AFRICA HUNTER QUEST©   

    Chapter 36 - THE PILGRIM’S SAFARI: DAY 7   

    Donny was up half an hour earlier than customary. His PH had told him last night a front was going to push through, and he wanted to get as ahead of it as much as possible.   

    The weather was obviously different when he walked out his door. Although the wind was relatively calm, the humidity had obviously increased. It was way before sunup and Donny had expected to see stars in the pre-dawn darkness. None could be seen. “Incoming,” thought Donny.   

    Donny and his PH quickly ate their cold breakfast in comparative silence. Donny could see that his PH was relatively deep in thought. He figured there was some degree of damage control being formulated.   

    D:    Front coming in quicker than you figured?   

    PH:    Yes. The morning hunt strategy I had planned probably won't work. Depends on how quickly the front gets here. We may be in the blind way sooner than I thought. I’m glad we prepped it yesterday.   

    They finished breakfast and quickly loaded the day’s kit onto the truck. The sky was noticeably lighter, but there was no indication of any sunrise in the east. Black was slowly morphing to gray, with no trace of orange. The wind had obviously increased during breakfast.   

    They were trundling along in an elevated portion of the site. Thick brush was on either side of the road. Donny saw no animals. If his PH saw any, he made no mention or indication.   

    There was now enough light to view the clouds. They were relatively thick, but not thick enough for a complete overcast. Donny could see they had real giddy-up to them; the wind velocity aloft was considerably more than what Donny was experiencing on the ground.   

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    Donny could see the road dipping down and he recognized the presumed old fence lines associated with the ‘angle of harmonic convergence’ in the distance. Donny figured they were already at Plan B.    

    Donny was right. They stopped on the road directly opposite from the blind. They gathered the necessary kit and quickly walked toward the blind while the tracker drove the truck back the way they had come to hide it. Donny noted the wind had noticeably picked up and was going to be a nasty right-to-left crosswind.   

    Donny positioned himself in the blind and peered out at the vast expanse of grassland before him. Nothing. His PH had not yet done any scanning with his binos. Donny look inquisitively at his PH.    

    PH:    The animals don’t like the wind any better than we do. Most are bedded down in the thick jess by now. I'm hoping we can ambush some stragglers wanting to bed down in the jess behind us. It doesn’t look promising.   

    D:    Is this going to be a wet or dry front?   

    PH:    Supposed to be wet.   

    Donny winced. He had no rain gear. He had on his goose down vest, neck warmer, sock cap, and hooded sweatshirt because of the wind chill. The hooded sweatshirt was fleece and would act like a sponge. Any rain in this wind would quickly make his life miserable. “That’s huntin’,” he thought. His only consolation was that his PH was in shorts. He vowed he would not be the one to pull the plug on this stand; he would stay as long as his PH dictated.   

    Donny fished around in his sweatshirt pocket and produced his wind meter. He held it up and oriented it to get the wind-velocity component that was blowing perpendicular to his expected shot direction. The LED indicated 18 miles per hour. “Call it 20,” he thought. He looked down on his DOPE card. If the shot was at 300 yards, that would be 4 minutes of wind, or over 12 inches of holdover. He wasn’t familiar enough with the anatomy of a black wildebeest to be confident of what would equate to 12 inches, no matter what the shot angle. He quickly decided he needed to crank in windage.    

    Donny took both scope turret covers off and studied his windage turret. He didn’t want to make another bonehead move by rotating the turret in the wrong direction.

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“Let’s see, strong wind right to left. If unadjusted, the shot would drift bad left. I need to adjust to bring the impact to the right.”   

    Rather than think it again, Donny said it out loud to convince himself that moving his windage correction to the right was the correct thing to do. After he convinced himself he had figured it out correctly, he glanced at the turret and saw a little arrow indicating it had to be turned in the counter-clockwise direction.   

    As deliberately and calmly as he could, he slowly turned the knob and counted clicks as he went. When he finished, he looked at the turret for the total MOA reading and checked that it was a value 4 MOA greater than when he had started. He looked at his DOPE card and dialed in the zero for 300 yards. He looked again at both turrets to satisfy himself that he hadn’t fornicated the canine. He knew he had the jitters and told himself to “settle down, Bevis”.    

    Donny sat there trying to conceive logical shot hypotheticals and how he would adjust his scope. He decided that would be totally wasted effort, conducive to totally confusing himself when it came time for the shot. He remembered GG’s “solve no problem before its time” advice and let his mind go blank. “Dial on real data.”   

    They sat there for a good 20 minutes. Donny was starting to get chilled and was sporadically shivering. He knew the wind was picking up. He began to believe they were tardy in accessing the blind. All the black wildebeests had ‘gone to the house’.    

    His PH sat resolutely behind him, slightly offset to his right. Donny sensed movement and cocked his head back. His PH was on his binos, obviously studying something intently.    

    PH:    (Whispering) Wildebeest. 11 o'clock, at least 800 meters.   

    Donny looked in the indicated direction and scanned for any movement in the distance. As usual, he couldn’t see worth beans. It was doubly aggravating because there was no brush to speak of. He had left his binos in the truck out of habit. Donny had finally realized (duh) and accepted he was the shooter and not the spotter.   

    Donny looked again. One of the black blobs in the distance he had thought was a bush was moving. He looked again and noted three other blobs directly behind the first, all moving. They seemed to be resolutely heading in their general direction. “Headed on the same track as the blesbok after he turned the corner,” thought Donny.    

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    Donny continued to watch. They moved steadily toward them, never stopping to graze. “Headed to the house,” thought Donny. The steady progress, uninterrupted by grazing, began to concern him. This was likely not going to be a relatively casual spot, range, wait-for-the-animal-to-turn broadside shot. Ranging would have to be done ‘on the fly’, so-to-speak. There could be the very real possibility that these animals would not stop for any shot at all. It was beginning to look more and more like livestock heading to the barn or a feed trough.   

    Donny decided his best strategy was to take no shot at a distance greater than 300 yards. With this wind, even 300 yards could be dicey. His scope was already set for that distance. If the wildebeest didn’t stop, he would need his PH to repeatedly call out the distance to the specified animal as they moved. He would have to hold as best he could if his shot was within the gaps between the zeroes indicated on his DOPE card.   

    He could feel his pulse pick up as the adrenaline dump kicked in. Between his elevated pulse rate and the sporadic shivers, he realized this could be a really bitchy shot. He once again told himself to settle down. He could do this.   

    D:    (Whispering) Let me know when they get to 300 yards. Keep calling out the yardage at a frequent basis on the one you want me to shoot.   

    Donny saw his PH’s head nod in agreement.    

    The scenario that was likely going to play out was one that he had never imagined. The wildebeest were not acting like wildebeest. There were no antics; there was no clustered herd grazing. They were, in fact, acting like cattle headed to the barn.    

    Not only were the animals acting different, the actual shot would be different from what he had practiced. Not even close. In terms of a baseball pitch, the likely shot scenario was analogous to a knuckle ball. It was slow enough that it gave the illusion the hitter could study it and react to any movement tendencies of the ball for an effective swing. But in reality, the hitter never really knew how or where it was going to break until it was too late. His fast ball, curve ball, and even his change-up swings were worthless. The swing he took likely would wind up improvised and pathetically weak. Donny couldn’t help but feel like Han Solo, watching his 400-pound black knuckleball trudge toward him.    

    PH:    (Whispering) You want to take the first, lead bull.   

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    Donny nodded and for the first time actually positioned his rifle.   

    PH:    (Whispering) 348.   

    Donny positioned the stock in his shoulder and peered through his scope. After yesterday’s scope fiasco, he had cranked it back down to 3 power. “Not near enough,” he thought. He ratcheted up the scope’s magnification up to 10. He again peered through the scope. “Goldilocks good.”   

    Donny knew that the yardage countdown would soon begin. He repositioned the bipod’s legs so they were at least momentarily better squared with the lead wildebeest. Another sight picture indicated he needed to pan right to keep up. Keeping his head down and maintaining his sight picture, he adjusted his elbows on his knees to properly track on his target. He fixated on his aim point and panned the rifle to maintain it.    

    The shot would be a right front quartering of some degree. At 350 yards, it had been more of a full frontal than a quartering. But as the distance decreased, the shot would rotate toward being more broadside.   

    The wind had picked up. Donny knew he needed to compensate with a hold somewhat to the right into the wind. What that needed to be was a wild-a$$ guess.   

    PH:    (Whispering) 312.   

    “Dang,” thought Donny. “Way quicker than I figured.”   

    Donny panned further right, his position becoming more awkward and unstable. He knew he would have to shift his legs and the bipod’s feet if the wildebeest didn’t stop soon. He reached up and clicked to his 250-yard zero.    

    PH:    (Whispering) 265.   

    Donny knew he had to shift his position. He dropped the stock so it rested on his right inner thigh, dropped his hands to the ground, then partially lifted his body up as if he were doing dips in the gym. He swiveled his hips clockwise, slightly rotating both legs. He lifted the rifle up with his left hand and repositioned the bipod’s feet, rotating it clockwise while the back of his stock pivoted on his right inner thigh. He quickly raised the rifle back into position.   

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    Donny had his head up, looking directly at the lead bull. He saw it stop abruptly and instantaneously turn its head to stare directly at the hide. Had his movement alerted it?    

    PH:    (Whispering) Take him.   

    Donny lowered his head and peered through his scope. The aim point was nowhere close. He fidgeted his elbows so he was at least on the chest of the wildebeest.   

    Donny knew he was in a zero never-never land. He held a tad high and a tad right to compensate for the 250-yard zero and increased wind velocity his gut told him had occurred. He snicked the safety to off, trying to convince himself he had plenty of time and not to repeat the push like he had done with his zebra.   

    The orbit of his sighting dot quickly settled down. He squeezed the trigger and was confident his hold had been true and he broke a good shot. There was no reassuring ‘thwop’, as the wind effectively muffled the sound of the bullet’s impact.   

    Donny looked up and saw the bull sprint forward along the same track the quartet had taken since they had first spotted them. The other three, momentarily stunned and confused by the antics of their leader, followed in hot pursuit. While in Donny’s line of sight, the lead bull had not slowed or shown any indication of any debilitation.    

    PH:    (Whispering) Reasonable hit. I don’t think it was too far back. Reload and put it on safe.   

    A tepid assessment. The Han Solo feeling returned as he chambered another round, then put the action on safe.   

    They cleared the blind and walked swiftly to where the shot had impacted on the wildebeest. Donny felt random, sporadic drops of rain sting his face. The wind had really cranked up, and with it Donny’s feeling of dread.   

    They got to the spot where the lead wildebeest had stood. No blood. The PH studied the ground and walked in the direction where the small herd had fled.   

    Within about 25 yards there was a splotch of frothy red blood visible on the ground. At least the lungs were hit. How well remained to be determined.   

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    They walked further on, and Donny saw another splotch of blood, this one noticeably larger. He used the two blood data points to look up and assess the course the wildebeest had taken:     it was apparently headed toward a ravine on the flank of a thickly vegetated, rock-strewn hill about 400 yards off in the distance. It was the hill they had come down to access the blind.   

    He saw the truck coming toward them on the road. His PH was on his phone talking in Afrikaans to the tracker. He saw the truck stop. The tracker got out and was headed toward the ravine.   

    It was now drizzling, with the wind forcing water into areas it normally wouldn’t be inclined to access. Like directly into Donny’s left ear. He pulled his hood up over his head for protection. He knew that before long it would be sloppy wet.   

    He heard his PH’s phone ring. After a few quick exchanges in Afrikaans, his PH turned to Donny and smiled.   

    PH:     The tracker found it. I've sent him back for the truck. If you don’t mind, I’d rather forego pictures out here to beat as much of this rain as we can.   

    Donny’s dread was immediately washed away by a tidal wave of relief.   

    D:    Absolutely.   

    The tracker and his PH made short work of snaking the wildebeest into the back of the truck. By then it was legitimately raining.   

    Donny had seen that his shot was pretty much dead-on elevation-wise, but had been pushed considerably left of the intended impact point, way back into the lungs. There was no exit hole. The entrance hole was not making any blood to speak of. It was fairly obvious that he had likely missed the heart or its plumbing altogether.   

    The animal’s nostrils were both bloody, but it appeared to Donny that the right- side nostril had transmitted far more blood. That observation, coupled with the actual shot location and fact that the wildebeest had traveled well over 600 yards, pretty much demanded an autopsy. His PH’s lack of enthusiasm after the shot appeared to be well founded.   

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    The shot being pushed so far left kindly bothered him. Yes, it should have been to the left because of the wind. But he had also held right, into the wind. The impact location on the animal didn’t seem to correspond to what he thought had been a conservative hold. Yes, the wind had increased, but that much?   

    “Duh,” thought Donny. “I took only one reading, but that was within the confines of the brush. I wasn’t reading full value. I was in a windbreak!”   

    They deposited the wildebeest on the concrete apron within the skinning shed. The skinners dragged it to the hoisting frame and went to work. In short order, they unzipped the bull, and his innards dropped onto the concrete. Donny could see straightaway that the heart had not been touched. The near-side or right-side lung had about a 4- to 5-inch longitudinal swath through it. His shot had angled through the lung, clipping the liver before being retained in the nether world of stomach and intestines. The actual hole through the lung and liver was less than about ½ inch. The bloodshot area surrounding the hole in the lung was no more than 2 inches in diameter.    

    Donny eyed the interior of the carcass. His shot had sawed through a near-side rib bone. Even so, the bullet appeared to have plowed straight, its trajectory obviously little affected by the impact.    

    As Donny stood there taking his pictures, he began to realize how damn-lucky he had just been. They had ambushed the tail-end Charlies. Instead of his Great- White-Blunder rifle positioning antics in the blind causing an outright bolt to safety, the lead bull had stopped to investigate. His shot placement had been effective, but damn-near a miracle given the bozo mistake he had made with his wind speed determination. He knew both GG and the Old Salt could have mounted an effective argument concerning his sanity for even taking the shot in the first place. The tracker had been positioned to find the bull prior to any sign being obliterated by the rain. The bull had made it into the terrain that would have make tracking more difficult, regardless of rain. Finally, he likely would not be catching pneumonia even though it was now raining like a banshee and he had been hunting with no rain gear. $#!+ could have really happened,” thought Donny.   

    It was now pushing noon. He and his PH adjourned to the lodge for hot coffee while they ate their box lunches. While they sat and ate, both the Newbee and the Old Salt came in to join them. Both of them had been skunked by the weather. The Cowboy was not in camp.  

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    D:    Did the helicopter hunt for the zebra ever occur?   

    OS:    The outfitter told me they took off early enough to spot it before the rain set in. The pilot set them down and radioed in their location. Their tracker took the truck to a rendezvous point in the area. That’s the last any of us have heard.   

    The Newbee eyed the weather.    

    N:    Nasty penance being paid, if you believe in that sort of thing.   

    They told stories for about an hour. Donny felt like a nap; plus, he wanted to make sure he was packed for the next day. He excused himself and went to his room to pack. When he finished, he took a hot shower, then climbed into his bed for a nap.   

    When he awoke, his watch told him it was late afternoon. He got up, got dressed, and quickly walked over to the lodge. Both the wind and the rain had lessened, but it was still nasty outside. There would be no fire pit this evening.   

    When Donny entered the lodge’s great room, he could see both the Old Salt and the Newbee gathered with the Cowboy. The vibe was not one of condolence, which Donny considered positive. He eased into a chair and caught up on the conversation.   

    They had found the zebra in the thick stuff on a ridge. The pilot had used the helicopter to force the animal down into the savannah below the hill for better tracking. The zebra’s left front leg was pretty much useless, making it easy to spot. The bad limp also seemed to corroborate the hypothesis of a hit directly on the shoulder joint.    

    When the zebra had been driven a good way into the savannah, the pilot had set them down several hundred yards away down wind. He wanted to get back to the landing strip before visibility would really be reduced by the rain. He had radioed in their approximate location on his way back.    

    The Cowboy’s PH had picked up the tracks and was following them. There was no blood to speak of. Once rid of the helicopter, the zebra turned into the wind, kindly ‘fast walking’ as best it could. Tracking on the sandy ground was relatively easy. They dog-trotted to keep up.    

    They found the zebra stopped by a large, tree-like bush. They were over 200 yards away. They eased to the right on an angle, trying to get a rear quartering shot as

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quickly as they could to further debilitate the animal. They hop-scotched from bush to bush until they were within about 175 yards. The Cowboy’s PH then set up the sticks, and he took the shot.   

    At the shot, the zebra had sprinted forward as best it could. They tracked it for a good 10 minutes before they saw it, again stopped adjacent to a tree-like bush. The second shot apparently had not been effective because there was no real blood volume increase to facilitate tracking, and the PH could see there was no blood to speak of on the zebra’s right side. They again stalked to within about 200 yards where the PH told him to aim at the center of the zebra’s neck.   

    The neck shot stunned it and it dropped to the ground, thrashing like a Marine trying to fight imaginary adversaries on all sides. They quickly walked up and to the zebra’s left for a broadside at about 125 yards. The zebra continued to thrash after the shot. The Cowboy had to take another broadside shot to finish him off.   

    C:    The bullets to the shoulder joint and the neck basically just exploded. The one to the right rear was ineffective because it didn’t make any appreciable blood. The first broadside was behind the shoulder into the lungs. I guess he was so amped up on the adrenaline that it really didn’t seem to have any effect. The last broadside was on the shoulder, and my PH said it made to the heart.   

    D:    Tough. Glad you found him and he’s in the salt.   

    C:    That experience this morning kindly made me sick. I had never had anything like that happen to me before. All my animals had dropped like rocks. This was more torture than hunting.   

    The group maintained a respectful silence.   

    C:    I now truly understand what y'all were trying to tell me about bullet performance. If the bullet don’t get into the boiler room, it’s Katie bar the door.    

    D:    Every hunter has to define acceptable terminal performance on his own terms. What’s right for you may not be right for your huntin’ buddies, and it may not be right in your PH’s opinion.   

    This is my first trip to Africa. I came over here thinking I had enough gun and had been careful to pick enough bullet. After seeing how my combination works on my animals and how other combinations work on the same or equivalent animals, I’m

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not so sure. I've been successful, but it hasn’t been on the same terms as the success I've had hunting deer. I've got to decide if I'm happy with what is essentially a new way of defining success.   

    OS:    I've been doing this a long time. I watch and I listen to the other PHs that are in camp and consider potential better alternatives to the approach I use. I now recognize I need to pay attention to what skinning shed autopsies show. I have a switch-barrel rifle and I hand-load, so that provides the flexibility for me to try new things.   

    C:    All I have is a 300 Weatherby and I don’t hand-load. What I brought over here just plain don’t work like it needs to all the time. How can I figure out how to fix this?   

    OS:    Your chambering is very good for plains game. For whatever reason, it’s your bullet that is the problem. I don’t know how impact velocity affects the terminal performance of bullets with different generic designs. What I do know is that solid copper bullets have an Africa track record for penetration. Shooting solid copper bullets typically makes PHs very happy. That is where I would start.   

    N:    I agree. That bullet may not totally suit you in terms of drop-at-the-shot performance, but it’s hard for me to believe that a solid copper bullet would fail on a zebra’s shoulder joint. I used to shoot solid copper bullets from my 300 Winchester. At times, they act almost like a solid. If I had to bet money, I would say a 180-grain solid copper bullet out of your 300 Weatherby would have at least completely smashed that zebra’s shoulder and likely sprayed bone shards into the near-lung. With that bullet, I can’t imagine a shot like that producing way more blood than you got. There is also a good chance it would have penetrated beyond the joint, potentially affecting the other leg.    

    D:    The man I told you about who did all of that gel testing didn’t like them because his typical impact velocity from a 358 Winchester couldn’t get them to expand at all. I’m confident you wouldn’t have that problem. Even if your impact velocity is so high that you occasionally shear off the mushroom petals, the shank will act as a solid and at least make a hole. Any hole in the animal has got to be better than no hole at all.   

    C:    So, am I to conclude that a solid copper bullet ain’t perfect, but it will damned-well git’er done?   

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    OC, N, D:     (In unison) Yes.   

    C:    Thanks, gents.   

    Ironically, the entree for the night’s meal was zebra. They all enjoyed their dinners and desserts, all four sharing their hunting stories and impressions of the Africa experience. Donny told them this was his last day in camp, and he was headed out in the morning on his kudu quest. Farewells were made along with exchanges of cell numbers. Each considered the others as friends and sources of valued hunting experiences and data. The front that had passed through had truly cleared the air.   

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