An experience that forever cemented my love for hunting.
“I’ve been hunting for over twenty-five years and the biggest misconception people have is thinking that hunters are just killers. Whereas, in truth, every hunter I know has the greatest respect and love for animals. We are nature lovers,” Ashlie* said.
The year was 2000; I was twelve years old, female, and sharing my first hunting experience with my father. An anomaly of sorts. I walked closely behind him and followed his instructions as I placed my feet directly in his footsteps. I avoided making any sudden movements, kept my voice low, and talk to a minimum. The month was June; the weather was cool, and we were climbing up a mountainous region on a walk and stalk in search of kudu. The trail ran up a hill, and then through thick shrubbery. Eventually, we approached a lone standing tree, and, in the distance, we spotted a herd of kudu, and stopped. My father motioned for me to stand still as he rested his rifle against the tree trunk. His eyes scanned the herd, and he selected a kudu cow. I remember holding my breath as he aligned his eye with the scope of his .375 H&H rifle and aimed for a spot just above the kudu’s shoulder joint. Gently, he squeezed off the shot. The kudu cow jerked on impact and stumbled, mortally wounded, disappearing into the thick bush on the other side of the mountain.
Even though I was standing behind my father as he took the shot, because of my adrenaline, I hardly heard the bang. All I could hear was a faint buzz.
“Missed!” shouted the guide. He was convinced that my father had missed the animal, as he wasn’t accustomed to someone shooting accurately from two hundred meters away. My father, however, knew better.
As we walked towards the area where the kudu was hit, my father used this opportunity to teach me how to use blood and spoor in tracking an animal. Nearing the area where the kudu cow had been standing, we found blood specks and uneven spoor impressions in the soil. The grass at waist height had faint blood markings indicative of a shoulder shot. Twenty meters later, we found the kudu; the shot had penetrated its vitals and exited on the other side. I stood motionless, never having been this close to a wild animal before, and stared at its majestic beauty. Bending down, my father showed me how to age the cow by looking at the wearing down of the teeth. The teeth on this kudu were worn down, indicating that this one was mature.
The guide told the farmer that a kudu had been shot, and a bakkie collected the animal and us and drove us to the cold room, where I watched as the trackers gutted and skinned the cow. That night after we braaied our food on the campfire, the farm owner asked my father to assist him in culling some impalas (in accordance with nature conservation quotas). I sat on the back of the bakkie as we drove, and recall being mesmerized by the green reflected color of the impala’s eyes.
From that day on, I accompanied my father on as many hunts as I could, appreciating nature and taking in every lesson he taught me. It was imperative to him that I participated in every step of the hunting process, from walking and stalking to skinning, and I learned old-school hunting ethics.
It wouldn’t be until I was sixteen that I got to be in a hunt of my very own.
I was an outdoorsy person. Every hunt and stalk I went on, I saw as an adventure. I learned about nature, about animals and I loved every moment. And, when I wasn’t tracking through the bush, I was perfecting my shooting skills at the range. Which is why, when I was sixteen and my father and grandfather went on a Musina hunt, it was only natural that I joined in.
The hunting farm was in Alldays, a six-hour drive from Musina, a beautiful area just outside the Botswana border. We stayed in a tented camp hunters’ style, made use of outdoor showers and longdrops, and cooked our meals over a campfire. Yet, despite the cool June air, it is the stars I remember the most. They shone brightly and covered the night sky. Even as I showered and the water sluiced over my body, I recall looking up and being awed by the luminous constellations.
We had arrived at the campsite in the afternoon and after unloading our car, we sighted in our rifles. The rifle, a 7×57 CZ 550 (using a 7mm 140-grain Remington Corelots) I was to use was my father’s, and I felt honored to have been entrusted with his prized possession, a rifle and caliber that I was more than comfortable having been practicing with it at the shooting range under my father’s tutelage.
The 7×57 was the first rifle my father bought himself, having always appreciated the history of this caliber, which is why, to this day, it is still a family favorite. The 7×57 was made famous by Walter D.M. Bell, otherwise known as “Karamojo” Bell because of his safaris through the remote wilderness area in northeastern Uganda. He is famous for perfecting the brain shot on elephants and killing over 1011 for ivory (1902). Bell perfected this shot to the degree that he mastered it from all positions. This has been since referred as the “BELL SHOT”.
Furthermore, the 7×57mm offers very good penetrating ability due to a fast twist rate that enables it to fire long, heavy bullets with a high sectional density (perfect for Africa). The 7×57 can handle a wide range of projectile weights, is easy to reload, has relatively mild recoil, and is accurate.
Weapons in hand, we went to the shooting range, which had a sand berm/old dam wall built behind it. In front were long poles with metal plates onto which a paper target was attached. These acted as our targets at a hundred-meter range. And so, as the men sighted in their rifles, the farm owner presented me with my first challenge. I was to shoot three shots. Should any of them miss, I would not be allowed to hunt. With my heart in my mouth, I gingerly positioned the shooting sticks facing the target and rested my rifle. Standing behind the sticks, I bent into the rifle and looked through my scope while aiming at the target. Gently, steadily, I squeezed off a shot. Looking through my scope, I confirmed what I’d hoped for – the shot was on target, a fact my father attested to as he viewed it through his binoculars. Confidently I squeezed off two more shots, happy to see that all shot placements were on target and the grouping tight, affirming the accuracy of my rifle. The farm owner nodded his head by way of respect: I was ready. That night as we sat around the campfire and braaied our meat, I quietly anticipated tomorrow, my first hunt, my animal of choice being an impala.
The next day we woke at four-thirty in the morning, the weather was icy, and as we warmed ourselves around the campfire, we drank dark, bitter coffee out of metal mugs. It was decided that while the men would be dropped off at their respective hunting sites, I, as the newcomer, would have to walk accompanied by a young hunting guide, while carrying both my rifle and a backpack. This, they assured me, was only right for a first-time hunter. It seemed that my hunt would entail many firsts, and so far, I’d embraced each one.
That day as we walked, I came upon many warthog opportunities and, while I had every intention of taking a shot, my nerves were alight with excitement as adrenaline pumped through my veins and the rifle shook in my hands. I looked at the warthog through the lens of the scope and my hands trembled, unable to squeeze the trigger, my body overridden by nerves. Teasingly, my guide told me that I suffered from what is commonly known as ‘bok koors’ or buck fever. I didn’t rush it that day. Instead, we walked, as I took in my surroundings and accustomed my eyes to the bushveld.
The next morning, we awoke before dawn. I wrapped my hands around a mug of coffee as I mentally prepared for the day ahead and ensured my backpack had all the necessary supplies including water, fruit, knife and the customary ‘white gold’ (toilet paper). Then, with the rifle slung over my shoulder alongside my backpack, the guide and I left the camp. As we walked, the day grew hot, and I began to peel off the heavy layers I was wearing. I took off my jacket and hung it on a nearby tree branch to collect on our way back.
Despite the weight of the rifle and backpack, I loved walking through the bushveld and being one with nature. It was then that the guide taught me how to gauge wind direction. I watched as he took a sock filled with flour from his pocket and hit it on his leg. A white, smoke-like puff appeared, a trick often used to determine wind direction, enabling a hunter to know if it is blowing into him or behind him, to prevent his scent from being carried through the bushveld and alerting the animals of his arrival.
It was around nine that morning that we saw them, a herd of impala. We made our way towards them, and as we walked, we briefly lost sight of them. However, we were not deterred. The guide then walked ahead of me, and I got down on my hands and knees and crawled the rest of the way. I advanced gradually and as I reached the top of the sand dune, I spotted them in the clearing, grateful that they hadn’t seen or smelled our approach.
With the rifle resting on top of the dune, I lay on my stomach and calmly watched the herd. I stayed in that position for some time until my eyes caught sight of an impala ewe that broke away from the herd. She stood slightly apart; her neck craned as she grazed leaves on a nearby tree. I watched her, transfixed, as I raised my rifle and traced the crosshairs up her leg to a spot just above her shoulder. This time, despite the pounding of my heart, I held the rifle steady as I gently squeezed off a shot.
The impala did a backflip only to land mortally wounded in the same spot. The shot had penetrated just above the shoulder bone, piercing the heart and lungs, instantly killing it. The rest of the herd disappeared as the rifle went off while I remained seated on the dune a safe distance away. Gradually, respectfully, I walked towards the ewe, and then I kneeled beside her and stroked the soft side of her stomach. Closing my eyes, I gave thanks for this animal.
The guide tucked the impala’s legs in so that she lay in a straight position, enabling me to take a photo with her. From a distance, I saw the recovery vehicle approach, knowing that the guide had called the farmer and told him about my hunt. Together we loaded the ewe onto the bakkie and drove towards the cold-room in silence. My father and grandfather, who had heard from the farmer that I’d successfully completed my first hunt, eagerly awaited my arrival. Together, we watched as the impala was skinned and gutted. The liver was removed, and then, to my horror, a slice handed to me. “Eat!” they commanded. “You’re lucky it wasn’t a male, otherwise you’d be eating the testicles,” they joked. And as I bit into the raw meat, I understood this to be my rite of passage.
That night the farmer and guides joined my family around the campfire, and as we braaied meat, we shared hunting stories of times gone by. I was delightfully exhausted, my feet sore from two days of non-stop tracking, but my mood was jovial. Spyker, the farmer’s Jack Russell and hunting dog, lay by my side, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow sprint to and from the light. My heart stopped. And then I saw it again, as it followed Spyker’s shadow, its reddish-brown body dashing around in the shadows. That was my first encounter with the Kalahari Ferrari (Red Roman spider).
That weekend, that hunt marked many firsts but not lasts for me. To this day, I still join my father on numerous hunts, my husband by my side as we introduce our three-year-old sons, Hunter and Gunner, to the wonder that is nature and the experience that is the hunt.
*Ashlie started hunting at the tender age of sixteen, at a time when hunting boots for women had not yet been produced and as such she walked and stalked in takkies (sneakers), encountering many thorny, soul-destroying experiences. Today, some twenty years later, Ashlie is not only a dedicated and ethical hunter, she’s a passionate one to boot, having had her first date (with her now husband) at a shooting range. When she isn’t spending time in the bushveld, she assists surgeons in the operating theater as a diagnostic radiographer.