Scott and his friend Ralph joined us on another thrilling 17-day hunting adventure. Jason guided them on their Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-Natal hunt and I joined the group to hunt Limpopo together.
Ralph had an epic first hunting safari taking some spectacular trophies - steenbok, duiker, warthog, gemsbok, springbuck, blesbok, impala, mountain reedbuck and black wildebeest in the Eastern Cape. He also hunted an old Limpopo bushbuck and got some predator action by taking a rare side striped jackal in Limpopo.
Scott inched himself closer to the goal of hunting all the legally huntable species in South Africa by hunting an aardwolf, golden gemsbok, steenbok and white blesbuck in the Eastern Cape. Jason and Scott flew to KZN to hunt a Suni to complete his Tiny Ten. Ralph and I drove up to Johannesburg with an overnight stop in Bloemfontein to meet their flight from Durban to Johannesburg. Thereafter we hunted a beautiful male serval with hounds and began our journey to Hoedspruit, on the boundary of the Kruger National Park. Our hunt began by hunting a spotted hyena by waiting for him to emerge from his burrow in the evening. The locals had patterned his behaviour and they were spot on with their information. No baits, no blinds...just highly intelligent scouting and hunting. Scott got a beautiful old hyena male and followed it up the following evening with a civet. A couple of nights later he hunted a side striped jackal and bushpig over bait.
We had a problem animal control permit for hippo and despite our lack of success the first attempt we were able to hunt the problem bull in the citrus orchards on the last night of our hunt. Moving on foot between rows of trees with thermals only, there was the danger of hippo everywhere; cows, calves and young bulls. We were able to make the correct call on the bull hippo that had been causing problems with the citrus pickers, chasing them and charging at vehicles. The spotlight came on and Scott made a terrific brain shot to get a big hippo bull. An absolutely thrilling hunt!
Thank you Scott for again trusting us to organize this challenging hunt. As always, it was good fun hunting and spending time with you and Ralph.
