Oct 12, 2018 | News
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F126-127||target:%20_blank|”][vc_column_text]BIG STICKS AND SMALL CRITTERS
By Johan van Wyk
A classic big-bore rifle is certainly a legendary thing to contemplate, dream about, and use in action on Africa’s big and dangerous animals. Depending on the circumstances one might find oneself in, a big rifle may also be a very necessary accessory to have close by, especially when the big tracks and the thin blood trail starts to head for the thickest patch of mopane around. At other times, though, shooting a rifle that throws out a bullet the size of a man’s thumb is just plain enjoyable, and not necessarily because of the recoil factor, either.
Recoil, I have found, is a very subjective thing. Some folks can handle it very well while others cannot handle it at all. I’m somewhere in the middle on the subject. I have probably fired more than my fair share of heavy-recoiling rifles up to the .577 NE, and I’m still alive to tell a few tall tales, so I’m not overly bothered by recoil. However, I have also found that the biggest factor influencing almost everyone’s proficiency with a big rifle is the amount of practise they do with their rifles. And by practise I am not solely referring to spending some quality time on the range, but rather actual use in the field, hunting.
As dangerous game hunting tends to be an expensive undertaking at the best of times, there is a cheaper alternative available for most of us in the form of plains game. While some may balk at the idea of carrying a big rifle in pursuit of a smallish critter such as a warthog or an impala, there is actually a lot of merit in the idea. The first and most obvious benefit is that it instils familiarity with your big rifle, and that familiarity may just pay handsome dividends when things turn sour when some armoured beast intent on bodily harm is heading your way, and your prowess with your big bore rifle suddenly takes centre stage.
Another benefit is the fact that stalking something with a big rifle tends to be just plain fun, especially when some of the plains-game species that tend to favour more open terrain are on the menu. A few months ago I found myself crawling after a wary herd of blesbok in the mountains of a remote farm in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. My chosen rifle for the hunt was a .416 Rigby topped with a low-magnification variable-power scope and loaded with 400-grain soft-nose bullets. I’ve hunted the area previously as well, and found that picking off a few blesbok for the larder with a flat-shooting light-calibre rifle was relatively easy. With the .416 as my chosen weapon, though, the odds were suddenly slightly different.
Even with the use of shooting sticks I couldn’t really shoot the big rifle accurately enough much farther than 100 metres or so, but this distance was well outside the animals’ comfort zone so most of the day was spent in long, fruitless stalks. This in itself was a pleasure as well, as we encountered many other species along the way and saw some spectacular scenery as a bonus. Eventually, in the early afternoon, we used some dead ground to move closer to a small herd of blesbok, and a ram on the outskirts of the herd made the mistake of waiting a second or two too long before bolting with the rest of the herd. The crosshairs settled on his chest briefly and I pulled the trigger, sending a 400-grain bullet on its merry way. There was no sound of the bullet hitting the animal but the ram was down and out in his tracks. Great fun and a good end to a challenging hunt. The venison tasted great as well.
Another time I was sitting among the rocks of a small hill, contemplating a nice red hartebeest bull standing with his nose pointed into the breeze on an open Karoo plain stretched out below me. I was armed with a Heym 88B .470 NE, double loaded with 500-grain solids, so I was certainly in no danger of being undergunned for the hartebeest. The bull eventually solved my problem by climbing the very hill I was hiding on, and when he finally noticed me it was too late. At the shot he took off like a scalded cat, straight down the hill again and headed for the only patch of thornbush for miles.
I reloaded the big rifle and made my way down the hill as well. As I entered the patch of thorn the wounded bull erupted virtually at my feet, making space between us at a rate of knots. The double came up in a flash and I had the fleeting thought that it was much like shooting a flushing francolin as I swung the rifle and touched the front trigger. The result was nothing short of spectacular, with the bull somersaulting to a halt in a cloud of dust, stone dead. Like I said, great fun and very good practise at the same time.
Take your big rifles hunting![/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F126-127||target:%20_blank|”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”17756,17757,17758″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Oct 12, 2018 | News
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F130-131||target:%20_blank|”][vc_column_text]AN ARCANE PROBLEM SOLVED
By any standard, the 6.5×54 Mannlicher-Schönauer is one of the most successful hunting cartridges in history. It has been used everywhere, on everything, by some very big names in the hunting world. It’s synonymous with its original rifle, the Mannlicher Model 1903, which was so finely made that it, in turn, became synonymous with the term “gentleman’s rifle.”
Both rifle and cartridge were designed at a time when smokeless powder was new and gunmakers were feeling their way, seeing what worked and what didn’t. This applied to every aspect, from the cartridge’s shoulder angle, to barrel length, to how magazines worked (or did not.)
Cartridge magazines, and the related issues of feeding and extraction, were a particular bugaboo. The Model 1903 introduced, to the civilian world, Otto Schönauer’s rotary magazine. It is one of the most elegant systems ever designed, and was executed with all of Steyr’s legendary gunmaking skill.
As designed, the magazine was fitted to the cartridge like a custom-made glove to an individual hand. The cartridge was held firmly through every stage of its life in the rifle. In the magazine, it could not slide back and forth during recoil; as it fed into the magazine, the various parts held and guided it into place. The result of all this painstaking exactness was a rifle whose bolt operation and feeding became an ergonomic legend, and writers ran out of superlatives to describe its smoothness. We’ll call it “buttery,” and leave it at that.
If there was a problem, it was that the 1903 was too good, too exact. In their quest to have absolute control over the cartridge at all times, Steyr’s gunmakers sometimes fitted the mechanism so finely that it would feed the right ammunition to perfection, but nothing else.
The original 6.5×54 was loaded with a 160-grain round-nosed bullet, either soft or solid. Both were long and straight, with a blunt, rounded tip. The cartridge case itself, by the standards of 1903, had very little taper, but it did have some. As the bolt pushes the cartridge forward, it is held by the action rail on the left and by the blade of the spindle on the right. The nose of the bullet comes in contact with the feed ramp and gently lifts the cartridge up and to the right, out from under the action rail. Thence, it enters the chamber.
Here’s the problem: If the cartridge is not loaded with such a bullet, seated well out so that it contacts the feed ramp very early, the cartridge slides straight forward and wedges under the action rail. This can happen if the bullet is too short, seated too deeply, or has a spitzer tip.
According to the Norma handloading guide, this is not true of all Model 1903s, but it is true of some — mostly early ones — and mine is one of them. Later, presumably, Steyr adjusted the tolerances to at least allow the rifle to use bullets of different lengths and configurations. I should add that I have owned eight or nine Mannlichers in various calibers, including 8×56 Mannlicher-Schönauer (a Model 1908) and another 6.5×54 M-S (an African model.) Only the 1903 has exhibited this trait.
As long as original factory ammunition was available, the rifles could at least be used. Today, 6.5×54 M-S loaded with this bullet is almost non-existent. If you want to shoot your rifle, you have to handload, and you have to find bullets that work. Two that do are the Hornady 160-gr. RN (the traditional bullet) and the Lapua 155-gr. MEGA.
Of course, this rules out flattening the trajectory by using a lighter bullet. My all-time favorite 6.5, the Nosler 140-gr. Partition, will not work at all. Too short, and the spitzer tip does not lift the cartridge. They jam every time.
By accident, I came across another bullet that works like a charm: Lapua’s 140-gr. Naturalis. Here is a case of pure serendipity. Because the Naturalis is copper instead of lead, it is long for its weight, so it can be seated to the right length to function and still be held firmly by the case neck. As well, it has a very blunt tip, and the shoulder of this tip comes in contact with the feed ramp right where it should. Cartridges feed like a dream. And, being lighter, they can be loaded to higher velocity to flatten the trajectory a little bit and lengthen effective range.
The original Naturalis (NPL6101) worked beautifully, and I was kicking myself for not laying in a supply when I heard that it had been redesigned to be more streamlined. This, I assumed, would compromise its effectiveness. However, the new bullet (NPL6203) works every bit as well, in spite of having a slight taper and a curved nose.
For anyone with a Model 1903, who wants the pure animal pleasure of using one of the best hunting rifles ever designed, but also wants more modern ballistic performance, this is the answer.[/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F130-131||target:%20_blank|”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Oct 12, 2018 | News
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F76-77||target:%20_blank|”][vc_column_text]The Lion Charge
By Frank Paino
As a young kid growing up in Brooklyn, I always longed to be outdoors. I had a quiet life and I was always looking for activity. When I was about twelve years old, the movies Th e Snows of Kilimanjaro and King Solomon’s Mines came out. I thought they were great movies on Africa, but I never imagined I would go there.
The closest I got to an outdoor lifestyle as a kid was going upstate in the summertime. My father was
originally from upstate New York; he met my mother when he came to New York City to see the doctors there for an injury to his leg that occurred while he was playing ball. My father’s family still lived upstate, and every summer as a kid I was allowed to spend a month up there. My father’s brother was a welder, and every afternoon I would wait impatiently for the factory whistle to sound and for my uncle to come home from work. He would take me out while it was still daylight and we would do some shooting. I wasn’t allowed to have any fi rearms at home, so this was very exciting for me. Th ere was a time when my other uncles from Brooklyn went a little bit upstate to shoot a .22 rifle. No one could hit what they were shooting at, and they finally let me try. I hit it with one shot. This was my opening to ask my father if I could get a .22 and leave it at my uncle’s house so I could use it when he and I went out shooting.
My father had a small produce store in Brooklyn where I worked, delivering orders for five dollars a week, and that’s how I paid for my first .22. I also wanted to take a Hunter Safety course, but my father didn’t want me to. I told him it was free.
He said “You’re never going hunting, so why bother?”
I told him again it was free, which was important since we never had any money and lived in an apartment. He finally relented and said I could take the course.
There was a small camera and gun store about four blocks from my father’s store and I was constantly topping in there. I became friends with the owner, Frank. Every September Frank and his friends, who were all small business owners, drove to Wyoming to hunt mule deer and antelope. While they were gone, I would often stop by the gun store to ask Frank’s wife, Jenny, how the hunters were doing. Eventually Frank got tired of having his gun store broken into and he sold the business and moved his entire family to Wyoming.
At that same gun store, I met another friend, George, who owned a produce place. I told him that one of these days I would like to do a hunt in Wyoming. He had money and said, “You arrange the hunt, and we will drive to Wyoming in my Lincoln Continental.” Th at was the first of my hunting trips.
I eventually got a job at a bus company in South Jamaica, Queens, and drove a bus for ten years before becoming a supervisor. I worked all the overtime I could, going for weeks with no days off. It took me twenty-six years to get a Sunday off, and twenty-eight years to get a Saturday and Sunday.
I read an article by Ken Elliot of Hunting magazine about a hunt he had done on the Vermejo Park Ranch in New Mexico for bull elk. Th e article inspired me, and I booked an elk hunt at Vermejo. I hunted at Vermejo every other year, about four times. While there, I met many hunters with wide hunting experience and I always asked them about Africa. A few of them told me it was too dangerous there. I finally realized if I kept making elk hunts every other year, I would never get to Africa.
I often purchased books from Safari Press, and one day I got to speak with the owner, Ludo Wurfbain. I mentioned to him I would like to go to Africa. Ludo suggested I attend the Safari Club International (SCI) convention in Reno, Nevada. I told him the outfitter I was thinking of going with, and Ludo said he was booked with that same outfitter, that same year. Ludo said, “Come to the convention and I will introduce you to him.”
I made the trip to Reno, and Ludo introduced me to George Angelides, the owner of Tanzania Safaris in Arusha, Tanzania. We got along very well and things started to fall into place. George suggested I hunt in two different areas of Tanzania during my hunt, since certain animals are only in one area. I booked the safari with George for the following year, 1991, which gave me some time to get the money together. I was concerned about jet lag, so I arrived a week early and stayed in the Mount Meru Hotel in Arusha.
George was on safari with another client, and his wife, Gill, invited me to their home for dinner. Their children, Michael, Kathryn, and Nicholas, were young then. During the week, Gill sometimes had one of the men on their staff take me into Arusha to buy souvenirs. I was anxious to start my safari. Th e Mount Meru Hotel had offices in the lobby offering tours to see the various game parks; the tours cost about $100 each. But I was counting every penny, and I figured there was no reason to go to these parks since in another week I would actually be on safari. I was taken to a small airstrip at the end of the week and boarded a small aircraft. I flew 450 air miles to the Rungwa area of Tanzania. When the plane landed, I met several friendly people there who were waiting to leave.
They had just finished their safari with George, and they told me I would have a great time.
I was fortunate that during this last safari they had been hanging baits for cats, and the baits were still up.
The first two nights in camp, I heard lions roaring all night. My tent was in the center of a long stretch of land, with George’s tent at one end and the camp staff at the other end. One night, I unzipped the tent to go to the bathroom, and when I looked out of the tent with my flash light I could see the eyes of several hyenas looking at me. I shook the canvas opening of the tent and the hyenas moved off.
The next morning George told me there was still a lion roaring by the bait tree, and he suggested we try to get him before he left the area. As we approached the bait tree, the lion heard the vehicle and took off at a fast trot. It was a split-second decision if he was good enough to take. We stopped the vehicle and I got out, and while the lion was moving away, I fired. He took off into the tall grass, and we waited a while. Then George had one of his men get behind the steering wheel, and George and I got in the back of the vehicle, which had no doors and an open back. George stood on one side and I on the other side, with our rifles ready. We drove through the long grass, expecting the lion to leap into the vehicle at any moment. When the long grass ended, we all got out of the vehicle and we began tracking the wounded lion. We were tracking for about twenty minutes when we came to a dry river bed with just a trickle of water flowing in the center. When we walked to the edge of the embankment, which was about six feet high, the lion began roaring. Th e hair on the back of my neck stood up at this tremendous roaring. They say you can hear a lion roaring five miles away in the bush, and we were right on top of this one.
We immediately backed up, and then approached to the edge again with the lion still roaring. He could see us, but we couldn’t see him. He was in the palmettos on the opposite side. We backed up again, and George said, “We will go downstream farther, and cross over to the other side.”
We did that and as we got closer to where the lion was, the trees blocked our view. George turned, looked me in the eye, and said, “If we go any farther, he will run out and grab somebody before we can shoot him.”
George told me to go back to the other side with Hamesi, his lead tracker. He told Hamesi in Swahili to get the shotgun, which was loaded with bird shot. When we were in position, Hamesi was to shoot the bird shot above where we thought the lion was. George told me to be ready, since the lion was going to come out, but we didn’t know what side of the dry river bed he would come out on. So, George stayed on that side and I went back to the original side with Hamesi.
Hamesi hid in a bush so the lion wouldn’t see him. When I was in position, standing at the edge of the six-foot-high embankment, Hamesi fi red above where the lion was roaring. Th e lion didn’t come out, but I saw Hamesi walking toward me from my left side. He speaks only Swahili, but he showed me the shotgun, which was jammed. I didn’t want to put my rife down with the lion still roaring. I saw that the follower from the gun’s magazine had caught a shell, so I was able to get my Puma knife and I used it to push the follower, which cleared the jammed shell. Hamesi went back to the bush again and fi red another bird shot round above the roaring. With that, the lion came out straight at me, and everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I said to myself, here he comes. As soon as the lion was in my cross hairs, I fi red. Th e rifle wasn’t completely up to my shoulder but I had to fi re immediately, and when I shot the scope came back and hit me above the eye. I started bleeding profusely. Th e lion turned away at my shot and I fi red again at his side as he turned. With that second shot, the lion turned again and came back at me at full charge. I fi red into his chest with the third shot and that dropped him in his tracks.
My rifle, a .378 Weatherby, holds only three shots, one in the chamber and two in the magazine. I had read that professional hunters would place two shells between their fingers to reload their double guns in an emergency, so before the charge I had placed one shell between my fingers—one was all I could manage and still hold my rifle correctly, since the shells are so large. After the third shot, I took the shell I was holding and put it in the chamber. I walked around to the back of my lion and fi red a round into his back as an insurance round. All of the shots had been killing shots, but the lion was full of adrenaline that kept him going long after he should have been dead.
George and the men came to my side of the riverbed. My lion measured more than ten feet from nose to tail and he would score No. 34 in the Safari Club International record book. This was only the third day of my first safari, and there I was, just a guy from Brooklyn. We don’t see too many lions in Brooklyn. As we say back there, “Fuhgeddadboudit.”[/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F76-77||target:%20_blank|”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”17745,17746,17747,17749″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Oct 12, 2018 | News
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F84-85||target:%20_blank|”][vc_column_text]A Father’s Gift
By Michael Arnold
“Popular or not, however, the .35 Whelen is a great cartridge…Shame on me, to this day I have not taken a .35 Whelen to Africa, but I haven’t changed my opinion: Loaded with 250-grain bullets, it would be one of the very best choices for thornbush hunting.” (Craig Boddington, Safari Rifles II)
“You can hunt anything in North America with this rifle.” With those words, my Dad gave me his lovely custom-built, .35 Whelen Improved rifle. Stocked by a man named Bill Hall, it was emblazoned with a ‘Diamond-H’ insignia below the beautifully-engraved, silver pistol grip cap. I honestly could believe that my Dad was giving away this rifle. He had begun collecting Bill Hall rifles many years before, and had accumulated quite a stash. In fact, my Dad had mentioned over the years that Ruger management had tried to recruit Bill to come and work in their custom-rifle shop. I don’t know if this was legend or not, but like my Dad, I had fallen in love with Bill’s workmanship as soon as I held my first Diamond-H rifle.
Though almost always a gruff and serious person, my Dad could also be very generous. As I sat entranced by a detailed examination of ‘my’ rifle, he handed me something that meant as much as the firearm itself. He presented me with a set of custom dies and a handwritten sheet containing reloading instructions garnered from many years of his own experimentation with the rifle. Included in the instructions were the steps he used to neck-up .30-06 brass to .35 caliber. He had also noted that I could skip the use of .30-06 brass by simply purchasing .35 Whelen ammunition and fire-forming it in the rifle.
As far as I know, my Dad never shot an animal with the .35 Whelen Improved. I know for a fact that, during his many years of hunting, he never killed anything larger than a Texas Whitetail, and that his deer hunting was done with a Belgian-made Browning chambered to 7mm Remington Magnum. So, his declaration of the effectiveness of this .35 caliber rifle for large, tough, and sometimes aggressive animals must have been derived from his own knowledge of ballistic coefficients, etc., as well as information garnered from gunwriters such as O’Connor, Keith, Page and Boddington. Many years later, I found that he was very accurate in his assessment when I watched a 6-point bull elk quickly succumb to a single shot fired from this rifle. That elk represented what I like to think of as a ‘heritage-quest’. My Dad once told me of an unsuccessful elk hunt in Colorado. Though he did not see a bull, he did describe watching cow elk coming out of a fog that limited visibility to mere yards. After many decades, my Dad was still saddened by his failure. So, my pursuit of a bull elk, with the rifle given to me many years before, was just as much a quest to fulfill my Dad’s dream as it was my own. Sadly, my Dad passed away a number of years before I was able to complete his and my dream of collecting that trophy bull.
Fast forward over a decade, and I was planning my first African safari. As suggested by my older brother, we were heading to South Africa to hunt with Blaauwkrantz Safaris. Very early in the planning stage, I decided I wanted to take my Dad’s rifle to Africa. I don’t know if he ever considered trying to organize an African safari, but I know that he voraciously read of the exploits of those who did. So, his rifle would go where he never could, or would. And, to prove my Dad’s conclusion concerning the capability of the caliber to handle big-boned, muscular animals, I wanted to take a zebra – a species that writers from Ruark to Boddington have pointed to as one of the toughest of the tough.
The goal of taking an African animal using my Dad’s – and now my – .35 Whelen Improved rifle was fulfilled late on the afternoon of May 19, 2018. Like the two elk before, the effect on the 800-900-pound animal was immediate. In fact, as I came down out of the recoil, chambering a cartridge as the muzzle dropped, I found that the zebra had literally dropped-to-the-shot. The 250-grain Nosler Partition impacted high on the animal’s shoulder, and according to my PH, Arnold Claassen, it collapsed without a twitch.
Dad, you were right. This caliber is amazingly effective on large, tough species. I really wish you were still around, so that I could tell you that in person.[/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F84-85||target:%20_blank|”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”17732,17733,17734″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Oct 12, 2018 | News
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F52-53||target:%20_blank|”][vc_column_text]Limpopo Sable – Black Magic
By Peter Ryan
New Zealand to Africa sounds easy but it isn’t. I’ve made the journey a dozen times now, and it’s always a relief to walk in the door at Afton House, my overnight oasis in Johannesburg and launching point for so many safaris over the years. After 28 hours on the move a hot shower, a cold beer and a good steak is paradise.
The next day I’m in the Limpopo. After the cool greenery of a New Zealand winter, the bright light and red dirt of Africa is a shock to the eye, but a good one. Familiar sights wash back into the mind as the Cruiser churns its way through deep dust…knobthorn, sesame trees, blackthorn, camel thorn, raisin bush. Here we go again. It’s obvious straight away that the Limpopo has been in drought. The browsers can hold on, but by September the grazers will be in trouble. There is buffalo sign too, with plenty of them on this block wherever there is rough grazing and thick cover.
The beauty of a top safari outfit is the quality of their hunting grounds. This block is family-owned and was one of the first to convert to game way back in the 1970s. They don’t buy animals in, and they don’t push it hard, just one hunter at a time taking off very conservative numbers. The pickups by the skinning shed are staggering – many are mature males that simply died out there of old age. There are usually a dozen or so mature sable bulls roaming freely across the block, with just one or two taken off each year. It’s a class operation from start to finish.
It’s good to catch up with Hans ‘Scruff’ Vermaak again, boss at Coenraad Vermaak Safaris. We’ve hunted before, for buff and plains game up in the Kalahari, for bushbuck in the tangles of KwaZulu-Natal. I know his family, in fact his young son Caleb was at my shoulder when I took a lovely nyala bull last year. We muck around taking pictures and talk rugby, and play spot-the-wildlife and generally mess around like a couple of teenagers. Safari life is a fine thing.
The rifles I’ve taken on previous trips have been seriously retro, but then again I’m a bit of a dinosaur myself. There was a sweet little BRNO model 21 in 7×57, a ZG-47 in .30-06, a .375. Today I’m carrying an old Husqvarna, the one with the lovely Mauser 98 action made for them by FN. It’s in 9.3×62, a classic bushveld caliber. Restocked in New Zealand walnut, it’s come up a treat. South African old- timers will understand these sentimental choices.
I’m running Norma’s 285-grain Oryx load, and the whole outfit is topped with a Swarovski Z6 in 1-6. Does it shoot? Checking the zero I put two shots down, the first one bang on line but a touch high. The second – Scruff and I can’t find until we walk up. It has cut the first to make a single ragged hole, better than I normally shoot and not bad after twelve thousand kilometres of air travel. Let’s go hunting.
Confession time. I’ve hunted several Cape buffalo, water buffalo in Australia and a lot of the “royal” antelope, but few things get me as excited as a serious warthog. Cheap and cheerful they may be but big pigs still make my palms sweat. In the shade on the edge of a huge pan we watch sows and youngsters come and go, but no real ivory. Many times we walk into promising country only to have the breeze swing and watch high tails steaming off into the bush. Tomorrow is another day.
Tomorrow passes and we’ve started to get a bead on where we need to be, not just for warthog but a seriously good impala holding lots of girls. It’s mid-June but the rams are still running hot, and this one is something special. He doesn’t move far but they don’t get that size by being silly. Through the scope I get one look at long tips surging through the bush, but no shot.
So we have two species patterned, and soon the last one on my wish list. We scout up the odd sable bull, then suddenly there he is, a dark shape camped in the shade. Predictably he doesn’t like people much and drifts away into the thickets. If we retreat quietly he may still hang around the general area – sable sometimes do. Then again sometimes they don’t and I fall asleep that night wondering. He looked pretty special.
Back on the big pan the next morning a female warthog drifts by, and suddenly there’s a solid boar right behind her. They trot by and it’s time to get serious. I mess up the sticks a little and an unseen sow is right onto us. She hits the alarm button, and what was going to be a set-up shot at 150 metres suddenly isn’t. The big boar is trotting hard now, that pace when they are just about to really hit overdrive. It’s now or kiss him goodbye.
The dot swings past the dust trail, past the pumping hams, through the big-boned head. Squeeze and keep swinging. What feels like a long time later, the whock of a solid hit floats back. Not ideal but he’s anchored. Go again. And all of a sudden there’s my first head of African game taken on the run. For all those years of supposed experience my hands are shaking. A good game animal should always be worth that much.
Time to work on that ram. Ernest Hemingway once created a character who was asked how he went bankrupt. “Gradually…then suddenly” was the reply. Working on a great head of game is often like that. You work hard for days, try hard not mess it up, then all of a sudden things fall in your lap.
That ram is bigger than we thought. He’s at a hundred yards but completely surrounded by a staggering number of ewes front and back. Talk about charisma, he must be the George Clooney of impalas. The sticks are up and I’m looking squarely at him. He’s clear behind now, but right in front of his chest two females are facing nose to nose, blocking any shot.
We wait. They stand. An ear flickers. The ewe on the left looks backward, the space where her head was creating an opening to his shoulder, then just as quickly she looks forward again. Checkmate. Another nervous wait. She twitches, then back in place immediately. More seconds trickle by, finger on trigger, deep breaths, and ignore the tension creeping into stiffening muscles.
Eventually she swings her head to look behind and the shot breaks instantly. The sight picture is lost in the recoil, but Scruff is hammering my back and shouting, “Down! He’s down!” I see a white belly, and breathe a long, shaky whistle.
No ground shrinkage here. He’s an honest 26, heavy with it and a beautiful shape. Calming down after the pictures I suddenly realise its Father’s Day. I think about my son and daughter so far away in New Zealand, and then my own father. The hat I’m wearing belonged to him. It’s good in open country, a bit tricky in thick thorn, but I take it as a memory of him and the hunting days he gave me.
After an evening session on doves, a new dawn breaks and it’s time to start working on sable again. Would the bull we saw still be around? Only one way to find out.
After some scouting and a couple of smooth stalks, Robert the tracker points. It takes time, but there’s definitely a bull out there. We need him to turn in profile, and after a few minutes he does. No doubt about it, game on. The cover is thick with no chance of a shot – all that thorn would just eat up a bullet. The morning breeze isn’t helping, a kick of dust shows it swirling, never heading the same way twice. I frown. Scruff frowns. The bull starts to move. We flank him as best we can, just over a hundred yards out, moving forward to look for an opening. There is one, maybe six metres wide. Now we wait.
I’ve lost him in the thick stuff and so have Scruff and the trackers. More waiting and the minutes begin to stretch out. Doubts play on your mind. Did he wind us? Has he turned?
If you have to think long and hard about whether a game animal is a trophy, he isn’t. The great ones announce themselves. The bull walks through a small window of bush and it’s clear in a split second that he’s magnificent. In a minute he should appear in the ambush set-up. That’s a minute for something to go wrong, for the nerves to build.
It doesn’t take that long. Suddenly he’s there, out in the open but covering ground. A few more steps and he’ll be gone. Then three things happen in a blur.
Tracking him in the Swarovski, I whisper to Scruff but before the word is even finished he’s made a sharp little noise. The bull pauses broadside and the shot rings out. All three things went down in the same second – it was just as slick as that. An easy shot in the end, if there is such a thing, and that’s the way it should be. That big slow Oryx bullet lands right on the point of the shoulder. The bull goes a handful of yards and is down.
I’ve watched and photographed sable for 20 years now, but this is only the second I’ve raised a rifle to. (My first was up in Zimbabwe, but that mount was destroyed in the earthquakes that struck New Zealand in 2011.) I’m still sad about that loss…but a scarred-up 46-inch sable has a way of cheering you up for a long, long time.
A bit of rough math, and it occurs to me that today is exactly my 100th hunting day in Africa, if you string them all together. Lord knows what that cost – I don’t want to know, that way lies madness – but let me say this: I can’t think of anything else that would have been half as much fun. I wouldn’t swap those memories for anything.
Events blur into one on safari. More doves, and a lovely Beretta at sundown. Guineas and francolin. The beast of a male honey badger that scuttled across the track right in front of us. The tracks that tell the story of a wildebeest calf stuck in mud until the hyenas dragged him out. The high kopje that looked out over a waterhole, and a tawny shape hiding nearby – caracal, a huge tom.
Why go on safari? In truth it’s all these things. Speaking for myself, I never go to Africa just to shoot at something. I go because if I did not, some part of me might wither and die.
That’s why.[/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F52-53||target:%20_blank|”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”17719,17720,17721″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Oct 12, 2018 | News
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F26-27||target:%20_blank|”][vc_column_text]Swazi Hooded Sweatshirt
Swazi launches The Hood Sweatshirt
Respected around the globe, award-winning cult hunting clothing brand Swazi Apparel has unveiled a stylish and practical polar fleece – The Hood.
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For more information, visit www.swazi.co.nz[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F26-27||target:%20_blank|”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Oct 12, 2018 | News
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F46-47||target:%20_blank|”][vc_column_text]The Highest of Highs…
By PH Jofie Lamprecht
I met the Butlers for the first time at a hunting show in the U.S. Our paths crossed again at the 95th Heym invitational at the maker’s rifle factory in Germany in 2013. At this event I acted as translator between what was dubbed “Team America” and the predominantly Bavarian attendees. We spent hours touring the factory, choosing blanks of wood, visiting engravers in their cavernous-home workshops and – the most fun of all – shooting a variety of, and mostly large-caliber, Heym double rifles.
May 2018 found us hunting in cattle country, in the Waterberg area of Namibia. The thick bush below was shadowed by the 1000-foot-high red sandstone cliffs of the Waterberg plateau in the background. It’s one of the biggest privately owned cattle operations in Namibia where leopards are not persecuted because of their value for hunting, and there is a large and healthy free-ranging population. There is also an abundance of other game. Losses of cattle are tolerated, offset by hunters’ dollars. With a National Park as its eastern border, and a cat sanctuary which is also unfenced on the western border – this is the ideal place to hunt leopard legally in Namibia with some success. With the very restricted tag system in place in this country, sustainability is assured through controlled utilization.
So there we are, Marc Butler and me in the late afternoon sun, sneaking a mile and a half to the leopard blind, when I realize I have left the tripod for the rifle in the truck. “Idiot!” I said to myself. We had several baits out and I wanted to make sure we had this stable shooting platform quickly available if we had another good cat on bait. I quickly went to get it, then headed back to Marc. As I walked down the bush path, I saw Marc raise his double rifle and shoot, just 200 yards from the leopard blind.
I hoped and prayed that if he had shot the leopard, he made a good offhand shot…
When I got there, “G” and Marc were not tensely following the trail of whatever it is they shot at, but casually walking through the bush with rifles slung over their shoulders. “G” as we affectionately call him, is our resident master-hunting-guide, full of local knowledge, and our pre-baiter who has a passion for leopard hunting. He’s a valuable asset to our hunting team. My fears subsided – they had shot at something that would not scratch them back too badly.
Leaving the tripod in the road I followed them into the bush. The blood trail and spoor is obvious – warthog.
After fifty yards I saw the pig, dead, with large .375 flanged wounds on his flanks. But we already had plenty of bait. What the hell? Then I walked up close and saw what they had seen – a monster warthog boar.
Marc turned to me with a smile…“I hope you are not too mad at me?”
I shrugged. “It’s your hunt.” I had no better response. “G” and I dragged the trophy-worthy brute to the road, and iPhone pictures were hastily taken. We left the pig there for later collection and continued to the leopard blind.
In the blind, our breathing calmed. Sweat dried. We buttoned down the last three air vents at about 17:00 – reading, listening to eBooks or napping. Pied babblers (an excitable bird that goes wild when anything is out of place) went wild close to the bait. A minute later, like magic, a leopard appeared from the thick bush. The tension in the little blind increased by 200%. The sun still shone hot and bright in the late afternoon. Cautiously the elegant feline looked around and circled the shadowed tree. We hardly breathed. It was a small female. For 90 minutes we had the pleasure of watching her feeding, jumping a little, falling, resting, with ear-scratching and other catlike antics. As shooting light passed, we slowly left the blind after an exciting afternoon without sight of our big tom.
Early waking at 3 a.m. came all too quickly. Coffee for me, a Coke for Marc. Our eyes were glued to the bright LED bar of light that cut our way open to the blind. By 4:30, after a walk in pitch-darkness with a sliver of new moon, we sat like an old couple, legs under blankets, huddled to keep warm behind the false safety of our blind. We waited. Around 5:30 we heard it. Heavy scratching and a labored climb as something cumbersomely made its way to our bait. Silence. Then the unmistakable sounds of ribs and other bones being crushed by a heavy jaw. Slowly optics were raised to try and see through the veil of darkness. Marc strained through his scope. Nothing. Just blackness. For an hour of agonizing suspense, we could hear what we thought was our quarry, but could not see it. Just the cracking of bones assured us that there was still something, something substantial, in the tree.
A female leopard jaw is not strong enough to break large bones; this is left to the males – or brown hyena in this area – but our bait was hung too high for hyena.
With legal shooting light being 30 minutes before actual sunrise, (and in my opinion ethical actual shooting light only being 10 minutes after this), the minutes felt like hours. The birds’ chirping signaled the breaking of dawn, the francolin rejoicing having made it through the night, as the gray sky slowly lightened to pink.
One could just barely make out the bait tree, movement at the bait, and not much more. Certainly not a hyena there, unless they started climbing trees! No sexing or size could be determined yet. My mind swung back and forth between success – temptation to say, “If you can see him, shoot him!” – and ethics: “If Marc shoots through the bait, surely he will hit some vital of the leopard.”
We waited. Minutes ticked slowly by. The slightest noise or mistake now meant failure. A bad shot could spell plenty of stitches. And then, like smoke, the leopard was out of the tree, and floated through the yellow-grey grass in front of the blind at an angle towards us.
No shot. Our blind was perched on the bank of a small riverbed, a steep cliff and dry waterfall in front of us, with the bait tree, and now the leopard, on the top of the cliff. The leopard was separated by what is called the B.O.B. principal – bait, obstacle, blind. We were higher than the bait, and from my angle I had full view of the leopard below us. He walked slowly, tail sickled in the air – but there was something about his gait. He had a severe limp. Front left. Sore foot? Thorn? Fight? Who knew? We might never know. Marc was constrained by the blind, having just a peephole that his rifle was aiming through, with no way of moving the rifle’s barrel more than an inch.
However, I had a full view of the leopard, now stretched out at 40 yards below our blind like the sphinx. There was the temptation to move the tripod, or to have Marc stand or crouch in the blind to try and get an unsteady shot off, but the consequences outweighed the thought.
“Wait!” I silently mouthed to Marc. “WAIT!” Necks straining, eyes wide, it was hard to breathe.
Sunrise was officially at 7:15. Then at 7:09 the leopard made a mistake. After rolling, lying on his back, stretching, yawning, scratching and doing everything a cat does, it was time for another helping of breakfast. The leopard suddenly got up and started walking. I put my hand on Marc leg, the contact like a shot of electricity.
“Get ready.” We held our breath. The leopard rounded the tree and clambered up the rough bark to his feast. As he reached with one paw to pull the 200-pound warthog closer, he exposed his rosette flank.
“Yes!” The tranquility of the morning was shattered. With a growl the leopard fell from the tree and disappeared into the dense bush. The thrill of the hunt, the resounding feeling of achievement seemed to reverberate in the blind. Silence. Wait. And then follow up. I took out my iPhone and started a timer with trembling fingers. We had 10 minutes. More light, more time for the bullet to have its effect.
“Shot good?” Marc just nodded like a teenager having gotten his first love-letter from a pretty girl. (Dawn who he later married).
As the light increased, I looked at the timer at least once a minute. Finally the time was up, and it was time to face the heat
in this kitchen – time to clean up. With stiff legs and backs we got out of the blind, checked and rechecked our Heym rifles, Marc with his flanged .375 double, and me carrying a .300 Win. Mag. double.
We edged across the river, atop the cliff towards the bait tree, looking for sign. Lung blood on a nearby raisin bush indicated the right direction. We followed, Marc and I flanking “G” who squatted and pointed. There, 40 yards away lay the leopard.
It is experiences like these that draw us back to the bush; it is indeed what keeps some of us in it. The challenges, the low lows and the highest of highs. Where else in the world today does one get these pure feelings of euphoria?
It is the privilege that we hunters have, in the seemingly selfish pursuit of our passion, of saving Africa’s wildlife with a value-for-value system that protects free-ranging populations of Africa’s wildlife.[/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F46-47||target:%20_blank|”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”17706,17707,17708,17709,17710,17711,17712,17713,17714″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Oct 12, 2018 | News
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F40-41||target:%20_blank|”][vc_column_text]THE MOYOWOSI MAULER
By George Gehrman
The drone of the Cessna 206 was getting monotonous. We’d been in the air for some time on a flight from Arusha in Tanzania to Wengert-Windrose’s camp in the South Moyowosi concession, far to the west of the country. PH Natie Oelofse was in the process of learning to fly, and was at the controls getting in some flight time. Three hours after departing Arusha, the plane dipped down over a broad, green plain bisected by a wide river gleaming in the sunlight – the Moyowosi in the remote west central region of Tanzania.
“So what do you think about this Africa?” asked Natie with a broad grin.
“Pretty impressive,” I replied. As we descended to the landing strip, herds of buffalo could be seen, along with vast numbers of topi and zebra. A line of gray toward the horizon was a herd of elephant filing along to the river. We weaved and bobbed a bit as we lowered towards the ground. Turned out Natie was quite adept in the air, but he still needed some practise on his landings!
Natie had been after me for some time to get away from the southern Africa countries where I’d been hunting, and see his “real” Africa in Tanzania. I had to admit that what I’d seen so far in the Masailand was impressive enough, but the wildness and remoteness of this area could take one’s breath away. Camp lay about one hour’s drive into the miombo forest away from the airstrip. Game of many species stood watching, or sometimes bolting off into the cover as we drove by. The camp was typical East African style – sleeping tents with an en suite toilet and shower facility on concrete slabs covered with thatch roofs and surrounded by reed walls. There were hard-packed walkways between the various sections of the camp which consisted of a kitchen, large open-air dining area, and, of course, a fire ring surrounded by chairs. The camp itself was situated under trees around a natural spring which attracts numerous animals, including elephants from time to time. Everything out here is BIG: the Moyowosi South hunting concession covers over 1,200 square miles.
The order of the day was Cape buffalo, and not just any buff. I’d already taken one over 40 inches, and wanted a true old Dagga Boy with character to show what kind of life it had lived. At this time of the year, early October, just as the rains start, the huge herds of buffalo on the flood plains start to break up, some with the old bulls heading off in the miombo scrub.
After a great dinner of roan steak, it was time to make a plan. The resident PH of the Fish Eagle camp, Wayne Hendry, suggested that we follow a trail along the edge of the flood plain of the river and check for tracks of the bulls as they moved off the open areas. And so, early the next morning Natie and I headed out along the track we came in on the day before. We’d hardly gotten a good start when Natie braked to a halt. Warthog! It stood still as a statue in the middle of the track ahead of us – difficult to see in the deep shadow of the forest and the gloom before sunrise.
“Want him?” Natie whispered. “He’s huge.” He was indeed the largest warthog I’d ever seen and I did want him, but declined the shot since I didn’t want to take a chance of alarming any buff that could be nearby. I’ve regretted that decision ever since! We broke out of the forest just as life on the river plain was waking up. We stopped and glassed for a bit, but no buff, and so we continued on the trail along the edge of the flood plain. It was only a short while before the trackers spotted buffalo tracks – three bulls crossing our trail and heading into the bush. The hunt was on!
It was vintage buffalo tracking. The going was slow as there was still a lot of dead grass in the bush – the trackers would lose the tracks in the grass in the open areas, then pick them up again as they moved through the scrub across bare patches of ground. Every stop for a suspected glimpse of our quarry heightened the tension. An hour passed and the sign became increasingly fresh.
Then the adrenaline rush as the lead tracker dropped to a knee and pointed ahead – he’d seen them. More accurately, he’s seen bits and pieces of them, just a black spot there and there in the brush ahead. And they know where we are, as the breeze in the trees is squirreling around every which way. Natie used his binoculars to try to sort them out, but we were pinned down where we were. They moved away a short distance and we sneaked into a new position, but I still hadn’t got a look at them.
“They’re all good bulls,” Natie whispered, “but we won’t have a chance to pick the best under the conditions we’re in.” He checked again then whispered urgently, “There, crossing ahead of us, take the last one!”
“What last one? I can’t see them!”
“Just there, 30 yards out.” At the very last moment the scene jumped into focus and I saw a buffalo moving to my right across a short opening in the trees. One fast shot from my .375 H&H and they were gone, disappearing into the thick brush.
“How was the shot?” asked Natie
“A bit high and too far back, but was definitely a hit into the chest area,” I told him. The trackers confirmed hearing a hit that sounded solid. We waited for a good 20 minutes, then headed off toward where we’d last seen the buff. We came into an open area and moved slowly ahead towards another grove of trees. We hadn’t quite reached the edge of the trees when Natie froze, and we saw that my bull was down. But a second bull had stayed with him and stood guard. The guard bull broke, and my bull was on his feet and off on a run.
Natie threw “Baby”, his .470 Nitro Express double, into action and I added my .375 into the fray. We took off running after the bull, dodging through the thorn bush and trees in a manner that would do a pro running back proud. We slammed on the brakes as he came into the clear for a moment and got off a second volley toward him. He disappeared into some thick stuff for a moment, and when he reappeared, he staggered and went down. We approached, and after the obligatory insurance shot, we went up to him. My first shot was right where I called it, passing through the top of the lungs. He would have died from it eventually, but it would have taken a while.
He was a splendid bull and exactly what I was looking for. His horns spread nearly 44 inches and carried heavy, thick bosses. But it was upon closer examination that we discovered what a tough life this old boy had led. His ears were tattered and torn from various scrapes with lions and sharp horn tips of younger buff bulls. On top of his back was a large scabbed-over area, still with an open wound in the middle, signs of an attack by lions some months earlier. But it wasn’t until he was being skinned that the final passage was written about him. Noisy chatter from the normally silent skinners indicated that something unusual was going on. The head tracker came up to Natie and me, carrying a soft iron ball which they’d dug out of his neck, evidence of a poacher’s failed attempt to kill him many years earlier. Measured back home I found the ball to be .75 inches in diameter and it weighed an even one ounce.
Truly, this bull was a mauler.
From: George Gehrman [mailto:trackingafrica307@gmail.com][/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F40-41||target:%20_blank|”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”17693,17694,17695,17696,17697,17698,17699,17700″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Oct 12, 2018 | News
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F144-145||target:%20_blank|”][vc_column_text]One for the Road,
Wieland
THE GREATEST
The subject came up, as subjects will, around a table at the shooting club. One of the denizens wondered aloud who might be considered the greatest hunter in history. We’d been talking about Africa, so I presumed he meant Africa.
“Selous?” he asked. “Bell? Harry Selby, maybe?”
This is a question for which there is no right answer. And anyway, what exactly are we talking about? The greatest professional hunter? The greatest hunting guide? The greatest ivory poacher? Who shot the most lions?
A few years ago in Alaska, a guide was telling me about a character he’d met. He was an enormously fat fellow, but also enormously wealthy, having grown fat in both senses on the proceeds of a chain of restaurants. It was this man’s goal, I was told, to be known as the greatest sheep hunter in history. To that end, he kept a bunch of outfitters on retainer, watching out for big sheep. When they found one they’d call him, hoist him up the mountain somehow, and he would pop the ram.
It seemed to me then, and it seems now, that such bizarre behavior would qualify you for many labels, but “greatest sheep hunter” is not one of them.
It has generally been acknowledged that Frederick Courteney Selous would be on anyone’s short list as the greatest of African hunters, but so would Sir Samuel Baker. These were men who roamed on their own, explored territory previously unseen, and were independent and self-sufficient to the point of folly. They killed for meat, but they also killed for specimens to take back to museums, to show the strange and heretofore unknown (by Europeans, at least) mammals, birds, and reptiles they encountered in their explorations.
Much of the exploration of Africa took place during the Victorian era, and if the Victorians had one dominant trait, it was an absolute passion for learning. By extension, this also meant reading. In an age before radio, television, and the highly dubious benefits of the Internet, the best source of information was books. At the same time, many of the men who ventured forth to open up unknown lands and extend the Empire were well-educated sons of prominent families. Naturally, having spent years in the wilderness, many returned home to write about their experiences. The years between 1850 and 1914 saw a flood of books on Africa and African hunting, with writers ranging from men who had made one hesitant safari to some who had spent their lives in the African bush.
It’s no coincidence that the names most commonly raised when the question of “the greatest” rears its ugly head are men who wrote books about themselves and their experiences. Sir Samuel Baker was a prolific writer, and a good one; he published ten books in his lifetime. Selous wrote a similar number, while Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell wrote three. Bell, Baker, and Selous titles have become classics of African hunting literature, and some of their individual experiences are recounted third- or fourth-hand by people who know little else about them. One should add, in haste, that Baker, Selous, and Bell were the real thing and, if anything, their books understated their accomplishments.
Conversely, there were many great hunters who never wrote a word for public consumption, and their names are almost lost to history. William Cotton Oswell was one. Oswell was an early hunter in southern Africa who was one of the great gentlemen of his time, respected to the point of reverence by his peers. He accompanied David Livingstone on his legendary trek across the Kalahari to “discover” Lake Ngami; in fact, Oswell partly financed the expedition, was its main source of food through hunting, and most of the credit for finding Lake Ngami, and coincidentally discovering the southern sitatunga, should go to him. Instead, Livingstone — a man whose ego was easily as great as his undoubted virtues — took the credit, and Oswell allowed him to do so. When Livingstone’s body was returned to England in 1874 for interment at Westminster Abbey, Oswell was one of the pallbearers.
Oswell’s name undoubtedly belongs on the same list as Baker and Selous, yet most people, including most hunters, have never heard of him. But never mind who might or might not be the greatest of African hunters; why would we want to try to name one? What does it matter whether Bell was somehow more notable than Baker, or vice versa? Or if FC Selous out-ranked, on some artificial scale, John “Pondoro” Taylor?
There are no firm criteria for measuring anyone’s hunting accomplishments unlike, for example, baseball. Baseball is the most minutely recorded game, in terms of individual statistics, that the world has ever seen. In theory, at least, it should be simple to add up the numbers and name the greatest baseball player in history. Yet no one has been able to do that without provoking endless argument.
The closest we come to such statistics are the record books of big game, and occasionally someone suggests adding up the number of entries some guy has in Rowland Ward or the Safari Club record book, or counting how many number-one heads he has to his credit. Since neither Rowland Ward nor SCI are either compulsory or comprehensive, this suggestion is pretty weak. Many people treasure their entries in “the book” and religiously submit every post-puberty mammal they deck, but since record-book entries are voluntary, and methods of measurement and divisions of species variable and arbitrary, such entries prove absolutely nothing one way or the other.
It would seem to me that the only people qualified to even have an opinion on this are professional hunters themselves, and by that I mean hunting guides, game wardens, ivory hunters and the like. Probably the man who has researched all of this more carefully than anyone is Brian Herne, himself a professional hunter and author (Uganda Safaris and White Hunters.) As far as I can tell, even in the latter, he does not offer an opinion as to who was “the greatest.” Possibly, he didn’t want to make enemies; more likely, he couldn’t really say. Or, and maybe most probably, he just didn’t want to get into endless, pointless arguments.
After his first safari in 1951, Robert Ruark seemed bent on establishing Harry Selby as the best white hunter (the term then in use) of his generation, and one of the best of all time. He was certainly one of the best then practising the trade, but a dozen others were equally good, if not better in some ways. Ernest Hemingway felt the same way about Philip Percival, but he also admired Bror Blixen. It’s natural to hero-worship your first PH, but as you get to know others, the waters get somewhat murky. That happened with both Hemingway and Ruark.
Another way of looking at this question is to ask, of all the great African hunters in history, who would you most like to go on safari with?
Having thought about that, long and hard, here’s my answer: Put me on a boat down the Nile with Florence von Sass, the second wife of Sir Samuel Baker. Lean a Rigby rising-bite against my deck chair, put a tall gin and tonic in my hand, and I don’t care if I shoot anything. In fact, let me go out on a limb: Purely on the basis of his having been married to such a woman, I’d give the title to Sir Samuel. Florence von Sass was a woman to stop the heart.[/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F144-145||target:%20_blank|”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Oct 12, 2018 | News
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F68-69||target:%20_blank|”][vc_column_text]The Ghost of the Darkness
By Dan Hendrickson
Africa calls. Within a few weeks after my fourth safari I was already dreaming about going back. Because of my success in hunting with Stormberg Elangeni Safaris (SES) on the Eastern Cape of South Africa in 2017, and the wide variety of game there, I decided to return in June of 2018. This time, I planned to take my 12-year-old grandson, Austin for his first safari. His older brothers, Cole and Cade, had both hunted with me in Africa when they were 13 years old.
Now it was Austin’s turn, and he had a wish list. Mine included klipspringer, Cape grysbok, bushpig and caracal. Planning a year in advance, I applied for an oribi tag. SES went out of their way to get me an oribi permit, and just two weeks before I left, I received it. I had also included blue duiker in my list, hoping to add to my collection of the Tiny Ten pygmy antelope in Africa.
We were met at the Port Elizabeth airport by PH Juan Greef and tracker/skinner Silas. Silas, a very jovial fellow, was from the Shona tribe in Zimbabwe.
The SES team had planned our hunt extremely well. We were to begin with the klipspringer hunt in the Cape Fold Mountains referred to as the Karoo area, where there were also some quality springbok, especially the copper variety, and some very good steenbok. We succeeded in just two days, taking a very nice klipspringer, steenbok, and a copper springbok that should be in the top 20!
Day 3. We traveled to the Stormberg Mountains and settled into SES’s quaint, historic Bufflesfontein Lodge owned and operated by Robbie and Angela Stretton. There, in one day Austin took a nice springbok, a huge blesbok with 18½ horns, and a gold medal mountain reedbuck. At another historic lodge about 50 km from Port Alfred we took blue duiker, oribi, caracal, Cape grysbok and a huge 30” waterbuck.
We spent the final three days hunting blue wildebeest, blesbok, impala, warthog, and bushpig in the Kat River Conservancy at the Manzikhanya Lodge, owned and operated by John and Isabel Sparks. Hunting the bushpig was quite a challenge. In 2017 Cade had a shot at a bushpig on the last day there, and missed. Apparently, his nerves got to him as the pigs passed just five yards from him going to the bait. As he was about to shoot, the automatic lights malfunctioned. Juan turned on his flashlight, but Cade shot too fast.
This year, we had two baits out with game cameras at each place. There were different big boars coming into both baits on a fairly regular basis. When they became accustomed to eating the carcasses at the bait site (bushpigs love eating carrion), Juan added the automatic green hog lights that were infrared activated. A hole was dug for their special corn-based pig bait.
Bushpigs don’t have very good eyesight, but their sense of smell and hearing makes them a challenging animal to hunt. They are very wary nocturnal creatures, seldom seen in daylight. Juan half-jokingly referred to the elusive bushpig boars as “the Ghosts of the Darkness” – quite a fitting name!
We planned to take at least one of the huge boars that we had seen on the game cameras. After checking the wind, we marked a trail through the brush to help us navigate in the dark. The bushpigs were hitting the bait after sunset between 6:15 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. After dusk, Juan and I left the vehicle and made our way to the bait, about three-quarters of a mile away. Wearing headlamps, we worked our way through the hills and creek bottoms until we got to the foot of the final hill. The bait was about 100 yards past the top of this hill. We slowly and quietly made it to the top without using any lights, and stood on a large flat boulder at the edge of the slope, and watched a dark clump of brush close to where the bait was.
We stayed until 8 p.m. but nothing ever activated the green lights. We checked the bait and saw the rotten corn was untouched. Juan didn’t think the pigs would be coming that night, so we left. But next morning as we began hunting, Juan received a call from John Sparks to inform him that the pigs had hit the bait at 8:45 p.m. the previous night and stayed there 45 minutes!
It was Day 9. We searched for a trophy blue wildebeest, glassed some nice bulls, but nothing worth pursuing. However, we saw herds of Cape eland, black wildebeest, springbok and blesbok in that wide valley. Juan spotted a huge blesbok ram in a group of at least forty animals and we decided to go after him. We bumped them three times before the big ram stopped at 250 yards with three other sizable rams. As Juan described the location of the ram within the group, I found him in my Leupold V6 scope, but another ram was behind him, making the shot too risky. He moved and then another ram walked in front of him.
“Aim a little bit back because of the wind,” Juan said. As that one cleared, Juan called the shot. I took a breath, steadied my Remington Model 700 7mm Magnum straight up his front leg to the center of his chest, and squeezed off the shot. I didn’t think that the 160-grain Barnes TSX BT bullet would drift much at that distance and I was right. I hit exactly where I had aimed, and he went right down in his tracks. His 17½” whitish horns were impressive – quite an exceptional trophy.
After lunch, we headed to another property, searching for a warthog or impala for Austin. Juan glassed a valley and found a herd of impala, as well as a very nice mature kudu bull below us. We made a half-mile stalk, located several rams, but Juan decided to look for a better one, and we eased through the valley, working our way behind the acacia trees. We spotted a nice ram about 225 yards and Juan put up the sticks, but Austin said that he wasn’t steady enough to try the shot. Then suddenly a kudu bull appeared in front of us about 250 yards, and we let him get out of sight before Juan and Austin moved forward. Baboons on the hillside barked their alarm as we moved slowly ahead, but eventually, we gave up and we headed to the truck as the sun was sinking. That night, the bushpigs did not visit the bait site.
Day 10. This was our last day to hunt, and we woke up to a light rain. John and Juan said that the cold, damp weather would hinder Austin’s chance of getting a warthog. However, I felt confident that we would have good luck. We drove to a property that was seldom hunted as indicated by the faint tracks, and made our way through the fairly thick acacia trees on the hillside. Within 30 minutes we spotted four nice impala rams to our left, one of them with exceptionally long, thick, black horns. To be honest, I really wanted to take that one, but it would thrill me more if Austin did.
Austin tried to get set up for a shot, but the four rams ran to the right. It was raining softly then, so I remained in the Toyota pickup, while they continued the stalk. They were gone about 30 minutes, when I saw two nice rams running toward me. They stopped about 80 yards away in almost the same place as before. One was the big ram! I grabbed the radio.
“Juan, two of the rams ran back to the same place. One is the big ram.”
“We are stalking them,” Juan answered. I watched as the two rams looked behind them and ran, and eventually Juan, Silas, and Austin arrived. The two impala had joined another group of four, and Austin tried several times to connect with a shot through the dense trees, but couldn’t seal the deal. I could tell that his nerves were getting to him.
Then we found a nice mature ram with a herd of 15 females, and Austin was able to get a shot. We heard a thud and knew that he had connected. We got on the track, Juan and Silas going to the right and Austin and I searching further north. Juan and Silas were 150 yards from us when we heard a shot. When we joined up with them we saw a beautiful ram with thick horns lying on the ground. Austin had shot him too far back, but Juan had put him down for good.
Our shoes and socks were pretty wet by then, and the cold made it uncomfortable, so we headed back to the skinning shed, an old British soldiers’ headquarters during the Boer War. On the way we spotted some warthogs near a dam, and our luck held out, although it was still wet and cold. Juan, Silas and Austin went through some goat pens and worked their way to the dam. Before long, I heard a shot, and it sounded good. Soon Juan came walking back. “He got him!” he smiled. We drove across to find Austin beaming. He finally got his warthog, and it was a very nice one with two long matching tusks.
After lunch and dry clothes, it was time for bushpig, as the sun was going down.
We approached the area from a different road because of the southwest wind. It was 6 p.m. Fifteen minutes later, from where we were sitting we saw the green glow of the hog light illuminate the hill on the skyline! It was pitch-black with no moon. I told Austin to stay in the vehicle. Juan said to play it safe and use no lights as we began walking pretty fast toward the green glow about three-quarter of a mile away. I focused on Juan’s long pants legs and walked where he did. We trod carefully to avoid disturbing a rock or breaking a stick.
It was very difficult for me, but Juan had no problem. It seemed like an eternity, but we made it. We just needed to get a little closer to make out the dark images below the light. Juan moved to the right and motioned for me to get my rifle in place on the tripod, but I couldn’t see a thing. I reached out, located the apex, and put my rifle in the cradle.
“Shoot the one in the middle, it’s a big one!” said Juan. I saw three shapes in my Leupold V6 scope, and put the illuminated red dot on the largest one’s shoulder, carefully took aim, and squeezed off the shot.
“Did I hit him?”
“I think so. The pigs ran to the right after you fired.”
We eased our way up to the spot where the pigs had been before the shot, and didn’t see any blood. All of the sour corn was gone, so they wouldn’t have stayed there much longer. We walked slowly and very cautiously to the right along a game trail. Juan had showed me ghastly photos of a man’s thigh, the result of a wounded bushpig attack, so I readied my rifle and listened carefully as we inched forward. We walked about 100 yards to the edge of a small canyon and stopped. Juan decided that we needed to go back to camp and get PH John Sparks with his .375 H&H backup rifle, and his tracking dogs. Good idea! As we were walking back to the pickup, we came across a large animal track in the sandy road. Juan asked me if I knew what it was.
“Leopard?” He nodded, but said it was not very fresh. That was a relief!
John Sparks was waiting outside with his dogs, Jasper, a Belgian Malinois cross, and Zinga a Rhodesian Ridgeback. We didn’t bring Juan’s dog, Chappie, because he was injured. John, Silas, and the two dogs went ahead of us as we made our way back to the bait area. John brought his dogs out on leashes and walked slowly to the right of the bait. Within 15 yards, the dogs put their noses to the ground.
“Blood,” said John. There was one drop of blood there. I knew that I had hit him! They went another 20 feet and did it again. This time there was more blood. He turned the dogs loose. Jasper started quartering ahead, then ran straight for 30 yards and stopped, licking something in the grass.
“They’ve found him!” said John. We were all very excited to see if it was the big boar that John had regularly seen on the game camera. As I walked up to it, I was relieved and shocked to see that it was huge and wild-looking, covered with long white hair – quite a demonic specimen with long, flesh-gnashing tusks and ears ragged from fighting.
Our 10-day safari couldn’t have ended better. Austin and I completed our wish lists, all spectacular trophies. The “Ghost of the Darkness” hunt had added another layer of memories to our magical days on the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The experiences that we shared on this incredible journey will be with us forever!
Once again, the SES team surpassed my expectations. Special thanks go to my PH Juan Greef; tracker/skinner Silas; Robbie and Angela Stretton; John and Isabel Sparks; Murray and Yvette Danckwerts; James and Viv Quin, and the entire SES team.
As a boy, Dan Hendrickson began hunting on Dixon Creek in the Texas Panhandle. His love of quail hunting led him to raising, training, and competing together with his English pointer bird-dogs. He and his wife, Glenda, founded Phantom Kennels in Abilene, Texas. His favorite pastime was hunting whitetail deer and exotics in Texas, and elk and mule deer in New Mexico until he discovered Africa. Africa changed him forever! He founded Hendrickson Hunting, LLC in 2011 and began helping other hunters as a hunting agent. He and his clients have numerous animals in the SCI and Rowland Ward record books.[/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”View article in E-ZINE” color=”orange” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fafricanhuntinggazette.com%2Foctober-november-december-2018%2F%23october-november-december-2018%2F68-69||target:%20_blank|”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”17738,17739,17740,17741″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
