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Limpopo Province, on the Limpopo River, May 2019 I received a couple of questions regarding my avatar so I thought I would post a little bit of information about the hunt for anyone planning a hunt in South Africa. I think it is important to mention that the majority of hunting in South Africa is conducted behind what is termed high fences here. The size of the high fenced areas varies greatly from small 4 foot fences to stop cattle and sheep movement to large scale “big 5” fences. This fencing also serves to protect outfitters and land owners from poaching and therefore their viability. You will struggle to find a property in South Africa or Namibia with no fences somewhere along the line, be it a park border, a high fence on a neighboring property, or a barrier to public roads. The land areas are generally very large so you may not even see a fence at all during your visit apart from entering or leaving the area, and the low fences do not hamper animal movements much. There are also a number of different ways in which you can hunt in South Africa - but all of mine has been traditional “Track and walk”. You would typically wake up and have a coffee and small breakfast at the camp before being driven to another part of the property known for the type of animal you are looking for and walk from there. For this hunt, I was at Maswiri safaris’s Beskow camp, a 5,000 hectare parcel of land in the far north of South Africa along the Limpopo river and I was after a nice bull kudu as my wife wanted some “decorative horns” to place on the coffee table. Similar to the Coues deer - a kudu is also referred to as the “Grey Ghost” and can sometimes be a nightmare to find despite their size. My friends knew about my target and as such bought me a couple of books (Peter Flack - Hunting the Spiral Horns) and magazines in attempts to assist. We walked for miles and miles, glassed for hours on the top of “koppies” (small rocky hills) without too much luck for about a week. We didn't even see cows. After another unsuccessful morning we made our way back to camp for a breakfast where I discussed going straight back out in the heat of the day and focussing along water points. We drove to a likely area and were dropped off with our backpacks, professional hunter and a tracker and slowly walked our way along. It wasn't too far from the drop off point (I’d say less than 2 miles) that the tracker started getting excited as he had seen a good bull. The path towards him was pretty open so we backtracked and went around another koppie, inching our way around to spot him again. And there he was with his head deep into a bush and perhaps a 100 shot with his shoulder exposed. We set up the shooting sticks, set up the rifle and turned off the safety. I slowly squeezed the trigger and down he went - my first kudu bull. It was only later when we looked at him that we realized just how great a bull he was - old as the hills, with ground down teeth and beautiful ivory tips. Of course - we now started to find kudu’s everywhere we looked for the remainder of the trip. For those of you interested, horn length for a Kudu measured in it's simplest form is taking the measurement of the longest horn from the base along the spiral ridge to the tip only and can be extremely difficult to judge in the field - factors such as how deep the curls are influence the final score greatly. According to a post on Africahunting.com titled judging Greater Kudu: “In terms of trophy size when it comes to mature Greater Kudu bulls, the holy grail is taking the elusive monster 60 inch plus (152.4 cm) Greater Kudu which is something that does happen to a lucky few, however it is the result of the hunting gods smiling down upon you. I would say that horns above 55 inches (139.7 cm) make for an amazing trophy, horns above 50 inches (127 cm) make for a great trophy, horns above 45 inches (114.3 cm) make for a good trophy and horns below 45 inches (114.3 cm) make for a beautiful trophy and great memories!” Mine doesn't have exceptionally deep curls, but measured 53 inches. Regardless of the measurement - my wife didn't get her decorative horns for the table - but he does sit proudly on my wall.

I went with a skull or euro mount - he hangs pretty close to the front door of our home:

In the words of loyd Christmas. Man! You are one pathetic loser. No offense.

One word, "Passion"

I literally am that first line at times....except I usually have 3 or 4 of the $8k rifles in the truck with me.

We do carpet installation if you buy the carpet from me. Not sure if you already have carpet or not.

I’ve seen a few with tire treads. If you use a LT steel belted tire, cut length wise, you will have 3 or 4 feet of hanging material that can take thousands of misses and still hang in there.

Flat brimmed hat, 6.5 creedmoor, and trophy pictures under power lines.

It actually is “that easy” if you hit them in both lungs

Tag soup for me after one missed shot and several close calls. Rut never really got going that we saw and the warmer temps didn’t help either.

I’ve wounded some stuff, but never thought it was hilarious. Some weird types I share the woods with out there

Went on our first scouting trip and wanted to post a few pics. I hope to add to it through the hunt.

Patagonia was good to us today... the Frog bite was on

UPDATE 9.24.21 Commission Meeting We need to tell AZGFD and the Commission to stop paying social media to expedite the loss of opportunity for AZ residents! Yesterday the department gave an update on the 2023 hunt guidelines. This much is clear, OTC archery deer hunting is likely to change or disappear in the near future unless something changes. Please make our voices heard by signing and sharing this petition. *** Since 2016 AZGFD has been paying influencers between $5k - $60k per year to promote a wide range of hunting opportunities in Arizona. This program has been very effective at increasing license sales among Non-Residents and increasing demand for previously under-subscribed hunts. A portion of this effort has been focused on OTC archery deer hunting. Promoting these specific opportunities has contributed to a rapid loss of opportunity in OTC hunts. Since this advertising campaign began Non-Resident license sales have increased dramatically while there has been a 25% decline in OTC opportunity. I am encouraging all AZ residents to sign the petition below and request that AZGFD cease their promotion of all hunts without a non-resident cap. I fear that if these opportunities are lost for residents in our state that we will quickly lose the interest of the public and become subject to a disinterested and disengaged electorate who will no longer support wildlife at the ballot box. It is critical that we maintain every opportunity possible for residents of this state to ensure this privilege exists for future generations. https://chng.it/62rjYqFMYp

I wasn’t joking. Road hunting has a right and wrong technique to it.

You should brag when you kill not when you wound half the bulls in the unit!

I think I'm gonna puke.

Crap happens, but I fail to find any humor in it. You serious?

Easy to sight in…pick a range and shoot one or more arrows. Then it will ask if you hit your aim point and if missed how many inches high or low. Like sighting in a regular sight but no manual adjustment of the pin height. Once you have several distances set then it gives you the dot for in-between distances automagically. my only complaint is when you select what distance to calibrate, then draw and range that distance…it asks if you want to set pin for that distance. Requires pushing button on the sight (not the trigger) to answer yes, so you have to let down to push the button. Not a big deal but it’s annoying. Maybe I’m dumb and there’s a way around this and I don’t realize it.

To the elitist bow hunters on here - are your modern compound bows the same as when the archery hunts were envisioned? Archery technology allows longer, and more precise shots for the average hunter. Arrow and broadhead technology has improved dramatically. And yet archers wound a high % of what they shoot at. It is ridiculous to attack muzzleloaders when many of the same arguments could apply to modern bows and arrows. How about your laser rangefinder, cell phone, OnX or other hunting apps? GPS? The law is the law and we should all follow it. Ethics are more personal. I limit rifle shots to 400 yards and then only if conditions are right for me. If a guy puts more time in at the range and/or has better equipment why would I begrudge him taking a longer shot? (I do not). It's not my thing but why do I care if: A. It's legal and B. He is comfortable with his equipment and skill. When we get into the weeds and criticize our fellow hunters for legal methods we help anti's achieve their goals.

Sounds like you need a quad.

Or people that can actually hunt and shoot.

My plan is to post pics of every trip.

Stay north of I-10 and you should be good. The illegals are probably just waiting for the next president to be sworn in and then they can come across and be met with open arms.