Today is the final day for Rick, Kathy, and Chelsea's African trip, their hunt was very successful as they harvested all the animals in the Hunting Package that they had chosen off the Eland Safari web site. Today they are headed to do some shopping an then off to the airport. It is always a sad time when there are good byes cause when you first come to Eland Lodge for the first time you are a valued client, when you leave you are a dear friend.
Cody and I still had a few days to get his Blue Wildebeest and spend a few days with Du Toit an his family. One of the things we have to do is look over a farm that has never been hunted and it is going to be set up for bow hunting ONLY. The owner Shaw is a long time friend of Du Toit's, amongst his many trophy animals he also has some cattle and sheep.
After talking to Du Toit about Chelsea's experience at the tree yesterday with her Blesbok it was decided we might give it a try and hope the Blue Wildebeest decide to travel in the same direction.
We got there early with Louie (Du Toit's son) but there were no animals in sight. Louie gave us a radio as he dropped us off and said he would see if he could locate them. After 30 minutes or so we got the call that the Blue Wildebeest and White Blesbok were working there way out of the thicker brush an heading toward the field where we were snuggled next to the large tree.
It seemed like it took them forever but the white Blesbok started to move down the field toward a watering area. The Blue Wildebeest were holding theie ground an not moving. I had plenty of time to view them through my NIKON binoculars, there was at least 6 animals in this heard that would make the record book with no problem. Two or three of them were at the very tail end of the heard with a few smaller ones, maybe females, the others were moving around the heard.
After what seemed like a life time the Blue Wildebeest started to go in the same direction as the Blesbok which would bring them in Cody's range. As the main heard slowly moved down the field in our direction the ones in the tail end started to peal off and head in another direction that would bring them closer to us. I was worried now that we were getting surrounded an that some of them would see us and bolt which would cause ALL of them to run.
Cody and Larry (dad)
As the tail end group were pealing off I was trying to get Cody in a new position with his shooting sticks and looking at which ones decided to come in this new direction. They were coming quick,
I whispered to Cody, "the first one is a good one." Then I swung my Nikon binoculars to the next one and said, "Don't shoot the first one, the second is a record book animal." Cody responded "Dad they are walking." I told him put it on his leg half way up and shoot they are nto goign to stop.
As the Big Wildebeest came into a clearing Cody's 270 Winchester rang out and I could hear the thump an saw the Wildebeest buckle but he turned and tried to run in the direction of the main heard. I said Cody you need to shoot him again, as he was already in motion an he anchored the Wildebeest.
Cody and Louie
I hugged Cody and told him, "nice shooting," and said, "you just shot a very big Wildebeest, lets go take a closer look." Louie was watching the hunt unfold from on top of the mountain an radioed us as we moved away from the tree in route to the downed Wildebeest.
The closer we got the larger the animal got, there was definitely no ground shrinkish on this one. Pictures were taken and Louie called Du Toit who was in route to airport with Rick, Kathy an Chelsea to tell him we finally got the Wildebeest.
