Went for a quick outing

[Treeman]

We call it a outing when the wiff comes along 
It was hot, hot as hell by 09:00 as predicted, but luckily we were we were nearly 4 hours into morning walk (we call it a walk when the wiff comes with ).
This is the end of the third year that Cody has been trying to get his One Horn, a very special animal to him, VERY. Cody saw a Impala about 3 years ago with one horn only and a huge body, I must say I agree he is huge. This one horn got named, and became legend, it was all he spoke of for a long time. In year two of trying he sold some of his stuff to buy that animal, paid the poor farmer for that one horn and TOLD the serious looking farmer that no one else can shoot his animal. Imagine the 14 year old looking up to the big bearded farmer, handing him a fist full of cash and telling him how things are gonna work . Well we were there for One Horn only and if we got him the wiff knew its, bang. load, pack up, and straight home because of the heat.
She also knew that we would likely have a kill free day because finding that one animal would be a needle in a haystack kinda thing - its a big piece of land.
We found One Horn 120 m from where we parked bakkie for start of walk about, and as before, Cody could not shoot because he is just too nervous about this animal, he wants it to be standing dead still, perfect broadside shot with absolutely no grass or twigs visible in scope picture. He has thought of everything that could go wrong and then added "take no chances"
So after I shot one horn at least 5 x mentally, One Horn wandered off and was gone.
We did a 16 km walk about and saw lots of nice things, flowers I had never seen before, flowering after the  drought, true - I still see new stuff. We also saw the most ever number of other game, but we were not there for other game early in the day, just too hot.

We slept and dozed and lay about till 16:30 and then went back into the bush, this time to get an take home animal. We saw many animals, but all were too good for what I needed, I wanted a undersized animal that needed taking off, or a bad horn genetic animal that would be better on a plate than on a ewe. I was hoping for a big bad horn animal.
These little tracking dogs, never knew it, but they can not handle the heat, we really have to nurse them in the bush, they just get too hot. We actually pre plan water trough points for them.
20241207_171424 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

At about 18:00 we spotted a huge herd of Impala, and then saw that there were like 4 herds on the lower ground before us. We chose a likely animal and stared to stalk it, but it was 330 m away and needed some open area planning.(Jan Fred- the spot we called Warthog Valley where you likely bumped your scope)
Between us and the target was a valley we would have to get into, somehow ? When we got to drop off and open to herd area we could see the floor of the valley and    a huge lone bad horned ram - 120 m. I told Cody he could take the shot and it was worth the look on his face, he knew One Horn was his animal and assumed then I would claim the meat animal.
Not much to say, bang, the ram jumped, ran the length of a car and stopped. It stood there looking about before walking off another cars length to the shade under a tree and lying down gently. It held its head up for a while and then lowered it as if really tired and expired.
20241207_184820 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

My new cooler room that I am so exited to use now had a function       
I really never thought I would ever have an cooler room.

Tired? Who's tired ?
20241207_214536 by David Frank Allen, on Flickr

[Ds J]

I would love to go hunting with the two of you at some time. Don't know when or how, but it would be great to share a story.

[Treeman]

we must make it happen.
You fly down, I will cover your hunt and animals etc
 think about it.

[oafpatroll]

Loving being along for the journey on your boy's development. He's learning and doing stuff that is of lifelong value and will differentiate him from his soft foot peers forever.

[Treeman]

Loving being along for the journey on your boy's development. He's learning and doing stuff that is of lifelong value and will differentiate him from his soft foot peers forever.

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What I am liking about Cody's development is his "not needing" he hunts, camps, sleeps with nothing on the ground. I take water, snacks, warm cloth's etc, him - rifle, knife, no phone, no binno's, rifle and knife, whole day gone. Gets back, eats 6 bread rolls, asks if there is anything to eat, eats what ever is there and goes to sleep half hour. Drinks all the milk asks if there is anything to eat and gone again.