Life Christian Adventure | Page 32

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Marikwa hunt

Johan Grobler from Marikwa arranged for me to join two of his friends on a hunt during 2013. Although Marikwa is a bow hunting farm only, he identified 3 blesbuck to be taken off. The meat would be processed into mince and sausage and donated to JAK127, a NGO in Orkney, North West Province of South Africa.

I was on my way to Klerksdorp to pick up Tertius and Gilluam early the Friday morning. Arriving at Tertius’s house he informed me that Gilluam spend the night in the emergency room due to a tummy bug, and that he would unfortunately not accompany us on the hunt.

We packed all the bags and equipment and left Klerksdorp on our way to Zeerust. We arrived just after 12:00, the weather did not look good, and the wind was blowing quite hard. After unpacking we were off to the range.

Due to the wind and area we were going to hunt we decided to keep our shot under 150m, and that we would shoot from the Cruiser.

We were on the Cruiser and ready for action around 14:00. We found the blesbuck quite easily, but getting into rage took some effort and driving skills from Johan. Eventually we got into position and I took a 150m shot on a ewe. She went down quickly. The rest of the afternoon was spent driving around, but with no luck.

We were up and away early the Saturday morning. The weather was worse than the previous day. Around 08:00 we located the blesbuck and Johan was able to get us into range, which allowed Tertius to take a shot at another blesbuck. The shot was good and the ewe went down quickly.

Due to the wind getting worse, Johan decided to drive to the other side of the farm, where it was more protected from the wind. He had two specific blesbuck we had to remove. We found the herd with the old ram but could not get a shot on foot. We got back on the cruiser and around 11:00 we found him and I took a quarter too shot at about 130m.