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ichiwashername-o · 2 years

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2022 South Africa Hunting Trip

From May 31st to June 14, I and my entire family (parents and 3 siblings) went to South Africa for a family hunting trip. This would mark my second time going there, but my brothers’ first, and we were all very excited to go. We knew the outfitter, knew the quality of animals was high, and the timing of the trip was ideal for archery hunting. I’ve been practicing religiously for months, and was confident in my skills and abilities.

I wanted to talk about the trip, because it really was amazing. I know I try not to talk about my own hobbies very much, especially something as unpopular and controversial as hunting, but I shouldn’t be ashamed or embarrassed to talk about something that’s important to me. You’re free to not agree or not like it. But hopefully by sharing this experience, we can all take away something from this, good or bad.

Rest of the story is under the cut. Contains images of dead animals, so proceed at your own risk.

Now, when planning this trip, we knew we had to go during Africa’s dry season, which is their winter. End of May/beginning of June is best. For archery hunting, the best method is sitting in a blind and waiting. And with no water around, the animals will have to come into the watering holes to drink, which is where our blinds were set up. We paid upfront for our particular animals we wished to pursue, and because we booked so far in advance, we got plane tickets for a steal.

What we did not expect, however, was that two weeks before our trip, South Africa had severe flooding. When we got there, everything was thick and lush and green. Which made our hunting extremely difficult.

And it was difficult. I’m used to hard hunting. Last season, I went weeks without seeing a single animal. But on a trip with only ten days to spare? The pressure was on.

Last trip, I’d see animals all day long. They weren’t animals I could or even wanted to shoot, but plenty of activity nonetheless. This year? Nothing. I barely saw more than two or three animals all day, mostly females and young fawns. We were in for a rough ride.

It was only on day 4 when our luck finally broke. Because we were archery hunters, we were able to hunt on a particular archery-only property located 2 hours away from camp. And it was there I finally got my first animal.

This trip, the only thing I really wanted was a Greater Kudu. Magnificent animals with huge spiral horns, they were as beautiful as they were elusive (and delicious) I told myself that if I came home with a kudu and nothing else, I’d be happy.

As luck would have it, right in the morning, barely an hour after we entered the blind, a bull walks into the watering hole, just fifteen yards away. I grab my bow and line up my shot. Perfect placement. Perfect angle. The bull probably only made it a hundred yards, and the trackers had absolutely no problem finding him.

I can’t tell you how happy I was. Finally, my dream animal, and he was everything I hoped he could be. And I can’t begin to tell you how big he was! You really have no idea the size of these animals until you’re up close and personal with one. Bulls weigh about 500 lbs and can be up to 5 feet tall at the shoulders. The horns themselves measured 50″. These are magnificent creatures and I was so proud on myself for making a perfect shot on him.

The trackers loaded him up on the trailer to take him to the skinning shed, and it was back in the blind for me. Not even two hours later, an impala walks in, another animal I wanted to take. But impala are notoriously skittish. They’re a difficult animal to hunt, especially with a bow. Impala will “duck” when they hear the bow snap, and last year it caused my sister to shoot high on one and they were never able to recover it. The best thing you can do is anticipate the duck and only shoot when their heads are down drinking water.

The impala ram came in and circled from feed pile to feed pile for a good ten or fifteen minutes. A mother warthog with her nine piglets had also come in, and the sow was chasing off the impala from the feed. Sometimes he’d just stand there and watch, not moving and offering me a perfect broadside shot. Even when the impala stopped to eat, I hesitated to shoot. I didn’t want to take any chances. I had to wait for him to drink.

My patience was rewarded. Eventually he came to the exact same waterhole the kudu stopped at and he finally put his head down to drink. Fifteen yards. Aiming slightly lower than normal. I let loose and watching him stumble off I knew I made another perfect shot.

This impala is not particularly impressive size-wise, but I’m proud I managed to get him with a bow. His face also has a very dark pattern, which is definitely unique. I was very happy with him, and he was again loaded up and sent to be processed.

The next day was another insufferably slow day of hunting. I sat at a waterhole and the only animals I saw were birds and a single goose who made the pond his little swimming pool. My hunting guide had fallen asleep within the first half hour of the day so it was up to me to stay awake and pay attention.

Right at around 4:30 in the evening, I see a warthog walk in. I didn’t really want to get a warthog this trip, but even I could tell this was a big boar. I woke up my guide who took one look at it, turned to me and said “You need to shoot that.”

The more I looked at him, I noticed that his chest was covered in dried blood. Did some other hunter take a bad shot on him and wound him? I couldn’t be sure. But I knew he was injured and I knew it was best if I put him down myself. The shot was 35 yards, the longest shot I’ve ever taken and definitely not a shot I anticipated making this trip. Add onto the fact that a warthog’s kill zone is about the size of a tea saucer. But I didn’t overthink it. I drew my bow back and made another perfect shot.

Though the kudu was the most impressive animal, this was by far the most impressive shot I’ve made. I probably shouldn’t have even taken it, but my months of practice paid off. The boar was down.

Taking a closer look, we realized the blood I saw on him was not from another hunter, but from fighting with another boar. It’s the mating season right now, and this old cankerous bastard was fighting for his mating rights. You can see the bottom left tusk is broken in half. Those are the tusks the males fight with.

That white thing right next to his eye? That’s the tip of another warthog’s tusk that got lodged into his skin (look at how beat up his face is!) I now have that tusk tip and plan to make a necklace out of it! And best of all? Every hunting guide I showed to this was completely blown away. They told me this was easily the biggest warthog taken this year. As soon as I get the skull back, I’m taking it in to get measured. Who knows! It might be a record!

The next few days were slow, with my siblings and parents having moderate success here and there. My poor dad, he wanted a cape buffalo and sat at one water hole for nine days and saw nothing. Eventually, another outfitter asked if my dad was interested in taking out a bull that was causing problems for the rest of the herd. The buffalo bull had torn apart several fences and had even gored another bull. For the safety of the herd, it needed to be put down. My dad agreed, and got his bull.

Our trip was winding down, and we still had some animals on our lists. We traded our bows for a rifle and began to spot and stalk, with the agreement being we could go after what we could find and compensate any price differences later (every animal has its own price tag and we paid in advanced for a discount) It was then my sister shot a springbok, nailing it dead. However, because antelope really are dumb deer, the rest of the herd just . . . stood there. Their buddy was on the ground twitching after a gunshot and they didn’t even run off! I took the gun next and fired off a shot of my own, dropping another very impressive ram myself.

Fun fact: springbok’s butts flare up when they die. It’s a mating display and for some reason it activates when they die. It only lasts a few seconds so you need to be quick with your photos!

The morning of our flight back to the US, my sister tried one last time for a very special animal my sister had been pursuing the entire trip: an uncommon coloring of the impala. We drove to a property that had a herd of black impala, and the owner was kind enough to let us hunt there. I decided to tag along. I wanted one more animal for the trip, and a black impala was a perfect way to round out the trip. It took some time, a lot of patience, but eventually both my sister and I walked away with some very nice and beautiful rams.

Are black impalas rare? In the wild, certainly. Being unique is a great way to get singled out and killed. But on reservations where there are no natural predators? Uncommon colorations are able to breed freely. There’s no difference between this ram and the common ram I shot earlier, they’re just a different color. Which makes it special, to be sure, but sacrilegious to shoot? I don’t think so.

Also as more proof that antelope are dumb, here’s a sable antelope about 50 yards away from us as we’re taking pictures.

All in all, I and my entire family had a wonderful trip. As difficult as the hunting was, we came away with some spectacular animals. All the meat from said animals we either ate, or was donated to the local villages. And no steak tastes better than the steak you got yourself.

Thank you for reading!

#hunt #hunting #warthog #antelope #kudu #greater kudu #springbok #impala #black impal #archery #tw: dead animal #ichi goes hunting

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