Kat River Conservancy: Part II

Sunday: Long stalk for a Common Reedbuck

When I was at Bramstone, I admired a common reedbuck trophy on the wall. I had never paid much attention to this species of antelope, but looking at it up close I was enamored with it. It was pure simplicity. They have a simple shape, unlike the more complicated African antelope like the Kudu, Gemsbuck, Wildebeest, or Sable for example. It was of one color with no fancy markings or varying lengths of fur. And it had ringed horns that went up, swept out slightly, and then curved inwards. With the exception of its horns, its proportions and color reminded me of a white tail deer. What a beautifully simple and elegant animal I said to myself.

Red Hartebeests

We had looked for Common Reedbuck unsuccessfully at Bramstone, so we decided to stack chance in our factor at Kat River. We went to the house of a local herder who had seen a good Reedbuck. He told us the approximate area where he had seen him. Now, directions, locations, timeframes, etc. enter a whole new reference point in Africa. The area he described was pretty big, but we decided to set-off.

When we arrived in the general area we dismounted and started to walk. This area had very low, slightly rolling hills covered in grass and acacia trees. We had walked about 2 or 3 miles when we came across a herd of Reedbuck bedded down in a draw. We were about 400 yards away when we spotted them. There was a nice large Ram in their midst. I had determined earlier while listening to the PH’s that any male antelope under 100 Kg was a Ram, over, a Bull. We immediately went prone was they were downwind of our position. We made a plan to stalk to our left, down towards the end of the draw, back up to the draw behind him and make the shot from there.

It sounded like an easy plan, but it took us around an hour to make our way due to other animals along the route, mainly Mountain Reedbucks, that would have potentially alerted our approach. We eventually got about 150-175 yards behind the Common Reedbucks. Although the area was above the Reedbuck, it was very flat and we could not hide behind the horizon, so we crawled about 200 yards on our sides and stomachs. Sculk went first. He wanted to make sure we didn’t surprise any other animals. Ray-Ray and I moved forwarded once Sculk gave the all clear signal.

We glassed for another 20 minutes or so to locate the Reedbucks as we did not see the large one anymore. Eventually we found him and moved into a good position. I slowly sat up and got ready to shoot from a sitting position. Just as I got ready to shoot, the big ram stood up and started to move off. BANG! The 260 grain bullet connected in his lung area. He ran off about 75 yards and dropped. He was a NICE Ram. Awesome! We sent Ray-Ray back for the truck. After pictures, we loaded up and headed back for the camp.

Common Reedbuck

Later that afternoon we too off to look for Bush Buck and sat atop a high flat stone mesa above a green river bank. They like water, but unfortunately we didn’t see any trophy specimens. This would be our first of many attempts at a Bush Buck and our fortunes took a definite turn from here on out.