Second hunt of this season

So to continue with my entertainment of you guys 8)
Night before we all agreed it's Impala we going for and that early up and walk in wet grass was not really needed, well 3 outa 4 agreed, one little know it all 16 year olds enthusiasm was overridden (and rightly so the next 3 Celius morning when he was the "wanna sleep" a bit longer voice)
Gary slept in his rather new van and the alarm went off everytime he moved, every hour we had sirens going cause he had not figured how to not set alarm when van is off, or some bullshit kinda story like that. Ja, we got some sleep somehow, perforated by "sorry, fkt sorry guys,"
I woke at 04 and waited for the first bird communications to take place, kettle was on at 05 and i did not care about noise :P Th first moana arrive beside me at about 05:15 saying something about breaking things so early in the morning.
20240622_055721 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr
The sun rose like its been known to do as we chatted a bit and ate our foods, packed the last kinda pack ins, ammo and cold stuff - we left in dull light for the bush. Gary with me and John with Cody, the Deaf and Deafer African Safari.
I now honestly believe that deafness causes people to become nicer people, such nice men these two are.

Speaking of deaf and old age ailments, I made a new over back sling for my shooting sticks, used it first time this week end. Slung it over my shoulder and walked off leaving my rifle in the bakkie, like 1 km later Gary asks, "why didn't you bring your rifle?", so I slip my shoulder strap off and produce a set of shooting sticks ??????????????????????. feel a fool not much did I. Long walk back.
We saw Impala a km or so away across a valley and tracked them down, but they just kept moving and they were just always a bit elsewhere. I found a real hidden in bush W/Hog at 40 m and after a while I got Gary onto it, free hand shot almost side on, close enough for anyone to take. Keeping in mind that Gary was a Karoo farm owner for 20 years and was not new to hunting, more a case of been there done that for years and not done it for as many years ago, I was not wary of his shooting ability. The shot went off and I saw the hit high behind the ears in the neck muscle, the pig bolted properly. Using the dog and everything at my disposal, we gave up finding it 3 - closer to 4 hours later, I am convinced this pig will live, the shot was just so high. I am also sure we would never have found it or ever have gotten close to it that same day, it was just too "not injured enough".

We left the pig and went to fetch the other dog as well to try again a hour or two before sundown, hoping the pig was lying down and we could perhaps stumble on it. In route back to camp we saw a huge Impala ram across a valley and over a small hill away on other side of farm, far away.
Gary then proceeded to fall out bakkie and over the fence next bakkie - he really moered over the fence while exiting the vehicle, you could not do that move if planned by a Bruce Willis stunt double. When I had finished laughing and sniffling, wiping tears from face, I asked if he was all right and he told me ofck off, I took that as a sign of good health indeed.
We went over a barren piece of open erosion land and the Impala kept its tail to us, we went down a deep erosion valley, followed it to 138 m from the Impala, but could not get out or high enough in the erosion cutting, we were stuck.
We backtracked all the way back to where we started and just did the only thing possible - just walked quickly over the open erosion plain towards the Impala which was still head down facing away. We walked perhaps 180 m in the open towards a single cluster of thorn bush and it slowly grew larger and larger in front of us blocking us out. The Impala was still head down tail to us.
I really never actually thought that the stunt we pulled would work.
I ranged the animal again and it was once agin 138 m - whats the chances of that ey ? I set sticks up, nodded for cocked rifle and told Gary to step out with me in one motion onto sticks as I set them down and then not to move.
The motion was carried out flawlessly and as we finished the animal did as they are sure to do, it turned sideways to look where we were, but we were dead still and he just stared at it all wondering why he felt not easy.
I did the usual speech, "no rush Gary, low behind shoulder, we close, will hit a inch high" Shot went off and I saw the hit a hands width too far back. The shot was still a good and fatal hit, but it was likely a 3 - 4 minute fall over shot. The big ram walked 20 paces turned down a ravine towards us and stopped perhaps same distance away again. I just by natural habit quickly shot across opening to behind another bush, put sticks up to find a empty space beside me, that was a bit frustrating, the waiting for the shooter to realise we need to move, follow up, shoot again - I had just realised another matter, a rather daunting matter.
The ram was dead, just standing tight, holding on, but if it ran, it would run some way and that was a problem. Gary jumped into action and 2 seconds later the ram fell over to a shoulder shot, I was kinda hoping for a second double lung shot, but ya, job done.
I then explained to Gary that we were all the way we had come, + 138 m from nearest road where bakkie was, remember the erosion donga, it was there for reason of steep angle on hill side, so was the valley. We were nearly 60 and 70 years old respectively, we had a hill that was difficult to get down in a upright position, and not a "for fun" walk to get up between us and the buck on the bakkie.
I will not go into great detail, but this was the longest drag ever for me, seconded by the steepest - simply the worst drag in my life. My van is called Point and Go by the guys, because I really just get it there where needed, but there was no ways to drive, just holes and erosion channels as wide as the bakkie and 3 - four foot drop offs. I knew it was bad, but only really realized that it was not possible terraine after the second shot.
We did it.
20240622_113917 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

We then drove outa the spot I got the van too as close as I could to the Impala, 4x4 reversing up a mountain and all, but we got out.
I stopped at a spot that had only a short walk through some bush to a very nice spot that afforded a really unearned view over some very productive hunting ground, but thats next story.

We had to go past this really good spot on the way to collect other dog, so we stopped in quickly. Starting on the one side of the mountain top we walked the whole ridge glassing the area as we went. As we walked we could talk freely as the wind was blowing gently and we were 100 m above the plain in the valley below, I was telling the guy how this spot was checked, rechecked and then after both hunters agreed that there was nothing, nothing - NOTHING, a Warthog would just materialize where you had just looked. I confirmed that this was the case with Gary, nothing to be seen, just very pretty views and a sun indicating we were outa day time in a hour or so.
We reached end of the second time along the top and Gary asked me"what's that brown thing there next to the bush?" - "Which bush?", "That bush, the green one". "WHICH FKN GREEN BUSH?". Start here at in front of us at the double white rocks and walk me to it. There as I was spoken too the different color spot, the big started to move.
I set the client up and he informed me he did not want to shoot, asked the "huh?" and he just said "no". I set myself up and shot the pig behind the shoulder, perfect entrance poi. The pig did a run and then set into a trot, with a view of kilometers available, I set up binno's and watched the pig. The POI was clear behind the shoulder, perfect for over the heart and some lung damage, but the pig walked. The run became a trot and the trot a walk and the walk did not come out the otherside a bush. We waited ten 15 minutes taking turns to watch the bush while I tried to figure out why client did not want to shoot, it dawned on me, "Gary, how far was that shot you think?", the answer confirmed my suspicions, " 250 m Dave maybe more, 300 ?". I had forgotten how far the shots look at the open over the drop off, but I knew some markers at 200 m and 220 m, the pig was only at 160 m odd distance.
Problem was, the pig had walked about 300 m before going down, almost all of it away from the nearest 4x4 get to point. We waited long enough, and then knowing the drive to be 15 mins around hill to bottom track we went to collect the pig.
I do not know why,but blame it on talking shit while hunting, we got out the van collected retrieving gear and walked to the pig mumbling about how far it was and how our legs hurt from the hardest drag either of us had ever done. I put the puppy on the ample blood trail and he tracked up a storm, found the pig in 10 minutes, the pig jumped up and ran off, like properly rested ran off. I reached for rifle and realized I had left it at the van, because we were chatting rather than thinking, we saw the pig was down, we saw the POI, IT WAS DEAD, we just had to fetch it, simple as that. The 4 odd month old puppy tracked it very well and I chased after it all, 9 mm in hand, I really felt a fool, second stupid in one day.
The pig slowed down to a bare trot and we came to a fence which caused the pig to have to turn broadside and allowed me to go down steady and put 4 Hornady XTP 147 gr into it.
Two rangefinder readings added up to 700 odd meters and the pig was 60 kg ++ easily.
The day was just about to get a lot more painful. The terrain was flat, but the bossies and clusters, trees made it hard to drag because two persons could not be side by side through the gaps.
We did it though, was not so bad, just very far - the far side of 50 years old does not make for good stamina.

Back at the bakkie I took a look at why the pig walked so far,answer was simple, I did not take angle into account, the bullet went in perfect, but the exit was very low because of the high to low shot angle - I should have thought of that, I know that.
20240622_124643 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

Really enjoying these reports. I have practically no furred animal hunting experience and judging by all the things that one can fubar that's probably a good thing.

After that we did a in the dark search for the wounded WartHog, the dogs seem to track better at night ? Still no pig found, this bothers me tremendously as I always ask myself "what did it do to suffer like it would do". This always leaves me in a bad place about my hunting and life, death, souls, and things like self existence awareness and awareness in animals.

Not a nice place to be as a hunter.

The next day Cody and I swapped clients, he took Gary and I took John. John had done about 7 hunts over the last 3 years with us, but just never got anything. The big battle was the lack of smooth controlled, see, set up, shoot ability required for the 80 to 100 m shots he wanted, stalking is also very much more difficult when you 6'4' and not as supple as you once were - getting down and low is not so quick nor painless as it once was.
John had been on many a animal, but they always spooked in the time it took to get him onto and into position.

We did a long walk along a pretty open path and I tried to find a Impala that had not seen us, one that was totally unaware of our presence. I much later and further, just at the end of the walk after telling John we done now, this is where we turn back, never see anything after this point, saw an Impala, head down feeding. We had somehow stepped up 60 m from it as I looked pass a Spekboom right into it, head down. I strong armed Johns relentless forward march and tried to get him to see the animal, but he was looking way far away, after getting back to deep behind bush, I explained that it was right there in front of us - that almost worked, but he just could not see it, till he did ;D

It was just what he wanted, just what I wanted, head down quartering towards us, slight off up down, left, right, if hit it was fatal.
After that it was a simple bang, I saw the hole form and the antelope folded, John looked at me in horror, he was so dissapointed " what happened ?" he had only seen the others run off, he did not know he had succeeded.
"it fell John, right there - one shot mate", the look the slow smile dawning, ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was gold.
20240622_152948 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

I took the guys on a second day hunt and each man got another animal by ten in the morning. Cody and I then tried to get a hunt in for ourselves and I got another two Impala, was a lovely feeling to have my boy behind me calling the stalk and inputting info regarding animal, size, shot and finally, "take the left one head down dad biggest and clear behind it", my oh my how he has grown. We had to collect one Impala about 300 m away from nearest collection point, Cody went in to start dragging it out while I pretended to be busy with something important. ;D ;D ;D

Next minute I hear, " Dad, Dad I figured it out, its easier to carry them than to drag them out"
20240623_110922 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

I got two Impala from 10;00 to 13;00, hunted, collected and on the road home, was tiring, but really blessed with a few good presentations that came my way.
This was one of those through a window in the bush's shots, just seeing the neck for a low neck shot.
20240623_105310 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr
Really battled with this animal, had a heard of Kudu that stuck behind the Impala, almost as by intent, making every shot impossible without hitting a kudu as well.
20240623_102634 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

One of the animals hunted made a rather familiar "oh fkt!" sound when bullet struck. That long track sound followed by a outa sight dash, animals just gone.
One of the antelope I shot did just that and was really like gone in the thick stuff, no blood at the POI spot and it was a difficult shot indeed. A bit of fanning out revealed a piece of lung and a thick blood trail in completely wrong direction. A brief follow the dog and the animal was found, a back track along the blood trail showed that we were 10 m at least out in where we knew it had stood.
The thick bush and inability to create a 3 D image of area had both Cody and I fooled.
Finding this was a huge relieve, it was a sure sign of it being right there, just needed some scratching about.
20240623_110043 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

What did you use on that shoulder shot? A howitzer?

What did you use on that shoulder shot? A howitzer?

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.270 Win 130 gr @ 3000 fps and about 60 m

I see that you did a neck shot on one impala.

How far did it get compared to the normal heart-lung shot?

Did you lose a lot of meat?

Did you hit the spine?

I see that you did a neck shot on one impala.

How far did it get compared to the normal heart-lung shot?

Did you lose a lot of meat?

Did you hit the spine?

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It was a difficult shot, only taken because I had literally a hour to get my alone hunt time in. It was also a really complicated shot as I only saw a change in color between the spekboom to find it, finding it revealed that it had seen us and was standing confident of the thick foliage absolutely enclosing it. The binno's revealed a lucky, by chance tunnel through spekboom showing the entire neck and front top of shoulders at a 45 degree facing us stance. I did not even know if it was a a ram or a ewe, worse than that was not knowing its trophy or not status.
If you look at the photo of exit, entrance was slightly higher in front of left shoulder, a very low neck shot entry.
No the bullet thankfully did not hit the spine (as I intended it to) but passed so close through the surrounds, but did somehow drag a lung out exit wound.
The shot did not sound solid nor deep/heavy (for those that understand), and the animal which was so hidden, just disappeared, it did like 20 - 25 m at the most, but when reading the track later it became obvious that it was a complete blacked out run. It did not leave a trail, it left a line of blood with heart beat spots that looked like it had stood there for a while, but it had not, just heart beat spots as it ran. The jugular had been cut both side of neck, a second intention of these low neck shots, getting at least one side of that artery.

Meat damage was the surprising part, very little in comparison to what I was expecting, even less than very little. There was a piece of neck vertebra area that was dogmeat and a ragged shoulder piece at exit that was cut away, we did NOT lose that shoulder, just a lot of raggedy meat around the whole.
The loss was like coke can through body. Another thing to note was that the shoulder had to be taken muscle by muscle because there was a lot of blood between the muscle, but not into it - if that makes sense.
It was a interesting shot and result and I am still playing over in my mind.

Great report Dave and very interesting!