Bryan Donovan is a keen Australian hunter and we have just completed a Grand Safari together that took us from the Kalahari to the Karoo region in South Africa.
Bryan is a well experienced hunter that has been hunting in Africa for over 20 years. He tried his luck on lions in West and East Africa before, came very close, but could not get one yet. We will try to get him one in Tanzania next year, but until then, he wanted to experience tracking lions on foot in the Kalahari where he could harvest both a big maned lion and a big female in a very short period of time.
I meet Bryan and his mate John in Johannesburg Airport where we charter a small aircraft to shorten the 8 hours drive to a 2 hours flight to get to the Kalahari. We land in the middle of a vast hunting area on the Botswana border.
We decide to first track the big female reserved for Bryan. The bushman tracker does an excellent job tracking her in the sand between broken bushes for about 3 hours non stop. We had a glance of that big cat once or twice, but could not get a shot.
Finally, the lioness decides it was enough and now wants to fight standing her ground. Very impressive growling coming from a thick bush, Bryan pull a perfect shot on her at about 25 yards…adrenaline is pumping hard in all of us…what an experience!
Next day, we start very early looking for the big boy. Bushman tracker picks up its tracks together with tracks of an other 2 females…that might turn very sporty, females can be extremely aggressive when being chased around. 2 hours later, we see one of them running 50 yards in front of us, breaking away from the big boy. An other hour and a half and our tracker freezes while tracking in a semi-open bush-veld area. The lion is lying flat in a thick bush about 20 yards on our right. Way too close, if he jumps, he will be on top of us in less than 2 seconds…
As we slowly walk back a bit, the beast starts growling loudly, freezing up our blood… Once you’ve experienced
that deep growl from a huge lion while tracking him on foot, trust me, you’ll know what I’m talking about…
Everything goes very quick then, the big boy is now standing and is contemplating a charge, we are standing way inside his comfort zone. The 2 females are gone which makes the situation a lot more manageable. The .416 bullet got that lion in the bottom of the neck as he was coming out, and turn him back into that thick bush for a few seconds, try to come out again and goes down on that second shot. What an adrenaline rush again, unique experience of being so close to those huge Kalahari Lions on foot.
Our cameraman tries the .500 NE, quite a choc…
We are now in the Eastern Cape province to take care of that rhino bull that causes so much problems on one of our concessions, including modifying some of our vehicles… Hunting white rhinoceros can be very plain, but that specific bull decides otherwise. He is walking with 2 females and a calf, and the one
female is also now starting to show bad attitude learnt from the bull. If it was the bull walking alone, we could get real close and would manage a charge if needs be, but getting charged by 2 rhinos including a female that you don’t want to,
shot could turn to an expensive challenge…
A dead tree between the 2 rhinos and us get us to about 25 yards of the mastodons. We are in good shape, just waiting for the bull to make a move, and he does, giving Bryan a good broad side for his .500NE double rifle. Two shots in the shoulder, the bull run straight and fell over, done!
Then it will be a Mountain Reedbuck in real heavy wind at 450 yards with a .222 Remington, what a technical shot!
A dozen blue wildebeest bulls are being spotted down a valley, away from the wind, Bryan put the rifle down and get his Carbon Knight latest BowTech out. An hour later, he is the proud owner of a blue wildebeest shot at 17 yards with archery.
The Eastern Cape province has so much to offer…
A Waterbuck and a good East Cape Kudu also find out how good those new bows are, and on the last day, Bryan also takes a 38″ Cape Buffalo with his 70 lbs.
In between, our Australian farmer will pull some great running shots at over 350 yards on warthog, kudu, blue wildebeest… “Yeah, reminds me those bloody kangaroo on the farm mate!”…
Boy, the man can shoot…
We took 3 of the big 5 on that safari (lion, rhino and cape buffalo), a bunch of plains game species, using light caliber, heavy double rifle and archery.
