We
started hiking down a road that ran between a couple of major dunes,
glassing as we went. Time after time we spotted Springbok, but it
would turn out to be a group of does or a small buck. The sky was
clear and day was getting hot and I was thankful for the Camelbak
system on my back and the large hat I had borrowed from Pieter to
keep the sun off my ears and neck.
As we came around a bend and over a dune, I spotted a large herd of
Gemsbok. Never one to pass up an opportunity, we glassed the herd.
There were lots of pretty animals, but Pieter felt we could do
better than the biggest animals in this group, so we watched them
for a while, then slipped back off the dune and circled so as not to
spook them. As we approached an old windmill powered waterhole, a
Springbok jumped up from the tall grass and stared at us for what
seemed like a long time, but was really probably 5 seconds. He was
only about 50 yards away, broadside and I had the scope locked on
his lungs, but I waited to get Pieter's judgment on his quality. It
takes some experience to judge a good Springbok from an exceptional
Springbok, and since we had seen so many, I had instructed Pieter
that I wanted to hold out for an exceptional Springbok.
At the same instant Pieter calmly said "Take him", the
Springbok decided he didn't like what he was seeing and he bolted.
Not wanting to risk a running shot, I watching him to see if he
would stop and give me a shot, but he continued over the top of a
dune and was gone. We figured that since we hadn't shot, he might
not go far, so we took out after him and tracked him over 1 dune,
across a velley then started up the next dune. We hoped we would
find him in the next valley, so we crept up the second dune and
peered into the valley ahead. We saw nothing and as we were about to
move over the top of the dune, I saw the Springbok off to our left
and about 175 yards away. I tugged at Pieter's shirt (my signal to
him that I had seen something as we stalked along in Africa, me
following closely behind Pieter. I pointed and Pieter quickly set
the shooting sticks in the sand. I sat down and settled in the
shooting sticks, but the Springbok was facing me head on looking at
us and trying to decide if we were "trouble". When an 90
lb animal is staring at you head on from 175 yard away, there is
little margin for error, so I held my fire waiting for him to turn
and give me some "shoulder". He decided he didn't like us,
so he turned in a swift movement and took off again before I got a
clean shot at his chest/shoulder. He ran down the valley between
some dune and around a clump of trees.
We started off after him again and as we worked around the trees, my
patience was rewarded. We spotted the Springbok about 200 yards
away, standing on the side of a dune, scanning for danger (us). He
was broadside, but there was nothing to rest on and the grass was
too deep for a sitting shot. So we "Leopard" crawled
through the waist deep grass for about 50 yards to get to a tree
that provided both a rifle rest and gave me the opportunity to move
into a shooting position undetected, along with knocking the
distance down to about 150 yards. The Spingbok never knew what hit
him when the 180 grain Nosler Partition hit him square in the lungs
and bowled him over. He turned out to be 15 inches and would make
the book. Once again Pieter had led me to another trophy and a stalk
to remember for a lifetime!!!
|