Zodiac safari water exit

What the heck is that marmot looking thing? That's a face only a mother could love

It's a Hyrax. Every time we started to.move past that one he bared his teeth and bowed up....he was not well....kind of mangie... here's a better looking one

That one is much more normal looking! The other is like the rat from the Forrest in The Princess Bride.

Awesome photos by the way!

Rodents of unusual size?I don't think they exist.

A good morning in the bay

Best local beer (a lager) I've had...a Plettenberg brewery

Headed to Port Alfred this morning. Temp is supposed to spike to 90 there today before dropping back down to low/mid 70s again. Will likely arrive and head straight out hunting tonight as soon as I can change and take a couple of practice shots.

In Port Alfred...animal i-spy
Headed out to Hunt Grysbok tonight

Good luck!!

Where all hunts should start....since 1832

Obviously a Dikfer under the tree...

Good luck on the hunt!

japantiger said:

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Headed to Port Alfred this morning. Temp is supposed to spike to 90 there today before dropping back down to low/mid 70s again. Will likely arrive and head straight out hunting tonight as soon as I can change and take a couple of practice shots.

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Grysbok (pronounced krace-bok with the KR rolled)

A great start...shot with Weatherby 375 H&H, Swift solids. Using their weapons this trip. ~60 yds shot with animal moving away to the right. We had closed in on what turned out to be a female a few minutes earlier. Once we determined it was a she, we backed up and startwd.hwading out the way we came in. We didn't get 30 yds until they spotted him about 150 yds away. We moved ahead and to the right and closed the distance to about 60 yds. The head guide (Jeff) got very excited and said shoot before we stopped.

I moved a pack and laid on top of the cab. I could tell where the animal was in between two bushes but couldn't see his body to place a shot. Both Jeff and my South African Aggie were giving me plenty of instruction on where he was but the animal was basically just hunkered down staring at us. After less than one minute it stood and moved to the left behind one of the bushes. It moved before I could get set on him, but at least I finally saw his body, if just for a flash.

In another few seconds he crossed back over between the two bushes and then on behind the bush on the right and kept moving into an opening on the right. He was walking away and I fired as soon as I could get the scope on him. He dropped and didn't move.

The shot went into his right hip and came out his mouth. According to Jeff he is well above avg...

Two corrections after breakfast conversation. ..not a Weatherby. i used Thulani's custom 375H&H with Leupold 3x9 scope. Still have not seen the gun in daylight. Will get photo later today.

Solids are Federal 300gr...softs will be Swift.

We went straight out last night as there were concerns that the moon would not be in our favor going forward. Paid off.

Hunting team is largely same team as in SA 2022....Talon PH, Thulani, Bolgani and Emmanuel tracking, et al. Jeff is the local expert from the Port Alfred area. Each hunt will likely be in a different hunting area. Last nite was N of PA, today we are headed West.

Headed out for Caracal this morning...use a shotgun for that.

Caracal hunting

Blue Duiker...you get into the treeline of a large thicket in an area where you have clear lanes to shoot. Two beagles on the ground try to push the duiker toward you. They are very fast and take evasive action when they see you. So it's like shooting the rabbits clays only faster and they change direction.

We used a Baretta A-300 12 ga with #3 shot....same shotgun as the Caracal but, Caracal was #4.

The dogs got on a Duiker but couldn't push it to the top of the valley where we were. After about an hour we went back to the truck, collected the dogs and drove around the thicket to the bottom of the ravine and set up after the dogs were watered and rested a bit.

The dogs got on one after about 10 minutes. Talon heard him on our left in a very thick patch. I could see him, he did not see us, but it was too much of a jumble to shoot thru. We waited just a minute and he broke into the clearing in front of us about 10 yds away...once in the cleariing he saw us and did a 90 degree left turn to run away. I leveled and fired and he went down.

For Cape Busbuck (smaller, browner than Chobe Bushbuck from Zambia). We went back to the same valley NE of Port Alfred where we had shot the Caracal, but on the other side of the valley. Beautiful rolling hills, long deep ravine, ponds. We had been there late in the day yesterday but with no luck only seeing females.

We started in the nearest of the 4 Ridgeline we had worked the day before. After less than 10 minutes we saw a good buck on the top of the near ridgeline...pretty sure he saw us but we dismounted and set off up the hill. He had moved over the hilltop and disappeared in the big thicket. We found his tracks and followed them until we hit the thicket...he had crawled under an old fence and made his way deeper into the thicket. After about 30 minutes we called the truck and moved around the Ridgeline down toward the bottom of the valley and water so we could glass down the valley and up the far wall.

After 30 minutes of glassing and seeing only a few warthog we all moved back to the truck to go back up to the.main trail and try the next of the valley entrances. Everyone else got to the truck,.but Thulani started waving that he saw a good bushbuck. Talon got.the.sticks, I the gun and Thulani showed us where the buck was. He was about 600 yds due S across the valley. The wind was blowing E to W so we headed SW to get above the wind. We had to go down thru the thicket to the valley floor and back up the far side to where it cleared on the hillside. The buck had moved about 30 yds from where he had been, but in spite of the noise we made beating thru and.over the thicket and stream he was unaware of us. We used a couple of bushes to close to within about 120 yds...Talon put up the sticks.

japantiger said:

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Where all hunts should start....since 1832

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While I was out hunting the PH who was showing my wife and kids around took them to the Pig & Whistle.

I got in the sticks and couldn't see anything...heart beating, glasses fogged up and sweat in my eyes. The buck was oblivious to us so I wiped my glasses off and the sweat off my face and got on the scope. Got my movement settled down, dialed just a little more magnification...put the hairs just behind his shoulder and fired. He bucked, leaped about 10 feet, hit the ground and went down.

Part of his lung was protruding thru the exit wound. At the skinning shack, his heart was shredded

Love it! Great shooting!

FSGuide said:

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japantiger said:

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Where all hunts should start....since 1832

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While I was out hunting the PH who was showing my wife and kids around took them to the Pig & Whistle.

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japantiger said:

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It's a Hyrax. Every time we started to.move past that one he bared his teeth and bowed up....he was not well....kind of mangie... here's a better looking one

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They explode when hit with a .30-06

Oribi...they hide in plain site. Shot was at 120yds with him crunched down in the grass. You basically fire into the grass because all you can see is face and spikes sticking up. Very skiddish.

aggiesundevil4 said:

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Are you going for the tiny 10? Seems you are well on your way!

Also, have you tried eating any of the small game? I bet it is delicious

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Will need to do an inventory at the end of this trip and see if future plans align with the rest of the Tiny10...would like to.

On a scale of Puku/Eland/Kudu being the best to Hippo Balls being the worst on the other end of the scale, Oribi is the tastiest of these small guys at about the 80th %'ile toward Puku. Duiker are just generally very gamie...so below 50%.