Our first morning at Kuche Safaris started at approximately 37 degrees.
It was cold as balls.
We had traveled from the hottest part of summer at home, where temperatures had been hovering between 90 and 100 degrees, directly into the middle of South Africa’s winter.
Kuche had warned us that July is the coldest month. They were not exaggerating.
Our Hunting Teams
Our group was divided into two hunting teams.
Dad and I hunted with our professional hunter, Gerhard, and our tracker, Oupa, pronounced “Oh-pah.”
Marcel and Zach hunted with Marco and Pete.
Gerhard’s rifle was a Musgrave built on a Mauser-style action and chambered in .30-06. We rented rifles rather than traveling internationally with our own firearms.
That decision certainly made the airport process easier.
It also became one of the biggest lessons of my trip.
Day 1: A Hard Start
Within the first morning, we saw giraffes, zebras, kudu, wildebeest and impala.
It was almost difficult to process how much wildlife was around us.
The animals also blended into the landscape far better than I expected. You would think a zebra or giraffe would stick out like a billboard, but they do not. If they stand still, they can practically disappear.
Dad successfully harvested a zebra.
Marcel and Zach each took a wildebeest and an impala.
Then it was my turn.
I shot a zebra. It went down, got back up and disappeared into the brush.
We had good blood and followed the trail until it became too dark to continue safely.
We returned to camp knowing we would be back first thing in the morning.
A Lesson About Hunting With an Unfamiliar Rifle
That shot stayed with me.
The shooting position was rushed and unstable. I was also using a rifle with a trigger that felt completely different from my own.
It was not the rifle’s fault.
I made the decision to take the shot.
But being unfamiliar with the gun and its trigger did not do me any favors. It amplified the poor inputs I was already putting into the rifle and resulted in a shot I was not confident in.
Renting a rifle makes international travel easier. We met another group at camp whose firearms and equipment were delayed at customs, leaving them with only the clothes they were wearing and their guide’s equipment for the first three days.
There are real risks either way.
Still, if I ever have the opportunity to return to Africa, I would seriously consider bringing my own rifle. Familiarity and confidence matter when a shot opportunity finally presents itself.
Kuche’s information allows hunters to rent common plains-game calibers, including .308 and .30-06, rather than importing a personal rifle.
Day 2: The Search
We returned in the morning and searched until approximately noon.
We never found the zebra.
It was officially considered wounded and lost.
That meant I had to pay for a very expensive mistake, and somewhere out there I probably fed the hyenas or lions.
It was hard to shake off.
That zebra was my first shot of the entire trip, and I had screwed it up.
Hunting comes with responsibility. Sometimes that responsibility includes owning the outcome when things do not go as planned.
Later in the day, Dad shot at a wildebeest. The animal hunched as if it had been hit, but we found no blood and no body, so Gerhard counted it as a miss. The same thing happened with an impala.
After lunch, we traveled to another property and saw a baboon, rhino, blesbuck, sable, kudu, zebra, giraffe, wildebeest and all kinds of birds.
We also drove past what appeared to be a giant mound swallowing the bottom of a tree.
It was an ant hill.
A friggin enormous ant hill.
Day 3: Finally on the Board
Day 3 started exactly the way I needed it to.
We spotted a group of blesbuck and began a stalk. Three giraffes stood nearby watching the whole thing unfold. I set up on the shooting sticks and took the shot through the brush.
The blesbuck dropped where I shot it.
I had officially popped my Africa game cherry.
After the zebra and the difficult start to the trip, that blesbuck meant more to me than it might have otherwise.
The Fastest Wildebeest Hunt in Africa
After the blesbuck, we drove for about an hour to another property. Property owner Piet met us at the gate. He was incredibly friendly to us and immediately swore at Gerhard for being late. We all climbed into the back of the truck, and Piet drove us onto the property. This area had much less brush. It was mostly grassland with scattered trees. He drove us directly toward a group of black wildebeest. Gerhard identified the correct animal, and I shot from the back of the pickup.
The wildebeest ran approximately 20 yards before dropping. The entire process, including pictures and loading the animal, took about 15 minutes.
It was a wildly different experience from the blesbuck hunt earlier that morning.
Dad Gets on the Board
Over lunch, Dad, Zach and I talked about how Dad should shoot a kudu if the opportunity presented itself.
That afternoon, we spotted some impala. We could not get a shot from the truck, so we climbed down and followed them on foot. They did not run far.
Dad got set up on the sticks, made the shot and recovered the impala after a short blood trail.
Gerhard announced that Dad had “gotten on the board for the day.”
Not long afterward, we spotted a beautiful kudu farther up the road.
The kudu moved into the brush, but Dad was ready when Gerhard gave him the go-ahead. He squeezed the trigger. That big boy only made it about 50 yards.
The Nighttime Drone Search
On the way back to camp, we spotted blue wildebeest and went after them.
Dad eventually got a shot from the sticks through the brush. We heard the hit and watched the animal hunch before it ran.
We searched for approximately 45 minutes but found no blood.
Darkness was closing in.
Gerhard gave us two options. We could return later with an infrared drone, or we could wait until morning and risk predators finding the animal first.
We went back to camp, ate supper and then returned with the drone.
For the next hour or more, we searched from the sky.
We found a herd of wildebeest but no body.
The drone itself was fascinating, but the best part of that night may have been looking up.
The stars were incredible. I wish my phone would've been able to capture it.
Day 4: Dad Proves Himself Wrong
We started Day 4 by searching again for the wounded wildebeest. No luck.
Later, we got on another group of wildebeest and stalked them for about an hour. This was not an easy walk. The physical challenge was less about extreme hiking and more about trying to move quietly through terrain designed to stab you and announce your location.
The thorn bushes grabbed our clothes and scratched exposed skin. The branches were dry and brittle because it was winter, so it did not take much to make noise.
Eventually, Dad got a clean opportunity and took the shot. The wildebeest went approximately 30 yards.
That one hit Dad on a deep level.
He had been questioning whether his hunting days were behind him and whether he still had what it took.
Bullshit.
He had worked hard for that animal, and Dad had made the shot when it counted.
The recovery required the crew to cut a path through the thorn brush. Oupa spent a long time chopping vegetation just so the truck could reach the animal. I am pretty sure he slept well that night.
One More Blesbuck
We had barely been back in the truck for 10 minutes before we started pursuing blesbuck.
They were mixed in with zebras, which made the whole group especially skittish.
We bumped them several times before Dad finally got an opportunity and made the shot.
That afternoon, we sat near a waterhole hoping for a warthog.
We saw plenty of birds.
No warthogs.
Day 5: The Blind
On our final hunting day, I slept in until approximately 6:30 a.m. Woohoo!
After breakfast, Dad & I headed to the blind to get after warthogs.
Two giraffes spent part of the morning nearby. Most of their bodies were hidden in the brush, but their heads and necks rose above it.
We also watched a black-tipped mongoose come to the water. It looked something like a long-bodied squirrel with a longer tail.
Lunch consisted of cold cheeseburgers and crackers that tasted a little like Chicken in a Biskit.
Unfortunately, they were also the loudest crackers ever created by mankind. Nothing says “stealthy warthog hunt” quite like sitting in a blind and chewing something that sounds like roofing shingles.
Around 1 p.m., two female warthogs arrived with five babies. We could not shoot the females. I got excited for nothing. Had a male walked in, the situation would have ended very differently. But, Zach had great success at on the warthogs and shot one for himself AND one for me! Poor Marcel had the same luck we did.
What Everyone Harvested
By the end of the trip, our group had taken:
Steve
- Impala
- Blesbuck
- Blue wildebeest
- Kudu
- Zebra
Marcel
- Impala
- Blesbuck
- Blue wildebeest
Zach
- Impala
- Blesbuck
- Blue wildebeest
- Two warthogs
- Zebra
- Giraffe
Heather
- Blesbuck
- Black wildebeest
More Than the Animals
It is difficult to choose one favorite moment from the hunt.
It was not the drone, although that was incredibly cool.
It was not any single animal.
The best part was experiencing all of it with my people.
It was walking through thorn brush with Dad. It was hearing what Zach and Marcel had gotten into during their day. It was sitting down together over a beer at the lodge and comparing stories.
The hunting was incredible.
Getting to do it with Dad, Zach and Marcel was what made it a trip of a lifetime.
Next in the Series
Part 3: What an African Hunting Safari Is Really Like
Camp life, meals, winter weather, packing, rifles, taxidermy and everything we wish we had known.