Source : http://huntforever.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/boddington-blesbok-073013.jpg

Left to right, Donna, Craig, Caroline, and Brittany Boddington and videographer Matt Young. This is Matt’s first African animal, and his smile says it all!

-oOo-

The plan was simple and very good. We would spend a few days at his Baynesfield concession, a big piece of unfenced farming country in Natal. Primarily used for bird hunting, big game species are limited but what’s there (bushbuck, reedbuck, duiker) is plentiful and exceptional in quality. The theory: With limited species, we could avoid the “covey rise syndrome” and let Caroline get her feet wet concentrating on just a couple of good trophies. Then we’d move south to the Eastern Cape and spend a week with Haldane’s buddy Carl van Zyl of John X Safaris. The Eastern Cape is one of my favorite areas, also typically big country with varied terrain that offers an extensive game list. In addition to a number of “Eastern Cape rarities,” the area holds large populations of more typical African species such as impala, gemsbok, hartebeest, kudu, springbok, wildebeest and zebra. We wouldn’t try to hunt them all, but we’d see what came along and enjoy the country.

And that we did. Baynesfield proved an ideal starting point. Caroline made picture-perfect shots on a huge bushbuck and very good reedbuck…plus a humbling, sobering and most educational clean miss on a duiker. With Carl we hunted three distinct areas–his home country near the coast, and two huge areas over the mountains and into the Great Karoo. Caroline continued to shoot exceptionally well, taking gemsbok, black wildebeest and zebra—but we never managed to get her onto a shootable kudu, which is also a good lesson in African hunting: You don’t always get everything! Brittany did get the Eastern Cape kudu she had long coveted, Donna took a couple of nice animals and, on Fathers Day, the girls actually allowed me one shot, which I expended on a very good Cape hartebeest.

On the last day, back at Carl’s “home place” at Lalibela, we got two special bonuses. Lalibela is a private “big five reserve,” and on a sundown game drive we managed to see lions and elephants, a marvelous thrill for anyone’s first safari (and, after all these years, still a thrill for me!). The other bonus came earlier that day. Our friend and cameraman Matt Young was with us, recording the hunt. It wasn’t exactly his first African experience, but he’s a Montana deer and elk hunter who had never hunted in Africa. With all the rest of us satisfied, both our bag of animals and video, Carl gave Matt a turn and he made a wonderful shot on a fine old blesbok ram.

Like C.J. McElroy said, the only hunters worth envying are those on their first African safari…and like I say, the next best thing to that first African experience is sharing it with someone else. Behind the camera, Matt Young is pure business…but when he approached that downed blesbok his excitement at least rivaled Caroline’s throughout the safari. So I got an unexpected double dose of sharing the awe, excitement and wonder of a first African safari—and it made the years fall away to that marvelous adventure that was my own first safari, so many years ago.– Craig Boddington

Comments

Paul Carter

Very nice!