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OK, here's the story:

The place is called Oribi. It's a very beautiful place in the Northern Cape. Here you can find everything you wish - savanna bushland with koppies, mountains, fields of thick agave cactuses, open plains - you name it.

We were driving around in an old 4x4 trying to spot Springbok for Erik. I'd shot a Springbok earlier the same day, so it was Erik's turn. We spotted a smaller herd of Springbok, maybe 20 animals on 150 meters distance, just at the edge of the big open plain. I saw this big Springbok first

since me and Erik was on the back of the truck and the PH was driving. I pointed it out and knocked on the roof of the bakkie and asked or PH about it, he agreed it was big and told us "That's the one, let's go for it!". Erik said "But are you sure it's big enough? I want a BIG one." I looked at Erik like if he was crazy and said "Erik, that's a BIG one." Erik once again "But I want a really really BIG one." And I said "Erik, if you don't try for this one, then I'll shot it even though I've already shot one!" And our PH said "Erik, if you don't try for this one, you're stupid!" Finally Erik agreed to try for him.

We tried to drive back out of sight to start stalking, but the wind was turning all the time, and the Springbok's got our smell and split into two groups. One group ran and jumped speedily out on the big open plain, and the big one with a couple of females hesitated, but walked out on the open plain. There was not one single tree or one single anthill to hide behind, the grass was short, the distance long and the wind totally bad. Stalking was not an option. Erik got a choice, either to try and shoot from the bakkie, or to skip this and maybe try later, but we were in this place for one day only, and it was past lunch already. Erik chose to shoot from the bakkie. It went terribly wrong, just when he shot the Springbok started running, and the bullet hit in the back leg. The animal did a fast run on three and a half leg, and got to the outher group which soon merged with a BIG herd of a couple of hundred Springbok.

We followed the herd with the bakkie over the open plain, and saw the big one at the tail of the herd, couldn't run faster than the slowest ones. We followed them slowly in a distance hoping for them to slow down, and finally they did, and disappeared behind a ridge. At this point we stopped, turned the engine of and left the bakkie behind. Now the wind was good and stalking possible behind the ridge. It was possible to sneak up on the top of the small ridge and look down a shallow "valley", and there the animals were, the hurt Springbok standing still on three legs. Erik sneaked into position, layed down on the ridge and shot the Springbok with a perfect shot in the shoulder. If you look carefully you can see the bullet hole on the picture. He used his 6.5 rifle that he normally uses on the moose hunt at home.

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Born to hunt - forced to work
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