Post by zeeriverrat on Apr 11, 2019 9:23:51 GMT -5
After hunting in the mountains for zebra we made the 7 hour trip to Bennies ranch that is located north of Windhoek and east of Grootfontein. He has a 70,000 acre area that he hunts on...the area is pretty flat, but it is covered with thick brush and its all sand... We stayed at the ranch headquarters and we werent exactly roughing it...we were the only hunters in camp. We ate breakfast in the main house and our lunch and suppers were all outside in this structure that they called a "Lapa". There is a built in fireplace/BBQ grilled and every evening they grilled meat from what ever was shot...
There was a fire pit to sit around in the evening and a pool to soak in during the afternoon heat...
Breakfast was at 5:45..then it was out to hunt until around noon....we never knew what we were going to see... It was not uncommon to see Giraffes along the road, the warthogs were all over the place...waterbuck, springbuck, wildebeest, gemsbok and Burchells zebra were all over the place. Ken and I both had Kudu on the top of our list, but so far we hadnt seen many...
The first day we hunted I shot an eland for camp meat..didnt get a picture of that one, but Ken also did some culling and shot this one horned old bull eland on the second day..
Ken and I were set on Kudu bulls and we hunted hard, but the only kudu we were seeing were on the road in the dark on the way back to camp...they had gone nocturnal and the rut had not started yet..and the full moon was not helping things... One evening I sat on a waterhole in a blind...Raye was off hunting with Bennie, she was looking for a gembok...
When I got back to camp Raye was back at the skinning shed with this very old gemsbok bull...so old his horns were broken off and worn down...
Bennie told her that bull needed to come out of the herd..she made a perfect shot and the bull only went about 40yds and piled up..more meat for camp. Raye was tickled with it, but Bennie told her that she was going to get a trophy gembok before it was over...
Here is a better pic..
We continued to hunt for Kudu..with no success...but there were a lot of opportunities to take other game if we had wanted to...I came very close to shooting a huge water buck bull one evening but talked myself out of it... The days ran together and it was all very enjoyable, but more challenging and strenuous than I had anticipated... One morning we spotted a bunch of big gembok a long ways off and Bennie got Raye down off the truck and said lets go... So off they went.. we sat in the shade and waited...eventually there was a shot and we moved in that direction... The gemsbok had been quartering to her and her shot was a little off...it was a solid hit but the gembok hit the brush and the chase was one.. Dom, the bushman tracker, followed it thru the brush they caught up to it and were able to finish it off.. It went quite a ways and they had to drag it to get it out of the brush...not an easy task... It was a big cow and the the horns were 39.5" and 38.5", Raye was pretty pleased with that..
Our days were long...never made it back to camp in the daylight...and the sunsets were always nice....
As our time began to run out Ken and I decided that the Kudu were not going to cooperate so we switched gears and told Bennie we were ready to shoot some blue wildebeest.. That next morning I was up first and it didnt take long to find a herd of wildebeest to stalk.. I ended up shooting this bull...
Later that same day, Ken got a chance to stalk on a herd of wildebeest and he took this bull...
Both of those bulls will end up as rugs.... That was the end of our hunting...we got to do and see a lot, but the Kudu were elusive...
We made a trip to Etosha National Park but that is another story.....
We had a great hunt but the trip was so much more than just hunting...we are already making plans to return..I wish I would have gone sooner....