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Thread: June 29, 2022 - Day 3 in Africa

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    Default June 29, 2022 - Day 3 in Africa

    June 29, 2022
    I am sure the habitual breakfast is going to cause problems once I’m back in South Carolina – I just don’t know how. I’m either going to want to eat as soon as I get up, which I almost never do, or my stomach is going to wake me out of a deep, midnight sleep looking for some grub. I’ll worry about that later. Right now, though, my gullet is full and we have some hunting to do.

    While Big John drove, Nick and I stood in the bed of his truck watching herds of zebra and wildebeest through a shower of tears as we looked into a very cold wind. It certainly seems that checking a wildebeest and now a zebra off of my list has emboldened the remaining members of their species. I’ll take what nature is willing to offer but I really wanted to work on getting the impala checked off too because they had already kicked our behinds on several, what I thought were, high-probably stalks. Still, though, it is quite unfamiliar to me to hunt anything that comes in herds of so many wary eyes and radar ears. The first order of business, though, was to drop the Big John off at the salt shed and let him skin the zebra I shot yesterday…we didn’t make it very far.

    Nick motioned for a stop and I took a few photos of a nice Mountain Reedbuck ram just off of what I would call "a bottom". The Africans in the truck called it "a pan". Either way, I wasn’t hunting mountain reedbuck and he must have gotten the message. I had no point of reference but they both said it was a nice ram. He actually ran towards the truck and up onto the lip of the pan. This gave me a partially clear shot with my Canon.

    The PH and tracker were silently tolerant of their client’s idiosyncrasies but were suddenly cheerful when I said I had grown tired of "shooting" the reedbuck. They both had work to do – Big John needed to deal with yesterday’s zebra and the Nick was responsible for trying to get me on today’s Impala or warthog or duiker or steenbok. Africa was only willing to disappoint the tracker/skinner because long before we got to the skinning, aka salt, shed, we passed a big herd of impala with two nice rams. The entire herd of impala was cautiously following the truck with their eyes and ears but handful of gemsbok on the outskirts of the impala decided on a “Get Out of Dodge” strategy and ran across the road into a thicker block 200 yards ahead of the truck.

    With all the attention on us, I really felt this was a very low probability chance but some hand signal from the PH to Big John created a plan that was whispered to me as, “Seal Team Six.” The truck briefly slowed behind a thick leadwood tree while the PH and I jumped off with rifle and sticks.

    The plan was for John to keep going in the truck and take the impala eyes and ears with him. It didn’t really work. The impala kept their focus in our direction. The leadwood tree and the scrub acacia were thick enough that we were able to crawl around for a better shot without totally spooking the herd. We gave the impala time to settle down and start feeding again but they were having none of it and kept their attention on the leadwood. Stealth and patience are a hunter’s greatest virtues so we crawled a bit further into a thicket of some sort of bush I didn’t recognize. Being out of their direct line of vision and buried in thick brush allowed us to study a little more. A ram on the lefthand side of the line was nice and there was an equally nice ram in the middle of the ewes and younger rams. I was ready to take one of these two rams but I was harboring a secret too.

    Nick knew of my gun’s quirks and that I had to shoot a 150-grain bullet in the lower barrel and a 180 in the upper. Like most Africans, Nick has a preference for heavier but slower bullets over lighter and faster ones. He reminded me several times to always take the first shot with the heavier bullet but I had no intention of doing that.

    I certainly used the heavier bullets on the zebra and wildebeest. However, I was going to use the 150-grain bullets on the smaller animals. It wasn’t up for discussion so I never bothered to tell the PH. Unlike the previous hunts, I left the gun’s selector on the lower barrel.

    Very slowly the sticks went up. I purposefully tried to mirror the PH’s deliberate pace but he hurried me into position. I watched through the scope as things continued to unfold showing courtesy to the impala ewes by not resting the crosshairs on any of them. The lefthand ram finally cleared the group but did not get the same courtesy as the ewes. The crosshairs ran up his left foreleg and rested about a third of the way up his torso. Nick said, “Tell me when you’re ready.”

    “I’m ready.”

    “Shoot when you feel comfortable.”

    I was comfortable and began to slowly squeezed the trigger. I felt the jolt of recoil while the crosshairs were still where I wanted them. Impala went in all directions. I love watching impala run. Some sprinted low and fast while others bounded over brush getting punter-like hang times during their purposing leaps. One ram in particular ran differently from the rest of the herd. He made a full speed sprint just before he crashed into a wall of brush like a dishrag missile. I think the poor thing died at WOT – wide-open throttle. He didn’t go 50 yards.

    I can’t explain why it happened with the impala but not the zebra or the wildebeest but I had to take several deep breaths to try to control the remnants of a very bad case of “buck fever. I was a complete mess. I can’t really explain it. The horns are different but Impala remind me of whitetail and maybe that was the source of my buck fever. Maybe it was just the way it played out. Either way, Africa turned me into a kid shooting his first deer. That alone made it worth the trip.

    Nick and I walked to where the impala laid. The ballistician/PH couldn’t wait to check the body. He found an entry hole right on the left shoulder and an exit nearly perfectly on the opposite shoulder. He seemed a little disappointed that there wasn’t a bullet for him to dig out. I took the opportunity to tell him I shot the impala with a 150-grain bullet. He couldn’t argue with success.

    He hailed Big John on the radio. I asked him to get Big John to bring my camera. Our driver parked the truck on the nearest road and walked through the brush carrying my camera. As he handed me my camera our tracker thanked me for, again, not leaving him with a tracking job. “Yet,” I responded. They laughed. I didn’t.

    Impala are small enough that they can be dragged or carried so there was no need to take the truck off road like there was with the larger animals but we still had to take the customary photos. There was a clearing perfect for pictures under a tree less than 100 yards away. I gave my camera back to Big John and asked him to take some photos while I dragged the impala to the opening. Nick and John both immediately objected. It was unthinkable for them to let a client drag his own kill. We went back and forth a time or two. I finally said, “This is very important to me.” They relented and even argued a little amongst themselves on who should be the one to take the pictures. I dragged the impala while Nick and Big John took turns taking photos with my camera. As they were positioning the impala for the staged photos, I reviewed the pictures using the screen on the back of my camera. I asked them what their company owners would think if pictures of a client of theirs dragging his own impala made it to the internet. It caught them off guard and Nick, especially, started stammering defensively.

    Now that I had his attention, I mentioned that I simply needed something to bargain with at the ingxoxo. Big John belly laughed, “I did not see that coming.” As an FYI, Nick and I both shared our pictures with each at the end of the safari – no ingxoxo required.

    After photos and loading the impala, we headed to check a trail camera at a waterhole blind. It was a beautiful spot full of Gray Louries. Gray Louries are the large, slate gray bird with a slight crest and black bill known as the “Go-Away” bird. Science has recently changed their common name to the “Gray Go-Away Bird” for their wide set of vocalizations which include a fairly well enunciated “Go-Away” with a slightly comical accent. I still call them Louries, though. It just seems more poetic. I still call the long-tailed duck an oldsquaw too.

    Anyway, there was a Lourie at the top of an acacia tree that I was trying to photograph when I heard Big John and Nick chattering about something. It turns out that an animal had ripped the trail cam off its tree and dumped the batteries on the ground. In the US, the immediate suspect would have been a bear but the initial suspects on this side of the Equator were baboons and hyenas. Without any apologies to the local baboon community, they reluctantly crossed the primates off of the suspect list and focused on hyena tracks leaving the scene. They followed tracks and found the strap with the buckle chewed off but never found the SD card or camera body. Leave it to Africa to turn a trip to the skinning shed into an impala hunt and hyena tracking job.

    We finally made it to the skinning shed. I actually liked going there because, for whatever reason, it was a heaven for a wide variety of birds. As we were pulling up, a group of Green Wood Hoopoes were gleaning maggots off of a giraffe skull that was left to dry in the sun. They only gave me a few seconds but I got a photo or two. A Brown Hooded Kingfisher was on the wire fence. Unlike my familiar kingfisher species that dive into water for fish, this little guy dives into thick grass for insects. And, finally, I got a good photo of an African Gray Hornbill to complete my Hornbill Hattrick. While I was doing that Nick dug the heart out of the impala.

    It was split much like the zebra’s but not quite right down the center. I got Nick to pose with it and got a neat picture – I wish I had done the same with the zebra. It’s a little morbid but I really needed to document this usual spell of good shooting.

    The skinning shed was part of a larger piece of property that included the home of the property manager, an Afrikaans man. Nick also spoke Afrikaans but they would politely slip into English when I or Big John were around. The man’s young son, about 6 years old, came over to see what I was doing. I showed him a picture of a gray hornbill on my camera screen. He rattled off some Afrikaans words before I realized he couldn’t speak a word of English. There I was, that self-centered American in a foreign country, surprised that everyone else hadn’t adopted my language, my way of life and my way of thinking. I probably should take back that last part because these folks, the ones I met anyway, were very much outdoorsmen like most of us. The shared way of thinking, of course, was the reason I was in their country in the first place.

    The boy realized the communication gap too so he started giving me the Afrikaans name of the birds and animals as I scrolled through them on my camera. I tried to pronounce a few of them but it would only draw a chuckle from my new friend. My western tongue just couldn’t get some of those sounds right. Nick finished his conversation with the Afrikaans man. We left Big John to his work that now included an impala then headed back to camp.

    A lunch of wildebeest and cherry tomato pizza hit the spot. On the first day in camp, I apologized to the chef for not finishing a massive plate of very tasty spaghetti by assuring him that it wasn’t his cooking but that I just don’t eat huge meals. I noticed that the PH had one more slice of pizza than I did. Mine was the perfect amount, though. Chef Trust, like everyone else at camp, made all efforts to keep things just right.

    The camp was situated in a spine of geologically inexplicable, rocky hills that run the length of the property. Up until now, though, all of our hunting was done in the flats but with three-and-a-half days left to check off the warthog. I prodded Nick about taking an afternoon hike with the camera up and along the spine. I was thinking the bird life would be different. He liked the idea because of the possibility of a bush buck.

    Bush buck are the smallest spiral-horned antelope and, in most cases, the hardest to hunt so I loved the idea of making it a dual-purpose trip. We went up the hill, Nick with his shooting sticks and me with a camera over my left shoulder and rifle over my right. We bumped a steenbok ram, one of my by-chance targets, so I left my camera on the rocky trail and we started a steep stalk. It wasn’t long before we admitted that we were outclassed by the 25-pound antelope. We ran into a few new birds like swallow-tailed bee-eaters, black-backed puffback and long-billed crombec then a small herd of waterbuck. I think that’s when I fell in love with these bulky, stinky antelope. They were as at home on this steep, rocky face as they were in the acacia flats. I briefly considered hunting the bull in the group. Nick didn’t totally discourage it but mentioned the difficulties of getting his 600 lb carcass off the mountain since the truck wasn’t getting up here. I hadn’t thought of that.

    For the second time today, we ran into mountain reedbuck, this time they were where they were supposed to be. A 70-pound reedbuck ram would be fairly easy to get off the mountain but these were both ewes. Once we crossed the ridge, things flattened out but got very thick. There was buffalo sign everywhere.

    Nick didn’t have his gun but wasn’t too worried about running into a problem with “Black Death”. Like a lot of things, the legend and the reality bear little resemblance to one another. Conflicts with “Black Death” are almost always started by humans and neither of us intended to start a fight with Cape Buffalo on our afternoon walk. We reached a flat with road access where Nick radioed Big John who showed up in the truck after a while. We jumped in the back and Nick directed him to a seldom used “road” to get us back to camp.

    It was a rough ride out in the evening cold and we had to stop several times to cut trees out of the road or remove overhanging branches. “We aren’t that different”, I told Nick, “This is exactly what we do in South Carolina too.” But, before I could get that out of my mouth good, Nick says, "Buffalo". Africa proved her point, she is different. The three bulls were really shy so I only got a couple of marginal photos before they, somehow, vanished.

    A buffalo hunter and one of the safari company’s owners acting as his PH, are due in camp tomorrow evening so Nick made a mental note where we were. If it was going to be a problem getting a 600lb waterbuck off this hill, I can only imagine the operation it would take to retrieve a 2,000-pound buffalo.

    Nearer dark, an amazingly tolerant giraffe bull hosting a handful red-billed oxpeckers allowed me to photograph it. Just like woodpeckers in the US, these oxpeckers moved to the other side of their giraffe “tree” once I showed them some attention. Getting a photograph of oxpeckers on a big mammal: check.

    After dinner I got Nick to turn off the lights around camp so I could photograph the Southern Cross, a star constellation that’s never visible anywhere above of the tropical north latitudes. I didn’t have a tripod but the handheld motion blur actually made the individual stars more visible. Just one more thing I was able to check off on my Africa “to-do list”.


    A Mountain Reedbuck - this is the best picture to see the unique shape of reedbuck horns.


    This is why it was so tough to slip in on impala.
    The ram I killed is on the very left.



    A closer crop showing both rams.


    The "money" shot.


    Entry side of the shoulder - the exit wound wasn't much bigger.


    Probably my favorite shot.


    I got to get a truck rigged like this...


    Gray Lourie - aka Go-Away Bird


    Green Wood Hoopoe - I can't wait to put this picture on e-bird...


    Wildebeest Pizza


    Amazingly shy "duggaboys"


    Oxpeckers hiding...little brats.


    The Southern Cross
    Last edited by Rubberhead*; 07-10-2022 at 07:50 PM.
    Ephesians 2 : 8-9



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  2. #2
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    Keep it coming!!!

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    That's living brother. Excellent read. My 7 year old enjoyed it too.

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    If you dont mind me asking ,how much does this all cost?

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    This has been a real treat.

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    your story telling beats every safari tv show since ever.


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    What camera body and lenses did you take? Great recount of your trip thus far.


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    Another great day. This is an awesome read.

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    Paragraph 4, change one of the “ears” to “eyes”.

    Paragraph 8, clean up that first sentence.

    Paragraph 26, delete “are” in the last sentence.

    Oxpeckers made me lol

  10. #10
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    Keep them coming
    "You are Citadel Men, you have no pension for failure, you wear the Ring, you never let a friend down, you will be good fathers, husbands, and leaders in the armed forces and industry, you are strong in heart, body, and mind. You protect such things as Honor and Fidelity. Your virtues matter not only in wealth, but in the richness of family, you are the last of the knights."
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    ^^^ I'm still waiting for the "bang flop" entry. Hemingway ain't got shit on a Carolina boy.

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    Love what you're posting RH.

    Looking forward to your next post.

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    Oxpecker. Heheheh

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    Great read! Congrats again. I look forward to your next post

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    Quote Originally Posted by Coot_Commander View Post
    If you dont mind me asking ,how much does this all cost?
    I don't mind a bit. I did some smart things and some dumb things but all told it's going to be about $11k. My wife doesn't fly and my son didn't want to go so I went by myself.

    The bulk of that is plane tickets, day fees, animals, tips and taxidermy.

    Day fees run between $300-$350/day for hunters or $200-$250/day for non-hunters (observers). This covers room/board/PH/Tracker/Skinner/Trophy Prep/water, cokes, wine, beer/daily laundry. My day fees were around $2k.

    Animals - each animal has a price tag - it just how things work - some even pay by the inch of horn but not the one I used - most safari companies have published price lists - basically the bigger the animal the more expensive - cull animals and cull hunts can be pretty cheap. My animals were around $2.8k. If you wound an animal - you pay for it. If you don't shoot - you don't pay.

    Tips - Everyone that supports you during your safari will expect/deserve a tip - and you give it to them face-to-face. About $1k total in my case

    Transportation - just about every safari company will personally pick you up at an airport and drop you off - some itemize the charges, others don't, mine did not charge extra for that - do not travel in Africa on your own especially RSA.

    Taxidermy - it can be expensive - I am only getting a couple of Euro mounts and two tanned hides and mine was about $1.2k not counting shipping and import duties.

    Plane Tickets - I got mine before the Ukraine crisis so I they were pretty cheap - you can spend upwards of $9k on tickets that a suite and some reclining bed-type things. I went with the "comfort plus" mid-grade with extra legroom and bought early so I got bulkhead seats with a lot of leg room. This also included travel insurance so I could get a full refund on canceling, free seat selection and 2 free checked bags - get cancelable tickets instead of buying separate travel insurance. I was very happy with selection - about $2.3k

    Travel agent = $300 + $150 for the rifle permit. I think I wasted most of that money - a safari company can probably help you with the rifle permit.

    Travel Health - I got the yellow fever vaccine but it wasn't totally required. I also got malaria meds and updated DPT and tetanus.

    Pay the minimum to the safari company to hold your dates and don't pay the remainder until the day before you leave. I paid day fees and some for animals then settled up at the end for the remaining balance - they had wifi at camp so I just used paypal.

    Picking a safari company is something of a risk. There are some actual money-stealing scams that are usually pretty transparent so it's not a huge risk - just make sure your company has a good on-line presence and check references. Use facebook to find references on your own. There are some that will guarantee animals or are somewhat cheaper than others - these are more farms than actual hunts but that's all some folks are wanting.

    There is an Africa hunting site with a lot of guys willing to help you - there's a lot to this and I only know one little piece.
    Ephesians 2 : 8-9



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  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tater View Post
    Paragraph 4, change one of the “ears” to “eyes”.

    Paragraph 8, clean up that first sentence.

    Paragraph 26, delete “are” in the last sentence.

    Oxpeckers made me lol
    Done, thank you, and you're welcome...
    Ephesians 2 : 8-9



    Charles Barkley: Nobody doesn't like meat.

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    Very good. Congratulations. Keep the pix coming.

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    The PH was totally obsessed with learning about bullet performance and did a necropsy on the zebra and impala. Here he is with the impala heart...
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Ephesians 2 : 8-9



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    Quote Originally Posted by boondoggle View Post
    What camera body and lenses did you take?
    I used a Canon 80D with a kit 55-250mm IS f/3.5-5.6 lens. I have an L lens but it's heavy and the IS is audible when I use the camera as a video recorder so I left it home and carried the cheap lens. The down side really isn't image quality but focus speed. The L lens snaps to focus almost instantaneously where the cheap lens takes a second or two. I know I missed a few shots on birds because of it but I managed.
    Ephesians 2 : 8-9



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  20. #20
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    Great stuff. Look forward to Day 4.
    F**K Cancer

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