African Muzzleloader Hunt #4

            On July 2nd Fred and JoDean Peters and I were off to Namibia and South Africa for our long awaited month long African hunt. It was my fourth and their sixth safari. We had to overnight in Johannesburg on our way to Namibia for the first leg of our hunt.

            In Windhoek, Namibia we were met by our PH Dirk de Bod. Just one hour later we were in his main camp unpacking and preparing for an afternoon hunt.

            We hunted with Dirk for two weeks in sunny Africa. One morning we awoke to find the water in the camp’s bird bath frozen solid on a chilly 25 degree day. Winter in Africa is still winter.

            My best Namibia trophies were a very nice sable, eland, gemsbok and blackface impala. I also spent several nights in a leopard blind but had no good luck in that endeavor. Fred and JoDean both took several nice trophies as well, including Fred’s very nice waterbuck, impala and eland, and JoDean’s gemsbok, kudu and archery shot impala, baboon and prized guinea fowl!

            After two weeks in Namibia we were off to Port Elizabeth by way of Johannesburg, or at least we thought we were. Our plan was to fly into Johannesburg two hours ahead of my son Joe who was arriving from the US to meet us for the second half of our trip in South Africa. After sitting on the plane for an hour we were informed that the plane had a bad started and the engine would not start. I will leave out all of the hours and hours of confusion and turmoil that followed. I will just say we had to spend the night in Windhoek and fly out late the following morning. We managed to meet up with Joe in Johannesburg a few hours after the last flight of the day to Port Elizabeth, causing us to spend an unscheduled night in Johannesburg.

            Two days late we arrived in Port Elizabeth and met our old and accustomed PH’s Armand and Jerry that we had hunted with three years earlier. We were hunting with Jules Theron owner of Jules of The Karoo Safaris in De Aar, South Africa.

            Julian raises sheep for a living, but his passion is raising springbok, big springbok, in fact the largest springbok in the world! His farm is a little over 80,000 acres, but when combined with the land of his brother, cousin, and neighbors he has an additional half million acres or so of other land to hunt on. A good portion of that land contains his one thousand plus each of white and black springbok plus about thirty-five hundred common springbok and several hundred copper springbok.

            We all arrived at Julian’s elegant new lodge July 20th. By dark I had shot a 17” common springbok. The next morning I shot another 17” plus common springbok, and a 14” black springbok, also with a muzzleloader, plus a genet and an African Wildcat. Joe managed to shoot a common springbok and a couple of white ones. We also shot a couple of foxes. Fred and JoDean shot white springbok as well. That was just day one.

            In the days that followed I shot a vaal rhebok, klipspringer, and 13 total black white and common cull springbok Joe took a gemsbok, steenbok, copper springbok, a dozen or more cull springbok and an eland. I need to mention here that the eland was a long ways from the truck and had to be cut into several pieces to get it packed out, as snow started to fall!

            Fred and JoDean were not doing too bad themselves, taking among other things an ostrich, zebra, and several springboks including a very nice copper and a new world record common taken by bow and arrow shot by JoDean.

            Hunting with Julian is just short of incredible for several species, but especially for his springbok. He culls over fifteen hundred ewes and rams each year to constantly improve his quality. The proof is in his results, one of the common springbok I just shot with a muzzleloader may have broken my own all time all weapon world record that I shot there three years ago. I now have the top three common, white, and black springbok with a muzzleloader as well as the number one copper with a muzzleloader, all taken on Julian’s farm.

by Gary Tennison