Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa I'm JGRaider and I Suck

Got rested up a bit, so here goes. I was in the central part of Namibia, about 90 miles S of Windhoek, a mixture of flat ground and rocky, sandy, with very large hills. I arrived in camp around 1:00pm and was shown to my room to get myself and gear situated. Once accomplished, we customarily headed to the range to check things out.
Rifle: Tikka 695 7mm RM
Ammo: 160 Accubond, 71.5 Retumbo, 3110 fps
Scope: VX6 2-12x42 duplex
Binocs: Cabelas Euro (Meopta) 8x32HD

I was sighted in at home 1" high at 100 yds. Turned out to be perfect and the rifle still grouped 3 shots within 1" off the bench. Then I told him I wanted to fire off the sticks. For some odd reason, and remembering all the advice here I learned about shooting off the sticks, everything seemed to "click" off of the sticks. I did practice quite a bit at home off the standing Bog Pod, and I managed to put 6 into a 3" group. I felt really good about that.

To finish up my arrival day, we road around the ranch looking at game, and a lot of game there was. I was also treated to one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen in my life that first evening.....

[img:left][/img]

First hunting day came and I was reminded what I felt like when I was 11 years old, going on my first mule deer hunt with dad...you couldn't wipe the smile off my face, or the excitement. I love that feeling. After a traditional bacon and egg breakfast, we were off. My agenda was to do a cull/management hunt of 10 animals, plus two trophies including a kudu bull and mountain zebra. The landowner and PH felt that one of the more difficult trophies was going to be the mountain zebra, and in my case they couldn't be more right, so we decided to tackle this one first.

We climbed a small hill after sunrise, overlooking a large valley with more hills intermixed. After 30 minutes of glassing, the PH, Matheus (Mathews) found a group of 5 with 4 mares and a nice stallion, so off we went on the 1/2 mile stalk. The altitude was no problem for me, but the sandy, rocky, knee high grass covering those hills was brutal on my arthritic knees. I could've cared less though. To make a long story short, we wound up stalking those zebra for over 4 hours and could never manage to get a shot off. They either stayed in nasty cover, winded us, or just managed to stay out of range during the whole adventure that morning. We broke for lunch at 1:00 pm. Matheus found them again about mid afternoon and we were off again. About 2.5 hours later we had managed to make our way to a point in which we could intercept the small herd and at about 5pm I was staring at the stallion through my VX6, set on 6x, at 130 yards. He made it to an opening and I fired and hit him almost perfectly through the shoulder. He twirled, whirled, and crashed within 60 yards......man was I happy, and wore smooth out all at the same time. This is absolutely one of the most gorgeous creatures I have ever seen.

[img:left][/img]

[img:left][/img]

There was no carrying this thing out whole. The reinforcements were called in. Skinning and quartering were required. After almost 7 hours of stalking, over 7 miles, I still had that smile on my face!

I, for one, agree with you: you suck!!!!

What a beautiful zebra!!!!

Can't wait for the rest of the story.

Beautiful zebra!

Good start to the report, looking forward to more.

Congrats, Namibia is a great country.

The zebra is gorgeous! Congrats. Now on to the rest of the story......


maddog

The Hartman's are a lot of fun to hunt, mine was a really long stalk, one of my favorites.

^^^^


This��...

What Safari operator did you go with?

I love zebras...I have taken one on every trip that they were available on. And Namibia is my favorite destination...

So, yes you pretty much do suck!

I know a guy in Abilene that can make an awful nice rug out of that. Zebra are one of the most difficult and under rated game animals IMO. Congratulations!

Congrats. Mighty fine zebra.

Since I've been to Namibia twice I'm going to make a prediction of how the story ends.
Namibia is awesome
The people are awesome
The food is awesome
The beer is awesome
The hunting is awesome
Then a picture of a REALLY nice Kudu.
I could be mistaken about this so in a couple of months I'm going back for two and a half more weeks if research.

Beautiful sunset picture, great zebra, and yes you do suck.

That donkey is wearing a mighty spiffy set of pajamas!

Never could understand the allure of zebra hunting, I think I get it now though. That is a fantastic trophy & some excellent pictures.
Congrats to you - looking forward to more!!

At least you know it! Congrats on a great hunt!

The 2nd day we decided to go after springbuck. Now we would look for kudu every day as well, but I figured out you kind of need to be really looking for kudu in kudu country, primarily mountains with thick cover, to be effective. At least that's the way I saw it. Anyways this country was loaded with springbucks so locating some of them was not very tough. Several times during the day the PH's and tracker would climb up to aid in locating animals. Note the hunting "bakke"....a Mahindra turbo diesel......

[img:left][/img]


Getting close to them was a little tough, but within a couple of hours we managed to do so, and I knocked this one down, quartering toward me, with one shot.

[img:left][/img]


We hunted the rest of the day without taking another springbuck, even though several stalks were attempted. At the end of the day I just couldn't help but stare at the beautiful sunsets.....

[img:left][/img]

For dinner we had what I would call chicken fried steak with pop (like grits), gravy, potatoes, and an ice cold Tafel....dang those things are good! BTW, the meat was oryx steaks. I have not tasted eland, but the oryx is still the finest piece of meat I have ever eaten in my entire life, of any variety or species. I cannot describe how flavorful and tender it is.

I'm having a bit of trouble downloading some pics, so I'll have to do this hunt report in stages. I also have some bullet info for those interested that I'll post up at the end.

Backtracking a bit to the zebra hunt......

[img:left][/img]

After being in the salt a few days......

[img:left][/img]

The skinning shed, cold storage, and salting facilities...

[img:left][/img]

you suck�.

no Chui, he TURBO SUCKS! Gorgeous trophy sir!

Next to Kudu, zebra make the most interesting hunt�


Now he's gotta get a big shadow-lined Burchells Stallion!

Kinda like Ingwewifes�.