Top_Heavy's World

The morning air was chilly. Winter in Zimbabwe is not like back in Iowa, but the cold mountain air had settled around my hut during the night, I actually put on my heavy coat! I had been hunting hard for several days and I had very few animals to show for it. Over breakfast I agreed to leave my Mathew's Z-max at camp and take my Remington 700 in .375 H&H Magnum. I shoot Federal Premium 300 Grain Trophy Bonded BearClaw bullets... Wow! This load is the bomb. I checked the scope on this gun on the first day, so we were off as soon as breakfast was gone. I love British sweet tea... Milton, if I could find you today, I would bring you to the U.S.A. to be my butler!

There wasn't frost on the ground, but I sort of expected some. The open topped landcruiser was really chilly for me, the trackers seemed less happy than I was, as we traveled the 30 minutes to the other side of the 40,000 acre ranch I was hunting. The rut was just wrapping up, we were seeing small bulls chasing herds of cows. Allan was sort of surprised that we weren't seeing the big bulls. This time of the rut, they should be lined up after the remaining hot cows. Last week they saw over a dozen bulls in the 50" class, I guess that figures, I wasn't hear last week! We passed 20 warthogs, usually a sow with a litter, or a couple of partially grown pigs, 6 Impala and 4 zebra. None of the impala were trophy caliber so I passed on them as well. The mountains started to grow out of the flat landscape so often seen in the animal migration movies on TV. The scrub brush got thicker and the trees got taller on the hillsides. We stopped every few hundred yards to glass the hills for Kudu. "Watch extra close on your side, that is where we see most of the bulls, they aren't usually in the flats down here" was Allan's advise.
Kudu is a large antelope. They are basically built like an American Elk, with short gray hair, a few distinct stripes and magnificant, tall, spiraled horns that twist as they go up. Once you have seen one, there is no forgetting it! They are often called the Gray Ghost, as they can slip in and out of cover as smooth and silent as a ghost, or they freeze and allow hunters to pass by very close, their color and stripes blending in perfectly. They are fantastic table fare and very tough to kill. The bone structure is much more dense and solid than the North American animals and the skin is much thicker and more durable. Everything in Africa has stickers, claws, sharp teeth or spines, and the kudu is tough enough to survive in some really bad areas!
I was glassing a magnificant hill side, lots of clearings, high canopy of tree branches... exactly where a big bull Kudu should be, when a tracker excitedly blurted "Kudu"! I dropped the glasses to find out where they were looking. Instead of the mountain tops, edges or even sides, they were on the other side of the truck. I turned to see them, and only caught the tail end of the cow. I was amazed at how quickly they disappeared, there was very little cover and I lost them in less than 50 yards. "Come on, she is in heat, he won't leave her, but we must hurry!" Allan was pulling me from the truck. I closed the bolt on a ready round and turned the scope down for a close shot. We hadn't gone the full 50 yards I had seen them run, and the tracker and Allan stopped, and pointed at a tree. "There, shoot that bull, he is really good, shoot him!" They were excited... I got even more excited... I have no idea where the bull is... I turned to Allan, my blank stare must have been enough, he pointed and started to give me land marks. "The thickest tree, about 3 foot up it splits, in the center of the V is his shoulder, he is looking right at us..." He must have gotten impatient while waiting for the new guy, because he took two steps over to me, he looked me in the eye, like I was blind, and lifted the barrel of the gun. Allan laid the forend of the stock on his shoulder and reached over the barrel to plug his ears. I quickly leaned into the stock and looked thru the scope... "Where is it Allan? I can't see it and the scope is only on 3 power. Should I turn it up? How far is it?" By this time he was getting irritated. He pulled his fingers from his ears and leaned so I could look down his arm. "Right there, maybe 70 yards" The entire world came into focus, I was looking as far as I could, expecting them to be at the edge of the heavier cover. I actually was looking right thru the bull, I could see why Allan was feeling frustrated, the bull was in the wide open!
He was beautiful, his ivory tipped horns turned out at the tips, he was right at 50", mature and at his peak. I stepped forward to a small tree and laid the rifle over my arm. I took careful aim between the two trunks making up the V shape, that Allan talked about. I am unsure why I aimed so precisely, the 300 grain bullets would easily shoot through either trunk and still pass through the bull lengthwise! I settled into the rifle, being sure to keep my face from the scope, and I squeezed... Boom! The recoil is hefty in a light gun like this, the shooter must practice freequently to be able to accept the abuse. I lost the bull in the scope and I failed to recover fast enough to see it leap into the thick brush only yards away. Allan and the trackers came running up to me, the pats on the back were reasurance that I had done my part. Allan leaned his head over and got a very serious look on his face. "It just fell over, I heard the horns hit a tree" he exclaimed. I wasn't going to doubt him, we all fell in line, and miraculously, we walked right to it... This was getting strange, usually I m the guy seeing the animals, I am the one doing the guiding, now I felt like a newcomer, a city guy who can't even see the 500 pound animal, behind one little tree, at only 70 yards! Oh well, the bull was awesome. We rolled him over, his neck was huge! The horns were unlike anything I had held before. If you look down through the spiral of the horn, the bulls eyes line up perfectly, they claimed it is so the bull can see his horn tips as he fights. I absolutely love the spiral horned animals of Africa, and this was my bull. I had taken a big bull kudu, the feeling is almost unexplainable. The hair was short and fairly thin, like a German shorthair in the summer. I had to move the legs, the hoofs, the neck... I was like a little kid examining every inch of his being. Allan measured the horns, not that it mattered to me now, he could be small or big to someone else, right now, he was mine! He was older than we first guessed, his teeth were very worn, his horns were chipped and sloughed off in spots. What a great trophy, a 49"+ bull kudu, from the unfenced parts of Africa... a truly wild animal from a truly wild place.