I
t is theendofAugustandI amlucky
to be back again in South Africa to
bowhunt withmyPHIzakVosfrom
VosSafaris.Fora weekwehavebeeninour
cosyhuntingcampona nicefarmonthe
borderoftheNorthWestProvince,close
totheLimpopoProvince.
ThesceneryalongtheCrocodileRiveris
stunning, withsomechallenginghunting
grounds - stony mountains, dense bush,
andopenplains.Inourlastweekwesaw
fromtimetotimea smallherdoftsessebe
with a very old bull, some females,and
onlya fewjuveniles.Wealsosaw,quitefar
fromtheherd,twoveryyoungmaleswith
someclearlyvisiblesignsofinjuries.The
farmerexplained thatthebullwaseither
fightingtothedeathwiththemalecalves,
orexilingthemfromtheherdwherethey
would most likely die in the bush from
their injuries or fall prey to hyenas and
otherpredators.Sotheherddidnotgrow
muchthelastfiveyears,andwewouldbe
doinghima favorif wehuntedthisbull.
Ourfirst day started witha refreshing
morning walk to the area where the
“beestes”usuallyroam,andwherewehad
seen them before. South African winter
early mornings are quite chilly, but the
splendidsunriseandthewarmingsunin
ourfaceswasa delight.Whenwereached
the area we planned how we wanted to
approach and stalk the animals. Even
though the herd was small there were
plentyofeyes,earsandnosesthataremuch
moresensitiveandsharperthanours,and
theygetyourscentandsilhouetteina split
second. With the wind in our favor we
sneakedcloselytoa bushwherewecould
hide andsee them. We were about 150
meters fromthem when it became more
challenging. We slowly moved forward,
almost waddling like ducks to the next
coveringbush, alwayskeeping aneyeon
theantelopes.Sofartheywereallcalmand
easy.
It tookanhourtoshortenthedistanceto
100 meterswhensuddenlytheyalllooked
upinourdirection.Wefrozebehindour
sparsecover,andwhenyouaresittingon
yourhaunches,thisstartsto hurtaftera
couple of minutes!We could not figure
out what disturbed them, but they started
Still calm, I pulled my
bow smoothlyto full
draw.
The magnificent tsessebe.Roughandchallengingterrain.slowly movingawayfrom us.That ́s the
waythecookiecrumbles.
So,it’sa caseofbegin againtofollow
and try to get closer. Once they were
behindsome bushes andwewere notin
their sight, we cautiously sneaked out
behindourcoverandstalkedbentover,at
a snail ́spacetothenextavailablecover.
Tomakea long storyshort thesituation
repeated several times. Four hours went
by,andwiththesunhighaboveandrising
temperatures,thechallengebecamemore
andmoredemanding.Suddenlytherewere
crackling noisesfrombehind us,andwe
saw three giraffes approaching at about
50 metersfromus, and they would likely
smell or see us.Nowit wasgettingevenmoredifficult.
Ifwegotupormovedwewouldprobably
spook them all. So we hid ourselves in
a thorny bush, as low as possible and
keepingdeadquiet.ThankfullytheSniper
Africa camouflage hunting clothes are
quitethorn-resistantandthehuntinggods
were also in our favour, as the giraffes
fortunatelyturnedtotheleftandwandered
offunconcerned,notevenseeingus.Butit
wasexcitingforus.
Luckily the tsessebe were still there,
unperturbed by thegiraffes, but we still
100 meters distance from them. We
graduallycrawledcloser.
Timewasrunning out. Bynow itwas
high noon and hot. However, we made