The Best Hunting Stories Ever Told

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The Best Hunting Stories Ever Told Page 66

by Jay Cassell


  This would be a very long shot on a buffalo, but if we dropped down any farther we would be in the brush on our side, noisy, and we would almost certainly spook them. I was carrying a scoped .416 Rigby and I knew it was accurate. I got into a good sitting position and wrapped the sling around my arm, and we waited.

  In a few minutes the first buffalo took a few steps downhill and came into the clear. He was the widest buffalo I have ever seen, horn tips far beyond his ears. His boss was massive, and he had plenty of curve. In fact, he had it all. He was facing directly to me with his head down, and since he was on the opposite slope I had his entire neck and the thick muscle at the top of his shoulder. The crosshairs were steady just where the neck joins shoulder, and I knew I put the bullet down through his spine and into his chest. Geoff and I have often talked about this moment in the years since. I have no idea why I didn’t complete the squeeze, and he has no idea why he didn’t tell me to. Neither of us had ever seen a buffalo like this, nor have we since, nor are we likely to.

  Perhaps I was greedy, wanting it perfect. Surely he would turn broadside and give me just a bit of shoulder. So I waited, and he took a couple more steps straight to me. We hadn’t realized that the roll of our slope hid the bottom of the ravine. He took a couple more steps, still straight to me, and then he dropped into that dead ground and was gone.

  Long moments passed while we hoped he would reappear, but I think we both knew what we had just done. Then another bull stepped out into exactly the same place. This one had deeper curls, a prettier shape, and bosses almost as heavy. He was the second-widest buffalo I had ever seen.

  “Craig, that’s also a lovely buffalo. I don’t know where the other one has gone, but I think you should shoot this one.”

  As he said it the bull turned just a bit, and I shot him high in the shoulder, angling down. He ran up the far side, and I jumped up and ran along our edge to get a better view, hitting him twice more before he gained heavy cover. We waited a bit, then crossed the bottom and picked up the spoor. I traded the .416 for the .470 double our tracker had carried, and Geoff had his little .375 double. We were only fifty yards into the bush when the bull heaved to his feet in front of us. I shot him again with the big .470, and this time he went down, stayed down, and in a few moments gave his death bellow.

  The next couple of hours were extremely thirsty while we fetched the truck. Then we got the buffalo organized, took some pictures, and spent some time admiring him. He was indeed a lovely buffalo, all the buffalo anyone ever needs. His horns spread to forty-seven inches, heavy throughout with the beautiful, deep curls the best East African buffalo are known for.

  He was, and is, the best buffalo I have ever taken, so I was not, and am not, lamenting for the one that got away. We checked the tracks where he had stood, and there was much more dead ground than we had imagined. We had simply let him walk away from us, down the korongo. But not quite, as they say, “out of our lives forever.”

  We tried to find him the next day, to no avail, and then we went on to the west. Another PH thought he saw him in the same area a few days later, but when we came back at the end of the safari we failed to find him yet again. Two seasons later, in the same place, Geoff Broom found the scattered bones of an old buffalo bull long since killed by a lion. The horns were cracked and weathered, but still intact. Geoff maintains he would know that buffalo anywhere. Even dried in the African sun they spread to fifty-four inches.

  Reprinted with permission of the author. For information on his books and DVDs, visit his website at www.craigboddington.com.

  Among the San

  E. DONNALL THOMAS, JR.

  The Bushmen were the first. They’re still the best.

  As a culture, we have lost the honorable art of sitting still. Bowhunting and wildlife photography have given me lots of practice and I do it better than most, but I still have my limitations. As I watched Ghao settle into the dirt at the base of the shepherd’s tree, I realized I was watching a master in action. He didn’t fidget. His eyes didn’t drift shut. He simply sat, elegant and motionless, and waited for the next phase of the stalk to begin as if he had all the time in the world, which I suppose he did.

  We had kept pace with the wildebeest for over two hours while the sun burned the last of the overnight winter chill from the sands beneath our feet. The herd was grazing slowly into the wind, and the big bull we were after refused to detach himself from his company long enough to let us try to slip in for a shot. Left to his own devices, I’m sure Ghao would have headed off into the bush to look for a more promising track, but I wanted a wildebeest. So there we sat.

  As the dark, strange-looking animals frisked about the dry pan, the sounds of the Kalahari filled my ears: the buzz of insects, the three-note dirge of the doves roosted in the acacias, a springbok ram’s distant snort. Yielding to the spell of the place, I soon found myself watching and listening with an infinite supply of patience. As we waited for the animals to make their next move, I found myself reflecting idly upon our remarkable circumstances: a visiting American bowhunter and a representative of the world’s oldest surviving hunting culture, improbably joined together against the long odds and difficult geometry of capricious winds and wary eyes.

  And I realized that during all my bowhunting adventures around the world, I’d never run into anyone quite as intriguing as Ghao and his fellow Bushmen.

  The San

  An ethnically and linguistically unique people, the Bushmen—or San—were southern Africa’s original inhabitants, ranging in nomadic fashion from modern Zimbabwe and Zambia all the way to the Cape. No one knows just how long the San have been around, but their abundant rock paintings date back at least 5000 years. Early in the last millennium, the area experienced an influx of pastoral, Bantu-speaking tribes from the north. Agriculturalists and cattle-tenders, the new arrivals’ social structure conflicted sharply with the Bushmen’s hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Furthermore, the northern tribesmen introduced a new concept to the region, one that the San had fortuitously managed to avoid: organized warfare.

  The results were inevitable. Relentlessly displaced from their original homelands, the San slowly retreated to the inhospitable Kalahari, where their finely honed survival skills and an incredibly harsh environment provided them with a natural means of insulation from their enemies. While the arrival of European colonialists four centuries ago certainly increased their isolation, the San had given up much of their original territory long before our own ancestors arrived on the scene to add to their woes. And the San endured only by the most demanding means imaginable: by learning to thrive in terrain that others could barely survive for days.

  Short, finely featured, and almond colored in complexion, the San appear physically distinct from all other indigenous African peoples. Punctuated by baffling clicks, their unique speech has intrigued linguists for years. Their democratic social customs also distinguish them from other inhabitants of the region. In San culture, for example, women have always enjoyed full participation in the decision-making process, a rarity in Africa. But as a bowhunter, I have to admit that all these unique physical and cultural traits pale before my appreciation of their hunting and tracking abilities. Simply stated, they are the best, and every time I’ve hunted with them I’ve come away from the experience in awe.

  Reserved without being diffident, the Bushmen are quick to laugh and provide unfailingly good company in the field. The only flash of animosity I ever saw from them came one morning when we stumbled across a horned adder while trailing a gemsbok. The Bushmen quickly armed themselves with sticks and beat the nasty looking little snake to a pulp. Allan translated the flurry of discussion that followed for our benefit: We might walk this way again tomorrow.

  Please note that one does not simply arrive in Africa and go hunting with the Bushmen. Today, most Bushmen live in Botswana and Namibia. Many have lost contact with their traditions through inevitable cultural assimilation. Those who have not often live in geographic isolation
compounded by formidable language barriers. My own opportunities to hunt with the San have come through Allan Cilliers, an accomplished and widely renowned Namibian PH who enjoys a unique relationship with the Bushmen based on years of experience with their culture. Despite his own accomplishments and abilities, Allan clearly holds the Bushmen in the highest esteem, and it’s equally obvious that the sense of respect extends both ways. In Allan’s camp, the Bushmen are more hunting partners than employees, and even the simplest walk through the bush with Allan quickly turns into a fascinating lecture on the local flora and fauna and how the Bushmen utilize them in their daily life. Furthermore, Allan’s huge, game-rich hunting concession borders immediately on Bushmanland, a huge trackless area where the San still enjoy their traditional way of life in as unspoiled a manner as possible.

  Bushman Archery Equipment

  While architects and engineers have debated the relationship between form and function for years, the design of Bushman archery tackle begins on an even more basic level: they had to make do with the raw materials at hand.

  Bushman bows are simple affairs. Whittled down from a variety of woods, especially the brandybush (Grewia flava), they are usually only 30-35 inches long and draw no more than 20 pounds. Oil derived from the sour plum (Ximenia caffra) keeps the wood from cracking in the dry desert heat. Strings come from a variety of material including hide and sinew, but most are made from plant fiber harvested from a tough succulent known as mother-in-law’s tongue (Sanseviera aethiopia) which the Bushmen roll into cord upon their thighs. The Kalahari San fashion lovely cylindrical quivers from the root bark of the umbrella thorn (Acacia luerdertzii). Farther to the south, bark from the aptly named kokerboom (quiver tree) serves the same purpose.

  As often seems to be the case in indigenous hunting societies, bow design ultimately reflects the availability of suitable arrow materials, and the traditional Bushman hunting arrow clearly represents the most sophisticated and imaginative element of their hunting tackle. Shafts are made from sections of a variety of stiff grasses similar to our own river cane. These grasses are not widely distributed, and on our last trip into hunting camp Allan thoughtfully stopped by the side of the road as we passed a known thicket of the stuff and harvested a supply for his hunters.

  Between joints, the cane is quite straight and true, but single segments are too short to make an effective arrow. The Bushmen solve this problem by whittling a malemale ferrule from giraffe bone with which they can link two segments together, resulting in an arrow approximately 20 inches long. Shafts are unfletched and completed with a simple self-nock. Tips traditionally came from carved bone, but nowadays most are made from scavenged steel laboriously filed into delicate triangular heads. As nearly as I can tell, steel points represent one of only three ready concessions to modern society, the other two being the surplus Namibian military jackets the Bushmen wear against the cool Kalahari winters and—inevitably, I suppose—tobacco.

  By itself, this simple, lightweight equipment obviously lacks the punch needed to bring down gemsbok and other large antelope. Bushmen hunters overcome these limitations by poisoning the tips of their arrows. Under certain conditions, they use a variety of plant-derived toxins for this purpose, but most arrows are embellished with potent poison derived from several species of flea beetle grubs, especially Diamphidia simplex. Bushmen carefully harvest the larvae from known locations at certain times of year and store them to treat arrows as needed. Eight or ten grubs are needed to treat one arrow. Based on descriptions of the poison’s effects, I surmise that it affects the autonomic nervous system, leading to incoordination, stupor and eventual collapse as it absorbs into the blood stream. The poison takes hours to days to work depending on the nature of the hit and the size of the animal. The poison does not affect the edibility of the meat.

  All this makes the bushman arrow design appear especially ingenious. The toxin is applied only to the distal segment of the shaft, not the tip itself, so the arrows remain relatively safe to handle. Furthermore, arrows tend to break off at the ferrule, leaving the toxic segment embedded in the quarry. Arrow- making remains a highly esteemed art in Bushman culture. Hunters frequently pass arrows back and forth as tokens of gratitude and respect, and in the elaborate formula Bushmen use to divide meat among the band after a kill, the maker of the lethal arrow receives first share no matter who actually fired the killing shot. (Attention, American arrow-makers: does that sound like a good deal or what?)

  Hunting Techniques

  San hunting practices ultimately depend upon their legendary tracking skills, which we’ll discuss below. But first, a few observations made about the methods they employ in the field, especially as they contrast to our own.

  Hunting with Ghao, I was surprised to note that when we came to open areas I often spotted game at a distance before he did even without my binoculars. At first I thought there might be something wrong with his eyes as he is quite old, but I quickly realized that when he needed to he could spot game in the brush far better than me. I finally realized that he just didn’t care about spotting animals hundreds of yards away. Seeing game told him nothing that he didn’t already know based on the sign underfoot.

  The Bushmen seemed fairly indifferent to terrain features when planning stalks and were often quite willing to advance upon sharp-eyed animals in plain sight. They get away with this because of their spooky ability to anticipate the quarry’s head movements. Ghao always seemed to know just when to freeze and when to start moving again. They only stalk game early in the morning and late in the afternoon when there are long shadows on the ground and they stick to the shadows meticulously. They regard stalking at midday and during low light as a complete waste of time.

  In traditional Bushman culture, hunting is very much a group effort, largely because of the need to have lots of help at hand upon the successful conclusion of a hunt to avoid meat loss to spoilage or scavengers. When I hunted with two or more of Allan’s trackers, I noticed that they conversed in animated fashion on the trail, especially when the track demonstrated some unique or confusing feature. In this regard, their unique language seemed especially adaptive as their flurry of clicks usually disappeared on the desert breeze with little trace of the human voice. Allan confirms that he has often observed the Bushmen holding one of these discussions within earshot of wary game without spooking the animal.

  The Bushmen use two gaits to close within bow range. The first is a stoopedover duck walk that they can sustain at brisk speed indefinitely. The second they call the “leopard crawl”: down on all fours, with long feline strides that result in almost no change in profile from the quarry’s perspective. Watch the family cat stalk a robin on the lawn and you will have a good idea of what this method entails. Of course, the short, light Bushman bows prove ideally suited to this kind of stealthy maneuvering.

  Once within bow range, the Bushmen shoot with a quick, plucking style: a short draw, free floating anchor and thumb release. Shot placement as we know it matters very little to them. The idea is simply to get the tip of an arrow (or two) into the animal anywhere and let the poison go to work. Several times when we stalked together, Ghao obviously expected me to take a shot at what I considered an unacceptable angle and rolled his eyes in frustration when I declined. I tried my best to explain my reservations in pantomime, but I’m not sure I ever made much of an impression.

  Tracking

  As finally adapted as their equipment and hunting methods may be, the Bushmen truly distinguish themselves from the competition when it comes time to track game, wounded or otherwise. Over the course of multiple trips to Africa, I’ve hunted with a number of African trackers whose skill level ranged from not much better than my own to very good indeed. But none could begin to approach the remarkable level of skill I observed when hunting with Ghao, Tsisaba, and the rest of Allan’s incredible crew.

  The soil in Allan’s new hunting area consists mostly of soft, sugary sand. Granted, that kind of footing can hold lots of t
racks, but individual hoof prints rapidly loose their distinction. Furthermore, game densities are so high that every square foot of ground contains tracks left by multiple animals. Nonetheless, the Bushmen could easily follow the trail of an individual animal through this riot of sign at a dead run. They could also tell exactly how far away the animal was, its condition, the precise nature of any wounds, and what it was likely to do next . . . even when tracking at night by moonlight supplemented occasionally by matches.

  One day, during our last visit with Allan, Lori shot a kudu bull while hunting alone. The shot placement sounded perfect, but she was shooting from a pit blind and Lori doesn’t stand that far off the ground to begin. The steep upward track of the arrow resulted in a one-lung hit . . . and an opportunity for the Bushmen to do what they do best.

  As we listened to Lori’s description of the shot, one of the younger trackers started immediately for the edge of the brush where Lori had last sight-tracked the bull. Ghao called him back sharply and delivered what sounded like a stern lecture. As Allan explained, Ghao was chiding him for ignoring the first part of the track even though we all knew where it led. Ghao explained that it was always important to take the track from the very beginning, to learn as much about the animal as possible. In fact, by the time we reached the acacias, Ghao knew the age and size of the kudu, exactly what Lori’s arrow had done, and what the likely outcome of the pursuit would be: estimates that all proved remarkably accurate by the time we were through.

 

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