South Wytanafrica, Hunter's Paradise

Jul 11

Ron Spomer - Black Wildebeest, South Africa

If you think Wyoming and Montana are some of the biggest, best, most visually stunning hunting country on Earth, you owe yourself a safari to the Baviaans River Conservancy in the foothills of the Winterberg Mountains in South Africa. These mountains, ridges and canyons look more like Wyoming and Montana than Wyoming and Montana. And the big game living in them looks even better. Kudu look and act much like elk, feeding in the valley bottoms at night, moving up the rugged canyon slopes at dawn. We glass the rocky, brush dotted slopes for hours, spotting curly horned bulls as they step from behind small trees and shrubs upon which they are feeding. Cows, their sides lines with thin white stripes as if gulls had been sitting and "dripping" on them, lead sprightly calves across the rugged hills. In the valley bottoms, choked with a sage-like plant, springbuck play the roll of Wyoming pronghorns, but they are augmented by parti-striped zebras, gray duikers dashing for cover and colorful red-and-white blesbok with tall, black, ribbed horns. Up on the grassy ridges black wildebeest are silhouetted like bison, their maned necks and brushy foreheads making them appear to be twice their real size. Tiny mountain reedbucks bound over the grassy slopes. Unlike Wyoming and Montana, South African hunting is open during our summer because this is high winter south of the equator. Temperatures are dropping into the low 40s at dawn, rising to perhaps 60 at mid day. Wind blows here just like in Wyoming. Honestly, if it weren't for the incredible diversity of horned mammals, this Baviaans district would look like a chunk of our own Rocky Mountain West. Folks here ranch, raising cattle, sheep and angora goats. They live far from town and isolated, just like in Montana. And they love their open spaces and the game within it. Hunting is a way of life and another way to turn a profit. Ranchers, like Andrew Pringle of Crusader Safaris (www.crusadersafaris.com) augment their income by hosting hunters, proving comfortable lodging, hearty dining and guide service the likes of which you rarely get in the States. They don't call these guys Professional Hunters for nothing. Andrew, Mark, Ryan, Greg, Schalk and Tyson know their game and the land on which it lives. And they know how to treat visiting hunters like royalty. The ranches are not under high game fences, but regular livestock fencing just like in Wyoming and Montana. In just two days of hunting, our group of American hunters has bagged spectacular kudu, beautiful bushbuck, a huge warthog, several blesbuck, springbuck and black wildebeest. We're using T/C's new switch-barrel Dimension rifles in 7mm Rem Mag. and .223 Rem. shooting Hornady's excellent Superformance ammunition. Deadly stuff, all aimed with Zeiss's newest scopes. Through our Zeiss binouculars we've seen baboons and caracal wild cats, vervet monkeys and jackals. It's all roaming freely across the landscape, just like pronghorns, elk and mule deer in Wyoming. If you're frustrated with limited tags, short seasons and hard-to-find game in the States, give South Africa's free-range hunting a try. The sheer volume of species and specimens in South Africa makes it a hunting Eden. # # #

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