Makhulu Game Lodge and Safari's Hunt Report  Go Back
Author: Don Christener and Dan Reich    Date Published: 08 January 2019

 

This hunt started at the 2016 SCI Expo as a 10day sable hunt. 2016 was already a busy year for me, so it had to be a 2017 hunt. Having been to South Africa in May, I decided that the other end of the hunting season might be fun. So August of 2017 was pencilled in on my calendar.

The hunt also included a guest and had an option for a second hunter with no more cost than trophy fees. My wife accompanied me on my first trip in 2011 and she had no intention to tagging along this time. That left the door opens for me to invite my son-in-law along. Having well over a year to save up made it easy for him to say yes.

As the months dragged on, I thought more and more about Cape buffalo. I contacted Makhulu and my able hunt was switched to a buffalo hunt. After my previous trip, I had purchased customized Inter-Arms in .357 that was originally made in the 1950’s. Finally, it would have something to do.

We left MSP the afternoon of 8/1/2017 on a Delta flight to Atlanta. After a few hours in the bar, we were finally on our way to Johannesburg. We were met in Johannesburg by Mr X from the Afton Guest House where we planned to overnight before our flight to Kimberly the next day.

After a very long wait to get our rifles through the import process, we were finally helped to our van by Mr X. when we arrived at the Afton House, we added our steaks to the list that was about to be cooked over a wood fire out back. A nice steak dinner and a couple of drinks later and we were off to sleep in a real bed without the sound of jet engines.

Suddenly, it was morning and time to shower, have breakfast and get to the airport for our flight to Kimberley. After a short flight, Makhulu owners Henk and Elma Vorster met us in person at the Kimberley Airport. We quickly retrieved our bags and rifles and wer on our way to our home away from home.

When we arrived at Makhulu, we were greeted by the staff and given a welcome drink; we met Heinrich, Henk and Elma’s son who would be our PH for the next 10 days.

Our first day of hunting started with a great breakfast and then we drove around looking for an animal that we wanted to stalk. The area around Kimberley was a lot more open than the Limpopo area I had hunted. This meant we could do more spot & stalk type of hunting.

After a bit, we decided to park the truck and do some walking. After just ½ mile, we saw some Springbuck working towards us and decided to sit down and see what would happen. Dan shot the biggest one in the group at about 50 yards, it dropped at the shot and hed had his first ever African animal.

After lunch we did some more walking and stalking. We worked over several more groups of animals, but didn’t see any that we wanted to take home.

Day two we walked about 4 miles without seeing anything we wanted to hunt. We did see buffalo about ½ mile away, but Heinrich didn’t have his .458 and he wouldn’t get after them with just one big rifle.

 We finally spotted a group of zebra and I decided that we should try for it since zebra can be very tough to get within range. We were in fairly open country and spent some time walking mostly parallel to them while trying to close the distance. We finally ran out of brush and decided to just sit down and see what would happen. Luck was on our side and they decided to curve to the right which would bring them in front of us. Unfortunately, that would also put them into our scent trail.

When they hit our scent, the herd started running. Heinrich said that the stallion was trailing the herd and to be ready. I had to reposition the shooting sticks several times as he angled further and further away from us. When he finally stopped, he ws 240 yards and angling away hard, I shot just ahead of his right ham and the .375 bullet came out through the offside shoulder.

At the shot, he whirled and ran back the way he came. We last saw him running towards a tree, but didn’t see him after that. Heinrich was positive that he was down and we walked straight to where we last saw him. Turns out we didn’t see him after the tree because he ran into it and was lying at the base of the tree.

After lunch and a nap, we went for another drive and then started walking. Heinrich spotted a nice Nyala walking through the brush and coming into the open only 50 yards away. Dan was on the sticks so fast, I didn’t have time to get y camera rolling. Walked 10 miles and decided we liked walking better than driving.

Our third day of hunting had me still carrying my .357. We walked about 4.5 miles before we came upon a really nice springbuck at about 100 yards. Down at the shot, called in the trackers/skinners and then continued hunting.

I was finally presented with a broadside shot at a black wildebeest. At the shot, the entire herd took off running. After 30 minutes of searching we found a few drops of blood. We gave up the trail and decided to drive and glass, trying to find the herd again. We looked over several herds, but couldn’t find a wounded animal.

We decide to go in for lunch and I was much bummed, I’ve always said I’ll kill anything on the face of the earth, but I don’t want any animal to suffer. After lunch we headed back out, Heinrich didn’t want to give up on it, he wanted us to get it. It only took us about 45 minutes to find three bulls that were away from any larger herd. We studied them for some time; finally I noticed that one was acting different than the other two. Heinrich finally saw that it was hit very low and forward in the chest.

It took us a very long time to work our way in as black wildebeest don’t like cover and tend to stay in the open. Finally, we were able to get close enough for a shot and he turned broadside. This time I made a good 140 yard shot. After looking him over, we don’t know if he stepped backwards at the first shot or what, but somehow the bullet hit in front of his right leg and came out just behind the left leg even though everyone says he was broadside.

That night we went jackal hunting for the first time. I had lamented that on my last trip to Africa, I saw there blackbacked jackals, but wasn’t allowed to shoot them. The land owner didn’t allow any predators to be killed. Don’t know if he wanted them al to himself or what the story was. We didn’t call any jackals in, but we did see, or more correctly, saw flashes of porcupines and aardvarks.

Day four we decided to take the day off and go fishing. About an hour away, they rented a little holiday house on the shore of a river. While fishing for catfish, we saw river otters and some kind of large eagles. We caught a few catfish, drank some cold ones and had a great cookout. Then Heinrich told me that tomorrow was buffalo hunting day.

The next morning at breakfast, we met another PH that they had brought in as an insurance gun. As we drove, we spotted a herd, but there wasn’t a shootable bull with them. After a while we saw another herd over a mile away. The wind would be wrong for our approach, so we had to drive 5 miles around to the other side of the herd.

Once we left the truck, we started walking cautiously towards where we expected the herd to be feeding into. We eventually saw them feeding towards us and sat down hoping they would keep coming. Instead, they decide to bed down in an open area 200 yards from us. I wanted to be less than 100 yards for my shot, so that wasn’t going to work.

After a while they dropped their heads and some of them rolled flat on their sides. We decided that the grass was tall enough that we might be able to sneak in closer. Carefully, we crawled from small tree to small tree, eventually we ran out of cover at about 70 yards.

We discussed the possibility of shooting while they were bedded, but I would have had to almost graze a cow in order to hit the bull properly. Now, I’ve heard a rumour that I snored for the next hour while we laid in the grass waiting for the bull to stand. All I can say is that I don’t remember that.

 Eventually, we saw another herd moving in from the left. I was told to slowly stand and get on the sticks which were in the shadow of the tree. As the herd grew in size, some of the original herd started standing up. As they milled about, they continually pointed out the bull they wanted me to shoot of it got into a good position.

Again luck was on our side and my bull started moving to the right, exiting the group and leading the way. There was one branch that was in my way and prevented me from shooting. The PH move the sticks for me, but that put me in the direct sunlight. I eased onto the sticks hoping that I was moving slowly enough that none of the many eyes would spot me.

After a few more minutes, my bull walked into an opening in the brush and presented a perfect broadside shot. The shot was good and he and a few others ran behind some nearby brush. The rest of the herd stood their ground and scanned the crush to try to determine where the shot came from. Slowly, most of the herd worked over to the brush where my bull ran. It looked like they were trying to get him to stand, but we couldn’t see much.

Then we heard the bellow, over the next 60 second, the bellow became weaker and weaker. After about 5 minutes the rest of the herd came out from behind the brush and spotted us standing in the sun. When they formed a line, Dan and I were told to get to the tree behind the two PH’s. As this tree was only about 10feet tall and skinny, I didn’t know how that would help us.

After a couple of minutes of Mexican standoff, they called for Jolene to drive in so we would have a safe island to hop onto if need be. Once the truck got within 100’ of our position, we all started walking towards the buffalo and they decide to move off.

We expected that my bull was finished, but being that it was a cape buffalo, we still approached with caution. My bull only went 75 feet after the shot. I hit at the right elbow, took part of the near lung, the entire top of the heart, most of the far side lung and broke the off side shoulder. They assured me that in 20 yards of providing hunts, nobody had ever taken a buffalo with one shot on their property.

That evening while sitting around the fire, we watched a partial lunar eclipse. Especially cool because I knew that in a week or so, my wife and I would be watching a total eclipse of the sun on our 35^th wedding anniversary!

The 5^th day of our hunt, we decided to find some Gemsbuck. We stalked several groups, some had no good bulls with them, and some gave us the slip. We saw a group of impala in an area where a big one was known to hangout, so decide to check them out.

Wow, there was a huge Impala in the group. They were moving away at an angle that wouldn’t give us a good wind. We changed plans and made a circle to try to get above them. About 45 minutes later we finally spotted him again. Dan finally took a long shot while the Impala stood in the shade of a tree. He dropped at the first shot, and then regained his feed, Dan’s second shot knocked it down again, but it didn’t matter, the Impala went down after a short run. Very big Impala, can’t wait to see the mount and hear the official score.

After lunch, it was back to Gemsbuck. Heinrich spotted a group bedded in some heavy brush. We worked our way through the brush until they started standing up. They fed closer to us and just as my bull was about to step into an opening, the lead cow saw us and took off.

As bull started to leave, I took a quick shot through an opening. The herd ran about 100 yards to the right and then my bull made a U-turn and ran to the left and went down. As we walked up to it, I was telling everyone that unlike my previous Gemsbuck, this one was certainly dead and wouldn’t charge us. When we got within 20 feet, it suddenly jumped to its feet. Lucky, I was ready and quickly dropped it with another shot. That evening, we went jackal hunting with Heinrich. Again, no jackals were called in. saw another Aardvark, they look like they would be slow and a bit stupid. They are lightning fast! I guess they don’t know that they’re protected in that area.

Day 6 we were determined to get Dan a nice warthog. We saw lots of sows with piglets, but nothing for Dan. After lunch, we spotted some Blesbuck and saw a white one that didn’t look right and kept shakings its head. We finally got close enough to see that it was bleeding from its ears enough that it was running down its neck. We immediately decided to take it so that it wouldn’t suffer any more. Flies were tormenting it something awful. It took two hours to finally be in the right spot. They trotted by at about 50’ and Dan shot it on the move. After looking the Blesbuck over, we decided that its ears had been injured while fighting. Both were torn, very swollen and very badly infected.

Dan really wanted a common Blesbuck, so we went after the same group again, just before dark, he made a perfect shot on one. We hoped to get some pictures with the setting sun behind him. By the time we cleaned up the Blesbuck and got everything ready for pictures, the sun was below the horizon, Missed it by that much.

Our 7^th hunting day started with some excitement. There was a vervet monkey running through camp. They said grab your rifles and we did! As we walked through camp, we spotted it way up a tree about 150 yards away, too far for a shot. By the time we got hoping to spot it, but never did. I guess it ran down the tree and galloped away through the tall grass.

After breakfast, we again spent the morning looking for a warthog. And again, all we saw were females. While driving to another part of the property, we did see a running jackal. It had been at water and got back to its burrow before we could get stopped and on it.

That night we hunted jackal and porcupines until midnight. We saw 3 porcupines during the night. You would think that they would be easy targets, but they can really zip through the grass and trying to keep a light on them was tough. The only shot was from Dan. After some searching, it was determined that he had blasted a light colored rock, thinking it was the porcupine.

On our 8^th day of hunting, we got word that a rancher had spotted a caracal and set his greyhounds on it. We drove like maniacs to get there as fast as we could hoping the caracal would be treed. When we got there, it had been treed and we were told to hurry. We grabbed a .22 and got to the tree as quick as we could. I literally was only 15 – 20 feet from it when I shot. I’ll never forget when it looked right in my eyes, amazing animal. Not much of a hunt, but the rancher was very excited that he wouldn’t be losing any sheep to this caracal. Looking at its teeth, I don’t know that it could have survived much longer. All of its teeth were either worn down or broken off.

That evening, Heinrich had his friend come out to call jackals for us. I really wanted a jackal or two! It was an uneventful night and we went to bed without seeing a jackal again.

Day 9, we drove about an hour to another piece of property normally not hunted as they ran cattle there. We walked many miles, but only spotted one good warthog out of several hogs spotted. This one was in the middle of an enormous open grassy field. Dan and Heinrich tried to make a stalk on it, but a different group of sows and piglets spooked, which the big male took as a sign to head for the hills.

That night, they hired two guys that used to hunt jackals fulltime, they had a rotating shooting chair in the back. You could swivel around and pivot the rifle up and down. Surly, we would see and take jackals tonight!

We did spot and call in a few jackals. I missed one at 150 yard; I could only see its eyes and guessed which way it was facing. I guessed wrong and it took off. One of the jackal guides squeaked and the jackal gave me a second chance. Didn’t miss that time.

Dan got his chance later when multiple jackals came running in. he missed the shot and they didn’t offer him a second chance. We hunted until 3AM and finally had to call it a night. The guys had an hour drive back home and had to work in the morning.

Makhulu really went out of their way to try to get us everything we wanted. I know that they paid several people to help us and refused to let me pay them. The extra PH they brought in for the buffalo hunt was to ensure our safety. The professional jackal hunters were brought in because we weren’t having any luck. It’s not like the trophy fee for jackal would cover any extra cost to them.

Everyone was so nice and really interested in making sure we enjoyed our time there. If you really want an enjoyable hunt with fantastic people I encourage you to look up Makhulu Safaris near Boshof South Africa. I won’t tell you about our last evening’s dinner, but they have a special tradition. You’ll have to go there yourself to experience it.