Here's a bit more info....
The farm has been in Jan's family since just after 1900. Jan got the farm when his grandfather, the original owner, passed away. Jan’s father got the farm to the north and still lives there. Jan grew up on the property and his grandparents and other relatives are buried near the original home sight.
One of his father’s workers was an old Himba bushman. Jan spent a lot of time with him growing up and I think he even speaks a bit of their native language – little clicks and all. That is where Jan learned the land and his SERIOUS field craft and deep knowledge of the game behaviors and seasonal movements. He’s literally had his feet on every hector of ground in that region for several thousand square kilometers.
If the springbok you took was on Jan’s property, I’m willing to bet it was down on the far west end near a bore hole called Verpos. That particular herd down at Verpos actually has a bit of a unique history. As I have previously mentioned, springbok are one of the endemic species of the Kalahari and Namibia’s springbok are known for their generally larger body size than those found in RSA.
As long as the property has been in Jan’s families name, the only springbok on the property, was a small herd of 12-15 that stayed around that waterhole just south of the main house. If you wanted to hunt springbok you had to go to either a high fence property or a neighboring free range farm about 45min E. They never had sufficient numbers to get over that size as the jackals would take their toll on the young. In 2010, I gave Jan enough money for “future hunts” for the purpose of buying in extra head. I think he bought 45-50 late that year and turned them out with the ones already there. That gave them enough population to stay ahead of the jackals and the herd multiplied very quickly. They eventually out grew that valley south of the main house and ended up all the way down at Verpos. It was perfect for them. Not only did they have access to permanent water, that is a HUGE valley and opens out farther west onto the neighbors valley. There are enough mopane treed to proved shade/cover but they are not big enough for leopard to climb up in to ambush them from. At it’s peak, that herd got to over 300 head. My wife was able to shoot the first one out of that herd, an old satellite ram from the original bought in group, a few years later.
The waterbuck you took was a good one. I’m thinking it came from one of two places. You were either hunting Jan’s Uncle’s high fence property to the south of Jan’s or it was from Jan’s low fence property to the east of the gravel road that runs between Outjo and Kamanjob. If it was from the group on Jan's, they were originally bought/brought in to a high fence operation and escaped from there 6-8 years ago when some elephant passing thru broke down the high fence. That herd has been hanging around from where the road bridge crosses the seasonal Hoab river and to the south and east of there on Jan’s and Jan’s father’s land. Again, waterbuck are not endemic to the Kalahari, they are normally found in savannah areas with access to lots of permanent water – ergo, their name. There was also a big eland that escaped with them and was on Jan’s place. Was never actually seen, just huge tracks occasionally. I don’t know if they survived 2020 of not. I know Jan’s uncle has suffered huge losses. I'm thinking that you were probably hunting eland on Jan's uncle's place as well.
That bore hole called “Alex” has been a pretty good place for kudu. That water point is at the very base of several mountains and the valleys all come together and the valleys open out onto open flatlands with good forage for kudu of mopane and acacia trees. That valley is where Anila and I took ours. If you follow one valley about 1000m to the NE, where it forms a tight pinch point, you can find some petroglyphs carved by the san bushman that have been dated back 12-15 thousand years ago. And from those, if you go about 600-700m to the NW you can find some old stone ruins where they had a village that has been dated back about the same time. There are actually a couple of places on his property that have bushman petroglyphs as well.
There are also several places where German troops from WWI timeframe has artillery emplacements and camps. Many of the old two-track roads up thru the mountains were cut by the Germans and there were several battles between the Germans and Brits on surrounding farms. Jan actually helped the German Historical Society find a couple of “lost” German soldier graves from that time as well.
All that said, I think everyone can tell that I do LOVE the area. I’ve been fortunate enough to have either hunted or at least my eyes on several hundred thousand acres in that area. While I do love it, and think of Jan and Mariesje as extended family, I still have to be objective as to what the current conditions are.
The crazy thing is, the past couple of weeks has seen huge rains in other parts of Namibia, mostly N, S and E of Windhoek and N along the Namibia/Angola boarder. Even Windhoek has had flooding inside the city! It’s still the middle or so of the “rainy season” so there is still hope for the NW region.
I just got some pictures of the floods from a hunting lodge about 2hrs S of Windhoek. I know Jan and the other landowners in the NW will give both their nuts to have this problem. I'll try to post some pics.
