Just returned from Africa PICS

[H&Hhunter]

Blue Widebeast,

First of all let me start by saying this was not a guided hunt there was no PH present all of these critters were hunted on a friend of mines ranches in South Africa and most were self guided.

The three for one Blue Wildebeast,

On day one I shot a large bull wildebeast head on at about 100 or so yards and somehow gut shot him head on???? I can't figure it out either.. In anycase the bullet passed through the bull knocking him down and hit a cow wildebeast standing behind the bull in the nose.

I wasn't aware that the cow had been hit and when I started to the bull he got up and ran. I found digested grass and a copious amount of blood at the scene. So I followed the blood and to my surprise found the a cow in the last set of tracks so I put her down. It was dark by now so I returned to the scene early the next morning and never found the first bull.

Feeling pretty low down I returned and told my buddy, the land owner, my tale to which he laughed and told me that they wound about 300 a year not recovered and don't worry about just go shoot another one. The Blue wildebeast is also known as the Blue Woundedbeast or the poor mans buffalo because they are so damn tough.

In any case later that afternoon I shot the bull pictured below killing him with one shot through both shoulders and spine.at about 80 yards.

.375 H&H 270gr Barnes X

 

[H&Hhunter]

Nyala,

This is the critter I really came to hunt. And I got a fine specimen. This was another strange event however.

We stalked numerous Nyala and I turned all of them down for one reason or another. I was assited by a Zulu ranch hand named Fanyas on the Nyala below.

This was a typical bush stalk in which Fanyas spotted this ghost in the bush at about 80 yards. It took me a full minute or so before I even could find this bull with GLASS!!!! Excellent spotting and stalking skills I must say. I couldn't have done it with out an eagle eyed Zulu holding my hand.

In anycase the bull jumped the first time and we restalked him to about 120yds he where he held up behind a small thorn bush. At the shot he went down hard as he was hammered (I thought)

We walked up to the bull and he was obviously still breathing but I thought he was on his last breath.. I vaugely remeber fanyas saying in broken english yuu muss shootee again by the time it registered what he was saying the once dead Nyala bull was up no worse for the wear and hauling the mail. At which time he recieved three 270gr x bullets up the rear and one more through both shoulders, that did the trick.

Lesson relearned if it's still moving I'm still shooting I almost lost this bull. The first shot must have deflected off some brush and hit him high forward of the shoulder just nicking his spine and knocking him out. I paid for my mistake with an exit hole through the nose. Fortunatley I was using a heavy slow moving caliber and the cape damage was minimal.

.375H&H 270gr X

 

[H&Hhunter]

Impala,

After driving all over hells half acre looking for a decent warthog (note there are no warthog pictures included in this post!! ) I decided to liven things up a bit with a nice impala ram. And had yet another weird deflection happening. I shot this ram at about 35 yards and as far as I could tell all that was between him and I was a little grass.

Well the ole boy iced GYD to the shot, he was dead all right that happens when you take a 270 gr X completly sideways just under your left ear. A perfect side profile of the bullet entering and it came out tail first.
BOY & GIRLS THERE AIN"T NO SUCH THING AS A BRUSH BUSTING ROUND!!!!

And that was deflection from grass....

.375H&H 270gr X

 

[H&Hhunter]

Giraffe,

Let me just start out by saying I didn't shoot this Giraffe. The big fellar in the cammo is the rancher and his lovely wife is the red head with the .375 who did the deed.

Oh and by the way for all of you recoil shy guys. That's her little gun.

I was asked to please film this hunt for the family which I did. I filmed the whole thing with the pause button on!!:banghead: oh well I guess I ain't got much furture in Hollywood.

In any case here was the deal Memsab wanted a new giraffe skin couch for the living room so off we went to cull out an ancient old bull. The deal was that she had wounded a giraffe in the past and had to follow it for two days and didn't care to repeat it so if at the shot the ole boy didn't go down my buddy Jaco was to finish business with his .450 rigby (Also his little gun)

And that is exactley what happened memsab closed to about 100yds (you ever try to sneak up on a three story pair of ziess binoculars?) she shot twice and the bull started to run. That was when he recieved two 500 gr Rhino solid shank .450 rigby bullets in the heart.. That did the trick!!!

While walking up to the giraffe I hit the pause button turning on the camera and recorded myself bragging on what a great camera man I was and that we have some great footage here.Whoops.

Well here's what happened the the lady was so paraniod about flubbing the shot that she tried for a head shot and hit the bull in to far back through the meat of the neck. You see the last time she tried a body shot on a giraffe it was with a 7MM 150gr soft point that barely got through the skin. She hasn't shot enough game to realise that a 300gr .375 would have definaley done the trick!! Oh well next time I'm sure it won't be a problem.

Another lesson learned don't take head shots unless your darn stable and sure of the shot always put one in the ole boiler room first that way at least you got a blood trail.

.375H&H 300gr Rhino solid shank
.450 Rigby 500gr Solid shank

 

[H&Hhunter]

Cull Kudu,

Not much to say here except that I had missed a huge kudu the day before and used up all of my kudu luck. The big boy was running through the trees at about 70 yards hell bent for leather my buddy was yelling holly s*%&t thats a huge kudu shoot shoot shoot!!! And that's what I did except that I killed the tree he was running past. Oh well that tree won't fool with me anymore.

So the next day I shot this poor little one horned nearly dead Kudu just to put him out of his missery. he was powerfull sick and nearly dead of starvation. he took one .270gr X head on at about 150yds.My buddy Jaco thought he probably had rabies which is why I didn't get near him for a picture.

I guess there is a little light at the end of this kudu tunnel however as Jaco felt so bad that I didn't get that whopper bull that he is insisting that I go back in august to try for him again and a warthog too!!


.375H&H 270grX

 

[H&Hhunter]

Record Book White tailed Gnu (Black Wildebeast),

By this time we had left the Kwa Zulu Natal area and traveled to the eastern cape and in particular the Karoo. It was here that Jaco asked me If I wanted to shoot a white tailed gnu. Which I replied a white tailed what???

3 hours later we were headed to another friends ranch to give the ole gnu a try. The rancher wasn't home so we stopped by the bunk houses and picked up a friendly yet highly insane ranch hand named Pietrieous or some such thing.

To preface this story let me just tell that in the picture it looks as though I am wet and cold, and guess what it was a cold wet day infact it was snowing in the hills all around us. Very unusuall weather for march in Southern African.

So we parked the truck and started a trek into a bitting, driving, freezing, wind driven, rain after about 45 minutes I spotted a herd of gnus all huddled together in a group with there head down Jaco and Peitrious and I snuck up to about 60 yds and as I picked out a nice mature bull and got ready to shoot the darnedest thing happened. Behind me I hear a banshee fire up and start screaming. I turn to see what the comotion was and it was this peitrious guy jumping up and down doing somersaults and pulling his pants off yelling something in his native dialect and throwing Jacos shooting sticks at the herd of gnus and shaking his (well lets just say his male identification parts) at the animals of course that was more than the gnus could handle.

Guys I'm not making this up.

Well on the rain and ice soaked walk back to the truck Jaco was able to get out of Petrious that sometimes during a hunt he gets excited.. Oh well buck fever can happen to anyone I guess.

But it turns out that Petrious was actually a guardian angle you see the lord works in mysterious ways and after regrouping at the truck we drove to another area and on the way there spotted another herd of gnus and Jaco started that gurgling sound and cussed in rapid Afrikans and started pointing out to the bull on the right and was mumbling something to the effect of, that's the biggest #@%$#% *&^%$#^ * gnu he'd ever seen get your gun lets go!!!

We were able to close to about 350yards and the bulls would run this happened about 4 or 5 times finally on try number 6 I said Jaco let me have you back pack and went to a prone position resting on the pack. Unfortunaley the range finder had crapped out and we estimated the range at about 300 well I'll never know for sure but looking back on it, I think it was more like 380 or 400. The first shot took the bull low in the shoulder knocking him down and breaking his front left leg just at the body, he got up and started running downhill back towards us. I finished him at about 50 yards through the shoulders.
This bull scored in the top ten wet.

Ohh and petrious was happy to stay back at the truck during this whole thing with the cooler of beer, cheap price to pay for this magnificent old bull.

.375H&H 270gr X

 

[H&Hhunter]

Beatifull Zebra Stallion,
Well not much to say here except that this is the prettiest Zebra I've ever taken he's about a 6 year old stallion in the prime of his life and those of you who know zebra know that to take a healthy stallion with no scars or rips or bites and no shadow stripes is unbeliavably rare.

This ole boy has it all he's perfectly clean almost no shadow and he's the herd boss. You can see in the next post that he's had most of his teeth kicked out in fights so I can't explain the perfect hide except that he must have been one quick footed old pugilist.

I shot him behind the on shoulder the bullet exited on the point of the off shoulder getting both lungs and the heart and of course breaking the off shoulder even with that kind of damage the ole boy took off and went over 100 yards dead heat then fell head over heels in a most dramatic zebra double gainer. Zebras are tough!!!The shot was at 158yds laser ranged.

.375H&H 270X are we seeing a trend here.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Why you don't want to get bit by a Zebra

 

[H&Hhunter]

Springbok Ram,

Two days after shooting the Zebra we were invited up to another friends house and asked to please "sort out 50 or 60 springbok" he said that the little buggers were positivley over populating and were hell on the crops and if we wouldn't mind to please shot as many as you can.

OKAYDOAKY!!

This was my first ram I took him at 358Yds with my Steyr Scout using 180gr nosler partitions in the federal high energy load. This wasn't so much a hunt as it was a day of varmint shooting in a very target rich environment. As the day went on I shot 16 Springbok with 17 shells say what you want about Steyr scout rifles, they are one of the most accurate and shooter friendly rifles in the world bar none. It's actually hard to miss with one once you get dialed in.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Springbok Cull in the Karoo

This picture was taken at noon for the luch break. This was after about 2 hours of shooting. And no.. none of these animals were wasted all were processed and sold at the local meat market the hides are tanned and sold as leather and the bones are used for what ever you use bones for and I kept several head for skull mounts.

 

[H&Hhunter]

Trouble maker Blessbok,

And finally the high light of the whole hunt.. The common Blessbok but not just any blessbok but a rouge blessbok. I know I know, sounds dramatic doesn't it. But here's the story, during lunch our host Antinee brought up the fact that he was quite impressed with with the little rifle I was shooting and noted that he'd not seen many hunters make the running shots that I had been making during the mornings hunt. ( In all modesty I was having a great day) he asked if it had something to do with the that odd little scope mounted forward of were it should be, to which I repied that in fact it was and that not only is this rifle a dead killer at range it shoots like a shotgun on moving targets and went on to explain the scout concept and the fact that a skilled marksman can shot 50% on clays with a good scout.

With this being said Antinee asked if I would be interested in giving a blessbok a try but not just any blessbok a real darn trouble maker. He went on to explain that the blessbok is quite the character and can be quite ferocious for his size and that this blessbok ram had chased all the other trophy blessbok out of his breeding pastures and had killed one of his prze trophy rams in the process. Not only that but this little b******d had chased one of his fencing crews off the job just the week before scaring the heck out of the hired help and when Antinee returned to shot the ram he had taken off and he had missed several shots at him on the run. That now the ram was in the habbit of tearing down fences in the newly fenced areas and that he was positivley spookey and can not be stalked because as soon as he hears a truck he starts running and doesn't stop.

Antinee looked at me with a sly grin and mentioned that a man with such a fine rifle should have no problem however in sorting out this trouble maker .

So late that afternoon my wife and I found ourselves sitting on a rocky Kopje waiting for the rouge to make his daily rounds. The ranch hands had nick nammed him Saddam. We first saw the ram at about a mile trotting towards his hareem of ewes. All the other rams sensed his presense and immediatly vacated the area. Just as the ram started to get into range he stopped at about 500yds looked me right in eye gave me the ole blessbok finger and took off at about mach 2.

I called the Antinee on the radio and told him what happened and he came and got us in the truck and brought us to another pasture. On the way we devised an evil plan to use the truck as a decoy, without stopping my wife and I slid out of the truck into knee high grass and brush and belly crawled to the edge of a cliff and waited SEAL style for saddam the blessbok to return.

Antinee drove around to the pasture where the Blessbok was and made no small show of his white pick up. The blessbok took the bait and headed right for us. he trotted right below our position and at about 150yds and stopped facing me left quarter on. I stealthly slipped the safety off went into a sitting position gentley squeesed the trigger on perhaps the easiest shot of the trip and.......blew the shot!!! What the heck!!!well I was in a panick my whole reputation as a steely eyed killer of terrorist blessbok was on the line and so far it wasn't looking good for the home team!!

The blessbok took off at a rapid fire pace from my right to my left kicking in full afterburner and dust flew from his thundering turbo charged hooves a small vapor trail was just setting up on his horns as he approached the speed of sound. I remember swinging past him one full animals length lead and pressing the trigger.

One of the most beatifull sights in my hunting career, as one seriously deflated, tumbling blessbok came to a dusty end on the high plains of the Karoo. I broke his shoulders and spine in mid stride he never knew what hit him GYD. DRT. DNR.

My wife who was sitting behind me said "that was a nice shot honey". I very cooly cleared the spent shell rechambered placed the rifle on safe, said a small thanks to the man upstairs and fessed up. That was the luckiest shot I've ever pulled off. We paced out 183 yards to the deceased.

Well it looked good to Antinee he was happy to have his blessbok troubles cured and it turns out that the Blessbok was dead on the first shot he just didn't know it yet. I hit him a little far back but he was shot through the kidneys on the first shot which made me feel a little better.

In any case Antinee has a great picture of the magic rifle, bipod out resting on top of the vanquished terrorist blessbok and I have a great memory of the my everlasting trip to the Karoo.

May your bullets fly straight, your legs carry long and far and may all of your sunsets be as beatifull as were that day on the Karoo in the Eastern Cape of South Africa... God bless you all.. and good hunting..

.308 180gr Nosler.

 

[HSMITH]

Holy Keeristmas partner. That was one hell of a hunt!!!!! Greqt pics!!

Man, there has to be some stories to add to the pics?

Kind of a boney little feller ain't ya? Just kidding, LOL, you have at least 6" height and 70 pounds on me!!

 

[Preacherman]

Man, H&H, you make me homesick... the sight of the bushveld and the Karoo are hard to bear from so far away! I'll definitely have to get back there for a visit soon, to recharge my batteries and taste Karoo lamb once again!

 

[John G]

Wow! What a hunt! That zebra looks great, please post more stories if you can.

 

[Mr. Chitlin]

GREAT STORIES!!!!! Enjoyed 'em all!! That is probably the closest I'll ever be to Africa.

Thanks.

 

[Johnny Guest]

Outstanding series, Captain - - -

Great accounts of your hunt; beautiful photos to go with them. Thank you for sharing your trip with us.

Johnny

 

[no3-]

Got yourself some nice trophys, congratulations.
Thanks for sharing!

and for your next hunt, I really recomend you to buy a GPS. In the African bush it will save you a lot of walking...

 

[Art Eatman]

Yeah, thanks for sharing! Interesting looking country in your hunt areas, as well...

Art

 

[Zorro]

The Obvious Question.

WHAT! do you do for a living that makes this possible?

I NEED A NEW JOB!

Really, you were born rich?

Possibly California Lawyer?

 

[H&Hhunter]

Zorro,
Hunting in South Africa is a alot less expensive than you may think!!! Especially when your a guest of the land owner and not paying trophy fees. or a PH's daily fees.

However, even if you are paying full price you could do a fine hunt in the RSA for about $3500.00. I think it's one of the best hunting destinations in the world.

Airfare from Atlanta to Jo-Berg can be done round trip for around $900.00.

I don't pay airfare as my job as an airline pilot lets me travel world wide for free or at a drastic reduction. I've also been involved in the professional hunting/ booking/outfitting business for a while and have made some pretty darn good connections that allow me to hunt some very cool areas at locals only prices.

I'm not rich monetarily speaking, and any donations to the H&Hhunter world wide hunting fund will be graciously accepted.

 

[H&Hhunter]

HSMITH,
Yeep I'm just flat undernurished as you can see. But like they say the cammera adds about 50lbs...or something like that.

 

[Soap]

Thanks for the write ups!

 

[Dr.Rob]

Great stories and thanks for sharing! Amazing zebra, btw.

 

[BigG]

Thanks for the vicarious thrills. You had a beautiful bag there, bro!

 

[stephen_g22]

I guess you get a bulk rate at the taxidermist as well. Mounting and tanning even the best of those trophies must be outrageously expensive.

You must have a awesome trophy room.

Thanks for the photos and the stories.