his trunk toward us, his butt seemed to fall toward the ground, then his trunk folded under his chest, and he charged.
“Shoot!” shouted Harry. The huge animal seemed to stop on a dime, and Harry shot. Its front legs splayed, and he fell straight down on his chest. We slowly stepped forward, side-by-side with rifles on our shoulders. Harry pushed me back a step and poked the eye of the downed creature. No blink, and no movement. We had our elephant.

I was not with Harry when he had the most bizarre hunting experience ever. He had stashed his client-hunter in a safe spot with one of his trackers, and he took his favorite tracker to track a wounded lion that had made it to the edge of a small river. A lion doesn’t usually want to get wet. Its tracks were on an animal trail that was also a vehicle two-track, and were easy to follow. Then Harry decided to stop pushing the lion, and sent the tracker back to get the Land Rover, but told him to tell his client and the other tracker to stay safe. When the tracker returned with the vehicle (which had had its doors removed) they began to follow the wounded lion in the Rover down the closest side of the vehicle tracks to the river. As the road turned toward the river, the dense brush on both sides of the road lessened. After Harry glassed all of the low cover for the lion, the tracker took a second rifle, and suggested that he examine the open drinking area for blood spoor that would tell which way the lion had chosen for his next walk.

Harry was sitting at the steering wheel, the furthest seat from the river. After the tracker was nearly down to the water’s edge, Harry noticed a slight movement of the brush. He stood up in the seat – rifle ready – and searched for any more movement. When he saw nothing, he slid back into his seat, his rifle across his lap. He was looking down the dirt road for his tracker when he heard the loudest roar ever, and the lion leapt from the bush right onto the passenger seat of the Rover. Harry’s gun was still in his lap, with his left hand on the trigger. He had no time to shoulder the firearm, but he managed to fire both barrels from his lap. He admits to the luckiest two shots ever fired – both bullets hit the lion right in the face, and the lion lay dead in the passenger seat!

Harry said that he told the quickly arriving tracker that he had coerced the lion into the passenger seat so that the two of them would not have to load the 600 pound beast! And the tracker swears to the story!

In Botswana, Harry and I were on safari after one of Botswana’s famous big Cape buffalo. We would drive in the open-air vehicles down every dirt track that led to thicker brush, then we’d try to follow game trails when buffalo tracks seemed to warrant a closer look. Big buffalo seldom want to put up with all the grunting of a big herd, so they typically travel in small bachelor units. Harry’s tracker spotted a group of five buff bulls to our left.
“A beeg one!” he shouted! They were in a pretty big open area, so we drove slowly to a better viewing opportunity. After following them for about ten minutes, Harry put the binoculars back to his eyes.
“My God – that’s the biggest buffalo I have ever seen! Get out, and get the guns – I’m going to leave the motor running to cover our first movements.” We walked and crawled for about thirty minutes. The big boy was the closest of the five to us. Harry would glass and glass, each time resting his grip, and muttering, “That’s the biggest buff I’ve ever seen!”

Finally we got an unexpected break. They began to feed in our direction, and unbelievably closed the distance to our hiding place behind really good cover. The wind was perfect. Suddenly, they stopped feeding, and the big one raised his nose into the air.
“He’s got us! It’s too far for a shot,” Harry whispered. Then the herd began to feed again directly toward us. We waited. Again they suddenly lifted their noses into the air. They were about 150 metres away – too far for a certain killing shot. They turned and began a slow stroll away from us. But when the big herd came into view just beyond them, the group of five turned back toward us and actually made a short trot in our direction.
“Get ready!” Harry whispered. I had a perfect branch on a high piece of brush we were hiding behind. They kept coming toward us. At about 75 metres, they stopped to graze again, the big one closest to us.
“Line him up,” Harry whispered. I slowly brought the rifle to my shoulder, and Harry raised his as well.
“If he turns sideways, take him through the shoulder.” The buffalo turned for a perfect broadside, and I squeezed.
“A perfect shot!” Harry shouted. He was down and the rest fled. We waited for about five minutes, then reloaded and walked toward him with rifles ready. Harry’s tracker had found a long stick, and we covered him from about 10 metres as he slowly walked to behind the buff. The tracker poked him with the stick – but the buffalo was dead. It ranked Number One in both horn and boss width.

Harry called everyone on the radio to come and see the biggest buffalo ever taken. The tracker started a fire with green brush to make smoke, and soon the other trackers and skinners arrived, and the partying and picture-taking began. In photos of Harry’s clients’ trophies, Harry always has his client’s smiling head above his, giving all the glory to his client.

What a gentleman – I’ll miss him every day of my life.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

More Buffalo with a Bow

Apr 23, 2018 | News

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Australia, North America, Greenland: 2002 – 2015
More Buffalo with a Bow …
By Dr Adrian de Villiers

We go on these adventures to hunt different species for the whole adventure. Only a fraction of the time is spent actually dispatching the animal, and we do love the animals we shoot, as strange as it sounds. By them having value, they in turn are protected, and only the older bulls are taken.

Many years later, in 1998, I saw an advert in Magnum magazine for buffalo hunting in Australia, for those awesome, huge, wide-horned water buffalo. Graham Williams of Australian Buffalo Hunters was not keen to take a bowhunter, and said I would have to practice at 70 yards as he was sure he could get me that close, but not much closer. I was again using a 105# bow, and it was shooting incredibly well, even out to 70 yards. I took my 14-year-old son Ryan, also a bowhunter, to the Outback north of Darwin, and changed to a 100# bow. What I loved about my new bow was the adjustable “Let off” – I could draw 100 lbs and only hold 10 lbs. This meant that I could draw the bow when I saw an animal coming, and hold as I let it get closer.

My first Australian buffalo hunt was a text book walk and stalk. We saw a lone bull lying under a blue gum tree in the heat of the day, deep in the shadows. He had chosen a good spot – a lone tree surrounded by a dried-out swamp, the ground burnt rock-hard and knobbly, and all hell to crawl on in the 40 degree sun! He had his back to the wind with zero cover anywhere within a 180 degree radius of his eyes.

“If you go right around and come in from his left side you may be able to crawl up behind the tree in his blind spot. I’ll wait here and watch you. Watch me with your binoculars – I’ll tell you when to go and when to stop,” Graham said. I made my way around through the blue gum forest until I was about 70 yards away on the bull’s blind side. As I started to crawl in poor cover, trying to line his left eye with the tree trunk, I realised that he had chosen his spot really well. The wind was blowing almost towards him from behind. Once behind the tree trunk he would definitely smell me – it was a catch-22 situation. I was about thirty yards from the tree, just getting up out of sight of the bull, when he burst out of the blocks like an Olympic sprinter. I just saw a dust cloud.

My bow was set on 30 yards, and not sure what was happening, I instinctively drew it. The buffalo made a wide arc, charging towards Graham, and then back around the tree towards me. He lumbered out, and at 30 yards he stopped, head down and tilted back, typical buffalo pose, nose up trying to get my scent. I noted the deep sweep of his nice long horns, and a six-inch gap where a good shot could enter the chest. I had a bright green nock on my arrow, and that’s all that showed after the shot.

“How lucky was that!” Graham said. My bull was top 10 SCI – I was chuffed to say the least.

“I’d love to come back with my older son Shane,” I told Graham. “I want to add the banteng to my list of wild oxen. Can you arrange it for me?”

In late August 2002, Shane and I were both there, shooting 100 # bows and 1000-gr arrows. We had an Aborigine hunter to take us for a banteng. As far as I know, the only huntable ones are on the Cobourg Peninsula in the Northern Territories of Australia, originally imported from Indonesia. Indonesian sailors dropped them off to breed so they could hunt them for fresh meat when they regularly passed by. They also left water buffalo there for the same purpose. A rickety game fence across the base of the peninsula is designed to stop them spreading into the Northern Territories.

In 2004 Shane and I arrived via bush plane at Murganella, a small dusty airstrip on the Cobourg Peninsula, to stay in an eco-tourist camp on the Arafura Sea run by Reuben Cooper, a famous ex-Australian rules rugby hero, and his wife Dawn, who gave us all exotic meals such as turtle skewers, cobia sushi, barramundi and kangaroo steaks.

Every early morning we would leave camp with Reuben’s bushwise son Sam, and go into the reserve where the Aborigines were allowed to hunt. A major drawback was that the Aborigines in the Northern Territories had banned the use of rifles and handguns, so we had no rifle back-up. I would have to be dead sure of all my shots.

After five days of walking with only two days left, late one afternoon we found a large herd near an old abandoned sawmill. There were banteng everywhere, bulls chasing each other past where we were hidden. The dominant bulls were black, the rest of the herd being more ochre-colored, similar to South African impala. I stalked up to a monster male that had not yet changed to black, and was on the verge of shooting it when a pitch-black dominant bull, shimmering in the noonday sun, challenged him. They stood face to face like two prizefighters. I was in a patch of long grass, dead still, my head covered in a leafy suit, my bow above the grass at full draw. I must have looked just like a dead tree. The bulls were only 30 yards away and both broadside. The non-dominant bull was a much better trophy, but the black one looked so much more majestic and just what I was after. I took the coal-black one.

I was ecstatic to have a banteng and such a pretty one too. In 2002 there were only two bow-killed banteng in the SCI book, and he was only half an inch above the minimum-sized entry for banteng. In retrospect I should have taken the much bigger non-dominant one, since my cape was miss-handled and arrived at the taxidermist mouldy with bad hairslip. I had to buy a new cape.

A yak hunt was next, in 2002. Originally from the Himalayas, Mongolia and China, there are 14 million in China and 600,000 in Mongolia, and have been imported into various countries. Wild yaks are not huntable in their countries of origin, so I looked for places where they could be hunted as free-roaming as possible, as in Texas and Colorado. The yak, like the musk ox, is a primitive species, and not nearly as alert as the Cape buffalo, bison, or banteng. If threatened, they tend to form a circle or “lager” with all their heads pointing outwards with the females and young in the middle, or they stampede off like a flowing woollen blanket over the hills as musk oxen do. But we were warned that they could charge if approached too closely, or were startled or wounded. We were told to stalk very carefully and stay close to the sagebrush which predominates in the windswept sides of the mountains. The cold winds that blew off the ice on the mountains suited them, as they do not do well in hot climates.

I eventually found my herd in a depression on the side of a dormant, snow-covered volcano. A freezing wind was blowing in December and the rivers were solidly frozen over. Shooting in gusty, ice-cold wind was not what I was used to back home in South Africa.

The desolate side of the volcano was totally bare of any wildlife, the undulations in the terrain subtly masked by the flat, grey-brown sagebrush. Once I got higher up the mountain I peeked over the edges of every depression, making sure not to skyline myself, and found the herd within my bow range. My camouflage and leafy suit worked perfectly. I glassed the yaks. The larger bulls were all beautiful animals and all looked like trophies. I needed to choose the right one, without having another behind him – my 104# bow and 1000-gr arrow could easily shoot straight through both.

As a big bull stepped clear I drew, anchored, and waited till my 56 yard pin (single moveable pin set beforehand) was steady, as I was below the lip of the depression. I made a slight allowance for the downhill angle, aiming a little lower, and released the deadly missile. The shot was perfect. It looked a bit far back, but the animal was quartering away and I had aimed at the opposite front leg. The wind had drowned out the sound of the shot, and the rest of the herd was unaware that anything had happened. My animal jumped forwards and spun around. When the other bulls saw he was agitated and smelt the blood, they suddenly started attacking him. I have seen that with Cape buffalo, wildebeest and Australian water buffalo. I am not sure if it’s an instinctive reaction to get the wounded animal away from the herd as it could attract predators, or if it’s an opportunity to take over the spot of the dominant bull.

In no time he was down and dead. As I stood up and the herd saw me, they rushed away to disappear into another unseen depression. I marvelled at what a beautiful animal he was with an awesome set of horns. He was #1 SCI for many years before being overtaken.

In 2014 I decided I should try and get lucky No7, the musk ox. I had once almost frozen to death in deep snow on a mountain lion hunt in Idaho, and had seen videos of musk ox bowhunts in snow many degrees below zero, and was not interested in that at all. Frank Feldman of Greenland Bowhunters took autumn bowhunts in Greenland in much more temperate conditions. A year later I was on my way there for my Arctic adventure. As we flew over Greenland to land at the Narsarsuaq airport, I got a glimpse of the Arctic ice shelf. Greenland is the largest island in the world. A five-hour boat ride to the little island we stayed on was a joy, with blue, house-sized icebergs floating past in the fjord. Our route was blocked by a jumble of icebergs, but the boat captain skilfully slipped through.

At 61.01.462N and 47.52.408 E, we changed from the large launch to Frank’s smaller PT boat. It was drizzling and cold and misty, but not much further to the camp on a small island, and after four days’ travelling from South Africa, I was glad to get to my new “home,” a 5m² log house. It was Sunday 6 September 2015.

I spent the day assembling my bow, setting my sights and practicing on the small broadhead butt supplied by Frank. Monday morning I was up early, having not slept at all from excitement. In the middle of the night I had walked outside and seen the Northern Lights Aurora Borealis, caused by the magnetosphere of the earth being affected by the solar winds. The spectacle was awesome, and further proof of how far away from home and my comfort zone I was.

We left early in two boats and cruised the fjords, and soon found a herd lying up on a plateau overlooking the beach. Frank glassed them – there was a good old bull. Dropping anchor, we silently rode to the shore on the smaller outboard. The team waited while Frank and I approached on foot. As the herd was facing our way, we had to make a wide detour into the side of the mountain to get around them and into the wind. On our way through the large rocks we literally bumped into two large bulls that we had not seen from below. We carefully maneuvered around them once we determined that the herd bull was better. The herd was scattered about on the lower of four contours, near the beach. The ground was covered with soft, spongy moss and large boulders. We had to belly crawl from rock to rock, and eventually I was soaking wet.

There were 15 females with young, a herd bull, and about four mature bulls that were trying their luck with the big one. He would graze, chase off a younger bull, and then lie down for ten to 15 minutes, only to get up and chase off another one. He would walk over, sniff at one of his cows and lie down again. Each time we slithered into position, he seemed to time it perfectly and get up and walk away from where we were. On one occasion we were sliding on a slippery mossy slope when a bull suddenly appeared twenty yards in front of us. We were in good camo, me in a padded leafy suit and Frank in Kuiu camo. The bull saw us, did not know what we were, and just backed away.

Eventually we were well hidden, above the dominant bull we wanted. Lying almost flat, I could just see the top of his back. Once I rose up, almost all of the herd would see me, except for the bull. How they reacted and how quickly I shot would perhaps be the difference between success and failure.

“Nock an arrow, set your sight on 30 metres, stand up very, very slowly, and shoot him in the middle of his chest and directly in line with his hump,” Frank said. I had six “Dr Death Broadheads” my own make and design, and nine Spitfire mechanicals for caribou, having previously lost two Dr Deaths practicing on the small broadhead butt in the high winds near the camp, and only had four arrows with fixed blade heads, the only ones legal for musk ox in Greenland. The Dr Death broadheads weighed 185 gr and the Spitfires 100gr. My sights were set for the Spitfires at 30 metres and they shot perfectly with both points. The longer the shot the more the arrow would drop from where it was sighted in.

I drew my #75 bow and slowly stood up, aimed perfectly behind the shoulder and shot. I watched as the arrow appeared to drop out of sight, then heard a horrible “crack” – the sound of solid bone being hit. I had hit the humerus just above the elbow.

“You hit the brisket, much too low,” Frank said. “Try to get another shot in quickly.” Surprisingly, the animal hardly reacted to the shot. He spun around looking behind him, perhaps thinking one of the younger bulls had hurt him. My bow was so quiet with the 800 gr arrows that he never knew he had been shot. I drew, and waited for him to turn. “He’s still at thirty,” Frank said. I thought I had shot perfectly. But it was low. How could I shoot so badly at so close a range? I was shooting steeply downhill – I should be shooting high. As the bull walked further and further away, Frank said, “We cannot leave a wounded bull out here. If he starts to run for the hills, I am going to have to shoot him with my rifle, or you can!” I was horrified. All this way to shoot it with a gun.

“Frank, I’ve still got two arrows left. He’s close enough for a shot!” He was milling around with the herd at 70 yards. They were only slightly agitated, smelling the blood on his leg. He was perfectly broadside with a female just in front of him, another covering his abdomen, with less than a metre clear over his shoulder. I had practiced a lot with my Bowtech destroyer up to 90 yards with 100-gr points – my only problem would be estimating where to set my sights with the heavier heads. I set them on 75 m – the range finder told me it was 61 m or about 67 yards. I had to pull off a good shot, or I could lose my trophy to a rifle shot. Luckily, the arctic winds had not yet started for the day and it was dead calm.

I was so angry at myself that my buck fever was gone. I was calm and focused. I was now a sniper, and everything depended on this shot – the arrow drop was my only concern. My release felt perfect, I heard a soft “thud,” and I saw him shiver.

“I got him. I got him, he’s mine now.”

“I think you hit him in the foot.”

“No way, the shot was good.” Although I had bright pink fletches, in the dark shadow of the mountain neither of us could see the arrow clearly. The herd was on a plateau just above the beach. I had previously glassed the plateau from the boat and seen a footpath going down along the rocks, so I knew where he was going when he went over the edge. I had one arrow left. Frank was still sure I had missed the long shot. Nocking my last arrow, I sprinted up, hoping the bull was still close by the edge. When I looked over, I saw he was at 65 m, quartering steeply away and walking slowly. I aimed a metre in front of him and released, just in front of his left hip, angling towards the right shoulder, the pink fletches bright in the sudden sunlight.

I grabbed Frank and hugged him hard. “I got him. I got him, that’s a heart shot.”

When we caped him out we found that my long shot was perfect too, just behind the shoulder – he was already dying as he walked off the plateau. I never let an animal suffer unnecessarily so I would have shot that last shot anyway.

My bull was so old and his tips so worn down that Frank said he doubted that it would survive another cold winter. The artic conditions, the massive blue icebergs passing in the fiord, the turquoise water, and the huge cod we caught will be a memory I will cherish forever.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”14834,14835,14836″][/vc_column][/vc_row]