Back from Africa

[Rhino]

I'm back!!! Got home Sunday & still trying to get over jet lag. We had a GREAT hunt. Bagged lots of animals and saw a whole lot of animals every day. My main focus was on Sable and Nyala, which were the only animals on my list for either shoulder or pedestal mounts. We arrived on July 5th and were hunting by 3:00 that afternoon. My buddy hit a Wildebeest that afternoon and tracked it into the night before deciding to take of tracking him the next morning. They never recovered his Wildebeest. The next morning's it didn't take long for Sable to start showing up by my blind. 3 came in and left, then 2 more, one a nice one but no good shot offered. They wondered off after less than a minute. About 45 minutes passes when the 1st 3 Sable I saw return. While watching them the nice one appears and joins them. It seemed like forever but probably just a few minutes waiting for a clear shot angle and one where if I got a pass through, I wouldn't hit another one. Finally my target Sable goes to water quartering away at 20 yards. I got that shot! Heart shot. He went about 100 yards & dropped.

Now my focus was on a trophy Nyala. Little did I know, this quest would prove to be far more difficult than my Sable. I'd never seen one on the hoof before. Fortunately, there was a full body Nyala mount at the lodge to help determine trophy caliber. On the 4th day of the hunt I finally saw my 1st Nyala...this young bull.

Encouraging to finally see one. Later that day this huge Nyala bull showed himself with another younger one. Unfortunately he never got closer than 52 yards.

After after 30 minutes I got over that sick feeling I get when a trophy animal didn't get close enough. That's hunting!The next 3 days passed without seeing another Nyala. I saw plenty of other trophy animals...Kudu, Sable, Wildebeest, Impala, Eland, Giraffe, and other game animals. On the 8th day of my 10 day hunt, finally I see 2 more Nyala bulls together. One was borderline so I passed him. When he entered the brush I could see a bigger bull in the brush...shooter. They did some sparing for a few minutes then left. DANG!!! Another encounter but not nearly close enough. That afternoon suddenly 3 Nyala bulls appear...2 big bulls and a younger one. They appear the be heading right where I want them. Now the bad thing about seeing 2 BIG ones is...which one do I want. Glassing them as they approach I swithed back & forth between which one I wanted until I came to my senses and decided...the 1st big one to offer a shot is going to get hammered. As it worked out the one I thought was slightly bigger offered the 1st shot opportunity. Here's my trophy Nyala.

Now I was free to go for some other critters on my list. Those were mainly Wildebeest and a big Impala. Well, I choked on the Wildebeest hitting a big one in the shoulder blade and didn't get penetration into the vitals. While watching a nice trophy Impala on the 9th day 2 dang mature boar Warthogs were going through pecking order lessons and spooked my big Impala ram off. I taught the dominant boar a lesson & added him to my trophy list. Perfect point blank 14 yard quartering away shot.

On the last day of the hunt I choked on a big Impala...clean miss. Never got another chance at one...those critters make a whitetail appear to be slow too.

During the hunt trophy pics were taken with the hunter as they were recovered. So far my son (Bailey) and my best friend (Ernie) haven't sent me their kill pics. Here's a summary of how their hunts went along with a group picture I got at the end with all our skulls right before we left for home.

Bailey: Well my son had limited vacation time so he met us there on the 5th day. He showed up with the hot hand and the luck I used to have. The 1st day of his hunt he bagged a huge bull Gemsbok (37 1/2" horns). The next day he added a Wildebeest and an Impala. The following day he whacked a nice bull Nyala while hunting for Kudu. I'd hunted the same blind twice and saw 2 shooter Kudu but no Nyala...go figure. The next day he bagged his trophy Kudu and a Zebra. The last day of the hunt he decided to spend that day doing things with my daughter-in-law. Gave my hip pocket a rest.

Ernie: He hit and lost a Wildebeest the 1st day He killed a nice Sable the 3rd day. The 4th day he hit & lost a big Waterbuck and an Impala. They spent the following morning trying to track his Waterbuck before losing blood. Then luck turned in his favor and he got a hot hand. During the last 4 days of the hunt he got payback killing a Wildebeest, 2 Impala, a huge Waterbuck, a warthog, and finished his hunt off with a trophy Kudu the last day of the hunt.

Here's our group pic right before we left. All the skulls between us are our trophies.

After I do some more catching up, I'll pick some of the photos I took from the blinds and share them in another thread. Got some real cool photos of different animals.

Al

[Ravin R10 man]

Wow ....will make some Cool looking mounts for sure!

[wtnhunt]

Congratulations Al to you, your son, and your buddy. Dunno much about those critters other than seeing them at the zoo or safari park, but looks like some nice ones.

Looks like a BIG taxi bill on the way too.

[Rhino]

Looks like a BIG taxi bill on the way too.

Yep...already emailed a detailed list of the the game that will be sent to my taxidermist. We've been on a 1st name basis for a long time. Won't be as bad for me as it will be for Ernie. Ernie is going to do a pedestal mount or 2 and all the rest will be shoulder mounts except for his warthog. 6 mounts for him.

As for me...a pedestal mount for my Sable, either a pedestal or shoulder mount for my Nyala. My son wants a pedestal mount for his Nyala, shoulder mounts for his Kudu and Gemsbok, the rest skull mounts except the zebra will be a rug. So 5 mounts for me + rugs on the zebra & wildebeest. Hey...can't take it all with me William. Another thing...my son said the last evening...except for his honeymoon, this was the most fun he's ever had on any trip before. He will always have those trophies to remember the details of this exciting experience...long after I've passed on too. Both he and my daughter-in-law thanked me multiple times.

Oh...forgot to add...my daughter-in-law had a very memorable day while we were hunting. The owner, along with his crew showed up to go dart game on another ranch to move to that ranch. She spent part of the day in the chopper loading darts for the shooter while they were chasing down game in the chopper. The other part of that day she was with the catch truck group. She took about 400 pics from the air and ground and posed for pics with multiple drugged animals, including a cape buffalo before they were loaded up to be moved. She said the cape buffalo was licking her boot while she held his horns. Catch and release stuff on big African game...very cool. I think they darted & moved about 15 animals that day. That's something she'll never forget and she'll probably never meet anyone that has experienced that.

African game move better in warm weather than cooler weather. They also move good late in the day. We were usually in our binds by 8:30 to 9:00 in the morning and hunted until dark. During my 9 1/2 days of hunting I kept a record of what I was seeing. Here's the tally of game animals I saw while hunting, except I didn't bother counting warthogs. Saw a whole lot of them. Didn't keep count of baboons or monkeys either. Saw 3 Jackal...beautiful coats on them.

Wildebeest - 212 (over 10 shooter bulls)

Impala - 272 (plenty of shooter rams)

Kudu - 37 (3 shooter bulls)

Sable - 7 (2 shooter bulls)

Eland - 25 (no shooters)

Nyala - 17 (4 shooter bulls)

Waterbuck - 84 (no shooters)

Gemsbok - 24 (3 shooter bulls)

Duiker - 5

Giraffe - 6

Blesbok - 3

Steenbok - 3

Bushbuck - 2

Hartebeest - 1

Seeing lots of animals made the day pass by quickly. There were very few periods of time when something wasn't around to entertain me.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Rhino

[MUDRUNNER]

Sounds like a great trip and a lot of memories! Man, that is a crazy amount of animals for the time you were there. Holy moly....wildebeest and impala look plentiful lol.

[fly]

Sounds like you had a wonderful time making memories with your friends and family Al. Nice work getting the animals you were after.

[dbHunterNY]

awesome again trip Al. Congrats to all of you! Good to hear Erie was able to turn things around and not it get to him the whole trip.