- Location
- Center of Oil Country
I was fortunate enough to return to South Africa in May 2014 for more hunting. More than willing to answer questions on anyone looking to hunt South Africa for the first time or any fellow CGN member having questions – can refer you to an exceptional South African PH. Feel free to PM
A lioness taken in the Kalahari Desert South Africa bordering Botswana near a place called McCarthy’s Rest. Beautiful country – huge cattle, sheep and game farms as the grass is very sparse needless to say you need a big farm to raise anything, the cattle farm we where we on was 12,000 hectares or 29,640 acres. Terrain was sandy soil (mostly sand) and a combination of some thick ground hugging bushes, small trees you could easily walk around and knee high grass in clumps about 8 to 10 inches apart. The grass was tall as apparently they had quite a bit of rain – no standing water though.
To sum up lion hunting one drives on the dirt/sand roads in the early in the morning and the tracker sits on the front bumper and looks for fresh tracks. The lions hunt at night and look for water first thing in the morning then head for cover to sleep the day off, sounds like a typical cat. You find fresh tracks and let the tracker do his work. Started at 7:15am and found some smaller tracks and one big male lion track managed to find this lioness track at about 8:30am. Tracked her until 11:30am and she doubled back on us twice the last hour and walked through our tracks, rather freaky to have something hunting you instead. Finally saw her for the first time at about 11:35 at 75 yards as she moved between some bushes. Another couple of minutes to intercept her as she was crossing a small clearing, the PH whistled and she paused broadside – dropped her with a 300 grain Partition from a 375 H&H at about 100 yards.
I opted for the lioness as the trophy fee on this is about 1 / 3 that of a male lion and every bit exciting as far as the hunting methods. Apparently the lioness will not tolerate the pursuit of the hunter as long as the male lion and will stand her ground sooner than her male counterpart and may make an actual charge or a mock charge. Very glad I did not have to experience that. FYI the meat of the lioness was not wasted – eaten by the local black community.
Driving south and east for 3 hours ended up in the Northwest province of South Africa on a chicken farm about 5 miles from the Yryburg river. A bull crocodile measuring just short of 12.5’ head shot with a 7mm Remington Mag at 38 yards per the laser range finder – sitting using a bipod. Apparently the crocodiles can travel away from the bigger rivers to other areas that hold water mostly in small ponds. The crocodiles will then feed on smaller animals and reptiles. Not what I had expected of a crocodile hunt after reading of some older African hunting books and seeing crocodile hunting on TV. The landowner was with us as a guide – checked out 2 ponds – nothing then came to the 3rd pond and we heard some rustling in the bushes. I sat down for 10 minutes as my PH and the landowner were checking out the bush to see if they could see anything. Then some crashing of trees and this crocodile climbs a small embankment slides down the backside and then lays there in about 4 inches of swallow water near the edge. I was fortunate enough to have the PH get this on video as well. An hour after the crocodile is supposedly dead the skinners are working on it and the tail is still twitching and a leg moves from time to time – fascinating to watch. I really enjoyed the crocodile hunt. FYI the meat of the crocodile was not wasted – divided up by the skinners and taken home same color as chicken breast - pinkish.
Done with the lioness and crocodile we then drove back to Johannesburg and flew to Port Elizabeth on the coast and then drove 250 km down into the mountains of the Eastern Cape A caracal that happened to walk out in late afternoon as we were hunting zebra shot this with a 375 H&H as I was what I had in my hand at the time. Never thought I would get a caracal let alone in daylight – they hunt caracal at night with a spotlight and a shotgun. Pound for pound apparently they are Africa’s toughest cat as they can take down whitetail deer sized antelope – no problem.
Took a couple of tries but finally made a long stalk on a group of Zebra on a windy day. Got this stallion with a 375 H&H at 150 yards ran 20 yards and dropped. I have no illusions of taking one with a 7mm Mag they are a very chunky animal – 300 Mag would have been ideal if I had one with me. I respect the toughness of the larger African antelope including zebra as we spent the better part of a day back in 2009 chasing a wounded blue wildebeest (finally caught up with him) I tried to take with a 270 Winchester – that lying Jack O’Connor – lol.
A lioness taken in the Kalahari Desert South Africa bordering Botswana near a place called McCarthy’s Rest. Beautiful country – huge cattle, sheep and game farms as the grass is very sparse needless to say you need a big farm to raise anything, the cattle farm we where we on was 12,000 hectares or 29,640 acres. Terrain was sandy soil (mostly sand) and a combination of some thick ground hugging bushes, small trees you could easily walk around and knee high grass in clumps about 8 to 10 inches apart. The grass was tall as apparently they had quite a bit of rain – no standing water though.
To sum up lion hunting one drives on the dirt/sand roads in the early in the morning and the tracker sits on the front bumper and looks for fresh tracks. The lions hunt at night and look for water first thing in the morning then head for cover to sleep the day off, sounds like a typical cat. You find fresh tracks and let the tracker do his work. Started at 7:15am and found some smaller tracks and one big male lion track managed to find this lioness track at about 8:30am. Tracked her until 11:30am and she doubled back on us twice the last hour and walked through our tracks, rather freaky to have something hunting you instead. Finally saw her for the first time at about 11:35 at 75 yards as she moved between some bushes. Another couple of minutes to intercept her as she was crossing a small clearing, the PH whistled and she paused broadside – dropped her with a 300 grain Partition from a 375 H&H at about 100 yards.
I opted for the lioness as the trophy fee on this is about 1 / 3 that of a male lion and every bit exciting as far as the hunting methods. Apparently the lioness will not tolerate the pursuit of the hunter as long as the male lion and will stand her ground sooner than her male counterpart and may make an actual charge or a mock charge. Very glad I did not have to experience that. FYI the meat of the lioness was not wasted – eaten by the local black community.
Driving south and east for 3 hours ended up in the Northwest province of South Africa on a chicken farm about 5 miles from the Yryburg river. A bull crocodile measuring just short of 12.5’ head shot with a 7mm Remington Mag at 38 yards per the laser range finder – sitting using a bipod. Apparently the crocodiles can travel away from the bigger rivers to other areas that hold water mostly in small ponds. The crocodiles will then feed on smaller animals and reptiles. Not what I had expected of a crocodile hunt after reading of some older African hunting books and seeing crocodile hunting on TV. The landowner was with us as a guide – checked out 2 ponds – nothing then came to the 3rd pond and we heard some rustling in the bushes. I sat down for 10 minutes as my PH and the landowner were checking out the bush to see if they could see anything. Then some crashing of trees and this crocodile climbs a small embankment slides down the backside and then lays there in about 4 inches of swallow water near the edge. I was fortunate enough to have the PH get this on video as well. An hour after the crocodile is supposedly dead the skinners are working on it and the tail is still twitching and a leg moves from time to time – fascinating to watch. I really enjoyed the crocodile hunt. FYI the meat of the crocodile was not wasted – divided up by the skinners and taken home same color as chicken breast - pinkish.
Done with the lioness and crocodile we then drove back to Johannesburg and flew to Port Elizabeth on the coast and then drove 250 km down into the mountains of the Eastern Cape A caracal that happened to walk out in late afternoon as we were hunting zebra shot this with a 375 H&H as I was what I had in my hand at the time. Never thought I would get a caracal let alone in daylight – they hunt caracal at night with a spotlight and a shotgun. Pound for pound apparently they are Africa’s toughest cat as they can take down whitetail deer sized antelope – no problem.
Took a couple of tries but finally made a long stalk on a group of Zebra on a windy day. Got this stallion with a 375 H&H at 150 yards ran 20 yards and dropped. I have no illusions of taking one with a 7mm Mag they are a very chunky animal – 300 Mag would have been ideal if I had one with me. I respect the toughness of the larger African antelope including zebra as we spent the better part of a day back in 2009 chasing a wounded blue wildebeest (finally caught up with him) I tried to take with a 270 Winchester – that lying Jack O’Connor – lol.
