Laurel Ridge Farm: South Africa Hunt 2024 - Part 2

Day Two - Thursday July 11

Picking up the thread after the cape buffalo, we woke up the next morning with the objective to get Eric some shot opportunities. Eric's desires were a little different than mine for this trip. I decided what trophies I wanted and would deal with what to do with them at a later date. Eric planned ahead and made the rational decision to try to take animals that would fit in his space available for trophy display. Most of his target species were readily available at our second stop in the Eastern Cape. But we convinced him that a blue wildebeest European mount would be very space efficient.

Koosie spotted a group of blue WB and we put on a stalk in fairly open country.

We bumped them and followed up again. We got into position but they were nervous. Eric got on the sticks but they moved before a shot could be fired.

We moved on to another area and passed rhinos.

Most of them had their horns removed to thwart poachers. Some were due for a trim.

We crossed a river and went up to a high spot to glass. We spotted a lone wildebeest bull but also a very good waterbuck. They weren't very approachable but as we glassed the opposite ridge, there was another good waterbuck working down the ridge.

Waterbuck was too big a mount for Eric but it was on my list. I'd already shot two animals and Eric hadn't shot yet. At the risk of flak from Joan for being greedy, I decided to go for it. Arnold determined that it was best to drive down off the ridge that we were on, swing around the end of the ridge that the waterbuck was on, and approach him from low on the backside with more favorable wind.

We drove around to the other side and then started to walk in on the ridge where we spotted the waterbuck. We walked into 150 yards directly below him and could see that he was bedded on the skyline. His rack stood out above the brush.

Arnold got me set up on the sticks while kneeling and looking steeply uphill. He asked if I was ready and then gave a yell to make the buck stand up. I shot as soon as he stood up and he disappeared off the other side of the ridge. Video of the Shot

I should mention here that we are all taught in hunter safety not to take a skyline shot like this. I would not take it in other circumstances but we were on a 35,000 acre high fenced property. There were no residences or structures for miles in any direction. We were the only hunters out that day. The area behind the shot was the high ridge where we had just been glassing. I was comfortable taking that shot.

Koosie and Ricardo went up to the place where he stood and we returned to the truck to drive back around and get as close as we could. It wasn't long before Koosie confirmed that he was down - he didn't go far. Finally, a one shot kill. We hiked up to find him less than 75 yards from where he was shot. Walking in on him

I sat down on a rock right beside him and caught my breath. Koosie called the recovery team on the radio. A waterbuck is an elk sized animal and he was halfway up a mountainside. We waited close to an hour for the recovery team to get out to us. The shot was a good one. He stood quartering to me and it was right on his shoulder.

They used a tarp with poles to move him - brute manpower.

They took him down to a selected spot and unloaded him.

And set him up for the photo-op.

Which Arnold always does a professional job on.

Photo-op in process.

Then the recovery team loaded him up again and carried him down to the truck and away to the skinning shed. We had lunch, returned to our original high glassing spot and took up the search for a wildebeest for Eric. We actually bumped a lone bull but he didn't really meet Arnold's critical requirements.

We got back in the truck and drove back across the river. We saw roan, sable and rhino.

We came around a bend in the road and there was a herd of wildebeest. We backed up, got out, put on a stalk thru a drainage but they busted us and took off running with some hartebeest along for the ride.

We continued driving looking for wildebeest. We came out into a big flat grassland and spotted lechwe. Once again, a lechwe mount was too big for Eric's criteria but it was on my list. Now I'm really going to be in trouble if I take four animals and Eric hasn't had a shot.

There's no cover and a big open grassland. We drove to the right side of the wind and snuck into 180 yards. I got set up on the sticks and shot over the back of it. Arnold made the observation that my head is coming up out of the scope right at the shot. The rifle butt drops into my armpit and the rifle rotates back on the stabile-sticks and the muzzle goes up. I'm just so anxious to see, I'm popping up like a prairie dog out of his burrow.

Anyway, the missed lechwe has moved off and we take off on foot to try to get a follow up. It's flat open country and he doesn't let us get close. We cover a lot of ground. At one point, we get to about 300 yards and I send another one over his back. Not pretty.

Eventually, we get back to the truck. I'm kicking myself for these rookie mistakes. I need to just keep my damn head in the scope. We drive out of the flatland and start up a hill. There stands another lechwe - a good one.

We pile out of the truck and start a stalk. I get set up on the sticks at 150 yards and take the shot. We can see he's hit but he moves off and out of sight. We hike uphill to the impact spot and there's good blood. we follow it and eventually push him. He gives me a look back and I shoot him in the right ham angled for his left shoulder. We track him and find him down, unable to move but his head still up. Stossel is on the case.

Arnold asks me if I still have any solids but I took them out of my belt after the buffalo hunt. Arnold doesn't want a finishing shot and he ends it with his trusty Leatherman.

We get the photo-op in before losing light and are able to load him ourselves into the truck.

We drive him over to the skinning shed and Ricardo goes to work on him.

Meanwhile, back in the cooler are the previous carcasses.

While Ricardo is working on the lechwe, some of the recovery crew shows up with a domestic sheep that they had purchased live from a farmer. They harvest it and butcher for a weekend BBQ.

While Ricardo works, Arnold gets his truck washed.

The recovery crew keeps a record of the harvest including weights and measures of each trophy. Weights are kg after removal of head, hide, guts and hoofs. Basically a meat and bone weight. Horn measures are inches.

In the course of skinning the lechwe out, Ricardo recovers my second shot which entered ham and ended under the skin on the shoulder. That looks like 100% weight retention after going the length of the animal.

We left Ricardo to his work and headed back to the lodge for dinner. The watch gave me 19,667 steps and elevation changes equal to 105 flights of stairs.