Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Namibian Hunt Report

June 1 (Sunday) - up early and spent the day all over the farm. Amazing how large an area 75000 acres is! Mid-morning we saw a bunch of baboons at about 400+ yards away up on a hill. Rodney took one out with his .30-06 Remington with a pretty crappy Leupold scope (fogged, older, with a heavy 3-post German reticle with no crosshairs intersecting in the middle. Damn nice shot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivDOjTDQeo4

Again, watch in high-quality.

We're pretty positive he nailed one, though it was too far away to go up after them - regardless, pretty neat. I hate baboons, as does just about everyone here. Very destructive critters.

Side note - glad I took SPF 50 sunscreen with me - the sun is brutal due to no clouds and higher elevations. I made a note of applying sunscreen every 4 hours, as well as chapstick, and also made sure I kept hydrated with a lot of water, Nam-colas (like Coca Cola, but better, with no caffeine, and flavored with sugar instead of corn syrup.) Good stuff if you get a chance to try it, do so! I also used throughout the hunt some Squinchers - these little packets of concentrated juices in various flavors have electrolytes like Gatorade - you pour water in the pouch and use the pouch as your drinking cup. And it really worked quite well - gave us a "boost" after a long day. I highly recommend them.

Lunch was a nice creamy deviled-chicken salad with kumquats instead of grapes, and main course of spaghetti bolognese with a lot of meat. I can't say enough good things about the food here!

The rest of the day went well - we spent most of the afternoon looking for oryx and warthog. Spotted some warthog in deep brush but they weren't good to take (small tusks). Most of the oryx we saw were females or young males. Finally we thought we found a good looking males. We got out of the 4x4 and stalked for 30 minutes through some thick brush and high grass. We waited for one to finally present us a good shot. Rodney had the camera and got this all on video. Rifle on 5x, about 100 yards away, off the sticks - waited about 5 minutes and this BIG guy came out. I was ready, and when Rodney said, "Take him on the shoulder" he hadn't finished the word "shoulder" I squeezed the trigger and it was a perfect shoulder shot on the angle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFfKAYrPYIc

Again, watch in high quality - you can see the bullet hit and the blood splurt out. It went down HARD and fast - cervical spine shot. Good "meat shot" as it didn't ruin any of the edible bits.







Measurements: 91LH,89RH,21B - 35.8 inches LH, 35 inches RH, 8.3 inches base

Monday morning - up and at them early, though we don't have any major plans for the next 2 days, since our Zebra hunting will be on Wednesday. We're going to look for warthog and springbok today and tomorrow - most of the springbok here are of a decent size, though I'd like to find a large one. The warthog, I think, is going to be tough - haven't seen a lot of them yet, and the ones we've seen have been ok but not too big for the tusks. We'll see what the day brings us.

We got to a stand at a waterhole pretty early and sat there for 2 hours and saw some warthogs, but they weren't what I would call good trophies. Saw a huge kudu bull, 10 year old, beautiful perfect horns with nice tips - too bad I'd already gotten mine.





We got down and stalked some hogs we saw for about 20 minutes, and thought we saw a large one. Threw up the sticks, scope on 4x, and when I took the shot I didn't feel good about it - thought that I'd pulled up or a little left on the shot. We waited 5-10 minutes but saw no movement. Rodney said he saw that I'd flipped the hog 180 degrees around but we didn't know if I'd hit him in the stomach or lungs. We went into the brush and found him further back at a dry waterhole - the shot hit him just right, through the shoulder and lungs. He had nice tusks, especially the lower tusks - they were long, sharp, and not broken off.



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Going through a dry riverbed, we came across about 30 baboons running perpendicular to us - I took a shot and JUST missed one - perfect on height (about 200 yards away) but due to not having any experience on moving targets, I was just behind him.

On our way back through another dry riverbed we saw a bunch of baboons about 500 yards away - Rodney told me to take a shot and I really guesstimated the hold-over. I'm dead on at 235 yards, but 8 inches low at 300, 24 inches low at 400 yards, and 48 inches low at 500. With a german reticle, I had no reference lines for bullet drop. I picked out the largest baboon (who incidentally had another baboon behind him) and lined him up with the thick part of the bottom post. The shot was dead on left-right, and Rodney said he saw no puff of dirt - they scattered, but when we got down there we found blood, feces, and urine everywhere - I literally scared the [bleep] out of some of them. We heard one, possibly two baboons in the brush screaming and panting, but it was so thick that we decided to not go in after them. There is a possibility that I hit both baboons with one bullet, though we'll never know for sure.

This made me want a Z600 reticle on my Zeiss due to the carryover lines - time to start saving!

Was also told that they have been having a really bad cheetah problem, and that 3 of them have been killing a lot of livestock. If we see any we are to take them out - no charge! Unfortunately, we never saw them. Would have been some nice pics, though we can't bring any skins or parts back due to laws.

Back at dinner I heard a ton of stories about just how dangerous being a PH can be - and not because of the animals! Tales of various hunters [bleep] up shots, almost shooting the PH or spouses due to bad muzzle discipline, shooting INSIDE the farmhouse compound at animals at waterholes right outside a guestroom (7 shots at 30 yards on a Kudu - and MISSED!), and arrogant hunters who refused to allow spouses to take nicer animals than what they had shot, and then firing into the brush at movement when the PH and another hunter were inside said brush. Just insane.

The farm got in the first of three new hunting vehicles - very nice, totally decked-out Landcruisers.

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