reason!
Forty minutes later we were again
glassing a small mob of three
mountain reedbuck with a mature
ram that was lying down on lookout.
JJ, with his keen eyesight spotted him
almost hidden, chewing his cud.
We stalked down under cover to just
147m and I carefully positioned myself
on a boulder with a good rest. Quartering
towards me at rest, he presented a small
target – and I blew it by over shootinghim! Luckily he froze, giving me another
opportunity and this time, the shot was
good. He was a very good ram according
to JJ, at 7 inches, so he too was destined
for my wall.Nyala:
Leaving half an hour before light
in the Cruiser, we travelled to a
property not too far away, the
Ghono Ghono river where JJ hadpermission to hunt free range nyala.
We passed through the developed goat
and sheep paddocks as the track got
rougher and the bush became thicker,
cloaking the hillsides. Climbing off the
valley floor up to a terrace that was
steeply bluffed from the river terrace,
we parked up and set off on foot. We
stopped frequently to glass the valley
floor, scanning down through the acacia
trees and scrubinto small clearings with
the advantage of height. It was exciting
to watch small animals and birds going
about their daily life, unaware of our
spying eyes. I saw ververt monkeys, duiker,
steenbok and impala. Then I spotted
a chocolate brown back, only partially
visible, and my heart skipped a beat. It
was the right colour for a nyala bull!
Standing in screened shadow, I scrutinised
the small parts of the animal that were in
view...if only he would move to where
I could see more of him...and after a
while he obliged. A pretty bushbuck ram
materialised, a very nice head too and
great to see, but he wasn’t the animal we
were after.
We spent four hours hunting the semi-
dense bush, glassing the ravine faces and
clearings on both sides of little guts and
paying particular attention to the shady
grass areas under the cliffs. It got hotter- very hot – probably the hottest day
we’d had in three weeks at 37°C with high
humidity. As the morning progressed, we
saw fewer and fewer animals, mainly kudu
and bushbuck as they retired to the shade
in heavier cover.
“We have one more area to look at”
An excellent trophy mountain reedbuck
with JJ, Desmond and DerickIf I was a nyala bull, I would live here –
Ghono Ghono riverJJ and Chickee in
the Cruiser24 NZ HUNTER MAGAZINE ~ August / September 2019reason!
Forty minutes later we were again
glassing a small mob of three
mountain reedbuck with a mature
ram that was lying down on lookout.
JJ, with his keen eyesight spotted him
almost hidden, chewing his cud.
We stalked down under cover to just
147m and I carefully positioned myself
on a boulder with a good rest. Quartering
towards me at rest, he presented a small
target – and I blew it by over shootinghim! Luckily he froze, giving me another
opportunity and this time, the shot was
good. He was a very good ram according
to JJ, at 7 inches, so he too was destined
for my wall.Nyala:
Leaving half an hour before light
in the Cruiser, we travelled to a
property not too far away, the
Ghono Ghono river where JJ hadpermission to hunt free range nyala.
We passed through the developed goat
and sheep paddocks as the track got
rougher and the bush became thicker,
cloaking the hillsides. Climbing off the
valley floor up to a terrace that was
steeply bluffed from the river terrace,
we parked up and set off on foot. We
stopped frequently to glass the valley
floor, scanning down through the acacia
trees and scrubinto small clearings with
the advantage of height. It was exciting
to watch small animals and birds going
about their daily life, unaware of our
spying eyes. I saw ververt monkeys, duiker,
steenbok and impala. Then I spotted
a chocolate brown back, only partially
visible, and my heart skipped a beat. It
was the right colour for a nyala bull!
Standing in screened shadow, I scrutinised
the small parts of the animal that were in
view...if only he would move to where
I could see more of him...and after a
while he obliged. A pretty bushbuck ram
materialised, a very nice head too and
great to see, but he wasn’t the animal we
were after.
We spent four hours hunting the semi-
dense bush, glassing the ravine faces and
clearings on both sides of little guts and
paying particular attention to the shady
grass areas under the cliffs. It got hotter- very hot – probably the hottest day
we’d had in three weeks at 37°C with high
humidity. As the morning progressed, we
saw fewer and fewer animals, mainly kudu
and bushbuck as they retired to the shade
in heavier cover.
“We have one more area to look at”
An excellent trophy mountain reedbuck
with JJ, Desmond and DerickIf I was a nyala bull, I would live here –
Ghono Ghono river
JJ and Chickee in
the Cruiser24 NZ HUNTER MAGAZINE ~ August / September 2019