Thanks for the kind words.

It was a great hunt, a fifteen-day "main course" after a week hunting plains game in South Africa and a day sight-seeing at Victoria Falls and a morning fishing for Tigerfish on the Zambesi river.

Vic Falls:

Bream first thing in the morning:

Tigerfish:

What follows are a few pictures from our Eastern Cape "appetizer". Basically, a seven-day plains game hunt in the Eastern Cape of South Africa as a warm-up for our 15-day Zim DG safari.

This was the second time I had hunted with our South African outfitter, Pierre Moolman (Sun-Africa Hunting Safaris). My PH was a very enthusiastic "JK" (Johannes Kristoffer). We had good fun calling caracal and black-backed jackal while doing our best to find a nice bushpig, Black Wildebeest, springbuck, duiker and bushbuck. We didn't find everything that was on the "wish list", but it sure was fun trying!

Here are a few more pictures from the hunt in RSA:

The property where we were hoping to find a couple of nice black wildebeest:

My Black Wildebeest - taken with the .375 H&H (300 gr A-Frame) at ~165m:

The coupe de grace was administered with the VC 450/400 at ~30m. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the one and only shot fired at game with the double while in Africa.

Regrettably, the VC stopped working while I was confirming its zero before embarking on the first day of our DG hunt. Fortunately, I was able to switch to the Ruger RSM which worked very effectively for the duration of the hunt. After returning home it was discovered that the ejector screw on the double rifle had inexplicably backed out a full-turn-and-a-half, preventing the action from fully closing. A remarkably minor problem with potentially significant repercussions. In the grand scheme of things, though, I'm thankful that the problem revealed itself on the range rather than in the field!

Zebra taken on Eastern Cape lemon plantation (.375 H&H, 300 gr A-Frame. Long stalk up a hill followed by a ~40m shot):

Baboon tracks...

Baboon taken during a predator-calling session. Distance was ~300m with my PH's .243 (Tikka T3 with suppressor, 100gr SP South African factory ammo)

Springbuck taken with .375 H&H at ~175m (300 gr A-Frames)