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OK, booked my first trip to Africa with Mbalabala Safaris. The Stantons deal with a lot of Aussies so it was easy to get references, and they were all good, so the deposit was put down for a 12 day plains game hunt with priority animals being zebra, warthog, eland, waterbuck & sable. Including the sable meant that 12 days is what had to be booked.
All the paperwork for exporting my rifle and transiting S.A. and entering Zim was organised beforehand so was all pretty much straigh forward. We o/nighted at Afton and they were great as they met us at the airport and helped with the process.Met a few hunters from the U.S. on their way hunting as well.
Headed out to Lindon's uncle's property and started seeing our first african animals in the wild. In fact the first evening drive we found giraffe, kudu, impala, waterbuck(lots), zebra and eland.
My first animal to look for was eland and we hunted pretty hard for 4 days without luck. It was during this time we found a good zebra stallion and he was to be my first African trophy.

The next day after searching for eland in the morning, we concentrated on waterbuck later that afternoon. We found him lying up in the grass and snuck into about 50yrds for the shot. Even though it was a close shot the waterbuck was lying down and this was not how I like to shoot at game. It makes the target area all change, for me anyway. I eneded up taking him high through the shoulder so he didn't move from his position. I put in a finisher and trophy number 2 was in the bag.

Warthog were also proving difficult to find as there was so much grass around still due to late rains.
It was decided to move camp as the eland were proving elusive. An hours travel had us down the highway towards the S.A. border to a property where the game scout said there was plenty of eland!!!
The next morning the trackers found fresh tracks of 3 bulls so the job was on!! They (we) tracked the bulls for 6-8km's before finding them down in a dry river bed. They were agitated so we backed off and waited for them to come out as we sent the trackers around the other side of the river. we were standing on a mound of rocks from tennis ball to football size and it was unstable to say the least. All of a sudden Lindon beckoned me over to him as two of the bulls had shown themselves. As I moved across the unstable ground I stumbled into the worst and most painful cacti I've encountered, stabbing a large piece into my leg. With no time to give it much thought I aimed and fired into the shoulder of the bull 100yrds away with an off-hand shot. The 2 bulls bolted with the 3rd out of view. The wounded bull came crashing down around us, stumbling head first through the cacti only 20 or so yrds away. Lindon motioned for me to hit him again but I was unable to steady myself on the rocks. Then we both thought he was done for anyway and at that point we both started cursing because we both had cactus in ourselves. Lindon's was in his boot and as he went to pull it out carefully it stuck fast to his fingers, more cursing as he then tried to flick it off. Meanwhile the piece in my leg was really starting to hurt so he had to put his shooting sticks eithr side of the lump of cactus in my leg and pull, faaaarrrk!!! Didn't get it so he went again this time sqeezing the shit tighter this time, and out it came. Phew.
All this time my wife was watching on and she said that after the bull crashed through the cactus it ran stumbling into the river bed where it started a bucking bronco show and roaring like a bull. Unfortunately that was the last we saw of the bull, even after tracking it for the rest of that day and till lunchtime the next day when the trackers finally lost the tracks in thick grass over trodden with other eland tracks. This was my biggest disapointment in hunting as it was the first big game animal that I've lost from deer on up. I relay this part in a bit of detail not to make me look better but just to show that hunting is hunting and not everything turns out for the best. Also other things come into play not just finding the animal and setting up on the sticks and taking the shot. Anyway!!!
After three days at this property we came across a fine kudu bull so a quick decision was made and with the sticks set up I launched a 230gr failsafe towards the bull before he departed. The shot felt good but after losing the eland I was VERY concerned. After a quick search in the fading light we found the bull dead as a doornail about 80yrds from where he was shot. All good.

The next day we headed back toward another property where I was to hunt sable. This turned out to be easier achieved than planned as we had allowed 4 days to hunt for sable. The first hour out and I had passed up a mature bull of around 36" that didn't really have the curve back over it's back that I was looking for. Not to worry as we had only searched for about another 20 minutes when Lindon halted the truck and told me to jump out quick. As i did we moved across to see this wonderful bull slowly making it's way toward cover 30 yrds away. Hurridly the sticks were put up only to have the sable walk out of view behind a bush. Quickly re setting the sticks I took the shot with the 225gr Woodleigh raking through behind the ribs and into his offside shoulder. Being a tad high, took him through the bottom of his spine and dropping him instantly from view. To say I was cool and calm at this point would be ludicrous. As Lindon motioned me to come up it was then I realised that the bull went down. A finisher into his chest made sure of things.
We then loaded back up and headed back to the first property to spend the last 3 days searching for another eland bull with no success. I did end up shooting some impala for the pot and leopard bait.

The last couple of days were spent at Vic Falls relaxing and buying some curios (not relaxing) and generally winding down from our fantastic first safari.

I must mention that my wife came with me and was happy to hunt some of the time and read a book in camp the rest. She ended up hunting every day and just as hard as the rest of us and we didn't just ride the truck.
Sure I could have taken some more animals but we did have some sort of budget to stick to. I left without my eland and waterbuck but eneded up with great trophies of zebra, waterbuck, kudu and sable. Someone (maybe nitrox) said before I left to be flexible with the animals, great advice. Afterall, my list was a wish list not a shopping list!!!

Cheers,
Mark.

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