An Experience I Will Never Forget: My African Macnab Challenge
This is a story of a hunt in South Africa that Max Roesler found and booked on BookYourHunt.com, told in his own words.
We drove through winding bushveld sand trails, and what we saw looked like a scene from The Lion King. A herd of some twenty oryx, with a baby running behind, then some zebras galloping across a plain with impalas in tow, then more oryx and a herd of red hartebeest.
We crossed over to the Emoyehle game reserve, stopped at a large plain, and saw four guineafowl walking about a hundred yards in the distance. We hopped out; Vian put the tripod and I took a 110 yard shot at a small common blue headed (helmeted) guinea fowl. It flapped around for half a second – dead. It was only 6:30 A.M., and I was already “blooded” with my first animal of the African Macnab Challenge.
Why the African Macnab Challenge?
I grew up in Michigan and have always enjoyed fishing in the Great Lakes, particularly for walleye and perch. That recently branched into hunting. I’ve been pheasant hunting several times. It’s a ton of fun, and no matter how many you get, it’s good to be out with your friends. White-tailed deer are also popular in Michigan. I haven’t shot a deer yet, but I’m looking forward to doing it in the next few years.
During my semester abroad, I decided it was time to try a South African hunt. As I was searching for short safaris on BookYourHunt.com, the offer from Rust de Winters Safaris immediately caught my attention. It was creatively written and illustrated their true dedication to their preserve. I had never heard about the Macnab Challenge before, but as I came across this option, I knew this was the hunt that I would pick.
The challenge begins
First thing in the morning I saw many guinea fowl active right in the lodge yard. Vian, my PH on this trip, and I drove down the red rocky road trail to a small valley for target practice. There was a .30-06 Howa with a sound moderator for big game, and a .222 Sako rifle for guinea fowl. Having made sure I could hit the target with both rifles, we went after the guinea fowl, and soon I crossed the first item of my challenge off the list.
The impala hunting was amazing, but I soon realized why it was called a challenge. First, the Can Am that we used to drive across the preserve had a tire punctured by a sickle bush branch. These branches look and work like spike traps that police throw down to stop criminals. Vian tried to fix it with a gummy paste he stuffed in the hole with a metal rod, but the tire kept losing air, and we eventually had to replace the Can Am with an uplifted Toyota Land Cruiser.
As it was, we drove on, passing Vian’s honeybee farm and an empty waterhole. Then we hopped out with the tripod and the .30-06, and walked in the brush, me following Vian’s footsteps. We spotted a large impala with huge horns, that Vian estimated at 23″, standing behind a bush, set up the rifle, but only the head of the animal was visible, and it eventually walked behind the brush and disappeared.
We went back to the vehicle and drove through a small plain. Vian told me how the buffalo use the mud pits as a sunblock front rolling around before grazing in the morning sun. We saw several kudu; two wildebeests fighting, butting heads, a small warthog chasing them after they ran away. We passed a field of aloe trees and saw an impala herd, walked after them, I carried the rifle, Vian carried the tripod, Peter, the hunting operator, carried a camera, but we could not catch up with the herd.
The impala eludes us
We drove on, seeing a herd of Cape buffalo, who snorted at us and walked off, and entered an exotic hotspot for bucks. There we saw a large tsessebe buck, along with bronze colored young ones with straight horns, and a massive bull sable, a couple of decent sized zebras, five or six white-faced blesboks, four giraffe with young, and finally a herd of large impala bucks mixed with blesboks. We parked the truck and walked around the side of the road while crouching slowly and holding the rifle, avoiding sticks and leaves, stepping on rocks, but they moved on by the time we reached the area.
It was heating up and sunny, quite hot even though it was only 8:50 a.m., and with heat there was less activity and animals were more prone to noises. We kept driving on, seeing more and more amazing things like small Chinese lantern flowers on trees, small yellow buds blossoming to pink sprout on top, bushpigs and wildebeest shaking heads at the truck, and a hornbill zazu bird, with alternating white feathers and a large yellow curved beak. Vian had to stop and drag aside a large branch that elephants had torn off the tree to the side of the path. Elephants can be quite destructive apparently.
We passed a small, torn-down red brick homestead where farm laborers used to live, drove along the top of the hill, and spotted some decent sized impala in shooting distance. I got behind the rifle and zeroed into one. The horns were behind the tree, but vitals were visible. I did not take the shot due to not seeing antlers. Vian slowly crept forward, I stayed in standing position, scoped into two rams lined back to back, but the next second they ran away.
We went on, and saw some more animals, including a small duiker running 40 km/h or even faster, a shaggy fur waterbuck, and several large impalas, but I couldn’t get a clear shot on any of them. The last chance was on a herd that ran towards us, only twenty meters away, with a decent sized male within the group. A doe led the herd and kept running, didn’t slow down so the entire herd followed. According to Vian, the hunting season for local residents had just ended, and that made the animals more sensitive to people.
A bit of cooling off: Fishing for largemouth bass.
Blesbok instead of impala.
Back at the lodge, at brunch, Stefan, the owner of the preserve, said that we had an option of replacing the impala with a blesbok, but I was still set on an impala, so we dropped the fishing poles off and headed back to the reserve to find them.
We were in for some more Lion King scenes: wildebeests and reedbucks sprinting quickly into the plain in a trail of dust, shaggy waterbucks, giraffes eating leaves in the fading sunlight, kudus, oryx feeding in water buckets, and heard a long-billed bird squawking. We drove right up alongside some sable, a herd of eland, saw mongooses running, scented thorn acacia trees spread across the plain, but encountered only one young impala that disappeared into the brush before I could aim.
At about 5:30 p.m. Vian said that blesboks were likely moving to the open grass plain to graze in the evening, and in his opinion with their calmness they could be the best opportunity to complete the challenge before sunset. Lo and behold, he soon found an open field that was a grazing heaven with blesbok. They were walking, grazing and running all over, and it was difficult to identify male from female.
I took control of the rifle, Peter was to my left with binoculars advising which of the herd was the buck. We established the right-most buck, at about 125-131 yards, was a male and a suitable trophy. He began walking away from us, then turned broadside behind brush. It moved slowly forward into ‘v’ shape of visible vitals between bushes as it grazed. I said: “I have a clear shot, I am going to take the shot.” Hearing no objections from Peter and Vian, I fired.
I grabbed the rifle, and walked with Peter to the place where the blesbok was hit. We found no blood trail, but quickly found the buck lying under a tree, some twenty feet away from the sandy road. Peter said that most bucks shot in the vitals take a short run on adrenalin before collapsing, not knowing their lungs were hit.
After the challenge
We celebrated with a mountain trail drive to see the amazing orange and pink cloudy African sunset, and watched giraffes and zebras and the elephant water hole habitat. At the lodge we had another excellent dinner, starting with a tray of beef biltong, then springbok carpaccio, boiled beef boerewors sausage, grilled beef steak, baked chicken thighs, coleslaw, cheese potato casserole, and mushroom cheese sauce for steak. Vian gave me some aloe cream honey he made from the honey bee farms. Overall, I cannot wait to come back, as this was an experience I will never forget.
