Last trip to Africa before moving to Oz

Hi guys, Ive been meaning to do this write up for a little while but Ive been in the process of moving so its taken a backseat.

At the end of last year I managed to get back out to Africa for a fishing/hunting holiday.

The first part of the trip was supposed to begin with a 4 day trip to the Eastern Cape from Joburg to hunt Vaalie's on horseback but due to bad weather we opted to head down to the free state for a few days and chase a lechwe and a gemsbok. The free state was something new for me and whilst it was good to experience it, I certainly wouldnt rush back there given the hunting available elsewhere in Southern Africa. However, over the few days in the free state we did have a good laugh and some great food. The red lecwhe was shot in unusually thick bush for the free state at about 60 yards with a 300 h&h and the Gemsbok was shot at more traditional free state ranges.... just over 300 yards. The Gemsbok was particularly difficult to get after, the open plains dont provide much cover and took about 6 hours to get a shot in the end, they were super spooky and I suspect they had been heavily culled last year which made for good hunting.

A highlight of the entire trip was a visit to a private collection of Rhino where we were able to get up close with a few of them, really interesting work that these guys are doing and a hefty anti poaching bill.

 

[Gsd99]

The second part of the trip was a huge drive from the free state up through Joburg and into Botswana where we travelled up into the Okavango Delta for tiger fishing on the Barbel run. I promise you now, if youre a keen fisherman this is a bucket list trip before you die.

The drive up from Joburg was around 1400km upto the Western edge of the Delta via a stop off at Sitatunga camp on the edge of Maun. From Maun is a fairly quiet 3 hour journey with a lot of sand in the last section. To make the sand more difficult, it was incredibly hot which loosens the sand up, and then if you do get stuck there is the inherent risk with Elephants in Botswana. Luckily for me Colin Mcrae's boer cousin was driving. Having arrived at the camp we set up the tents and got speaking to our skipper who was hopeful for a few good days tiger fishing.

To explain the Barbel run in its most simple form, the Barbel swarm the edges of the channel where small fish are. In doing this there is an almighty noise and display of fish breaching the water. A few metres back from this, waiting for easy pickings are the tiger fish. Pound for pound one if the best fighting fresh water fish on the planet. We had a great few days on the boat, the start of the week was better than the latter half but we still managed I think around 130 fish between the two of us (split maybe 70% tigers 30% catfish and a bream).

The delta is seriously wonderful, it is pristine, has very little human interference and is one of the last real remaning wilderness areas in Southern Africa. We saw hundreds of kingfishers (several different species), fish eagles, crocs, hippos, elephant, lechwe whilst fishing. The footage I have of Elephants, eagles and flying through the small channels in between the Papayas is unreal.

During our stay, South Africa won the world cup and despite England not being in the final I seemed to cop an unfair amount of **** for being the only pom around the laptop.

 

[Gsd99]

Following our return to South Africa began our main portion of hunting. We hunted an area in the far north, between Musina and Alldays for 10 days. The hunting was brutal due to the temperature and we had to have the rifles with us at all times because of the wild Lion population coming from a nearby national park.

Throughout the week we saw 4 leopard on trail camera, 2 lioness, 2 male lions in the flesh that woke us up roaring just outside the camp and a surreal amount of spotted and brown hyena on the cameras. We also had elephants walking through the property at night which have destroyed alot of the local fencing.

The area is truly wild, much wilder than other parts of South Africa that Ive hunted but it was an awesome experience. It was great to see the local cave paintings on one of the areas we hunted.

 

[Gsd99]

We had great success hunting and I thoroughly enjoyed this segment of the trip. We had a great evening in the blind waiting for bushpig. As the sun was going down an entire troop of baboons got i to the tree above the bait which was less than ideal. Something spooked the baboons (most likely hyena or leopard) an hour after dark which made me really start to think the bushpig werent going to show. Then the drizzle came, it just really didnt look like fortune favoured us. Just before midnight the buzzers went off and we sat up to look through the thermal, and luckily there is a pig on the bait. After shooting the pig, the baboons didnt move and I was then instructed to shoot as many as possible before the got away. This was relatively succesful with the 308 and results in one dead bushpig and four dead baboons for only four rounds.

The zebra hunting was tough going, as always. We must have tracked this small herd for 2 hours before we got a small opening at 60 yards, the 308 did its job on a frontal shot. The stallion was tracked and found dead within 80 yards.

We saw alot of Klippies in this area and we decided we would stalk one if we saw a decent old male. Stalking them is tricky and is often done from a hide looking over a rockface. However, one afternoon as we were checking tracks at nearby water, we spotted a pair and stalked in. After about 15 minutes we were in position, much to the PH's dismay I missed with the first round just underneath and he made a run for it. Unfortunately for the klippie he got about 50 yards further up the creek before stopping and looking back, a fatal mistake in the end!

 

[Gsd99]

I had planned on shooting another Eland but this time with a double, we stalked Eland for three days. I said from the beginning I would only shoot a really old blue bull and on the second morning we had a huge group cross in front of us at about 40 yards. Whilst there were bulls in the group none of them would have done the situation justice and we let them walk. Walk and stalk Eland is tricky to say the least and I wouldnt want to guess how many miles we walked through thick bush and dry river beds. While I was unsuccesful on the Eland I did see something incredible for the first time and that is a kudu/eland cross... i thought it was a myth but having seen it with my own two eyes I can confirm it certainly isnt!

Having decided to abandon the attempts of Eland we focused on an equally difficult species, the bushbuck. I love hunting bushbuck and hunting them along a river makes it even more exciting. This one wasnt quite the 16 7/8 inch monster I shot the year before but still a great stalk and beautiful animal.

To finish the hunt off we went after a waterbuck with the double on the last evening. 3 well connected shots in thick bush pulled the waterbuck down casting another end to a hunt in Africa.

 

[Gsd99]

Whilst the hunting had finished, the trip had not. My girlfriend then flew out and joined me where we then hired a car and travelled through Lesotho and Swaziland. Horse riding and fishing was in order, as was good local beers and excellent food.

Moving along we met up with friends and travelled into Mozambique for a few days where we had a good day out sea fishing, trying to reel the fish in before the sharks took their tax cut. Another great African experience (unless you were the girls who decided to throw up everywhere). We ended the fishing there with a few decent fish to eat. Mozambique is a great place for cheap sea food and even cheaper rum.

6 of us then proceeded into the Kruger national park on the South African side for 10 days. We missed out the busy southern part of the park and stayed in the northern half for most of it. 2 of the nights we spent in 2 different overnight hides called shipandani and sable hide. These are more difficult to book but you get the exclusive use of the hide and boma area and it was fantastic watching the elpehants under the moon light. Kruger never disappoints and we took 3000 pictures of birds and mammals including wild dogs, the dangerous 7 and lots of hyena. The north, whilst having less animals, is a great place to explore. We saw bustards, secretary birds, nightjars, eland and tessebe up on the plains along with huge herds of buffalo and alot of big tuskers. Its great to see how well the ground hornbill is doing inside the kruger.

That pretty much caps off another great African adventure, which is unlikely to happen again for a few years due to me moving to Oz in the past few weeks. I will remain relatively quiet on here until I figure out the hunting/fishing situation in Queensland.

Cheers for reading.