Prohunt Posted December 12, 2008 Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 A Typical day hunting with us would be something like this..... The same article with pics is on this addy as i do not know how to post this with pics on here http://www.biggame.co.za/whunt.php A typical day hunting here I suppose would be very different from hunting anywhere elsewhere in the world. .... I have been hunting in the UK, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.... Big game as well as small game hunts (birds) but the experience is totally different from hunting Africa I will try to give an example of an actual day as it happened one of the days on our last hunt during the 2006 season. The people I had with me was from Holland ... it was their 5th year in a row that hey were hunting with me. Let me start the afternoon before ............ We were out on a sunflower field shooting doves when we spotted a flock of guinea fowl grazing in a distance. We were amazed at the size of this flock as the big flocks usually have up to 600 birds in them .....but this one.... !! I estimated to be well over a 1000 birds. The past year's raining season was exceptional with more than double our normal rainfall....thus the birds had an abundance of food and every chick hatched probably made it to juvenile size. Guinea fowl are one of the most common game bird species in Africa but hunting them are somewhat difficult... maybe that's why their numbers are quite high all over.... ..? If they spot you they would run away rather than fly ... they can easily out- run a person thus that is their preferred method of escaping danger. But if you are lucky enough to find them in long grass / dense scrub they would not run but rather hide allowing a person to walk by with in 2 feet... !! This is where my two GSP`s Rifa & Sheba come in !! Hunting that specific area for such a long time I knew exactly where this flock was sleeping...... they are birds of habit and will return to the same tree every night to sleep. Problem I had with this was that their preferred sleeping tree was surrounded by sunflower fields, one side already harvested the other side the landowner was busy harvesting, thus the chances of getting to them were remote as the terrain was to open ..... WE NEEDED TO GET THEM INTO LONG GRASS !! As I was standing there shooting doves, the one option after the other played off in my head...... If I can get them to long grass .... if only ........ I let the dove shooting continue longer then it should have to make up time so I would be able to see if these Guinea fowl were still using the same trees from last year to sleep in..... We waited till after sunset (17H30) and drove to the trees where they normally sleep ... and there they were .... much more than a 1000 birds... !! As we approached the trees by vehicle they started to fly towards the lake side of the field ........with last light we could just see them settling in for the night ...... PERFECT I thought to myself .... not telling this to the clients I had form Holland as I was not sure what to expect the next morning.....but at least they were in an area now that is totally surrounded by long grass. That night at dinner I explained the plan .... we would be there before first light (06H15)... walking from the sunflower field towards them This would hopefully alarm them to leave their new tree in the direction of the long grass field between the new tree and the lake. As planed we were on our posts just a first light broke in the east .....we formed a line in the sunflower field next to the road about 60 yards apart and started to walk towards the guinea fowl ...... they spotted us as soon as we started walking - moving out of the tree towards the lake.. THE PLAN WORKED PERFECTLY !! We had to change our direction when hunting as to allow my GSP`s Sheba & Rifa to work up wind as they are still young and inexperienced. The wind was moving slightly from west to east thus we moved towards the eastern side of the field allowing us to work towards the guinea fowl upwind, another advantage we had making this move was that the sun would be rising with in minutes behind us. (In Africa the dawn and dust periods are really short ... no more the 30 minutes between first light and sunrise) Again we formed our line about 50 yards apart ... the commend for Sheba & Rifa to start searching was given and the hunt was on !! With in the first 100 yards Rifa picked up a sent ... he had a perfect point... Raymond walked in closer and flushed the bird .... with a perfect shot from his 12 gauge the bird was down. Simultaneously on the other end of our line Sheba had a point on a bird as well ... she flushed on command .....and 2 birds came up ..... giving both Toon And Erik their first Guinea Fowl each. So it went on and on Bird after bird after bird........ We shot 76 Guinea Fowl, 5 Swainsons Francolin, 3 Yellow billed ducks and one hare that morning. .... see pic It happened numerous times.... on the way towards retrieving a bird the dogs would accidentally flush one or two more birds....chaos for the GSP`s ... but SO MUCH FUN FUN FUN FUN .....They would look at me asking hey master can we do this every day PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ? At some stage we were looking for 7 Guinea Fowl that were down simultaneously. At 09H00 we were back in camp .... waiting for that big breakfast ...the chatter round the table was something I have not heard in many years ... These people are from Holland and hunting is just about banned in total in their country.... they were ecstatic !! After breakfast we are on the doves again ..... allow me to me explain the ecosystem in short as to how we can manage to shoot up to a 1000 doves per day.... The central highveld area of South Africa is quite high above sea level. On average it is bout 1600 - 2100 yards above sea level, thus the typical habitat would be open plains with one or two scrubs / small trees per hectare (I think that is 2.5 acre). So in a normal ecosystem you would expect to see 1 - 2 pairs of doves...... This would provide enough place to breed and feed. BUT... people came along they build huge cities 200 000 + hectare in size ... each person planting trees, building huge man made structures supplying these birds with so much artificial breeding spaces that numbers get out of hand. The farmers next to these big cities plant sunflower, corn, Maize ect giving the doves artificial food in a time period (winter) when food is supposed to be scares to control numbers ....... the result .... millions of doves. !!! This is where we go to hunt them standing in a row between the field and the city .... the doves would start to fly round 11H00 and stop at 17H00 .. one continuous stream of them ... I have seen people that have shot a shotgun so hot they can not touch the barrels when opening it. For a group of 5 people to use more than 15 000 shells in a period of 6 hunting days would be considered normal. We always make a joke with people visiting us ... "you arrive as a normal hunters, but you leave us a marksmen" See pic of half a day's bag on addy at top of page. The two GSP`s would run continuously for hours retrieving the doves.... i have seen them go from good condition to really skinny in 14 days... they spend so much energy that at the end of each hunt i have to give them really concentrated food to get them up and ready for the next one ... Well this is the story of a typical day hunting here ......... hope you enjoyed reading it .. 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lurcherboy Posted December 12, 2008 Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 **** me I would love that prohunt LB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turk101 Posted December 12, 2008 Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 LB it does sound and look a bit SPECIAL don't it. Oh well maybe when i win the lottery i'll take a big group of us turk101 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lurcherboy Posted December 12, 2008 Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 LB it does sound and look a bit SPECIAL don't it.Oh well maybe when i win the lottery i'll take a big group of us turk101 Got my fingers crossed for you turk :( LB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turk101 Posted December 12, 2008 Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 :( i thought u might!! turk101 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prohunt Posted December 13, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 (edited) Hi guys ...its def not that expencive........... Edited December 13, 2008 by Prohunt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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