Hi,
I am new to 24 hour campfire, I joined so I could post about my first trip to South Africa. I went with my brother to Lephalale in Limpopo province. Chris Troskie was the outfitter and Willem van Rooyen was our PH. We stayed in Willem's lodge called Nooitgedacht.
The hunt started off slow as my brother and I were not too keen on hunting from the truck (buckie). Willem was very agreeable to swithing to stalking and stand hunting and setting out from the lodge on foot.
On the first day, my brother bagged a wonderful (record book) Impala while stalking up a dry riverbed.
On the fouth day I got a 50" Kudu. The shot was from an elevated blind, a bad quartering away angle from 74 yards. The 400 grain Barnes Original 45-70 softpoint at 1925 ft/sec broke the last rib, expanged to almost 2x diameter, penetrated 40" and lodged in his neck. Willem thought I hit him too far back, until he heard from the skinner and saw the bullet. Hooray for Barnes bullets!
The next day I took a Blue Wildebeest using the new 400 grain Barnes Buster solid. The shot was from 70 yards. I hit too high (just above the body centerline) on the shoulder. The bull went down at the shot and could not get up. I fired a finisher through the bottom of the chest at close range. Both bullets exited. After this demonstration of the hot 45-70 loads, Willem wants to buy my Marlin 1895!
That afternoon, Willem and I went Impala hunting. The wind was swirling around, so which ever way we walked was downwind. The rut was at full swing, so we had grunting bulls all around us. We probably saw 100 Impala that afternoon. Even though I did not get a shot, it was one of my most memorable hunts.
On my last hunting day, we stalked a nice Impalla that I took at about 100 yards with my TC Encore 30-06.
All of my trophies were past their prime, just as I asked for.
Thank you Chris & Willem for a great hunt!
