Laurel Ridge Farm: South Africa Hunt 2024 - Part 3

Day 3 - Friday July 12

We had always planned to move to the Eastern Cape to hunt some of the plains game. Since we were so successful so quickly at Otterskloof, we made the move a day early.

We started by heading to the skinning shed to pick up our skulls and capes.

This is where the phrase "in the salt" comes from. The skins and skulls are preserved by packing them in salt. Arnold had a method for the transport with the trophies in the trailer inside a zipper bag with the luggage in the truck bed. All the trophies would go to the taxidermist in Port Elizabeth at the end of the hunt.

We took the six hour drive and arrived at our lodge near Kirkwood with only a little daylight left. Eric had added zebra to his wish list at Jeni's request. It made the space criteria because it would be a flat skin - not a shoulder mount.

We went for a walk at last light and, sure enough, Arnold spotted some zebras bleeding into a clearing along with a few other animals.

Eric gets on the sticks and they are at 265 yards. Arnold picks the right one and Eric takes the shot. Shot at Zebra

Animals come out of the woodwork and run in all directions. Eventually, a group of zebra can be seen walking up a switchback trail on the far mountainside. Arnold picks out the wounded one and we wait for it to pass thru an opening in the trees. Eric takes a follow up shot at over 300 yards and misses.

We go to the original shot spot and find blood. We don't know how badly he's hit and don't want to push him deep into the mountains as we're running out of light. We decide to give him the night in the hopes that he'll bed down and die.

It's a tough night for Eric but Arnold tries to console us with kudu kabobs. We're settled now in the Bosnes (Bush Nest) Lodge.

With most of the day spent in the truck, it was only 10,223 steps but there's elevation here. 85 flights.

Day 4 - Saturday July 13

We're up with the sun and ready to go track zebra. We are joined by one of the property owners, Henry.

On the way out to the zebra, we stop at this awesome hunting stand with a view of the valley below.

Eric had duiker on his list so Arnold started to blow on a predator call and a duiker magically appeared out of the brush at 30 yards. Eric whacked him.

The recovery was easy.

Duiker are one of the "tiny ten" antelope.

Eric can definitely find space on the wall for this mount.

Then we went back to the zebra shot spot to begin tracking. We found blood.

The trail was fairly easy to follow.

Ricardo and Henry were much faster on the trail than Eric and I. After about a mile, we fell back while they stayed on it. Arnold decided to take the truck up the mountainside to an overlook. His plan was to just glass and see if he could pick up the group of zebra.

The trail led to thicker and thicker cover. It was obvious that the wounded zebra was still with the herd.

We spent several hours on the trail with no luck.

We stayed on it all morning.

But eventually we gave up and headed in for lunch.

Lots of interesting terrain and plants.

Most things had thorns.

Arnold's wife Shelly (Chelle) brought us pizza for lunch. And we had a visit with Mia.

And Arnold Jr.

We decided that our best shot was to see if the zebra came back out that evening in the same spot. In the meantime, we went looking for blue wildebeest - and almost immediately found some.

We drove into a steep valley and Henry spotted them on the side of the mountain on the right. There were two blues at 185 yards and Eric got out and on the sticks from the dirt track. Arnold identified the better bull and he immediately walked behind a bush/tree.

Eric was in that position on his knees on the sticks for ages. The target bull stayed behind the bush. The satellite bull wandered around in front of the bush. Arnold sent Ricardo further down the road thinking it might get them to move. We start hearing snorts from another bull that we can't see. It is close to us but obscured by brush. Eventually a golden wildebeest bull walked out into view and started to head up the mountain toward the two blues. He got all the way up to the other two bulls and it finally got them to move. Eric takes the shot. Shoot until they're down

The first shot is a hit but probably high. Eric follows up and hits. He does it again and he's down but not out. He hits him again. Blue wildebeest are "poor man's buffalo" and are tough to get down. This one absorbed a lot of copper. Even with all that, he took a pistol shot to finish him.

Now we had a big animal on the side of the mountain and no "recovery crew" to call. At the bottom of the mountain is a ditch with a creek and then up the other side to the road. We got him on the transport tarp.

But first we needed photos.

He's quite a nice bull.

I'm not sure how small that Euro mount will be.

The Hollywood shot.

You can see the road in the top of the photo below. There's a cliff in front of Arnold and a creek below.

I learned quickly that you don't want to be in front of this tarp on the way down the hill. This was especially true on this last bit down to the creek. Down he went

But now he was down in the creek and had to come up the other side to get to the truck.

Arnold cut a path to back the truck off the road toward the creek bed. Clearing the way

And then we could use the truck winch to get him up and into the bed.

And from there back to the skinning shed so that Ricardo could go to work. Notice the duiker behind him.

We paused for a cup of coffee then headed out to see if the zebra returned to the scene of the shot. We were also keeping an eye out for impala.

We checked one field for impala as light was fading - nothing. We moved on to the clearing where the zebra shot took place. We watched as light was fading but nothing was moving. We decided to take one last look before dark in the first field. As we were moving back there thru brush, we bumped into zebras at 30 yards. Three ran across and a trailing fourth one had blood on its shoulder. Eric went to shoot and the scope was on 9x. By the time it was adjusted, a rushed off-hand shot missed.