HUNTER: Dan Miller
Date: March 2011, 8 day hunt
PH: Owen Smith
I've been a longtime lurker, and decided to submit a hunt report for my 2011 hunt with Owen Smith. This was my third hunt with Owen, previously in 2003 and 2008. I had scheduled a hunt with my parents for May or June that summer with Owen, but because of an upcoming activation and deployment to Afghanistan I had to cancel my hunt. I walked up to Owen on Feb 5th at the Harrisburg Sportsman Show to deliver the bad news, and in a 10 minute conversation we had a 8 day hunt planned for the first week of March.
Day 0:
I arrived at the airport in Port Elisabeth early in the afternoon on Feb 28. I had re-booked onto an earlier flight in Jo-burg without thinking, and was in PE hours before I was supposed to be. I borrowed a cell phone, called Owen (who luckily was already in town), and got picked up. We went back to his place in Boknes and test-fired his CZ .270 which I used for the whole trip.
Day 1:
We started by hunting kudu on a nearby fenced ranch. The ranch is about 50/50 thick brush and open grassland. I was hunting for a specific kudu bull, and we were fortunate enough to spot him at a stock pond getting his morning water. We lost sight of him, but he was visible intermittently as he climbed the opposite slope from us. I shot him at about 280 yards quartering away and down into his body (because he was going uphill it was as if I was above him in his body angle). We found very little blood, but followed his tracks about 200 yards to where we found and finished him.
The bull measured slightly over 50" on one horn, and slightly under on the other. After pictures and recovering him to the truck we set off on foot after hartebeest. I missed a quick shot at about 150 yards at a nice bull, and we spent the next few hours chasing them around the ranch. We had a huge herd of 600 blesbuck come past us in single file, and we were about to shoot one. The hartebeest were last in the group, and I shot this bull at about 250 yards.
The hartebeest fell in the open, so it was a quick recovery into the truck. We took a break while the skinners worked, and went off after gemsbok. We had a few close calls with them, and eventually I had a very quick opportunity off the sticks at a specific gemsbok female with a broken horn. Owen and I have hunted together 3 times now, so we're able to communicate well and quickly identify which animal to shoot.
I like the broken horn on the one side - gives character in my opinion - so I had it mounted that way without being fixed. This was a very eventful first day of my hunt, and the first time I'd ever taken 3 big game animals in a single day. Luckily we weren't finished yet, as our tracker spotted a jackal in the headlights on our way out that night (still on the ranch).
Day 2:
We returned to the ranch we hunted the previous day to do some blesbuck hunting. The owner was running a 2 for 1 special on blesbuck as he had too many. I was fortunate enough to get 2 blesbuck by around 9-10am. We returned to Boknes, and packed up for the 2 hour drive to Owen's main hunting area between Grahamstown and Somerset East. Owen built an additional 2 bedrooms onto the home of his longtime friend Harald, who owns a 6000 acre ranch, and bases his hunts from there. We stayed at Harald's each night until one final night in Boknes, and hunted on his land and other farms within about a 45 minute radius.
One of my blesbuck:
Day 3:
We began our day hunting for fallow deer on a nearby unfenced ranch. We saw a number of does and fawns, and numerous warthogs. It was a dry year in the Eastern Cape up to that point, so the grass was rather low which made spotting animals possible. Being March it was also very hot. After a long and unsuccessful walk that morning we decided to head over to some higher ground and continue looking for fallow deer. On the way we spotted some springbuck, which were included in my package. While stalking one animal on foot we nearly walked past a different ram. Our tracker Welcome spotted him, and I made a 100 yard shot head-on as he stood from his bed.
We then resumed our drive up the mountain after fallow deer. At the top, we spotted 2 nice bucks and spooked them back down to the valley below. We watched them until they bedded, and then drove around and made a foot stalk from a different direction. My buck was smart - he watched us walk by at under 50 yards without spotting him. On the way back we again approached close, this time seeing him and making a shot just before he took off.
Day 4:
We began with a very interesting hunt for black wildebeest on a nearby unfenced ranch. The wildebeest tend to spend their nights on a ridgetop, so we drove about half way up and walked from there. It was a very foggy morning, so we ended up walking into the middle of the (spread out) herd. The animals knew we were there, but didn't know what we were. The trackers had to hold the Jack Russels tight to keep them from barking at the wildebeest surrounding and snorting at us. I eventually got a shot at the herd bull at about 75 yards. It was so foggy!.
I then shot a crippled cape springbuck on our way back to that farm's house with the wildebeest. It had a visibly dangling broken leg, so I shot it from the truck and we brought it back for the rancher, who let me keep the hide. From there we traveled to a different (fenced) ranch for white springbuck. One miss and a couple hours of stalking later we were able to get a good shot on this ram:
Day 4 concluded with a drive back to Harald's home (our lodge) and a quick hunt for warthog. I shot a female cull warthog for meat for the lodge.
Day 5:
I've now pretty much finished off my original package of animals. Owen and I stayed at Harald's ranch this day and hunted cull animals for camp meat. I shot a female blesbuck in the morning high in the shoulder on an uphill, quartering-on shot. She was immediately knocked off her feet and convulsed on the ground, but stood up and ran off. A few miles of following the herd later we saw her split off, and after a fast uphill chase I put a round through her heart. My first bullet had passed close to the spine, knocking her down without causing a quickly mortal wound - a great example of the toughness of these African animals.
Harald's ranch is unfenced and just a beautiful place to hunt, and this female blesbuck was a memorable hunt because of the drama and the chase.
Day 6:
We took Sunday off from hunting, as most of the area ranchers don't allow hunting on Sundays. I took a drive with Owen and his wife Riana on the adjoining property to Harald's. We spotted an old waterbuck bull who was probably in the last season of his natural life on earth. We made plans to return the following day to hunt that particular bull.
Day 7:
Monday morning began with a cull hunt for a black wildebeest cow on the same unfenced property where I'd connected with my wildebeest bull. Unfortunately I missed a relatively easy shot at first. We had to chase them for a couple hours before connecting with this cow. Cull hunting with Owen isn't as easy as it might seem, because he takes the time to pick an older female without a calf from the herd. The landowner allowed me to keep the horns and the hide from this animal.
We then returned to Harald's for lunch and set off after the old waterbuck bull. In his age he must have adopted a small home range, because we located him close to where we'd seen him the day before. After a short stalk I shot this magnificent old bull:
In my opinion this was the best trophy of my hunt, and shooting a bull when he's lived his full life is the best utilization of the resource.
Day 8:
For my last day of hunting I had the opportunity to hunt a hippo on a depredation permit that had been issued to a neighboring landowner. Of course I took the chance, and enjoyed carrying Owen's .375 H&H that morning. We weren't able to locate the hippos after a few hours of spotting along the banks of the Fish River, but we did spot this steenbuck. I switched back to the .270 and harvested this fine little antelope.
I'm wearing sunglasses in many of the pictures where I'm looking into the sun. I had PRK eye surgery about a month earlier in anticipation of my Afghanistan deployment. I wore my Marine Corps boots for much of my hunting to break them in for the training course I had to do before I deployed.
Here's a photo of the salt shed at the end of my hunt:
One month after this hunt I tore up my right knee (ACL, MCL, and meniscus) while on active duty training to become an infantry officer. I spent most of the summer in bed healing up from my surgery, and never did make it to Afghanistan. The girlfriend that I emailed from the field after each animal fell became my wife, gave birth to our son, and is now pregnant with our second child. I have no idea when I'll be back to Africa, but I'm glad I took this trip when the opportunity was there!
I'd recommend hunting with Owen (Jimbah Safaris) to anyone who's looking for a great plains game hunt. He also has cape buffalo available to him, although I never hunted those with him. My parents kept the original dates for their hunt and took a trip with Owen in May 2011. I'll type up a report for my dad sometime. We also had a great time on our previous hunts (my dad and I). I've seen a lot of the Eastern Cape countryside and had the experience of my life each time I've hunted with Owen.
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