LOTS OF HUNTING, NO HARVESTING . . . THEN A PARTY

We get up early as usual.  Breakfast at 7 a.m. is a banana, 4 pieces of toast and out to hunt.  No scrambled eggs today as Farm Garib is all out.  The chickens are not obliging.  There is not a store within 20 kilometers to buy some, so we eat what we have available.  Sigi is not big on breakfast anyway.  He usually just has coffee while we eat.  He has so much energy -- great for a P.H. 

We are looking for the broken horned kudu with the bad leg.  We journey through the farm to where we saw it last, in the Valley of Death.  I have taken a trophy springbok over there, and Dax has taken a blue wildebeest as well.  We set up on the different hill sides and watch the entire valley for possible animals.  Dax, Sigi, and Tobis go on a marathon stalk  clear across the valley to the mountains on the other side.  I watch for anything that kicks out in front of them in the veld.  Some springbok and oryx are running around but I don't see any kudu or wildebeest.  I was kind of hoping to see a blue wildebeest and I would go after it.

Dax and Sigi get on to a trophy kudu bull.  They chase it back and forth between the tall brush, short trees, and various swells in the ground with little hideout ravines.  The bull makes its way to the boundary fence of Farm Garib and jumps on to the next farm southwards.  Sigi has no hunting rights on that particular farm so the trio turns around and head back toward me.  I think they are at least two miles away. 

Out of nowhere a reasonable oryx bull starts to run.  He must have been excited by the kudu bull running and jumping the fence so he starts to run with fervor yet no real reason.  He runs directly toward Dax and Sigi.  Sigi says to Dax to take him for meat and Dax is happy to agree.  The oryx runs almost directly toward Dax and he later says he shot it in "self-defense."  One .338 Win. Mag. round and it is down.  The hunters are so far away I don't even hear the shot while watching for animals on my assigned hill top.  They photo the event and clean and quarter the animal.  Oryx is extremely good meat and we are all excited to have more of it.  It is a nice representative bull but not really a mountable trophy.

Approx. location 23º12.748 S 17º37.874 E

Tobis is sent to get me and the truck and hikes all the way back.  Too bad we didn't have radios and I could have driven over with a lat. and long. directions to go for.  Even with four of us it is lots of hot work to get the meat out.  On the hike out with the meat Dax finds some juvenile kudu horns and skull.  It is of an animal that was killed or died in the same canyon as the oryx a long time before.

Leopard or Cheetah lunch horns

Back to main farm house late as we have been packing out oryx meat.  Lunch is rice and springbok straganoff.  Delicious.  I know we are working pretty hard to get the game and pack it out.  We are very hungry most afternoons and the food is really first rate here.  I am way impressed with how good it all tastes and how it is prepared using local and natural ingredients.  {I could really get used to being around here and living like this.}  We all go for a short nap then back to the patio for coffee at 4 p.m.

We go pick up the trail camera from the leopard kill on the calf.  The photos reveal a female cat.   Dang, if it were a male Sigi could get a tag from the local national biologist and charge some hunter $10,000 for the opportunity to hunt a big tom.  We go back to Farm Garib and prep to visit the other P.H.'s and have the "hunter's campfire" we were invited to.  Leaving as the sunsets we travel across Farm Garib and the main road then enter the other farm.  It takes us about 20 minutes to get there.

When we arrive at the other farm, Farm Girib (jackal) I am introduced to several fellows.  The are all really kind to me and Dax.  My son and I are the only non-professionals there.  I will list their names with the photos below. 

Volker Ahrens, Herman Jonker, Gernot Ahrens, Dax, Ronnie Roland, Sigi Hess

These guys stay up late, have a few toasts, and joke and relate stories of hunting from the perspective of a P.H.  I am just amazed at the years of experience seated around the table.  We are eating warthog chops cooked over a bar-b-que grill.  The food is great and the conversation is fabulous.  Ronnie Roland* takes a shine to me and starts to give me advice on hunting, women, and politics.  He goes on and on for over an hour.  I am totally entertained.  He is really a character.  You can't help but like the guy.  We mount up in the pickup truck and start for the bunkhouse, Sigi has ask me to drive.  I say, "OK, if you tell me where to go."  It is now quite dark and we are 20 minutes from the comfort of my bed through a variety of fences on dirt roads.  I drive very carefully and we arrive back home again jiggity, jigg.  Great evening!

*Ronnie was the president of the Professional Hunter's Association.  He is a publish author and really a hoot.  Google his name and check out some of his links.