Big Sky
Well-known member
I've been home just over a week and I've finally got all the photos loaded and ready to post. Let's just say it's impossible to do South Africa justice with the written word. It's hard to even motivate one's self to try. So here's my best shot, just know that no matter what I post it will fall short. One has to GO TO SOUTH AFRICA to understand what I mean.
My main focus of this trip was to take video tape and photographs. I would only hunt the last couple of days as time permitted. In the days prior to me picking up a rifle I saw literally hundreds of big game animals. The variety is mind blowing. On top of that there were game birds galore from turtle doves to grouse, to osterich. One could go there and just hunt birds and have a world class experience!
Okay enough talk here's some photos to give a small sample of what I saw. I haven't figured out yet how to pull images from my digital video so these are all from my digital still camera.
For those that aren't familiar this is what a very good wart hog boar looks like. The two wart hogs on the left are adult sows. This bad boy on the right is the type I wanted to tag and bring home. I saw a half a dozen in the class in 7 days.
While the weather was hot and dry there was pretty much a steady parade of various big game animals at my stand every 20 minutes.
Kudu Cow
While there I saw so many animals that I'm sure I'll forget some of them, but off the top of my head here goes. I saw giraffes, rhinos, impalas, kudus, baboons, tesebee, red heartebeest, blue wildebeest, zebra, vervet monkeys, two different species of eland (they are friggen huge btw), cape buffalo (also friggen HUGE!), warthogs, genet, ardvark, nyala, steenbok, blesbok, waterbuck and sable.
My favorite site was the sable. They are just the ultimate in nobility when it comes to Africa. Darn expensive too ($8500.00 trophy fee.)
Okay now you know what I saw what about the hunting? Well June in South Africa is their winter time. It's supposed to be bone dry and temperatures generally in the low to mid 80's. Hey being from Montana that sounded like a pretty darn good winter to me
Because it is so dry hunting over waterholes like in the above photographs is the most effective way to hunt. So after 7 days of watching hundreds of warthogs and nice impala rams like this one...
I finally picked up a rifle to hunt. In this case the rifle was a stainless steal Winchester model 70 in 375 H+H stoked with Swift A-Frames. I sat my favorite waterhole with Jim Hackiewicz (my Professional Hunter). Early on a medium sized warthog with 10" tusks came in and I passed on him hoping for one of the monster's like I'd seen and photographed earlier. My priorities were Impala, Warthog, Baboons and possibly a Steenbok. Earlier in the week I'd video taped a dominant impala ram that was over the largest herd I'd seen all week. He had 41 ewes and small rams under his care. He was a very good ram and I secretly hoped against hope that I would see him again. Knowing full well that I'm not exactly Mr. Lucky when it comes to hunting. Unbelievably about 45 minutes before dark a large group of impala ewes and young rams start filing in to the water hole. Then suddenly out of the thick African bush appears the exact ram I had hoped for. Jim turned to me and whispered that the ram was as good as the ranch had to offer. He said it was very unlikely to do any better. As the ram approached the water I found him in the Leupold 2.5x8 crosshairs. He was facing me with his head up looking around all jittery like, before taking a drink. Impala by the way are very much like really cautious whitetails in behavior. I placed the crosshairs in the middle of his neck body juncture and then held off a little to the right to compensate for the slight angle he was standing towards me. At the squeeze of the trigger the ram went only one direction.
STRAIGHT DOWN!!! Me likey the .375 H+H very much.
Here's the ram and I.
Here's one more of Jim Hackiewicz and I. Jim and I were once accused a number of years ago of being the same person on the net. So it was somewhat important to us to take this photo and dispell those rumors
So where are all the other animals? Well I assure you they are all safe and sound save it be for one unfortunate impala ewe. I sort'a removed a good portion of her head with the 375 H+H, hence no photo. The night after killing my ram it started to rain. I don't mean light rain either. I mean major down pour. The rain continued on and off (mostly on) the remainder of my time there. One night it even hailed two inches, it looked like snow out side. The locals said it hadn't rained in that part of South Africa in over 20 years. It was compared to what it would be like to get snowed on in July here at home. It just isn't supposed to happen. Well happen it did and it really shut down the hunting. I never got a chance to shoot a wart hog. I did have a chance to shoot a few good steenbok, but I had told Jim that I wanted a top end animal or nothing so I passed. I could also killed a zebra or a blue wildebeest, but neither were what I was looking for so I passed on them as well. I have no regrets about going.
The lodge I stayed at was a luxury resort to the inth degree. I was spoiled rotten, the food was excellent, the staff very efficient and polite. The game on this concession was more than plentiful despite my absolutely rotten luck the last few days. If one wants to go and have zero worries I can't recommend Jim's place enough. It's not the place to go if you are looking to cut corners or be given some kind of "deal". It's not that kind of place. You get exactly what you pay for and they take care of your every want and need. No corners are cut and there are no financial surprises. If you have thought about Africa and want trip that will be trouble and stress free I say go with Jim, if you want to gamble and get a "deal" so to speak, all I can do is wish you the best of luck. However Africa is one heck of a long ways from here, not to mention it's a foriegn country. I wouldn't want any surprises if it were money. Just my two-cents on that. Hope y'all enjoyed the photos and script.
<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 06-21-2003 19:15: Message edited by: Big Sky ]</font>
My main focus of this trip was to take video tape and photographs. I would only hunt the last couple of days as time permitted. In the days prior to me picking up a rifle I saw literally hundreds of big game animals. The variety is mind blowing. On top of that there were game birds galore from turtle doves to grouse, to osterich. One could go there and just hunt birds and have a world class experience!
Okay enough talk here's some photos to give a small sample of what I saw. I haven't figured out yet how to pull images from my digital video so these are all from my digital still camera.
For those that aren't familiar this is what a very good wart hog boar looks like. The two wart hogs on the left are adult sows. This bad boy on the right is the type I wanted to tag and bring home. I saw a half a dozen in the class in 7 days.
While the weather was hot and dry there was pretty much a steady parade of various big game animals at my stand every 20 minutes.
Kudu Cow
While there I saw so many animals that I'm sure I'll forget some of them, but off the top of my head here goes. I saw giraffes, rhinos, impalas, kudus, baboons, tesebee, red heartebeest, blue wildebeest, zebra, vervet monkeys, two different species of eland (they are friggen huge btw), cape buffalo (also friggen HUGE!), warthogs, genet, ardvark, nyala, steenbok, blesbok, waterbuck and sable.
My favorite site was the sable. They are just the ultimate in nobility when it comes to Africa. Darn expensive too ($8500.00 trophy fee.)
Okay now you know what I saw what about the hunting? Well June in South Africa is their winter time. It's supposed to be bone dry and temperatures generally in the low to mid 80's. Hey being from Montana that sounded like a pretty darn good winter to me
I finally picked up a rifle to hunt. In this case the rifle was a stainless steal Winchester model 70 in 375 H+H stoked with Swift A-Frames. I sat my favorite waterhole with Jim Hackiewicz (my Professional Hunter). Early on a medium sized warthog with 10" tusks came in and I passed on him hoping for one of the monster's like I'd seen and photographed earlier. My priorities were Impala, Warthog, Baboons and possibly a Steenbok. Earlier in the week I'd video taped a dominant impala ram that was over the largest herd I'd seen all week. He had 41 ewes and small rams under his care. He was a very good ram and I secretly hoped against hope that I would see him again. Knowing full well that I'm not exactly Mr. Lucky when it comes to hunting. Unbelievably about 45 minutes before dark a large group of impala ewes and young rams start filing in to the water hole. Then suddenly out of the thick African bush appears the exact ram I had hoped for. Jim turned to me and whispered that the ram was as good as the ranch had to offer. He said it was very unlikely to do any better. As the ram approached the water I found him in the Leupold 2.5x8 crosshairs. He was facing me with his head up looking around all jittery like, before taking a drink. Impala by the way are very much like really cautious whitetails in behavior. I placed the crosshairs in the middle of his neck body juncture and then held off a little to the right to compensate for the slight angle he was standing towards me. At the squeeze of the trigger the ram went only one direction.
STRAIGHT DOWN!!! Me likey the .375 H+H very much.
Here's the ram and I.
Here's one more of Jim Hackiewicz and I. Jim and I were once accused a number of years ago of being the same person on the net. So it was somewhat important to us to take this photo and dispell those rumors
So where are all the other animals? Well I assure you they are all safe and sound save it be for one unfortunate impala ewe. I sort'a removed a good portion of her head with the 375 H+H, hence no photo. The night after killing my ram it started to rain. I don't mean light rain either. I mean major down pour. The rain continued on and off (mostly on) the remainder of my time there. One night it even hailed two inches, it looked like snow out side. The locals said it hadn't rained in that part of South Africa in over 20 years. It was compared to what it would be like to get snowed on in July here at home. It just isn't supposed to happen. Well happen it did and it really shut down the hunting. I never got a chance to shoot a wart hog. I did have a chance to shoot a few good steenbok, but I had told Jim that I wanted a top end animal or nothing so I passed. I could also killed a zebra or a blue wildebeest, but neither were what I was looking for so I passed on them as well. I have no regrets about going.
The lodge I stayed at was a luxury resort to the inth degree. I was spoiled rotten, the food was excellent, the staff very efficient and polite. The game on this concession was more than plentiful despite my absolutely rotten luck the last few days. If one wants to go and have zero worries I can't recommend Jim's place enough. It's not the place to go if you are looking to cut corners or be given some kind of "deal". It's not that kind of place. You get exactly what you pay for and they take care of your every want and need. No corners are cut and there are no financial surprises. If you have thought about Africa and want trip that will be trouble and stress free I say go with Jim, if you want to gamble and get a "deal" so to speak, all I can do is wish you the best of luck. However Africa is one heck of a long ways from here, not to mention it's a foriegn country. I wouldn't want any surprises if it were money. Just my two-cents on that. Hope y'all enjoyed the photos and script.
<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 06-21-2003 19:15: Message edited by: Big Sky ]</font>
