The Hunt Continues
Trip Start
Apr 24, 2006
1
13
23
Trip End
May 22, 2006
Kimberly,
South Africa
Thursday, May 4, 2006
We were up at 6:20 am to start the days hunt. Tony Drain and I headed out to the field with Boeta and Tony Vause went with Pieter.
The morning turned out to be rather uneventful it was rather cold and the animals seem not to be moving. After lunch we returned to the field. It had warmed up over lunch. After about a half an hour we came across a herd of Red Hartebeast. Boeta spotted a good bull that he wanted me to take. He pointed it out as the reddest in the herd. I took the shot with my 25-06 and hit him square in the shoulder and followed up with another one just to make sure.
I wanted to make a rug out of a Red Hartebeast as well as having a shoulder mount so shot a second Hartebeast
Shawn's Roland Ward Record Hartebeast
. I took the shot and the second HArtebeast was down.After pictures we loaded ourselves back onto the truck to continue the hunt. As we moved around we seen lots of Blesbok, more HArtebeast and Eland off in the distance. We continued on and rounded a corner to find a herd of Gemsbok. Boeta instructed Tony Drain to take the large bull on the right. Tony took the shot and immediately we knew it was a kill shot the animal wabbled within seconds and fell to the ground.
We let Tony's Gemsbok lay there and followed the herd to try to get me a shot as well. Boeta and I decided to walk and stalk the herd of Gemsbok. As we stalked over the hill I spotted an Impalla Ram standing in the dense bush some 600 yards away. I pointed it out to Boeta and he field judged it as a good Ram. He said "let's go get him".
We were at a very high point that if we walked down towards the ram he would surely spot us and flee. We decided to retreat back to the truck and drive about 2 kms to a low spot that we could stalk from. Boeta and I walked about 1 km from the truck that we positioned on the low field. As we stalked we moved very slowly and quietly through the bush
Shawn's Roland Ward Record Impala
. Finally we seen the ram standing above us at about 150 yards.I took the uphill shot with only the Impala's head sticking out face on above an Africa Black Thorn bush (it was a very small target). My first shot missed I chambered a second quickly and it was a direct hit. The ram struggled for a few seconds and was down for good. We waited for awhile as Tony Drain made his way down to us from the location we first spotted the Impala from.
We all went to the animal to take pictures of the Impala then headed back to where Tony Drain had shot his Gemsbok for pictures with his animal. Tony's bull was a very nice Gemsbok with very thick horns that measured 36 inches. Tony had a very nice bull.
We continued on scouting for animals when Pieter radioed Boets that Tony Vause had wounded a Gemsbok. As we made our way back to the lapa's we seen the wounded animal Tony Drain took a shot at it but it was too far off. We tried to track it but it wasn't loosing much blood and we were loosing light. We returned to lapas where Tony Vause was understandable upset no one wants to wound and loose a animal.
We decided to try and track the animal in the morning.
Shawn
