Ok, to be fair, STTM asked on the open forum for me to tell the story behind a pic he's seen on a photo blog. Specifically, Page 25, pic 766:
Bessy, to answer your first question, THAT my friend, is a Greater Southern Kudu, otherwise known as the 'Grey Ghost'.For those who do not know what a kudu is-it is a very big antelope. As tall as a moose, and weighing up to 800 pounds. I have a few pics of them, because I LOVE THEM!!! Seriously, folks, if you want to experience Coue's deer hunting to a new level, go chase kudu. They stand still just as long, and can disappear just as easily.
There is a kudu in this pic, can you see him?
How about now? He's a nice bull, too, we almost shot him.
We found kudu just about everywhere, from acacia bushveldt to mopane bushveldt, from 3200 feet upwards of 7000. We saw some nice bulls, and even turned down a very good one at our home base of Omujeve.
My particular kudu was the result of a little rest and relaxation that turned into a special opportunity to hunt an area not easily hunted. We only had one day there, and maximized it by sitting a waterhole. We saw all sorts of animals, and the kudu didn't actually come to the water.
Who would have ever thought a potty break would reveal the bull we'd been trying to find for over a week?? The shot was difficult, through a small window in the thicket, and let me tell you boys-kudu are one tough animal. He took two rounds through the heart and never even flinched and just walked off. Truth be told, we really thought I'd missed (the rifle was shooting a little wierd out in the desert). The real truth is that I hit him both times:
After a short sprint across a flat and up the other side to where he had been standing, we found him stone cold dead within 10 steps. I don't think he even knew anything had happened at all!
The bull's horns are 54 inches long, to give you perspective- that would be comparable to a 380-class bull elk
It took 6 of us to load him in the truck, as the winch was broken. Here we are trying to figure out how to do that for the 4th attempt:
We did load him, though.
Here are a few more pics of the Grey Ghost:
QUESTION #2: What animal did I have to switch from the 30-06 to the 375 HH?
ANSWER: Blue Wildebeest!
We saw my bull just off the road, and he took us on a tear. And I do mean TEAR, because he ran us right through a really nasty patch of bushes called "wait-a-bit". They are called such because they have short curved thorns that tear into your clothing. Once you are caught, struggling only gets you more entangled. You literally have to have someone pull you off.
When he finally stopped long enough to check his backtrail, I put a round right through his lungs. It went all the way through, too, but he took off anyway. Long story short, that damn bull ran bleeding out both sides of his body until he ran out of blood, then continued running for a half-mile. Once we lost blood, we lost the trail and searched for hours. We had called for more searchers and the tracking dogs when our own tracker found him by making out tiny blood drops on the ground.
He died in some of the thickest stuff in the drainage. How he ran with no lungs (we pulled them, there wasn't just a hole through them, they were BLOWN APART) is a testament to their wil to live. My PH said that they lose blue wildebeest more than any other animal because of this trait.
They are also HUGE:
Keep 'em coming, this is fun!!
Pred
