The Hunting Game

By Kevin Thomas

The Hunting Game is a collection of hunting stories gleaned over the four decades the author has spent as a professional hunter in Southern Africa. Whilst many of the chapters are stories about specific hunting safaris the author has guided international clients on for different species, there are also chapters covering rifle calibers, bullet performance and related stuff. The author also includes a historical chapter on the hunting of crop raiding elephant (circa 1935) in Mozambique (what was then Portuguese East Africa). Another interesting chapter is about the author’s experiences in dealing with tribal African superstitions when he was still a young game ranger with the Rhodesian Department of National Parks & Wildlife Management. Another chapter is a rather tongue in cheek humorous look at the often contentious gratuity issue in the safari hunting industry. Humor aside though, the author also issues a somber warning as to the critical situation in some of Zimbabwe’s once great state owned hunting safari concessions, where rampant poaching, greed, gross corruption, and horrific mismanagement have led to a sharp decline in wildlife numbers, probably now well beyond the critical tipping point. The author considers The Hunting Game a light campfire read, which will be of interest not only to sport hunting enthusiasts, but to anyone with an interest in the sustainable consumptive yield of Southern Africa’s wildlife resources.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookPartnership
• Release date: Mar 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781783016815

Book preview

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

A Bias towards all things Kudu!

If it’s called a bias I certainly won’t contest it, and if it’s the correct term, then I’m guilty because if ever I have an addiction, its guiding on and hunting kudu, be they here in the Eastern Cape, or to the north across the Limpopo River in a land called Zimbabwe.

Like all forms of ethical hunting it isn’t just about horn length and tape measures; it’s more about the overall ‘hunt experience’. American gun-writer and author John Barsness titled a book of his The Life of the Hunt, I can’t think of a better way to put it, and therefore I’m going to journey back over some of my seasons passed experiences and re-live the life of a few kudu hunts.

On a freezing Eastern Cape winter morning, and after making our way through cold dew saturated knee high grass and waxen leafed spekboom thickets, with islands of unforgiving spiky acacia fighting for space amidst the spekboom, it all becomes worthwhile when eventually we’re sitting atop a brush shrouded kloof, just as the sun lights up the opposite side of a steep valley. It is then, whilst the sun blankets the area with welcome warmth that I always feel a hunter’s pang of anticipation – What will today bring?

It is at this time too, that your binoculars begin to do the walking – the anxiety filled moments spent shooting at paper on the zeroing range the previous evening, is already a thing of the past, hunting history. The life of the hunt has now truly begun. Initially in that post dawn chill with one’s binoculars held fast against eager eyes, they may briefly fog up and frustrate, a mere cosmetic condensation glitch soon forgotten.

Birdsong surrounds us as the day comes awake; starlings fly high overhead winging their way towards a known food source while we continue to glass, slowly sweeping the opposite kloof and the valley floor with eager eyes endeavouring to look ‘through’ the dense thickets and not just at them. Far off towards the lodge a hadeda ibis suddenly protests loudly, although only it knows what the raucous protest is about, however, its avian hysteria distracts my focus, momentarily.

Hadeda ibis are as Eastern Cape as the local greeting; Ja Boet! – Sidbury Cricket Club has one as their logo and during another era in a place once called Ciskei, I shot a hadeda, had it mounted, and gave it to the Sidbury Club for display in their bar.

While I’m still thinking about this, Sakkie, a keen eyed tracker suddenly whispers and points so we all butt shift slightly and angle our binoculars towards where he’s looking, soon the object of our interest comes into focus, it is an old warthog, tusks broken. He’s collapsed into a deep undisturbed sleep in the warm sun rays washing across the entrance to his warren. Warthog don’t have fur and their sparsely haired thin skin doesn’t afford much insulation against the night chill when deep underground inside a warren.

As the morning gets warmer, so too do we begin to see more movement, down in the valley directly below our kloof side grandstand, a dainty bushbuck ewe and her yearling step out of the deep shadow and linger in the sunlight. Further along the valley and in a dry meandering narrow stream bed, a common duiker gently nibbles at a twig, while it too enjoys the warming rays.

Not too long after we’ve had a passing look at these two shy bush dwelling species, and after I’ve chatted briefly with my client about them, kudu suddenly start to make an appearance. Initially, they’re just cows and sub-adults, all females, their coats reflecting the morning light, a dead give away of their positions dotted across the forward slope opposite us.

Kudu cows are indeed amongst the gracious ladies of the antelope world, and we all let our binoculars linger on them, looking at condition, age, and anything else ‘kudu’ – while doing this though there is a quiet sense of anticipation, will a majestic bull, that legendary grey ghost of the bush, suddenly break out of the deep shadow and dense spekboom thickets, and step into view, spiral horns shining and terminating in polished ivory tips.

Despite our quietly glassing for another thirty minutes, only one immature bull puts in an appearance – the big ones were there though, they just hadn’t shown, so we picked up our rifles, the daypack, and the shooting sticks, then moved on, savouring the experience of the hunt on day one.

Throughout the day we tried similar tactics, driving, stopping, walking, sitting quietly and glassing – once, as we rounded a bend in the road we surprised six kudu cows, they were slightly below us, and upon seeing us immediately froze, taking on that typically coy kudu cow look with soft trusting eyes staring our way, their ears dropping into a horizontal position, and their body language saying ‘Surely you can’t see us’. We left them be and drove on.

And so the days went by, and as always when hunting they go by quickly – too quickly. Evenings were spent by the campfire enjoying liquid refreshment while talking hunting, guns, and less pleasant stuff like uncontrolled poaching and poor governance, now sadly a reality in Africa.

Lots of laughter too though, is part of any hunt, and at the dining table good food with good wine. At times during the night, the wind would pick up and rattle the corrugated roof sheeting, a nice sound, a slumber inducing sound like raindrops on a tin roof.

Mornings followed the same pattern, up early, coffee and rusks or a light breakfast, and then a departure to hunt. Some mornings the mist and drizzle clogged the valleys and put a stop to any hope of hunting the low lying areas until the sun burnt it off. This wasn’t too much of an inconvenience because all we did was hunt the high ground for other species like black wildebeest and blesbok, all of them eventually finding their way into the salt.

When the weather was conducive we continued to see kudu and a fair amount of bulls, and in the early mornings the orb web spiders nests in the spekboom along the kloofs hung heavy with dew that glistened brightly in the sunlight, a brief display of nature’s shimmering liquid diamonds.

On about day five, Dale Ackels, my genial client who is a retired US Army SF colonel and I lucked out after another early morning start. The ground was still saturated although it was to our advantage – our movement on the loose stones and shale was deadened and considerably quieter than normal.

We were hunting an area called the pantry because it is always productive and kudu tend to constantly criss-cross the deep valley and surrounding slopes in search of browse or shade.

During our hunt, the bulls were in the rut, their necks noticeably larger than is normal, and they weren’t so alert, their attention focused on specific cows in oestrus and on seeing off any other male interlopers.

Quietly walking along the top of a forward slope leading down into the brush choked basin, we stopped frequently and glassed, and being so early, we were in shadow most of the time.

It wasn’t long before we started seeing kudu, bulls and cows – their coats reflecting the early morning light, making for easy spotting. While watching we noticed a commotion in a thicket across to our right so sat and waited. Suddenly a kudu bull burst out, closely pursued by another, after which followed a bit of ritualistic jousting, before the one bull broke away and ran down the forward slope towards the valley floor, bringing him closer to us. The better of the two who’d seen the interloper off lingered, and then gave chase, half-heartedly.

A quick glassing indicated he was a shooter so as he trotted purposefully through the thickets after his departing rival, we too rapidly ducked through the thorny scrub in an attempt to get closer to where I anticipated he’d eventually appear.

Fortunately, and just as our intended target popped into view we were able to make it to the edge of a steep drop-off and get down on our haunches behind an acacia bush. By then I had the sticks wide-open and held low, with Dale already on them.

The shot was out to a ranged 185m and as I watched the bull standing at a slightly oblique angle to us, his forequarters higher than his hind, the sudden noise of the gunning exercise got carried away on the wind, and the kudu went down hard and stayed there, a well-placed 160 grain 7mm Nosler Accubond seemingly having found its mark.

I left Dale and the tracker Sakkie to make their way across the ravine to the motionless kudu while I walked back to recover the rig, where Dale’s wife Bet was waiting. En-route I heard another shot and when we eventually got there heard Dale had arrived at the kudu only to find it trying to get up and flee. A hasty coup de grace was called for, and on that note our quest for a Cape kudu ended bringing closure to yet another challenging hunt for a spiral horned grey ghost of the African bush.

Kudu Bull on the Bubye River

When we’d first glimpsed him in the thickets high up on the riverbank opposite us, the Southern greater kudu bull looked a good trophy, maybe 54". Nowadays in our era of shortened safaris, he’d certainly be considered worthy of adding to a trophy collection. It was early June and he was in the company of four females, the rut nearing its end. We’d sat watching as they came quietly down a game trail on the opposite bank, periodically lingering, soft eyes watchful, alert, parabolic ears constantly moving as they searched for the slightest sound that’d indicate danger. As per normal, the bull trailed the single line of females.

After a final nibble on some convenient browse the group suddenly moved more purposefully out onto the sand and proceeded to cross the riverbed. When they got about midway they stopped and clustered together, the bull showing interest in the one female, and it was then that we glassed him more carefully – still undecided whether to take him or not – above us a querulous Grey Go-Away-bird clung to a wind-whipped branch, ‘gaa-waaaaayy’ - they can irritate.

Suddenly, movement on the opposite riverbank once more caught our attention when out of the deep shadow stepped a true monarch. It was the first time I’d seen him although his majestic carriage and sheer trophy quality would forever after be etched into my mind, as I quickly recalled that over the years, I’d had three clients shoot 60" kudu along this magnificent river, and he was well inside that category.

During the previous season too, a 63 inch kudu had been shot not far from where we sat. It was self evident the stately interloper we now observed probably belonged to the same gene pool. He proudly carried high scoring deep curls, wide horns, thickness, length, and easily discernable outward pointing ivory tips – indeed a trophy connoisseurs dream.

Walking boldly out to join the group, and after a short ritualistic joust, he saw the attendant male off, and then concentrated on the females. Both bulls had heavy thick necks, consistent with the rut. As we watched, the noble old bull, his horns dwarfing those of the attendant bull, suddenly lost interest and moved away, stopping periodically and staring downstream as if lost in kudu thoughts of his younger days. We quickly slid down the bank keeping ourselves hidden from view in the reeds, and once on the riverbed snaked our way towards a lone tree with dry previous flood debris piled against it.

As soon as we reached it I opened the shooting sticks and whispered to my client to take the shot. The bull was about 180m out and broadside on, and then just as I was expecting the shot, he swung round and slowly made his way back towards the far bank.

He was moving very slowly and I again whispered to my client to attempt a shot before the bull reached the bank. However, we’d already had a few animals wounded and the client seemed reluctant to shoot, and then as I waited, the bull reached the bank and lingered on the riverbed in the deep shadow cast by the trees. It was then that my client decided to take the shot – all of 300m by that stage. He shot a bit low, the .338 Winchester Magnum 210 grainer kicking up brown dust on the riverbank well below the kudu’s belly line.

With one bound, he was up the bank and almost immediately swallowed by greenery, a grey streak, with his head up, and carrying his wide horns lying over his rump. In the aftermath of the failed gunning exercise we walked across to where he’d been standing, and cast around. We also went up the bank slowly following the gouged out hoof prints of an antelope in a hurry, and as we’d expected there was no blood. We followed the tracks out of the riverine shadow, and into the hot heat shimmering stillness of the scrub mopane, although not for very long because it was an exercise in futility, the kudu had reached old age because of wisdom, not stupidity.

Over the remaining two days of the safari we continued to hunt hard for a good kudu, and even had another brief glimpse of the missed monarch whilst he made off at speed, having heard the rig’s diesel engine grumbling as we crossed a dry tributary to the Bubye. On another occasion in the scrub mopane shrouded shale ridges far to the west of the Bubye, a bull in the high fifties held still, facing away from us and ignorant of our presence. His thick neck providing a prime target for the 60m shot but my client suddenly drew back from the scope and lifted his rifle off the sticks.

His overriding fear of another wounded and possibly lost animal had got to him, and so the safari ended, and although he went away happy, he didn’t have a kudu head amongst the other trophies.

Within two days of his departure I was back in the area, although in a camp further north and away from the river. This didn’t deter me too much though because our block shared a common boundary by way of a dirt road, with the block where we’d seen the stand-out trophy kudu. Animals aren’t confined to blocks by roads and tracks and I knew the big bull would probably wander across the two blocks, although given his age he seemed to favour the riverine fringes and pools along the Bubye. With this in mind I decided Jamie, his son Josh, and I would concentrate on the riverine more than in the dry scrub to the west.

With a buffalo being the priority trophy, we worked on getting that out of the way as quickly as possible, lucking out on the second day, and in the days following we cleaned up on other plains game, Josh shooting an excellent 32" waterbuck. Each day though, we looked at kudu, a good bull was seen once or twice not far from camp, however he always faded from sight as kudu so often do before you can put the bullet in.

We also drove inland, to the west and hunted the flat dry scrubland, and low shale ridges where once or twice we saw kudu, albeit brief sightings as mirage like they crossed the track in the distance ahead of us. Those we stalked weren’t what I was looking for, and on one occasion, after having obtained clearance we went north, and hunted another block, also with the Bubye River meandering through it.

Whenever we hunted west of the river, and if we got onto high ground the ribbon of green riverine running north to south, and way to our east, seemingly always beckoned us back towards the river, and that particular elusive grey ghost we so determinedly sought.

Once, and only about 1km from camp, we stalked a good kudu but he screened himself from us in a stand of tall thin mopane and other winter dry sapling types, dry hanging leaves, and close standing limbs, all greys and browns, like the kudu’s colouration, made it almost impossible for us to see him. When we eventually did we couldn’t risk a shot because of deflection and possible wounding, so for a few seconds time stood still – and then, tiring of our whispering, he was gone, with a clatter of pebbles and not much else to indicate he’d even been there in the first place.

On Jamie’s 40th birthday we hunted from sunrise to sunset and although we saw kudu, we didn’t shoot one, and each time we hunted the area where I thought we might cross paths with the missed stand-out bull of my previous safari, we drew a blank.

Finally, on the penultimate day of the safari we woke to blowing overcast weather and as per the previous kudu seeking days, our early morning hunt was unproductive. At 10hr00h we drove south and then east along the track separating the two hunting blocks.

Where we finally hit the Bubye River and turned north was only about 500m from where I’d last seen the stand-out bull. My hopes that he’d suddenly appear didn’t bear fruit, and by then, we’d decided to shoot any good, fully mature kudu bull over about 52. There is a management limit on trophy size on the conservancy, with no kudu under 50 allowed to be shot.

Jamie is a typically ethical British sport hunter; his safari wants governed more by the ‘overall experience’ than by a tape measure. He also has an extremely deep reverence and respect for all that he hunts, and appreciates everything that he observes on safari. Being a true naturalist, his butterfly net and collectors bottles also go on safari with him.

Not far north in the riverine, we suddenly saw a group of kudu cows leap effortlessly from left to right across the cut line we were following. They disappeared into the riverine thickets leading down onto the riverbed. Although we hadn’t yet seen him, we were sure there was a bull present, and then, as we quickly alighted from the rig, grabbing the shooting sticks and rifle, a tracker pointed and whispered "Khangela! (Look!").

Following the direction in which he was pointing, we saw four cows ahead of us, standing in the centre of the riverbed. Jamie and I took off as quietly as possible, quickly weaving our way through the thick stuff, until we were about 120m from the group of nervous kudu – and it was only then that we saw the bull.

He was standing in front of the cows and slightly to their left, one quick look with the binoculars told me he was a keeper, and I quickly flicked the sticks open whilst mouthing the words Shoot him! Jamie came up onto them in one fluid motion, and still the kudu hadn’t seen us – however, they were extremely tense, standing sculpture like, looking, and listening. The bull was perfectly presented, broadside on, and as the shot reverberated up and down the riverbed, he lurched forward, hunched, and then ran blindly back towards the bank we were standing on, the cows took off as one in the opposite direction across the riverbed.

As we moved quietly along the bank looking down into the reeds and open patches Jamie suddenly shouted, There he is – he’s down! – As indeed he was, the .375 H&H Rhino 380gr bullet having destroyed his heart. We stood in silence admiring his heavy horns and ivory tips, Jamie was ecstatic and when eventually, back at the skinning shed, I ran a tape along the horns they went a respectable 54".

A Viking bags his Cape Kudu

Often when guiding Scandinavians, I’ve had major problems trying to get the pronunciation of their names correct – guiding Troels Bjarne Boege was to be no different – by the last day of the safari I still couldn’t get his name right, although I was getting close.

Troels was one of five Danes who’d booked an Eastern Cape plains game hunt with PH Doug Snow’s ZS Safaris. Each of them wanted a mixed bag of plains game, and Woodlands Game Ranch was the venue. Doug and the Woodlands resident PH/Manager Keith Gradwell took care of the meet and greet aspect at Port Elizabeth airport, leaving PHs, Greg Hubbard and Braun ‘Proppie’ Ockers, plus myself, to arrive in our own time later during the afternoon.

When I got to the game ranch, I found that the clients had already arrived at the lodge, so I had to play catch up, and that evening we spent time deciding who would hunt with whom, an exercise which was still being played out and finalised the next morning at breakfast.

One thing I really enjoy about safari in the Eastern Cape is that it is a laid back affair – the hunting is taken seriously but so is the laughter and ongoing banter – and if there’s a group, one always finds that there’s an underlying edge of competitiveness to the whole.

Zeroing and checking rifles at the range is an essential part of pre-safari preparation, and normally takes place soon after the clients’ arrival in camp. In our case, it took place on the first morning after breakfast, with a small convoy of hunting rigs slowly making their way uphill towards the shooting bench and zeroing range.

Once there each client had opportunity to check his rifle, his respective PH standing close by to assist with any glitches that may arise or to advise and help with optic adjustments. Some shooters wisely had hearing protection, whilst others and the PHs made do Eastern Cape style – fingers blocking ears.

Our hunt was of five day duration only, and with the clients being Scandinavian and on a package hunt, the demand was not so much for high end SCI trophies, but rather for a fulfilling safari experience with good, mature, and old representative males being taken. This kind of client is an ideal management tool for any game rancher because they will willingly take off those animals which the tape measure obsessed sport hunter would rather pass up.

Troels only wanted a kudu, gemsbok, and a springbok, so after I’d decided we’d focus on getting the kudu out of the way, we hunted for the entire day and only saw one kudu cow, far off, across a valley in the spekboom. Woodlands has a robust and well managed Cape kudu population so I started to wonder if my eyes weren’t failing me, but then consoled myself that it was after all only day one.

When we eventually got back to camp, cold and damp, just as the light faded, and drove past the skinning shed there was sign of hunting activity – lots of hunting activity – horns, carcasses, skins etc.

Entering the lodge bar, we found a lot of Danish festivity on the go, with PHs Doug Snow, Keith Gradwell, ‘Proppie’ Ockers and Greg Hubbard, including their dogs, all joining in. It was a fun atmosphere, and Troel all smiles, slid onto a bar stool and was soon in animated conversation with one of his Viking colleagues.

Whenever there’s a group of PHs in camp, you know that after you’ve arrived back at the lodge, sooner or later one of them will address you with the words, What’d you get? or, Did you shoot anything? – I was asked this question by three of my colleagues, with their dogs looking on questioningly (one from an arm chair, by the hearth fire, lying on its back with its legs spread – a dog that is, not a PH).

I’ve been hunting for long enough to not get fazed by these kinds of questions, so answered in the negative, and also mentioned that we’d had a wonderful day. I then stupidly said we’d only seen one kudu cow, and faraway. The Danes all carried on sipping adult beverages and talking loudly.

My remark, however, caused the other PHs to glance at each other as if to say, "What has he just said?" I was then told by all of them that they’d all seen plenty of kudu – too many to count! It didn’t help though, because their clients weren’t shooting kudu, although I was constantly reminded during the course of the evening about how many kudu had been seen.

Our second morning’s departure from the lodge was delayed for a while, it’d been raining heavily and dense fog shrouded the valleys, so we sat around chatting and drinking numerous cups of coffee.

When we finally got down to hunting, Troel, tracker Tamie, and I, glassed every ridge and kloof that we could find, and