Most horrible weather fantastic hunt.

[Treeman]

We went hunting Impala, 2 clients father and son 70 and 42 years old, really nice people. The weather was said to be cool and wind 0.3 km?h - by the time we left wind was predicted to be 25 km?h and temp had dropped to 15 - 19 Celsius.
That's just what it was when we unpacked, got a bit worse when we made the fire and was howling when we made food. The zero % rain was now sitting at 3% chance of rain when it started raining, and it rained proper. The place we stay at is called the Summer camp, because that's all it is, shade and well ventilated for the 40 Deg + summer days, this did not go well when the storm came.
The video is on Cody's Flicker account, (which I monitor) I have not bothered to load it to my account as well.
Click on picture to watch.
weather by Cody  Allen, on Flickr
It was terrible yet nice, we had laughs and giggles we would not have had, had the weather been better.
We woke to a howling wind with 5 minute splatter rain every 30 minutes, but there were Impala out and about, we even saw them glinting from the camp on the very far hills. I could not believe how many animals were out in the atrocious weather(only Impala).
The clients were hard to get on game, but when on game they could not shoot, always something wrong, some issue, usually taking evolution periods of time to get into shooting position. After trying to get success for clients on 3 hunt directions, Cody and I went for last hunt of day to get our own animals.

I found a herd of ewes on far side of farm that I had often hunted, but never succeeded with, they were very wakey wakey. I spotted the herd at about a km from a old tower that had not yet collapsed and proceeded to close that distance through a very green velt which offered a lot more stalking possibilities than 2-3 months ago. After some time, I had the heard at 140- 170 m (hard to range in the dense bush), I tried various approach's, each blocked by some greenery along the way in some way or another. I eventually found a corridor that I could shoot through, directly upwind shot. I actually said to the old man that they are looking down wind because they  smelling up wind.
I considered letting the old man have a go again, but could not get a conventional shot and decided to try a shot myself. This was likely the most difficult, impressive shot I have ever taken, it took at least a half hour of standing waiting for one animal to give me a shot, any one. I stood and aimed and sat down to rest a moment, stood again for a ever and sat again, repeat, it was really hard on the legs, body standing dead still waiting looking through a small hole in the bush. They just stood dead still, just staring down wind.
The herd was 10-12 animals and packed densely, offering no shot, nothing stepped out of group and if one did it would be covered by odd twigs and branch's.
Eventually after the tree I hid behind bore flowers and dropped its fruit, something bit one of the Impala and she turned her head to bite or lick the spot, I was now offered a view of the animals side about 2 fingers wide.  I noted the shot would get in behind front shoulder start of the ribs and exit line would be through rumin and into back leg. The soft point bullets would never exit over that distance of body, I have shot a lot of these shots lately, these steep angle almost frontal shots, they were all drop right there results.
I shot, it fell , I forgot to take photo's. The bullet broke four ribs, shaved the hair on front shoulder and stopped in the big hind leg bone, same as previous times.
Its amazing how much blood meat was on front shoulder, the bullet did not break the skin, yet it did a lot of damage to the body - must be the sonic boom ?

When I got back to camp Cody had his own story and pictures. The below is copied straight from his Gun Site account post.

Cody's story.
Saturday morning startED off good, I saw about three different herds of impala but couldn't get a shot. Then later on Saturday around 2 o'clock I went back on the same walk and only saw some ewes which wouldn't give me a shot, after they ran off I went stumbling down a fence line a bit grumpy and tired and I walk straight into about 5 batchler impala rams, they saw me but as I saw them I sat down next to the fence and loaded my rifle and set my sticks up. I then some time peeped out a bit only to see that they actually had not seen me, so I got comfortable and was ready to shoot when they stepped out of the bush. I sat 39m away from them for about 20 min waiting for 1 to give me a shot. I watch him walk in and out of the bush, every time he went back into the bush I stretched my neck to look over a bush to make sure they are still there and then finally he stepped out again at a bit of a angle, so I shot him. He dropped on the spot. My dad has been doing these amazing shots on animals almost standing straight looking at him, he just aims on animal and if it just moves a little bit he shoots behind the shoulder and usually nearly out the bum, no meat damage, but some times along 4 ribs. I took photos and then proceeded to gut the animal. Once that was done it was time to get the animal over the fence by myself and drag it about 200m to the road. So I had the bright idea to grab the rams leg and stand on the fence and try pull the ram over the fence, which did not work because I ended up losing my balance and falling off the fence onto my stomach, but I got straight back up and thought to myself that that was stupid and found a different way to get the impala over the fence and then I dragged it to the road. Once at the road I walked back to camp got the vehicle and went and fetched my impala.
This was my first ever hunt where I did everything myself.
IMG-20230827-WA0070 by Cody  Allen, on Flickr
WhatsApp Image 2023-08-27 at 21.01.01 by Cody  Allen, on Flickr

Do note the entrance and exit wounds on animal ? The child is getting good, very good.

[DaavG]

Nice story, well done! Sounds like a fun weekend overall.

[Treeman]

Nice story, well done! Sounds like a fun weekend overall.

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Yes was one of the better short hunts in many years.

[oafpatroll]

Thanks for writing these up. For a typist like myself they are an easy way to live the life of a hunter vicariously.

[Treeman]

Thanks for writing these up. For a typist like myself they are an easy way to live the life of a hunter vicariously.

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I should really start writing properly again, full stories.

[oafpatroll]

I should really start writing properly again, full stories.

Bound editions of "The Diary of a Sportive Arborist Afield" on bookshelves near you in T minus 5 years and counting?

[Treeman]

Gonna post my getting shot story soon, still figuring it all out