Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Kowas Safaris Namibia 2016

Just completed my 4th trip to Africa, three of them with the same outfitter.....Kowas Safaris in Namibia. Neither my words, nor the pics, will do the place justice, as the hunting is world class, the Straus' family, as hosts, have no peers and few equals, and the PH"s Jacque Straus and Matheus Theofalus also have no peers and few equals, IMHO.


Kowas operates in the Dordabis Conservancy which consists of over 400,000 acres of hunting ground, with the ranches we hunted consisting of sizes from 17,500 acres to over 40,000 acres each. The locals call them "farms", us Americans would call them ranches. This is a thorn brush environment that is choked with blackthorn, camel thorn, candlethorn, and a few other types of bushes that will rip your skin to shreds if you get too close. When you do get too close you will be instantly given a reminder. The area also consists of numerous hills and low mountains which are extremely rocky and harsh, and the lower ground is predominantly a red sandy type soil. The area is also currently in drought condition, and is in the late Winter season, so vegetation shows the effects of lots of grazing.

Each and every morning at the camp we would be greeted with sun rises such as this: It never got old.

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Morning, mid-day, and evenings would find us staring at a buffet style setup in which we would serve ourselves. This particular picture was of dinner one night. It consisted of potatoes, mixed vegetables, a sweet pumpkin desert dish she called "pumpkin cakes", oryx steak cordon bleu, which is two oryx filets with a cheesy sauce and ham stuffed in between them, then lightly fried like chicken fried steak. Just to the right of that is a mushroom sauce for the steaks. To say it was good is an understatement. It has to be one of my favorite meals I've ever eaten in my life, as I am particularly fond of oryx steaks.

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.....and then make our way over to the dining area. The view was fantastic as we ate our meals. We were often distracted by waterbuck, warthogs, impala, and an occasional kudu. There were loads of guinea fowl and sand grouse in front of us in the brush, as there is a water hole there.

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The stars of the show though, at least around camp, were the two immature meerkats that for some reason had become semi-docile prior to our arrival. Their momma had gotten killed by some predator. They were the most friendly little guys you can imagine.

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One day during mid day, I had eaten lunch, sat down to learn something about rugby from the boss, and this guy came over, ate a few potato chip crumbs from my hand, and took a siesta.....

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Then came those unforgettable sunsets......

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......and to say were were spoiled by all of these things would be an understatement. The evenings around the fire pit would only top off another fantastic day of hunting.

i think every anti-hunter needs to see you with the meerkats.

glad you had a good time

This was the first time I was to be using the PH's rifles. I chose a BRNO in 7x64 Brenneke that wore a 3-9x50 Leupold w/duplex reticle. The rifle's trigger had quite a lot of creep in it, but once you took up the slack you knew precisely when the trigger would break, and you would know precisely where the bullet was going. It was very, very accurate. I also chose to bring my newly acquired Tract Toric 8x42 binoculars. They are exceptional....I am very pleased with them. In camp there was an 8x42 SLCneu, an 8x42 Conquest HD, a Swaro wb 8x30neu, and a Leupold Mojave Pro Guide HD in 10x42. The Toric is easily the best of this bunch...very easily.

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And it was really fond of these...

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Danie told me he had some very overpopulated oryx properties, which I was very glad to hear. I love hunting oryx , and when I think of Namibia I automatically think of oryx. About mid morning on the first hunting day I had my first one down, and old, old short-horned bull..

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Later on that evening I had my first red hartebeest, which was also an older bull, about 20", with massive bases.

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Throughout the course of the next 6 days I a few random pics like this water hole from cattle farmer Helmut Stehn's place..

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and this herd of 7 immature kudu bulls....

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I could not get pics of some of the obscure animals we saw, including aardwolf and aardvark, and the bat-eared foxes. I wound up shooting 6 oryx, 3 hartebeest, and an old female blue wildebeest that I got no good pic of.

A few more pics of representative animals I shot.....

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Big Al's son stole the show though with his last hunting day, 58" giant kudu bull..

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He also shot a very large red hartebeest, blue wildebeest, warthog, and impala. It was his first African hunt. Big Al killed an impala, wildebeest, and warthog all with is bow.

Cool beans!! Glad you had a bang up trip!

If you've ever seen a good documentary or watched a lot of meerkats in the wild you will see what we were like before evolution progressed us. Fascinating critters.

Also glad you got some trigger time on Gemsbok, they were always my favorite!

Great job,lots of fun and memories!

My daughter broke the meerkats in the week before you arrived JG. They loved her!

That's awesome! I'm not really a pet lover guy, but those meerkats were lots of fun to play with. They had quite the personality.

JG,

Great report. Headed to Namibia myself next month and I cannot wait.

It looks and sounds like you're having a blast. Beautiful country, looks a lot like western USA.

The Strauss family said the meerkats serve a useful purpose: eating all the scorpions around camp. Having lived in a house out your way that had lots of scorpions, I can see how that would be helpful in that they are hard to get rid of.

Fantastic JG, nice animals, and young Jr's kudu is a beast, glad you survived the feared meerkats.

Still jealous here ;]

JGRaider,

Looks like an excellent trip! ( Another one at that!).

Congrats, looks like a helluva lot of fun and some very good shooting by you from all appearances.

Did you book #5 yet?

Snork!

I have postponed retirement by 4 years because of you......

You still need to hunt Buffalo.....

True Dat!!!!!!!!!

That will set retirement back another few years but it's worth it!

F.U.! You were warned before the first one...

That is a kudu of classic proportions! Seriously handsome and will be the premier mount for Al's kid to enjoy for the rest of his life. Wow!

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Nice report JG

I'm glad you had a great trip....but I knew that you would

How did those 175 grn PPU bullets perform...I'm guessing that they did great as it is the Indian and not the arrow.

I appreciate you taking the time posting this up so I could get a sample of your trip