# My 2011 Africa Safari



## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

Then all of a sudden, all of the animals go crashing away. My PH says well he is probably gone for good now, takes a seat and sends the other PH and my BIL a text that we have the bull here and I have passed on him. Well little did he know that I have been reevaluating my decision and I have started to think about my statement before I left that I would take top end animals if they presented a shot and that they will never be any cheaper than now. This bull is a beautiful animal and he would make a fine addition to my collection of trophies that I have taken so far, so I finally make my mind up that if he presents another shot, I’ll take him.


As the bull works his way back in, I look back at my PH and he is quietly eating walnuts. I reach for my bow and nock an arrow. He looks up and sheepishly asks what am I doing. I tell him that I’m going to kill that bull. He had no idea that the bull was back in front of us standing broadside at 15 yards again. As I move into shooting position, he is scrambling to get a clear view as I gave him no indication I was interested. As I come to full draw and adjust my feet, I crunch some mud in the blind and the bull takes partial notice and slightly quarters towards me. I bury the pin tight to the front shoulder and invision where the arrow exits and touch off the release. I hit him directly in the lungs and I get a splash of blood as the arrow zips through him. I turn to my PH for confirmation of a solid hit and he asks if I saw the lung blood come out on impact, which reminds me I did. Now for the semi-celebration and the longest half hour every bow hunter has when an animal doesn’t fall in sight.


To pass the time, he starts drilling me in a fun spirited way on why I passed that bull the first time in. Since I waited so long to shoot him, darkness is settling in quickly and we both decide that the shot was solid and we go look after 20 minutes. First to the arrow which confirms our belief of bright red lung blood and a solid blood trail. After the first 30 yards of the trail, the blood slowed, but it didn’t matter as we could see him laying dead in sight at this point only 100 yards from the blind.


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

Day 7


With my kudu in the salt, I’m now down to the number one animal on my list when I came over; ZEEEBRAAA as my lovely 2.5 year old little girl says. It’s the only African animal that she really knows and it’s one that I really want as well. So I’m going out with all intentions of finding a zebra, anything else would be a big bonus. Really there are only two other animals on my list for this trip; blesbok and impala. 


With that said, we head back to the Texas brush country farm and sit in a new blind that a herd of zebra has been hanging around. This property also has some really good blesbok and impala, so just about anything is possible. When we arrive in the blind, I walk up to the shooting windows and go through all of the possible shot scenarios as I do every time I’m in a new stand. The first thing I notice is the blind ceiling is to short right above the shooting windows. I draw my bow a couple of times and take aim around the blind. I decide that if I were to release the arrow, my top cam will most definitely hit the roof of the concrete blind and who know what will happen then. So I try to squat down some to get clearance, but I don’t like that as I am moving around too much. Then I get on my knees to see if I have clearance on the bottom of the window and decide that is how I’m going to have to shoot out of this blind.


After settling in the blind, it’s a quiet start until a group of eland show up around 11. After a quick look around, we both sit back down and pass the time. A couple pages in my book later, I look up to see that someone must’ve rang the dinner bell because the first thing I see is 5 or 6 zebra at the water, gemsbok, eland, impala and monkeys all around the blind. I have no idea where they all came from all of a sudden, but I get in position to take a shot at one of the zebra. None of the zebra offer a clear shot as they are always in a bunch and if I got one, I would’ve gotten two or three. As it always seems to happen, one animal spooks and the entire water hole clears as quickly as it filled.


After the mass exodus, the eland and zebra are very reluctant to come back in. The eland keep walking circles around the blind and every once in a while one will get brave, come in and then move back out. While all of this is going on, a group of baby warthogs decide to move on in for a drink.


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

Here is a picture of the zebra that are hanging out at 45 yards…












The zebra are slowly working their way from one side of the blind to the other and are giving the appearance that they are going to come in, it’s just a matter of when at this point it seems. While they are milling around, I have a hand full of red hartebeest and a very nice blesbok bull comes in for a drink, but I don’t even think of messing with them as the zebra are staged at 45 yards still. A few minutes later, a couple of nice impala bulls come in and I now have a 25” impala standing broadside at 20 yards without a worry in the world if that is possible for an impala. My PH lets me know that the impala is a very nice bull and that I can take him if I want, but I have my mind set on the zebra that are still standing out at 45 yards…


Finally after a few hours of watching the zebra hang out in the brush just outside of bow range, one is getting brave and starts working its way closer to the blind. Finally a lone zebra within bow range. It’s a mare that stops broadside at 30 yards. I take my 25 yard pin, place it on the triangle and touch off the shot. The arrow reaches her before she even flinches, but I get marginal penetration as she runs off with my arrow hanging out of her shoulder just below the triangle. My PH asks me how the shot felt as he was videoing for me and was not able to get a very good view of the shot. I told him the shot felt good, but I think I hit her just a little low and that I got very little penetration. We rewind the video and he wasn’t even sure he was on the same zebra I was shooting at because of the angles and viewing windows. After reviewing the video, we can see that my arrow hit just below the triangle and straight up the leg. We are both surprised I didn’t get very good penetration based on the shot placement, but we are hoping that I just hit the off side shoulder and was able to penetrate into the heart. So the looonnnnnnggggg 30 minute wait…


After the wait, we go look at the shot location to find nothing more than tracks where she took off. We follow her tracks for a ways until we lose them in the grass. Now with no blood, it turns into a search and rescue mission. We start circling in the general direction she headed. After an hour and a half, all we are able to find is two small drops of blood on a road 150 yards away from the shot as she was headed away with the herd. It is now obvious that I didn’t get deep into her chest cavity and likely just hit her leg bone to stop my arrow. After a continued search, dark finally settles in. Back at the lodge, we watch the video on the big screen and you can see that I hit her a little low, but it certainly doesn’t look terribly bad on film. The search will continue tomorrow…


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

Day 8


We are back at the farm early this morning to look for my zebra. We go back to the last blood location with multiple eyes to see if we can get a better direction of travel. The group search turns up a couple more drops of blood giving us a better idea of where she was headed. During the search, one of the farm hands finds my “bullet” as he says about 200 yards from the blind. Looking at the arrow, I have 8” of solid blood on the shaft and only one blade of my broadhead has any noticeable dings in it. At first both PH’s that are tracking with me say I had to hit the heart with that much penetration and the shot location we saw on the video last night. I have my doubts since we are so far away. All I could hope for is I got enough penetration that as she ran with the broadhead still in her that it was able to cut something important. We proceed along the path she was taking without any more blood and decide that we are going to grid search a couple patches of cover in that general area. After the search turns up nothing, we finally decide that she is likely still on her feet now.


With that decision made, we now have the task of finding one lone zebra on a property that is several thousand acres of brush country with limited visibility. With what seems like a hopeless task ahead, we hop in the truck and proceed to cover ground to see if we can locate her. After a couple hours and viewing several smaller herds, we spot her in a large herd of 30 or so. We are able to see her wound and that she has a slight limp. Our driver in the truck decides on his own that he is going to run them down to separate her from the herd. All that does is stirrup all the animals and we lose track of her as they all scatter. Well now my PH, my Brother in law and I are pissed at the driver. The plan when we started looking for her was to find her and then hunt her on foot. Now that is not possible since we have no clue where she went. So all we can do now is go for a ride again to see if we can locate her. We ride for another 6 hours until dark without another sighting of her. Back to camp with only one more day to find her before we depart for home.


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

Day 9


Today we are at the farm right after day break on a crisp 28* morning. After much discussion regarding our plan if we find her, we head off in search of her. We all were joking that we would have her down by 9 am and get back to the lodge for an afternoon of relaxation…I can only hope… We spot several small herds as the morning progresses, but nothing we can ID as her. After a long drought of not seeing any zebra, we make a pit stop at 9:30 and we all say that we better get it done now before it gets too late. After cruising some more, we all are going into a trance as we are not seeing much and getting a little depressed about finding her. Then we finally spot a herd. After a quick view, my PH and I both agree that she is in the herd and that we are going to try to do a post and bump drive to try to get her. So he starts on foot towards the herd as I move around to the other side where they should move as he approaches. They spot him before I’m set and they take off, so we pursue them and are finally able to get ahead of the herd as they settle down quickly. As the herd moved along, we could plainly see that my zebra was trailing the rest of the herd with a pretty pronounced limp. Now the herd starts to take off again and she is left all by herself where she offers a shot with the gun through some thick brush. I take the 80 yard shot and put her down for good this time. Even though it was a very unorthodox way to find and finish her off, I am very glad we were able to take care of her as it tears me apart to have an animal I wounded out there. It’s now 10:00 and we missed our time by an hour, but we all are relieved that we finally have finished her off. After pictures and getting her in the cooler, we do lunch and decide that I’ll try for an impala with a gun for a couple hours before we call it a day and head for camp early on the last day.


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

I took some photos of my shot location and the Perfect Shot vital area pictures to use as a learning experience for those that have followed along so far.


Here you can see that I hit a little low, but straight up the leg. After reviewing the shot in my mind, I actually picked the wrong spot when I aimed as I thought I could hit low like I was and still be solid in the heart. So if nothing else, I have to take away that as a learning experience. 










I put a yellow dot were my arrow hit as I dissected the shoulder area after she was skinned out to learn as much as I could from this experience. I hit the leg bone, glanced off enough to penetrate into the chest cavity and tore 5-6 vertical inches of the meat between the ribs, but never got deep enough to puncture any part of the heart. Had I been ½”-1” higher or right, I would have missed or glanced off the leg bone with enough energy to penetrate the heart and the animal likely would have been down within 100 yards. The sport of bowhunting shows once again how much shot placement means when it comes to cleanly taking animals.


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

Now that all the hunting is complete, we prepare for the 30+ hours and over 9,000 mile trip home. All of my animals may not have went as planned, but it was a great trip with family and it doesn’t get any better than that.

Here is a picture of the lodge at the main camp and now I'll post up some more pics of the groups other animals and scenery.


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

Here are my BIL’s Critters from the trip


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

My FIL’s Critters


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

My MIL’s Critters. These were the first and only animals that she has ever hunted or killed.


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

My Dad’s Critters


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

Here are a bunch of scenery and general wildlife pictures that we took along the way.


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

Besides the fences, this might've been the weirdest thing they do over there. You could ride around on the truck and shoot the animals right from the truck if you wanted...


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)




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## triplelunger (Dec 21, 2009)

Are you able to take or ship any meat home? These pictures have me thinking about how to afford Africa.


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

That pretty well concludes the pics that I have... There are a few good stories that go along with each animal, but if there are any questions on anything, feel free to ask away!


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## Huntmaster143 (Aug 28, 2003)

triplelunger said:


> Are you able to take or ship any meat home? These pictures have me thinking about how to afford Africa.


NO, it all has to stay over there. They actually would skin the animals and hang in a cooler to sell to the local meat markets. It was part of the gig for the PH. We were able to eat a little of just about everything that we killed.

It's a fun, low pressure hunt that you can do as cheap or as expensive as you want. It's a great place to take a spouse.


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## WMU05 (Oct 16, 2004)

Great stuff Scott! Thanks for taking the time to post it all. I certainly enjoyed it.


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