A Morning in the Bush-Part 2

In my last entry I wrote the first part of the story of my warthog hunt. Now, there are always two parts to any hunting story: what happens before the shot, and what happens after the shot. This is the rest of the story.

 

We remained in the blind for about 15 minutes waiting for the adrenaline shakes to subside and took the opportunity to review the footage. Unfortunately, Dad got excited and kept the camera just a bit high so we were unable to see the placement but we were confident in my shot. We left the blind and walked around the waterhole to my arrow, in the process scaring away the impala that had scattered and milled around in the back ground. The arrow was every bit as bloody as it looked from the blind and the leaves around it were spattered with blood. After placing my arrow back in the quiver we began our tracking.

 My arrow, covered with blood.

Now, anyone who has followed a blood trail in the States knows that finding blood is pretty straight-forward if you know what you’re looking for and you know which direction your animal went. There are enough dead leaves and grass, so that, assuming you aren’t tracking through a freshly turned field, blood is fairly obvious. Well, this is Africa, the middle of the dry season. There is hardly any grass, absolutely none on the trails, leaving nothing for blood to land on but fine, dry, red sand. This sand wreaks havoc on blood, turning bright red liquid into caked areas of sand, only identifiable from being recently wet. We searched for over half-an-hour, no blood. As I mentioned before, we failed to carefully watch which direction the hog had taken off in after the shot so had only a general idea of which way he had gone. Eventually, I managed to find one splotch of blood about 75 yards down the trail that had puddled in the sand.

 At this point, we were very confused. My shot placement was good, my bloody arrow was indicative of that, so where was the blood? And, more importantly, where was my warthog?

 Climbing a termite mound to get cell phone reception, we SMS’d (“short message service”  text) the farm manager to let him know I had shot a warthog, then continued the search with a fine-toothed comb between the shot site and the blood spot. Finally, after another 10 minutes, we found one small stick coated in blood. Another 15 yards down the trail, I found a freshly caked patch of sand very much like a large splash of blood would be shaped. After marking these locations, we returned to the blind to wait for the manager. He arrived shortly and we showed him the sign we had found. He confirmed that the spots were, indeed, blood which was a relief to us! Connecting the dots now, we found 2 more spots of blood, and continued along the trail. They were few and far between, but served to keep us on track. Just when we started to wonder if he had turned off, we would find another splotch. Finally, about 100 yards from the shot, I looked to my right from a drop of blood, and there he was, piled up 5 yards from the side of the trail!

 

After the initial excitement of recovering the hog had worn off, we examined the entry and exit points of my arrow. I had made a near-perfect shot, the entry wound in the center of the lower half of the shoulder. Rolling him over, we discovered that my arrow had collided with a bone that had caused it to drastically change course. The arrow to exited in the middle of the ribs on the opposite side, despite the perfectly broadside shot. This trajectory is what caused the sparseness of blood while we were tracking him. The entry and exit holes were not positioned to allow proper draining of the blood, most of which remained inside the hog until we cleaned him.

After taking our pictures, we dragged him back to the vehicle and took down our blind. The other workers could not believe that I had killed the big hog with only a bow.

This hog had definitely been around for a while. In addition to his magnificent tusks, he had many battle scars on his body, as well as several gashes on his hindquarters that had not yet healed. An apparent characteristic of warthogs, he was crawling with ticks.

The real work began at the skinning shed. We skinned him out, and removed the trophy head before taking care of the guts and meat. We were now able to properly analyze the performance of my arrow and bow. The 100-grain Muzzy 3-blade broad-head performed flawlessly, slicing cleanly through the shoulder muscle and some ribs, shredding the left lung, nicking the heart, and clipping the liver before exiting through the center of the right side of the rib cage. My 70-pound draw strength Parker Buck Hunter compound bow delivered the Cabela’s Big Game Hunter arrow quietly, on target, and with more than enough force to propel it cleanly through the tough old warthog. I also used a Trophy Ridge sight, and a 7-inch Octane stabilizer.

Though the scale was broken we determined the cleaned carcass weighed roughly 25-30 kg (55-66 lbs). We then loaded up, settled up, and returned home. Later we took the skin to the taxidermist and were pleased to find out the shoulder mount will be finished within 4 months. In other words, we will get it back before we return to America in December. It will look fantastic on our wall!

All in all, it was an awesome day! Dad and I had several excellent hours in the blind, and finally went home with an awesome trophy that was well worth the wait. I loved every minute of our hunt.

I welcome your comments.

 Until next time, may your arrows stay sharp!

 Success at last!

A Morning in the Bush-Part 1

There’s no place I would rather be than in a blind or tree-stand with my bow watching the sun rise (or set) and the bush come alive. The birds start to sing and the trees slowly turn golden from the tops down as the sun creeps over the horizon. If I am sitting by a waterhole in the African bush, as I was 3 weeks ago, animals trickle in to the water eventually forming a continuous loop as they come and go. The time between midmorning and early afternoon is when the water is most active as multiple herds come to satisfy their thirst in this semi-desert environment.

 Wednesday the 1^st of August turned out to be an excellent day for Dad and I to sit in our blind. The flow of animals began about an hour and a half after sun-up with a herd of the ever-present impala. While we most certainly did a better job of camouflaging our blind than the last time we sat in that location, the impala, remaining true to their nature, were very spooky and refused to come within 30 yards of the blind though their spookiness gradually wore off as the morning progressed. One very nice ram closed the distance to 20 yards but he remained facing us and behind a tree as he examined our set-up offering no bow shot. I would have happily tried for him if the opportunity presented itself but after a minute of scrutiny he decided we were not to his liking and walked around to the other side of the waterhole. There were many herds of impala that came in and we recognized several of them from a previous hunt. One such herd was led by a sizeable battle-worn ram with part of one horn broken off. Several other species supplemented the endless cycle of impala including a decent waterbuck bull, a 2-curl kudu bull who is going to be a BEAST in a couple years, several kudu cows, some young warthogs, and something related to a bushbuck that I never made a positive ID on.

Our blind setup from the animals' point of view.

 

And so went the morning, birds flapping, chattering and chirping all over the place, hundreds of impala milling about the water, and us sitting in our blind, alternating between observing and reading. The wind picked up but never gusted stronger than 10 miles an hour and blew from the west (right to left), well away from the incoming animals. And it was in this manner that I saw the warthogs.

 The impala herd led by broke-horn (as I referred to him) was taking their turn to drink. Then, from one side came a flash of movement. The impala scattered as a large sow warthog plodded past, hair on edge, head swinging back and forth, displaying her white tusks. The impala backed down and made way for the sow and the adolescent warthog behind. This was impressive enough, but what caught my eye came after. A massive boar came walking behind, trailing the sow, enormous tusks protruding from his mouth, characteristically large warts jutting from beneath his eyes. The trio did not stop to drink as we expected, but continued toward us, where the water was shallower. Every step they took I expected them to look up and see us but onward they came (warthogs have very poor eyesight), and I was astonished as they closed the distance to just over 15 yards without hesitation. I readied my Parker Buck Hunter compound bow, release clipped to the string. Dad, preoccupied with the camera, did not see the boss coming and encouraged me to take the sow, who was impressive enough, but still paled in comparison with the monster following. Shocked, he stared at me, questioning, as I let the sow pass by. I still stared out the shooting window, every sense keyed up as the old boar came down the trail, nose on a string, swinging his massive head, uttering deep grunts, oblivious to our presence. I drew as he came past a tree in front of me, turning broadside, settling the string into my anchor point, the sight pins tracking over his shoulder. He was not going to stop. I grunted at him as he came broadside in my shooting lane. Dad, surprised that I would give away our presence, stared at me again, but I was ready. My grunt had the intended effect and he stopped in his tracks, the massive head swinging around to look at where the noise had originated as my sight pin settled just on his shoulder. An instant later, I triggered the release, and the world exploded into motion.

Moments before the shot.

 

My bow unleashed the 70 pound draw weight, amplified in the limbs and cams, with a sharp "thwpppp", transferring the energy into my broadhead-tipped arrow which leaped from my rest at over 260 feet per second. My arrow flew true, disappearing into the warthog with a solid THWACK! The trio launched into the surrounding bush. The impala took flight as well, stopping about 50 yards out. The atmosphere inside the blind was ecstatic celebration! In our excitement both of us made the rookie mistake of not watching to see which direction the wounded hog went. Finally feeling the adrenaline, I looked out towards the spot where the warthog had been standing and spotted my arrow, lying where it had stopped in a bush after passing completely through, the shaft and fletching stained bright red.