Today I was going to do some taxidermy
training with the staff of Eland Safaris,
visit some friends and just take care of some business and let Cody sleep late,
which he was in desperate need of.
Chelsea. who I have not talked about much in
these articles, because she has not hunted much at the young age of 16, who came
along for the cultural experience and to be official photographer. But she was now
getting the bug and wanted to harvest an animal also. Du Toit being the great guy
that he is told her he had a common Blesbok running with his heard of white
Blesbok and if she like she wanted to could harvest it for free cause we could use
the meat.
So over Breakfast Du Toit and Rick made a plan
and Kathy with the Kudu under her belt, would just relax at the Lodge this
morning. Rick, Chelsea and Du Toit loaded up and went to locate the heard of white
Blesbok. The Plan was to go to a large tree that was just off the thick brush but
far enough out into the field to allow a less than 200 yard shot if the Blesbok
traveled down that way.
The Blesbok and the Wildebeest were at the
very far end of this very long field. They got set up without detection an now
it was a waiting game to see if the white Blesbok would feed in there direction.
After an hour of waiting the Blue Wildebeest got a little crazy an started to
run around for no apparent reason. After a few minutes of this nonsense they
started to run down the field than veered off heading right for Chelsea's
tree.
About 200 yards out the 100 wildebeest were
bearing down on her location as she turned to Du Toit and said " I am
scared". Du Toit assured her they would not run over the tree and pushed
her gently closer to the tree as the Wildebeest herd split up an passed with in
20 yards on both sides of the tree.
After the dust and Chelsea's nerves had
settled they noticed the Blesbok were also moving slowly down the field. Du Toit
was pointing out the Blesbok he wanted Chelsea to take and giving her final
instructions. When the common Blesbok was parallel to their location Chelsea
took aim and an fired, as the gun rocked her back her father Rick was saying
" He is down, you got him". Chelsea had harvested her first animal, and
of all places Africa. And to make things even better her dad was there to experience
it with her an get it on film.
Chelsea First Animal - Blesbok
After taking pictures and loading the
common Blesbok on the truck they headed back to the lodge to have the
animal processed an some lunch. After lunch Rick wanted to see if he
could get a bigger Impala, so they headed back out. After looking over
a few different herds Rick picked out a nice ram and made an excellent
300 yard shot.
Africa's
Only Bowhunting Magazine Africa's Bowhunter is a
bimonthly magazine aimed at a world wide readership interested in bowhunting
in Africa. The magazine is a complete guide on how, where and when
to bowhunt in southern Africa, with articles such as how to track and hunt
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Larry C. Reese, Wildlife Artistry Taxidermy 215 Lands End Road
Centreville, Maryland 21617
