Wild & Jag April 2020

Our campsite was located next to a watering hole on
the vast 3 500 ha property close to the small town of
Tosca in the North-West Province of South Africa.
Can it get more
comfortable than this?
Yes, you guessed it – they were not even 60 paces away
from our tents! After examining the spoor, Seun and the
trackers estimated it to be around two to four hours old –
spine-chilling stuff! As I was looking for a male and not a
female, we continued. The plan was to try and work the area
south-east of the spot where we had found Ronald’s lion on
the oryx carcass. Judging by the drag marks, we guessed
that something bothered the lion while feeding. Chances
were good that it was another male lion. We therefore would
try and cover the main roads and waterholes in an effort to
find fresh lion activity.
After three hours our legs and backs were feeling it, but
still no sign of any tracks. Seun decided we should shoot
something for camp meat and we approached the next watering
hole with the necessary caution, keeping in mind the
wind direction. Some blesbuck were standing in the shade
as the temperature was reaching the mid-thirties by now.
We came to within 110 m of the animals before they spotted
us. In hindsight I shouldn’t have taken the shot with open
sights over that distance, but with a little pressure from my
good friends and hunting companions, I gave in and took the
frontal shot. It wasn’t a clean kill but the 570 gr Woodleigh
soft left such a large wound channel that the blesbuck only
managed 600 m before we caught up to it and put it down.
I was once again using my Verney-Carron double rifle
in .500 NE. Walking with a double in thick sand is quite a
challenge. Walking with a backpack in thick sand is also a
challenge, but adding those two together is something else!
Luckily the 25 kg backpack became much lighter once the
tent and sleeping and camping equipment were unpacked,
as were most of my food and of course my bottle of Jameson
Signature whiskey!
Seun radioed the recovery team to come and load the
remainder of the blesbuck carcass that would be utilised at
the lodge. We had cut out the tender loins and backstraps
for our own use in camp.
Having not found any lion tracks, we looked for some
shade. Then we lunched on some very fresh blesbuck
steaks, which we washed down with salty Kalahari water
from the borehole used to fill the waterhole.
By 3 pm we were back, searching for lion tracks on foot
in the heat of the day. It was the only way of finding the
tracks. On a previous hunt in 2019, I walked over 100 km
on the spoor of a male lion hunted with Coenie Meyer
WILD & JAG APRIL 2020
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