The reverie of all that scenery was broken when we spotted the first herd of black springbuck. Easy enough ... we'll just stalk over there and shoot one.
Right ... sure we will ... where the hell are they going and why are they running so fast? Ouch. OK, let's try this again. Follow them awhile, make a new plan, and try again.
And so went the afternoon. We walked, we stalked, we got busted, we walked, we stalked, we got busted, we ... well, you get the picture. When it finally all fell into place, I ... missed! I won't embarass myself publicly by admitting here how close the shot was, but suffice it to say that I had no business missing.
On the plus side, missing a standing springbuck immediately generates the opportunity to shoot a running one. Don't ask; I can explain it. That animal must have wanted to die, because it was no small feat to run into the bullets I was throwing at it. But somehow, it did.
The next morning, we headed off to one of my favourite places to hunt in the area -- the Asante Sana Game Reserve. The morning got off to a fun start when one of the critters high on my list (to my PH's shame, as he constantly reminded me) was a vervet monkey. Mercifully for him, I managed to spot a group of them early in the day, picked out the dominant male with his characteristically "blue balls" and filled this particular spot on my wall. PH's comment: "Good, now we can go hunting."
With that, we went on to see what we could find. Though we weren't having any luck so far with either warthog or bushpig, both were prime targets. But alas, pigs and I seem to never cross paths. That 2007 hunt had been entirely pig-less for me, and this one wasn't showing any signs of changing that. Everyone has their nemesis. Mine has tusks.
As we were making our way up one of the many valleys that run down into the reserve, one of the trackers spotted something feeding on a carcass on the far side of the ravine. Looking through binoculars, it turned out to be two warthogs and a jackal eating a dead wildebeest. Neither warthog was a trophy, but showing mercy on his pig-poor client, Pierre suggested that both of them were prime candidates for the table and that he didn't have any in the freezer. Happy to oblige him, I took a range reading, took another one to be sure, and got as solid as I could in a prone position with the rifle rested on my daypack. This was a shot to think long and hard about. Getting closer was in fact an obvious option, and in any normal case would have been the thing to do. But the terrain leading towards the quarry was sufficiently steep and broken that I knew the shooting positions along the way would be much less stable than what I had here. The decision made, the rifle and I waited until things looked about as good as they were ever going to and then we did our thing. In response, the pig fell over where it stood.
As I say, far from a trophy -- but hey, it was a pig, it was a tough shot, and it all ended well. I'll take that and go home happy any day!
After the work of getting the animal dressed and hauled back to a place we could get the truck, we drove down to the lowlands in search for other quarry. Of course, the way it often goes, the first thing we came across was a decent looking warthog -- one with actual tusks to speak of. Isn't that the way of things -- you break down and fill your tag with a small one, then the big boy shows up.
Wait a minute... THIS IS AFRICA! No tags, just trophy fees!!! A quick discussion confirmed that the "meat" pig was in fact on the house and that this one was the specimen we were meant to shoot. It stood there, rooting around in the sand on the far side of a dam. The range finder said 302 yards, which was better than the last one, and there was plenty of time time get set up into a solid prone position again. Same story, same ending.
This was turning out to be a red letter day. Who would be our next contestant? It didn't take long until we spotted a large band of baboons that made the very uncharacteristic mistake of only running a couple hundred yards after we bumped into them before stopping momentarily for a last look. It was a last look alright.
It had been quiite a day. In fact, it had been quite a hunt so far. I was hitting my groove. I was in the zone.
"It's time," I told Pierre, "Let's do it. Let's go get a vaal rhebuck."
All I heard him say was "Oh dear."
