Sharing a photo collage of a 10-day hunt my wife, Cindy, and I took to South Africa this past July. The outfitter is Hunt The Sun and we spent 7 days hunting in the Northern Cape near Kimberley and 3 days in the Eastern Cape. The Red Hartebeest is Cindy’s first animal taken whereas my only previous hunting experience were the public Axis and Mouflon hunts on Lanai. We very much enjoyed the hospitality and company of Mike Birch, his family, the other PH’s and got to eat cape buffalo, gemsbok, springbok and kudu, which all pretty much tasted like beef. After the hunt we spent two nights at the Amakhala game reserve’s Woodbury Tented Camp, where we got photos of the lion, and two nights at the Sabi Sands reserve’s Arathusa Safari Lodge, where the photo of the leopard was taken.
After hunting a couple days and taking the zebra, blue wildebeest and red hartebeest, watching the sun go down, the feeling we both had was of gratitude and the privilege it was to be hunting in Africa. We’re planning more hunts to come, likely the U.S. mainland or New Zealand next. I had hoped to take a springbok, I had an opportunity but my PH said “nice, but we can do better”, we never did get another chance. Sounds like an excuse to revisit the continent.