An American Deer Hunter in Africa

by Michael Brady

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ERIC CHING'S DIRECTORY or ERIC'S HUNTING TRIP REPORT

So, you’re headed to Africa to go big game hunting. Good for you. If you’re like me and my friends this will be your first African hunting trip. You did the math and discovered that it really is cheaper to hunt for ten days in Africa than it is to go on a guided Elk hunt in the United States. You’ve booked a hunt with a reputable outfitter recommended to you by someone who has hunted with them. Your preparations are well under way, and prepare you must. Our safari last June was a tremendous learning experience. I learned volumes about what to do and what to bring. I did this, in part, by keeping a detailed journal which now contains an only slightly edited recollection of what I failed to do and neglected to bring. If you have a few minutes I encourage you to learn from our successes, and mistakes.

Part I: The Little Things

Four friends and I went hunting at Bush Africa Safaris in northern South Africa, about 30 kilometers from Ellisras, a town near the border with Botswana. The proprietors, Schalk and Terina van Heerden, offer very comfortable accommodations and delightful cuisine. The bushveld 'thornbush country' has much to offer to the first time American hunter. The terrain itself is easy going, the game is plentiful, the bush is thick, and the shots will be quick and at short range. My experience is limited to the bushveld, so you’ll need to make some allowances for my perspective as you prepare for different terrain and other countries. That said, let’s prepare, shall we?

Do you have a passport? No? Then you’ll need to apply for it right away, won’t you? Those of you who answered 'Yes,' where is your passport? Are you sure? Why don’t you go check right now. Go.

Have a clear idea about what you want to hunt. Get a field guide that describes the animals you intend to pursue. Find one that offers photographs of adult males and females, as well as juveniles. The Stewart’s 'Field Guide: Mammals of Southern Africa' is the best I’ve seen. Study your outfitter’s brochures. One can hunt all sorts of animals in Africa, but your outfitter’s concessions may not be home to the species you seek. And study the price lists. While hunting in Africa is a bargain, your budget may not accommodate your wildest fantasies. Understand the terrain you will be hunting in. If your ambition is to take Kudu on the ground in its natural mountainous habitat, you’ll have to work for it.

Unless you’re already fit, get in shape. Hunting is hard work. You’ll be creeping through the bush all day. You’ll be jumping in and out of bakjes. You may get to help drag your Zebra into the truck. At the peak of any of these exertions you may be presented with a challenging shot at a really nice trophy animal. You’ll do better if you’re not winded. At a least start doing sit-ups and push-ups—the slow, difficult kind—every evening. Better, you could pursue an exercise plan that increases your aerobic capacity. Running, bicycling, swimming, even walking, will do. Anything is better than nothing, unless you wait till the week before your trip and hurt yourself with overexertion.

If you have any physical malady, treat it long before you leave, and then bring emergency treatment along in case it recurs. I had an emergency root canal the day before leaving for Africa, and then popped the top of the temporary filling in the departure lounge at the airport. Better to have had the crown completed before I left. Fortunately for me the bottom half of the filling held for two weeks. I had antibiotics and painkillers with me, which would likely have held me over until I could find a dentist in surprisingly civilized South Africa. Finding a dentist, or other physician, in, or en route to, central Africa might be a real good trick. Oh yeah, if you have any temporary dental work skip bagels at the airport snack bar.

Get your shots. Take your prophylaxsis on time, every time. As for malaria preventatives I think that the side effects of Larium (mefloquine) almost outweigh the benefit, but then I’ve never had Malaria. One of our South African hosts had recently been told of a fellow who took ill with 'his malaria' one day and was dead the next. I’m sure there’s more to that story, but do talk to your tropical/travel doctor before—well before—leaving for Africa. Ask her about the newer daily therapies to see if they might work better for you. Visiting the Travel Clinic is one of those things you shouldn’t leave until the last minute. Some of your preventative therapies need to be started the week before you go. Oh, I’m sure the clinic will fit you the day before you leave (between your emergency appointments with the dentist and the endodontist) if they can. What if they can’t?

Bring your allergy medications with you. I interrupted a really fun stalk with a coughing fit when dust aggravated my allergies. About fifty steps after I recovered, my patient tracker, Filamon, showed me the tracks of a large Kudu bull that seems to have suddenly turned and run away. If you have a cough, I find that sucking on a hard sweet will keep the throat from drying out. Just let it dissolve though; crunching on it will earn you cross looks from your tracker.

If you tend toward dyspepsia, take a Maalox or something. I apparently have one stomach growl that sounds like Blue Wildebeest, and another that sounds like an unhappy Leopard. One sound results in much more excitement than the other when checking a leopard bait site.

Part II: Your Kit

Make certain all of your equipment is completely silent. I had a creaking left boot tongue that was quieter if I tied it just so. The other boot was silent. Perhaps I’d never been anywhere quiet enough to notice before. Your rifle’s sling swivels probably clatter a bit did—like mine—unless you have already silenced them with bits of cloth tape. If you use your host’s masking tape for this chore you’ll appear to be very dedicated hunter who didn’t sort things out before hand, or who forget to pack a small role of duct tape—Ole’ Indispensable—along in his toilet kit. Cordura—apparently outdoor equipment manufacturer’s favorite fabric—is extremely noisy in the bush. Shorts, pants, and shirts made with "hard" cotton cloth worked well for me. Velcro fasteners on pockets are common, and noisy as well. Buttons are quieter, but the thornbush will sometimes unbutton them for you. The leather holster I carried my Contender pistol in creaked every minute I wore it. It even creaked when the my only motion was breathing. I gave it up—the holster, not breathing—at lunch on the third day.

Dress for the weather. You’ll probably be hunting during the African winter. There isn’t much chance of snow, but it can be chilly in the mornings. Depending on the time of day and the whims of nature you could need rain gear, a coat, balaclava, sun hat, gloves, long sleeve shirt, long pants, shorts, short sleeved shirt, boots, or low shoes.

Short pants and short-sleeved shirts are quieter in the bush, but only because your skin makes less noise when snagged by thorns. I looked liked second place in a cat fight by the end of the first day, but as our host, Schalk van Heerden, says, ‘Your skin will grow back, but you may not see that Kudu again this week.’

The bushveld will untie your bootlaces and then shred them for you if you let it. If you wear socks or laced boots with your shorts get yourself some gaiters to keep your boot laces tied and your socks free from all sorts of very persistent "stickers." Of course most gaiters are made of Cordura, so you’ll probably need to fabricate your own of some quieter fabric. I suppose the well-heeled, lazy man could always bring enough socks to throw his bramble-laden pair away each evening. The rest of us will have to pick the burrs from our socks by the fire each evening.

Spare no expense on your footwear. If you’re going to "walk and stalk" (think "stillhunting") you’re going to be on your feet at least eight hours a day. Buy the very best boots or walking shoes you can afford. My Gore-tex lined Danner’s have a lot more character now then they did before the expedition, but everything but the laces survived in great condition. Get the best socks you can find, even if you plan to throw them away. Thorlos worked very well, keeping my feet warm but dry under all conditions, in temperatures that varied from the low 40’s to the upper 80’s.

Unless you are hunting in rocky, uneven terrain, heavy boots with lugged soles may be noisier than you want. A low rise leather shoe with a soft sole might allow you to feel a dry twig beneath your feet before you break it at the closing moments of a very clever sneak. It may be just me, but I’d swear dry twigs in Africa snap much more loudly than those in America.

Consider wearing a hat with a large enough brim that you don’t have to wear sunglasses. My fancy ‘city-boy’ clip-on’s had a brown tint which is precisely the wrong color for hunting clever brown animals in the tall brown grass. Gray or green sunglasses are probably much better, but you’ll note that your tracker never wears them and your PH rarely does.

Wear lip balm, and sunscreen on at least your neck, ears, and nose. Wear rub-on bug repellent on at least your legs to keep the ticks away. African ticks are bigger and uglier than our ticks. Our tracker used a panga to kill one he found crawling on him. I packed along spray-on DEET, just in case mosquitoes—"the deadliest animal in Africa"—were a problem. They weren’t. I did, however, encounter a species of fly in Africa that will deliberately crawl up your nose if you don’t stop it.

Bring as small and light a good camera as you can. The larger or heavier the camera the more likely it is to get left behind, as mine did when I doffed my Cordura buttpack on the second day. Things sometimes change in a hurry in Africa and you’ll miss some great photos unless your camera is in your pocket. You may spend the rest of your life describing what its like to be in the middle of a Red Hartebeest stampede—instead of being able to show your family and friends photographs of what it looks like—simply because your camera was only as far away as the front seat of the Land Cruiser.

Bring some light, compact, and easy to use binoculars. Even in the bush binoc’s come in handy every couple minutes. No, that is not what your rifle scope is for. My 10x Vivitar’s offered perhaps just a bit too much magnification, but they served well although—no, perhaps because—they were not quite pocket sized. They were light enough to wear all day without causing a strain on the back of my neck and small enough to pop down the front of my shirt if the action called for crawling or if the sneak would tolerate no chance of my binoculars clattering into my rifle.

Carry a decent knife of moderate length. It is customary to finish not-quite-expired game with a knife blade slipped between the between the base of the skull and the first vertebra. Your PH will carry such a blade, but your tracker may not. The ranch hands are very polite when you offer them your Leatherman "folding toolbox," but it’s pretty clear they appreciate the pliers a lot more than they do the knife blade. I think I’ll carry a Cold Steel Master Hunter next time. It’ll be sharper than anything the help is used to and will make a nice gift to some especially hardworking staff member when the safari is over. You won’t be doing any skinning, but you might find yourself loaning a good, sharp blade to the staff to keep the work moving forward on the larger trophies late at night.

Part III: You and the Gun

Carry as light and short a rifle as you can shoot well. Longer, heavier pieces have their place, but that place is not "walking and stalking" the bushveld. You’ll want a rifle you can carry in your shooting hand alone, for as long as you need the other hand free to negotiate the thornbush, jump quietly from the truck, or creep through the grass "on all three’s." Do not worry so much about recoil from light rifles, unless it contributes to your flinch.

Do not practice for hunting by shooting from the bench. Zero your rifle—or handgun—then leave the bench to practice snap shots, offhand, post rest, kneeling, and maybe a little from sitting. You will almost never find a use for the benchrest and prone positions in the bushveld. Besides, you’ll likely be pleased to discover that practicing from field positions reduces your rifle’s perceived recoil. If recoil is still a distraction you’ll find a PAST Recoil Shield makes a long session with a handy rifle much more pleasant.

Our PH recommended that we zero our rifles for 100 yards. I didn’t change mine as I thought that was kind of close. Then over ten days my longest shot on eight animals—seven game and one varmint—was 90 yards. Shot placement is always critical, but it is especially important when dense cover is always only a few feet away. A ‘25 meter zero’ or Maximum Point Blank Range’ zero will put most of your hits two or three inches above your point of aim over most of the ranges at which you’ll be shooting at game in the bushveld. If you zero for 100 practice enough to know where your rifle puts its bullets at 200 yards just in case, as you may encounter a longer shot. Usually, with longer range comes more time to think about your shot. If you going hunting in open terrain later, make sure you bring extra ammunition and make time to re-zero.

Practice on practical targets. I used eight inch disks cut from cardboard cartons and paper grocery bags for my rifle practice whenever possible. Learn to concentrate on the center of a target that has no specific aiming point, while shooting from field positions, and you’ll be the better for it. By the way, you may notice you’re no longer cutting one, two, or even three MOA. Don’t worry; your rifle hasn’t suddenly gone sour. Practical field shooting tests you much more than the quality of your equipment and, yes, it is a humbling thing.

Use a low powered scope. Set your variable at 1.5, 2, or 3 magnifications; you get the idea. Yeah, all the way to the bottom; then leave it there unless you encounter a long shot in the open. Yours only goes down to 4.5? May I suggest you find a smaller, lighter scope for this trip? I used a fixed four power glass and got caught watching the Impala on the left while a very nice Gemsbok wandered away to the right. I already had a nice Impala; I was hunting for Gemsbok. They were all of 75 yards away. My old 2.5 power Weaver would have been a better choice for all of my rifle shots in the bushveld.

Consider bringing two scopes, each already mounted and zeroed in its own quick detachable rings, especially if you plan to use heavy or hard slugs for close work in the bush, then switch to light slugs for long range hunts in open terrain. Zero one for each bullet. Scopes can go bad on you. One of my hunting companions had two scopes, of highly reputable American manufacture, crack up on him while preparing for the trip. It happens. He had time to mount and zero a replacement and a spare. If you have two good scopes, you can switch to the spare, rezeroing it if necessary.

Nothing evaporates quicker in the bushveld than a really nice Kudu. I saw several nice bulls, but didn’t manage to get on them in time. Practice shooting as quickly as you’re able. A bullet that lands anywhere near the center of your homemade eight inch practice target right now is much better than a pinwheel you’re ready to deliver a second after the biggest Kudu you’ve ever seen has melted into the bush. On the other hand, learn your limits, so that you shoot no quicker than you can. Don’t take a shot if you’re not ready. Don’t worry about what your PH thinks of you—and your shooting ability—at that moment. He would rather find you another trophy than spend the rest of the day tracking an animal you hit poorly.

Make certain your rifle works with the ammunition you decide to bring. Do all your practice shooting from the magazine. I prepared a 220 grain handload that worked fine through the action of my .30-06 Remington 700 ADL, so long as I only worked it quickly or firmly. When shooting for blood under the African sun I found out that the vigorous ‘bolt flick’ Jeff Cooper taught me at his old Gunsite caused the round nose bullet to stop on the sharp, square edge of the chamber, every time. I bagged three animals with my ‘single-shot 700’ anyway, but switched to 180-grain spitzer ammunition for my last few days of hunting. When I shot my Gemsbok on the last day of the hunt my bolt flick did not tie up the action. Not feeding roundnose bullets under rigorous conditions is no sin, but its better to discover such limitations at the range instead of in the bush. I’d have been happy to use a 200 grain spitzer had I known.

'Use enough gun.’ Our PH’s thought that anything between the 6.5x55 Swedish and the .350 Remington Magnum should do nicely for most any non-dangerous game in African bushveld, if you use a good bullet and can place it properly. Yeah, this will rule out the popular 6mm and .25 caliber rounds. The PH’s agreed that these rounds can do the job, especially for resident hunters who can afford to pass on "iffy" shots, but a little more bullet means the visiting hunter with only a week or two to hunt can take a shot that might not be prudent with the lighter rounds. The PH’s prefer to use Nosler Partitions in their .30-06’s and .375’s to sort things out for their clients on non-dangerous game. They don’t see the need for a bullet any "harder" than the Nosler Partition, which offers quick expansion and certain penetration from almost any angle. They do not think much of high velocity magnums for bushveld hunting, as they favor an initial velocity of 2400-2600 feet per second for close work in the thornbush.

The PH’s quite liked the performance of the.350 Remington Magnum rifles carried by two of the hunters in our party. It may be an obsolescent cartridge—all but abandoned by Remington and fully appreciated only by a dedicated few—but topped with the 225 Nosler Partition at around 2500 feet per second it worked on everything from Impala to Zebra, from 40 yards to over 200 yards. The PH’s thought the .350’s might have offered quicker kills if they had used a softer, single core bullet, but as it was they preferred the penetration guaranteed by the Partitions. You’ll hear that a lot; placement and penetration. By extension one would expect the .35 Whelen, the .338-06, and the .358 Winchester to do very nicely as well. I think the quick handling original Browning Lever Action in .358 Winchester would be right at home in the bushveld. A Remington 600/660 (or a Seven from the Remington Custom Shop) chambered in .350 Remington Magnum would be quite the gamegetter in the thornbush; and most anywhere else in the world for that matter. A six or seven pound .350 is going to kick you enough to notice, but, man, it sure would be handy.

Stick close to your PH or your tracker; step in his footprints if you can. You’ll assume his pace, stop when he stops, be able to help each other quietly negotiate the thorn, and—most importantly—you’ll be in a position to see what he sees.

Shooting sticks. Wow. Shooting sticks, may just be the single best artificial shooting aid since the shooting sling. As one cannot count on using prone, sitting, and sometimes even kneeling, positions in the bushveld shooting sticks come into their own. If you are serious about preparing for Africa, get yourself some sticks or fabricate your own and get used to working with them. Ours were carried and set by our PH or tracker, which is by far the most convenient way to work with them. The can be inconvenient and noisy if you try to deploy them yourself and handle your weapon at the same time. I missed a shot on a nice Warthog while fumbling with the sticks while drawing my pistol from its holster, all for a shot I could have taken from post rest or kneeling if I’d had no sticks or holster to worry about.

If your rifle is light enough you might not need a carry strap and there’s something to be said for always having your weapon in your hand. You may need a shooting sling though. There is none finer or quicker for practical shooting and hunting than the Ching Sling, as originally manufactured by the late Bruce Nelson, but now made by Galco and Beast Enterprises. You won’t always have, or need, the shooting sticks. If you know how to use a shooting sling you won’t miss the sticks, if the grass isn’t too tall.

As for handgun hunting; the bushveld is perfect for it. I used a .44 Magnum Thompson/Center Contender with a 10 inch factory barrel wearing open sights. I handloaded a 320 grain LBT Wide Flat Nose bullet, as hard cast and heat treated by Cast Performance Bullet Company, over a maximum charge of Hodgdon H110 and CCI Magnum Large Pistol primer. I zeroed it two inches high at 50 yards and had a great time. I took Impala, Blesbok, Warthog, and Zebra at ranges from 40 to 90 yards. The PH’s were impressed by the effectiveness of hard cast flat nose slugs, saying their .375’s with Nosler Partitions could not be counted on for better performance at close range. I expect the .41 Magnum, the .44 Magnum, the .45 Colt using Hodgden silhouette data in Ruger revolvers or the Contender, and the .454 Casull would all do very nicely as hunting handguns in the thornbush. In a Contender the .45/70, in a barrel short enough to be handy, would be a sledgehammer on game if the hunter is prepared for the challenging recoil.

Part IV: The Game

I hunted with my T/C Contender first. It has a Pachmayr rubber grip but is otherwise as it left the factory. Before lunch on the first day I bagged a nice Impala ram with a single shot at 80 yards. The ram took the bullet through the shoulders and both lungs, ran 40 yards, then piled up. On the second day I bagged a mature Blesbok ram with a single shot through both lungs and one shoulder at 40 yards. He staggered 20 yards and collapsed. On the fourth day I took a scar-faced, broken tusked Warthog boar with a single shot through both lungs at 50 yards. He ran 300 yards before giving up, by far the furthest I've ever had any animal run on me. But for the uncanny abilities of the hunting and tracking staff I'm certain I’d have never seen it again. Next time I’ll be careful to put the slug through the shoulders as well as the lungs. As you might expect, no bullets were recovered, but the wide flat nose slugs pulped an inch and a half wide wound channel and punched through any bones that got in the way, just as they are designed to.

I shot a very nice Zebra with my Contender on day three. It was quite a stalk, perhaps the best of the entire trip. That story has been accepted for publication in one of the next issues of ‘One Good Shot’ the journal of the Thompson/Center Association.

For rifle work I brought my Remington 700 ADL in .30’06. The stock is by H-S Precision, enhanced with a rounded butt pad and a third swivel for Eric Ching’s clever three point sling. For optics I zeroed two Leupold M8 four-power telescopes, each in Leupold Quick Release rings lapped and fitted to Leupold Quick Release two piece bases. I've used the QR’s for a couple years now and find them sturdy and reliable. The zero seems well preserved when the scope is removed and reinstalled, at least when only shooting out to 200 yards, which is as far as I'm allowed to shoot in the San Jose, California area.

On the morning of the fourth day I switched to my rifle and took a nice Blue Wildebeest with a 60 yard shot. The bullet struck the right shoulder but did not hit any bones, penetrated the ribs, pulped the lungs, exited the ribs, and came to rest underneath the skin just behind the left shoulder. The bull staggered about 40 yards, shaking his head as he went. He then snorted, collapsed, snorted, and expired. The recovered bullet weighed 125 grains. Nice performance after penetrating two feet of Wildebeest bull.

On day six I took a Warthog boar with a 70 yard shot as it was trotting away at a quartering angle, right to left. He jinked to the right, turning straight away, just as my shot broke and the bullet landed just to the right of his tail, shattering the spine, pelvis, and bones of the right rear leg. The boar was down but not out. His rear legs of no use to him, so he continued his escape on his front legs. We closed the distance in the bakjie, dismounted, and I finished him with a snap shot at 20 paces which punched a great hole in the ribs, quartered through the lungs, and stopped in the right shoulder. During the skinning we recovered what was left of the first bullet. We determined that it had tumbled, peeled its jacket nearly to the base, shed its core, and gone on to completely wrecked the right rear quarter. The recovered bullet jacket weighed 29 grains and shows signs of having traveled in several different directions as it came apart and crashed to a stop after penetrating 12 inches of Warthog. I had expected the first 220 grain slug to stop somewhere closer to the boiler room, if it had to stop at all, but this is an imperfect business and Warthogs are tough little pigs. I regret now that I did not recover the second bullet, but at the time getting back into the field for more hunting was the priority.

Mid-way through the hunt Schalk received word that one of his concessions was going to change title in two days. This particular, concession had a nice Leopard bait site on it that had seen some activity recently. He offered me the chance to sit for the Leopard, if I wanted to. I jumped at the chance and I rezeroed with Federal Premium Nosler 180 Partition spitzer ammunition, which has always worked well for me. Despite our efforts at bait site preparation the Leopard didn’t come back.

On day ten I used a single Nosler slug to collect a wary, old bull Gemsbok - a trophy I've dreamed of bagging ever since my first business trip to Africa in 1994 - with a 70 yard head shot. We found a year's old handwoven wire snare embedded in his right front hoof; seems he was trapped and got away in his youth. The guides cut it out for me. It is quite the interesting conversation piece.

Despite the close ranges I encountered I did not want to muck anything up so my initial shots were taken either from shooting sticks or from an improvised rest. I might gotten away with a couple of my shots shooting from standing, without the sticks or a rest, but I try to take a steadier position if one is available. Some folks don't care for them, others swear by them. They have their place. Of course if you don't like the idea of sticks you don’t have to use them.

So, are African animals tougher than their American counterparts? Based on our sampling of 24 game animals in 10 days, from Impala to Eland, I’d have to say they certainly seem tougher than the Minnesota and North Dakota Whitetail Deer I'm accustomed to. In the final analysis though, no animal got away that took a solid hit in the right place from a bullet that held together for deep penetration. On the other hand, several animals that were not well hit on the first shot seemed to take a lot of extra killing.

We elected to do our taxidermy in South Africa. It's supposed to cost less to have it done there and ship it home. They were due in late January, but we haven't received them yet. Until they arrive we won't know the cost for shipping and customs duties. My taxidermy bill last June was a little over $800 for a Zebra rug, shoulder mounted Warthog, skull mounts for Impala, Blesbok, Warthog, Wildebeest, and Gemsbok, and one and one half warthog hides tanned into leather, and Impala, Blesbok, Wildebeest, and Gemsbok hides finished as flat skins. I'm hoping the shipping and customs costs don't rob me of this apparent bargain.

As ‘therapy’ during my reentry to civilization I sent letters and photos to some of companies whose equipment I used. Joe Gauntt, president of Cast Performance Bullet Co., the company that made my .44 caliber LBT's commented "it is not often that hunters will remember that we like to see the product of our efforts." Send them a letter and a few pictures; you may be surprised with their response. My photos have been included in the 1998 Thompson/Center and Hornady catalogues. I also wrote two articles; the one you are about to finish reading was rejected after four months of sitting in some editor's ‘unsolicited’ in-box; the other, as I mentioned earlier, will be printed in a forthcoming issue of ‘One Good Shot’ the journal of the Thompson/Center Association.

A final piece of advice. Keep a journal. It’s a handy place to save your exotic permits and receipts. It will remember things you'll forget. It will keep your memories fresh. It will be a comfort to you on the long flight home and after you've been back to work for a month or two. If you're very lucky, it might just become that yellowed, dog-eared, ‘Grandpa’s Africa Book,’ with which you can tell tales of adventure in an Africa long gone.

For more information about the hunt of a lifetime in the South African bushveld contact: