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My first African animal was a striped horse - a Zebra mare. We hunted Zebra on the Bubiana Conservancy in Zim several times, sighting them from the vehicle before following them and stalking them in the bush. Each time the Zebras were alert and didn't stop for more than a couple of seconds when sighted. We covered a lot of kilometres and failed to connect for the first five to seven stalks.

Finally a herd stayed put long enough for me to jump out of the cruiser take a sitting rest on a bush's trunk and fire a shot. The zebra was hit well in the centre of the chest when facing towards us, but ran off with the rest of the herd. We continually expected to find it lying behind a bush but one and a half kilometres later we came across the herd with the zebra lying down. As it rose a finishing shot put it down.

The rifle was a .30-06 and the bullet a 180 gr Nosler Partition which acted like a solid, didn't expand at all and zipped through the chest. The PH said later the bullet had actually damaged the heart. Even given the bullet failure amazing how far the mare went and even more how many bushes needed to be cleared to get the bakkie in for retrieval.

A highlight for me was while waiting by the animal while the PH and trackers blazed a track through the bush, I was sitting in an area where elephants had fed through only a couple of hours earlier. While there were no lion in the conservancy the presence of elephant, black and white rhino and presumably leopard added to the atmosphere.

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John aka NitroX

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Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"

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