An Africa unlike any other you have seen!

Our first day in Africa is finished and what a day it was! After 60 hours of traveling we met our PH Guy Swart of Wild Horizon at the East London airport just before noon on Monday right on the Indian Ocean on the Eastern Cape. By 4:00 pm we had wound our way inland and up to 5000 feet of elevation. In amongst cap rock and plunging straight walled gorges we made it to the ranch. The terrain and weather makes this part of Africa different, in the mornings there is frost and we had a rain storm turn to snow at one point today. Sandi was shaking her head and laughing at the parradox of traveling to Africa to get caught in a late May snow storm.
Sand had a lot of reasons to smile to today with her taking very fine springbok, blesbok and a remarkable black wilebeast with a great 300 yard shot from the top of a cliff.
Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and warm and we are chasing mountaiin reedbuck and blue wildebeast, but I'll gladly put up with more snow in Africa if we have such a succesful day of hunting again.

A couple more pics.

Running with the Hounds

Had a chance to slip over to BC on the weekend and follow along on a bear hound hunt with some buddies over there. Despite the weather we had an incredibly successful weekend. I think we ended up putting 6 bears up trees and had another 4 bay ups on the ground, including one in a cave that was pretty cool. Even though I was just following along withe camera, it was an amazing time. Thought I'd share a few pictures of the adventure.

Countdown to Africa!

The ash plume form the Iceland volcano has subsided, the guns are shot in and the bags are packed. It looks like our Africa trip is a go!
Saturday Sandi and I head to the Eastern Cape of South Africa for a 10 day plains game hunt with Wild Horizon. Our PH for the hunt is Guy Swart and he tells us that the East Cape is very rugged and tree covered. We are hunting kudu, wildebeast, zebra, hartebeast, blebok and a couple of others. We are excited to say the least.
Stay tuned to the blog, Guy tells me that we can get a Internet connection to work at the top on one mountain. We will be updating here as often as possible.

First night on bear stand

Just heard form Matt. I guess it is soggy and cloudy and nothing is moving. The biggest excitement was the pine marten stealing beaver parts and hiding then through out the woods.
They are setting a different bait tonight.

Africa or not?!?!?!

Well things are pretty well packed and all is in order. The only fly in the ointment is the volcano that exploded in Iceland and the ash plume from it. We are scheduled to fly through Heathrow airport in London so now we are in a holding pattern and waiting to see if we will actually get off the ground on Saturday or not. Ah, the joys of traveling Rich and San style!
Stay tuned.

Bear Camp

Well All the gear is ready to go, and the camper is full. Tomorrow as all the may long campers head home me and my buddy Mike will be headed to the bush for 7 days is the search for black bears. The baits have been up for over a month now an with the slow spring comes slow action on the baits. But the good news is the bears we have had have all been decent looking so hoping the weather holds it should be a great week. Hope to have some good pics when we return!

Matt

New RMR shooting Update

Oh ya Baby! This is why there is no arguing with quality. The target below has 15 rounds in it. 14 of the 15 (1 flyer, my bad - its raining) go into .8". No secret on the ammo. I'm shooting the highly accurate .338 WM Hornady Superformance ammo in 185 grain GMX bullet. Rats, I can't even claim it was partly my superior skills at the reload bench that wrung this out of the gun. It is a testament to the work that Corlane does on rifles though. When you put skill and quality components together these are the results you expect.
The gun shoots like a dream, for under 8 pounds it lays there on the bags when the hammer drops. I don't have to worry about it bucking off the bag and trying to eat me.
One box down and now for the long range gongs.

New Rocky Mountain Rifle just in time for Africa!

Just in time for Africa at the end of the month, my new ,338WM is done. I wasted no time in heading over to Corlane's picking it up and I'll have a new Zeiss scope on it tonight. Tomorrow I'll shoot it at the range, I have some Hornady 185 grain Superformance to try.
The rifle started life as a 300 wm, I had Greg and Rod put a 24"#5 spiral fluted Hart barrel on it and a beautiful McMillan classic stock. The custom color by Greg is called African Red Sand and I really like it. Sandi has a custom build in the works with Rod and Greg right now and is casting covetous eyes upon my color choice.
Topped with the Talleys the beauty tipped the scales 7 pounds 14 ounces, just under the 8 pounds I was hoping for.

Some Rain Today

We've been blessed with some incredible weather here but today we had some rain but it didn't stop us from going on a tour to Mou Waho Island on Lake Wanaka. There is a population of the very rare buff weka there and we shared tea with a couple. We also planted a tree and went and explored an old homestead.

A Busy 24 Hours

New Zealand never fails to satisfy and the past 24-hours have been no exception. Last night we went spot lighting and shot a dozen possums and some rabbits and hares. It was a blast. This morning we learned how to skin possums and then we head off turkey hunting. Vanessa shot two big toms which we are having for dinner tonight along with some hare...mmmmmm.

Gerald and Sue Telford run a great operation and it's one of the most fun hunts we've ever done. Sadly our hunt ends tomorrow. Now to figure out how to get back! Check out http://www.flyfishunt.nz.co/ for more info on hunting with the Telfords.

We just got the news about the Conservative majority at home. This day doesn't get any better!

Bunny Shooting

We spent the day out doing some long-range rabbit shooting with Gerald today. It's unbelievable the number of rabbits there are and the incredible destruction they do. Some farms even have full-time rabbiters just to control populations. Now I know what I want to be when I grow up!