Hunting Trip June 2015
The Hunters:
Louis van der Walt; Wayne Meredith; Carl Buitendach; Clifford Smith; John Stephenson; Paul De Beer; Willie Harmse; Eric Laynes.
Rifles Used: 30'06; 243; 270.
The Hunts
Day 1: After the shooting range we headed out to start the hunt in the late afternoon. Because of the late start to the day the hunters only hunted three buck. Eric shot a Black Wildebeest,
Louis shot a Mountain Reedbuck and Carl shot a Common Springbuck.
Day 2: Was a full hunting day and we hit the big mountains and some hunters went out to the plains. Eric headed up the mountain and hunted a White Blesbuck. After driving up and along the mountain side
we came across a heard of Blesbuck on the other side of two valleys’. Carl then went on foot towards the heard over two kilometers away. From the bottom of the valley Carl lined up for a shot at 489 meters at
an angle of more than 30 degrees and took his shot he wounded a White Blesbuck, but no long after that one of the other hunters put him down. At the same time that this hunt was going on Louis hunted a Common
Springbuck and a Black Wildebeest. Paul also hunted a Common Springbuck and a Mountain Reedbuck later on that day.
Day 3: Was back up the big mountains again, but some of the hunters chose the plains to hunt Springbuck and Carl was very successful bagging 7 Springbuck on the day. Both Willie and Paul also hunted a
Black Wildebeest each on the plains.
We drove up the mountain in the Green Monster then Wayne and Cliff choosing the walk to the top as John and I drove along the side of the mountain. John spotted something and headed off on foot and he hunted a
Mountain Reedbuck to start off the day. We drove along and met up with Wayne and Cliff 3 kilometers further along the top of the mountain and they were not successful.
Anyway they got back on the green monster and we drove along and then came across 2 Blesbuck and one was Common and one was White and John hopped off the vehicle as he wanted a Common Blesbuck. John and a guide
walked down the mountain and hid behind a bush and setup for a shot then waited as the Blesbuck were walking towards them and when they got in range of about 230 meters John took his shot and the buck ran a bit
and then dropped. This was also the first buck to be shot on MistKraal with a tag on its ear.
On day 3 Eric walked from the farm house with Henry and Louis up the big mountain and over to the plains on the other side of the mountain looking for a nice big Eland. They did find them but they were too
clever and avoided them the entire day. So on day
Day 4: J-P took Eric out in the Green Monster (The Safari Vehicle) as he was all stiff from the full days walk on day 3. We pick up where we last saw the Eland heard the day before but
they had moved from that location during the night. Anyway we drove up the mountains to the top and we headed off on foot into a concealed valley where we found a heard of Blesbuck. We stalked them but we tried
to get too close and they ran off.
Then looking around we found 2 Eland bulls hiding behind a bush on top of a mountain below us and about 2 kilometres away. J-P told Eric to find a place to hide and J-P headed down the mountain and met up with
Louis on a Quad bike. J-P then walked up that mountain behind the Eland so the Eland would walk in the direction of Eric. These Eland where too clever and ran around Eric’s ambush position and up to the top of
the big mountain. We did this same thing again and again and then we lost them as they ran down the mountain. We headed down the mountain and we came across them again but again they ran off and down to the
bottom of the mountain and over the plains and settled on a small rocky hill about 4 kilometres away.
I stayed on the mountain to see where they would go and Eric and Louis drove down the mountain on the Quod
and circled around to a position behind the hill and stalked the 2 Eland bulls. J-P and Louis stayed in radio contact to guide Eric into shooting position. Eric setup for the shot and he took his shot hitting
the bigger one of the 2 bulls at the back of the lung area but he ran off so Eric not taking any changes took another shot hitting him this time from the front penetrating his heart and the Eland dropped and
rolled over and was dead. The hunt finished at 14:30 so it took nearly two days to hunt this clever Eland.
Also on day 4 Louis hunted a nice Red Hartebeest out of the main heard in the morning. Wayne hunted a nice Black Wildebeest and a very exiting hunt for him as he had to do a leopard crawl to get closer. Cliff a
first time hunter shot his first Common Springbuck after a nice walk and stalk hunt. Carl and Willie also shot a Springbuck each on the day.
On the final day Paul and Willie headed out together with PH Caydn to hunt a Red Hartebeest. They drove to the top of the mountains for over one hour and then continued on foot. They came across a bachelor heard of Red Hartebeest and Willie lined up for a shot but with the high winds that came up that day it pushed the bullet of his 270 over and it missed the vitals, wounding the animal in the gut. The heard ran off and it was going to be a hard hunt to finish as they ran down the mountain onto the plains. Willie and Paul walked over and down the long side of the mountain and when they got to the plains they were done as going down these mountains is worse than going up with all the lose rocks.
J-P came over to help and he and Caydn carried on with the hunt to track down the wounded buck and finish him off. Caydn and J-P headed up and over the mountain from two different angles and Caydn spotted the buck and took a shot hitting him in the leg forcing the buck to sit down behind a bush. J-P then came around from the other side and got up closer to the animal and finished him off with 2 shots but the final one into the lungs.
Well done Willie as this Red Hartebeest was a Rowland Ward.
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