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The only animal that I wanted for sure was a zebra. I decided that I was going to hunt on foot and take whatever opportunities Diana presented us with. One thing I had no intention of shooting was a blue wildebeest. Given the choice, I would have preferred a black wildebeest because I am intrigued by their interesting look. We went to a ranch consisting of 2700 HCA. I don't know what that equates to in acres, but it is big. We saw zebra three times. The third time I had my sights on the animal and immediately noticed it was a mare. I asked the PH if shooting mares was permitted. He did not know and proceeded to call the landowner. He complimented me by saying "You are one of one hundred hunters that can tell the difference and I am glad you thought to ask". The landowner preferred we shoot old mares, since it takes a stallion three years or more to get accepted into the herd for breeding. Too late, we would not see another zebra this day. An hour later we spotted some Kudu. I told the PH's more than once that I was not interested in a Kudu. I did agree however to take an extremely large one if presented with the opportunity. The Kudu emerged from the bushvelt and crossed a little opening about 75 yards out. When the bull stepped into the opening my PH Crubbis said "Shuut - Shuut- Shuut" in his half German half Africannas dialogue. I put the crosshairs on the bulls chest and noticed a slight glare in my scope. About to pull the trigger, I looked over the scope only to see Mike's nose hovering over my barrel. He had leaned back as far as he could go and when the bull stepped out I walked my sights to the left right up to Mike. I quickly lowered the gun and apologized. The bull heard me and ran off. Both Mike and Crubbis admonished me for not taking the shot. Mike assured me he had his fingers in his ears and he was safe. Crubbis said he would not have let me continue if he saw something unsafe. Oh well, better safe than sorry. Then they told me how the bull had at least 58" horns and would have likely made the top trophie scores list in that area. We pressed on a few miles and a few hours more. Suddenly we spotted a lone animal standing in the thick brush a bit more than 100 yards away. We moved up only 25 or 30 yards and studied the animal. It was a blue wildebeest, but a cow of insignificant proportions. We stalked closer just to see how close we could get. At around 50 yards she left the area. Thirty minutes later we rounded a curve and immediately saw dust flying up less than 100 yards away. A herd of blue wildebeest were crossing in front of us. Two stopped in a little opening. Crubbis said "Shoot the one on the right". I put the crosshairs on the animal but had no intention of actually shooting. Suddely Crubbis' voice changed to one of urgency as he said " The left one , the left one, Shuut!" I drifted the gun to the left and found the front leg of the beast with the crosshairs. The head and neck were obscured by brush. Almost as if on autopilot my finger found the trigger and the gun boomed. THe great beast bucked up and I worked the lever and got back on it. Crubbis yelled "Dont Shuut, Dont Shuut - you already got it!" We went to the sight of the impact and found a blood trail that anyone could follow. The Kodiak bullet went through the center of the heart and exited the animal. There was a pretty red spiral of blood that looked like rails leading into the brush. 50 yards away was the blue wildebeest that I initially had little interest in shooting. I put some grass in the old fellows mouth and thanked him. I asked Mike, Crubbis and Charles (the tracker) for five minutes alone with the bull. He ended up being quite a meaningful trophy, and my first animal of this safari. The horns were well outside the spread of the ears and the old bull makes a fine trophy!
Last edited by 86er on Wed May 14, 2008 6:32 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Good job. Those wildebeast are sure bigger than I thought. It's hard to imagine the large herds of wildebeast you see on TV and then imagine their size. That's a lot of meat on the hoof.
Great post and good shooting. Your bull behaved much like mine did - it ran 100 yards at full speed with the heart gone and then just fell dead in a cloud of red dust.
In addition to making great chicken fried steaks, you will have a very nice trophy.
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Excellent bull Joe, Congratulations!
Just curious, are there huntable populations of Wildebeest in the Lone Star State?
I had never heard of the Black Wildebeest before so I did a search and found this picture along with a Blue Wildebeest for comparison, both a worthy trophy though IMHO the Black is a cooler looking creature of the two and understandable why you preferred the Black..
