Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa MY EXCELLENT ADVENTURE

Men.. Get some thick skin. The pictures are super awesome. Carry on!

That was a great story. Afterum's is better. Let him tell his.

Enjoying the story. I love that zebra. The black ones with white stripes look best to me.

Seriously, thats a much better picture! I see that picture and it looks like your hunting out in the bush, not at the zoo like in the other pic. Again, not being ugly, just being honest.






I think anybody thats honest with themselves would agree that one picture is MUCH better than the other one. I dont like the saying "Perception is reality" but I think it applies here. This may be the toughest hunt in the world but you show that one picture and nobody would believe it.

I am not trying to rain on anybodies parade, simply offering some constructive criticism

Glad that this was the trip of a lifetime that you and your wife will remember forever

let me offer some constructive criticism to you huntsonora...lose that "not being ugly, just being honest" schitt and you will be much better off......that really doesn't fool anyone......

As if he or anyone else cares what you think of the quality of his photography. He is kind enough to share pictures and thoughts of a hunt of a lifetime, and you and your buddy feel compelled to try to offer a critique in photojournalism - or his style of hunting - or anything else at all? Spare me your vapidity. Hijacking threads is what trolls do - or wannabes with key boards. You aren't worth responding to, and I wouldn't except I appreciate this site, and I truly appreciate the effort Afterum has taken. I also have a personal appreciation of what it is like to go to Africa for the first time. It is a joy to experience a touch of that again through his words and images.

Oh absolutely.

On with the story!

AFTERUM, what did I say that was ugly? I offered an honest opinion to a picture you posted. You posted another picture and asked if it "twisted an knickers" or something to that effect and I posted back that I thought it was a lot better and was happy that you were on such a memorable vacation with your wife.

If you dont want opinions then dont ask if something "twists knickers" as thats an invitation to respond with another opinion. I thought the second picture was a lot better and offered my opinion as to why it was better.

Its too bad that in this day and age some feel its better to have smoke blown up their ass than to have somebody be honest and shoot straight with them.

Looks like I need to purchase a parachute and take some flying lessons then

+1

GH, and huntsonora, leave the the guy alone, and let him post his hunt. Go play somewhere eles. You litle pricks are starting to anoy me. The man has had the trip of a lifetime, and you are ruining it!!! Ya wanna pick on Ray, go ahead, but leave this guy alone! Quit bein' a Dick Weed!


Afterum, I really wanna hear the rest of the story!


maddog

Sunday, 8/22/2010 -- Louie, Louie
Craig said we were going to another large piece of property owned by Louie (where I killed the warthog). These decisions were made each night and handed down to the ph's from Pieter whom we called "the wizard". Anyway, he said the property had not been hunted except for bow and we would be the first rifle hunters on it in some time. I was pumped. Maybe today would be "kudu Sunday". The kudu is probably the marquee animal on these hunts. It is considered very bad juju if you don't get one and Craig could only recall one guy all year that had not killed one. He held out for a 55 inch but ended up taking home a 48 inch. The kudu is scored around the outside curve of the horn so the length that you see is not so important to score as how deep the curl is. That is, if you look down thru the horn from the top at the tips (you look right at the animal's eye btw,) the size of that "tube" you look down thru determines to a great extent the score. If the inside of the tube is say the size of a golfball it is not nearly as good as if it is the size of a baseball or softball or even a liter soda bottle. Thats how you get those 60 inchers that everyone wants.
We were met at the gate by Heather, Louie's daughter. She was an ex airline pilot according to Craig, but now was running her dad's considerable holdings for him. She provided us with a map of the property and even though Craig had hunted there before, he seemed glad to get it. There was a good network of twotrack roads and a couple of houses as well as sheds for their farming equipment. The problem was, there were off limit areas marked in red all over the place. These red areas were no shooting zones. They extended around the houses and sheds, the waterholes and on his property there was no shooting from the bakkie although it is not against RSA laws and is done frequently. Craig had recently had a man who was in a wheelchair and he took all his animals from the bakkie. We passed a waterhole that had one of those cool little thatched roof houses with the long slit windows for bowhunting. Bowhunters there don't stalk, but sit over the waterhole with their guide all day long. Craig said the "rush hour" comes from about 9am to 2pm as animals come to water in the heat of the day. I am pretty sure that I couldn't sit there all day for 10 days straight. I much prefer the spot and stalk although I told Craig I would shoot from the truck if a good opportunity presented itself. So far, my animals had come with the expense of shoe leather. As we rode around, we saw lot's of impala as usual. As we passed another waterhole (no shooting zone) we saw at least 5 kudu bulls about 75 yds from the water. They are very impressive animals and I never got tired of seeing them, even the cows. They blend in so well that that "grey ghost of Africa" name is very true. A couple of these big boys are gonna make some future bowhunter very happy. We went back to camp for lunch.
About 3pm we went back over there and rode and walked all afternoon, but saw no shootable kudu that was not in the red zone. We saw tons of blue wildebeest (cause when you are after something you can't find it but when you have killed a certain animal they are suddenly everywhere.) I hoped that I wouldn't be the second guy this year to go home without a kudu. Maybe tomorrow. Here are a couple of pics that attempt to show some of the beauty of Africa.

one more

Part of the beauty of Africa is that it can be, at times, very stark and harsh...

Keep 'em coming AFTERUM!!

Ingwe

Not often I turn to the African forum and get into a thread. Keep it going!

The close man in that picture led me to my 5 African animals. It may be high fenced (technically), but those animals were spooky as hell. It was way easier to hunt elk in the Selway than it was to get a gemsbok. I'll be back there someday for a wildebeast.

Awesome story. I am dreaming of my first trip to Africa, but it will be a while for sure.
It's hard to describe the feeling when you see real poverty for the first time in person. Going through the gate from Kuwait to Iraq was a shocker. I felt something I never felt before when I saw those raggedy clothed kids begging for food.
I can't say what it feels like to see those animals in person in the wild, but hopefully one day.

Congradulations

I don't often do a lot of poking around in the African area because Africa is not a place which I have ever been taken with though I do find many aspects interesting. Your simple, unpretentious re-telling of your experience in "common man" terms, however, is a compelling tale that has me more hooked by stuff African than any thread I've yet come across on the 'net (or I wouldn't have tossed the idea lightly past my wife). I thank you for sharing.




Since honesty is the theme here, why not just let the OP do the telling in his own unshadowed way? Are his pics the way you or I want or wish Africa to be? Perhaps not, but it is how it is. He's honest about it, and he's also honest about the fact that his hunt was hardly shooting fish in a barrel in spite of the enclosure. One man's unembellished honesty hardly begs that each of us need to bare his soul to opine our innermost thoughts. Use your PM if you must.

Like a rose, this thread is less about the thorns than anything else. Way to go, Afterum!

Afterum,
I want to thank you for taking the time to post your story and photos. Its a place I too haven't thought of going but if the economy improves ............

When these threads are hijacked by trolls and fecal heads its no wonder why others choose not to post their stories. This is not unique to this site but aggravating nonetheless.

Now on to the kudu............