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Well,
Before the trip, I had not booked wildebeest as I have never thought much of it as game animal.
Upon seeing the herd, I changed my mind immediatelly! As there was quota left, I decided to take one.
This proved to be one of the trip's more challenging endeavours, however! Being a herd animal, the wildebeest is very alert, indeed, and seems to be jumpier than ever the zebra. So if you have zebra and they run off; off go the wildebeest like the wind: far and fast.
We hunted the wildebeest like crazy, crawling, crouching, sneaking, running crouched in a riverbed and finally waiting behind an antheap for the better part of an hour before giving up - only to return to try a crawling approach: the PH just couldn't not try, as the herd was just lying down chewing the cud. Of course, they run off just before the bull was spotted.... So we walked back to the car in 45 degrees (celcius) for more than an hour, with no dead wildebeest.
But then, almost as the sun set, we got close to the herd again! Lying again behind an antheap, the PH was able to spot the bull, and he had me coming all silently around the heap, explaining carefully which one the bull was. Aroud I came, and the bull spotted me and got up - "that's it!" I thought. But he stopped stupidly, the PH yelling me to "Shoot, shoot!" and me replying "No shot!" as there was some shrub. But he kept telling me to shoot, and I remembered his advice that even if the shot is a tad poor and I need to shoot to far back, let drive: we'll find the animal and if it's well wounded, it won't go far. So just when the PH was about to give up, I let drive! Off the bull went like a bullet. I realoaded but got no follow-up shot as he was running too fast and too far. We immediatelly followed, and when we came out of the shrub to a small clearing, the PH chambered a round. "Uh-oh!", I thought; when the PH chambers a round, that's bad news.... And then he asked me where I hit the wildebeest. Well, the distance could not have been 15 meters, but I told him i hit a bit back as that's where I had shot. So we followed the spoor and sure enough, there he was lying under a tree, stone dead, having run but maybe 100 meters or so.
The shot was a bit quartering so it went through both lungs and the bullet exited leaving the entire offside of the wildebeest blood sprayed.
This was very lucky, as we really hunted him hard, and as you can see from the photo, we got him pretty much at last light.
I daresay that the wildebeest hunt was the most fun part of the safari; despite us getting much other game through hard work, too. The jumpiness of the game, the various approaching methods, the difficulty of spotting the bull - and finally, trying to place the shot extra carefully keeping in mind all the stories you've read about the toughness of the wildebeest. I was sure the .30-06 Winchester would be far too little gun despite the marvelous performance of the Speer Nitrex ammo and the Grand Slam bullets.
Oh, yeah; that's something I wish to experience again!

- Lars/Finland

(Image added to NE server)

Edited by NitroX (13/09/10 08:41 PM)

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