Back From South Africa...Report

[racking up points]

Amazing hunt, great pictures. I could totally see how this will ruin MI deer season! Congrats, Drew, for a hunt of a lifetime.

[foofoo]

good goin!!!!! nice critters

[L. E. Carroll]

Looks like you had a wonderful hunt... Thank you for sharing your awesome pictures. . Congratulations on taking some beautiful trophies.... I'm sooooooo jealous.

Gene

[paulaboutform]

Drew, are you bringing any trophies home?

Paul

[Riflemanz]

Congrats on a super hunt of a lifetime!
Very nice trophies taken, great pics!

[Drew]

Right now the skins, heads, etc. stay in Africa and will be shipped to a company called Skin & Dip, where they will spend the next 90 days being processed. Salted, pickled, sun dried, etc. Then a U.S. SPAM! will deal with export and import, and finally shipping to my taxidermist. So that would be about 5months or so from now. Then 1.5yrs later I should have my trophies. Give or take.

The Zebra will be rugged and put on a thick felt backer. This will be on the dining room table.

The Kudu will be a pedestal mount. Unless you have 9-10' ceilings you really cannot mount them on the wall. Unless you like your mounts with the nose at navel level!

Two of the Impala will be European mounts and the third will be a shoulder mount. The hides of the first two will be rugged out.

The warthog I'm having the skull bronzed. This will be the center piece on the table sitting on the Zebra rug.




The pedestals will be something like this, with insets in the base of the rear portion of hide.

[xcaliber]

That will make some great trophies and conversation starters for sure. Nice!

[Drew]

While there we also did a little humanitarian work. We took two huge hockey size duffel bags of supplies to the local orphanage. The bags are supplied by SCI (their Blue Bag program). My brother in-law pulled all the supplies together and we took one morning off from hunting to visit and dispense the supplies and get pics. These poor kids have absolutely nothing. Shoes 2-3 sizes too small if they have shoes. Socks with holes, if they have socks. Now keep in mind it's winter there right now, so morning temps are 35-40 degrees F. Not good for running around barefoot.

[agingcrossbower]

What a hunt. Great that you shared this with us. Just amazing animals. The skull really is cool. Thanks!!!

[Garywy]

VERY nice.. would love to go

[Chris Dillard]

Congrats! Thanks for sharing.

[jody5252]

WOW. Impressive... Congrats. Will you ever try for a Cape Buff?

[Drew]

I would love to go back for Cape Buff, but not with a crossbow. I do know there are arrow weight restrictions along with overall KE restrictions. Not that a crossbow wouldn't be capable, I would just rather do it with a rifle. After watching some of the personal video's of the PH's hunts with Buff, you will not be stopping a charge with a bow. And what's the point if you have to have someone else put the animal down after the bow shot?
All of the PH's in camp carried bolt actions in .375 H&H. When I asked why the basic answer was it was very commonly available. If I were to go, I would most likely use something in the .416 caliber...probably .416 Remington.

[woodmnctry]

Congrats on a great hunt --- curious as to what the length was on the Kudu ?-- nice critter --- and great Impalas
Also -- on your 150 grain VPA heads --- did you use vented or non-vented style?
G

[frisky]

Congrats on the hunt ! That warthog is a mean lookin critter!