American Hunter, Safari Days

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Equipment Needs
You don’t need expensive safari garb to hunt Africa. Regular work or ranch clothing in earth tones will suffice. I sported Dickies Carpenter Shorts ($30), a Blackhawk Warrior Wear Tactical Shirt ($50), and switched between Blackhawk Warrior Wear Desert Ops Boots ($140) and Chippewa 6-inch Mocc Toe Upland Boots ($180). Any rifle from .270 and up with a quality scope is all the firepower you need for plains game. I borrowed an M77 Hawkeye African in .375 Ruger ($1,139) to try out, but my T/C Encore Pro Hunter .30-06 ($810) would have been fine for all animals in my hunt package. I protected them in transit with a Storm im3100 gun case ($284). Quality optics are essential. I used all Leupold models, including a Golden Ring 10x32 binocular ($1,000), VX 7 1.5x-6x-24mm ($1,625) and VX-II 3x-9x-40mm ($330). I caped my trophies with a pair of Buck Knives—a Buck Zipper ($96) and Kalinga Pro ($84). Most PHs have shooting sticks, but be sure to practice before your trip.

Slip into the Kalahari’s red hills and you’ll meander into kudu, springbok, blesbok, gemsbok, zebra, wildebeest and so much more—what you won’t find is a hunt more expensive than a used pickup truck.
By Pete Angle

I zipped my brown Dickies coat, grabbed my rifle and headed to the sliding door of my new digs. Outside, the chill of sub-equatorial winter stung my summer-seasoned face as I briskly made my way to the smell of fresh coffee in the dining quarters. A hot mug and rusks (common hard biscuit treats for dipping) replaced my rifle. A more substantial breakfast was available, but I was too keyed up to eat a full meal. It was day one of my 10-day “virgin” safari in Namibia. Over rusks with Johan Koetze, our PH (professional hunter and partner in Kalahari Hunting Safaris of Namibia), I probed for a hunting strategy. Johan was cheerfully optimistic. “Let’s go see what we can find for you!” he said, smiling knowingly as my confidence rose. By day’s end, I would sense what it’s like to live, rove and even to perish in the Kalahari Desert’s rusty red sand.

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Kudu always seem to give hunters fits in Africa, and the author’s quest for a bull was no different. But when tracker Sakmin gasped, “big bull,” the safari ended with a massive, 57-inch, spiral-horned beauty.

I was accompanied on my nine-animal safari by friend and business associate Mark Chesnut, editor of NRA’s America’s 1st Freedom. We loaded into the Land Rover and rushed to a crude firing range to be certain our rifles were still zeroed following our 8,000-plus-mile airline trip from the United States. Our scopes were surprisingly on target, a testament to today’s quality gun cases. We hurried back to the ranch house to pick up Sakmin, our keen-eyed tracker, and a three-legged dog named Junti, then we headed for the dunes.
On the way out, Mark and I flipped a coin for the first shot. I lost. I’m not sure how many kilometers we traveled before the Land Rover halted abruptly. Johan grabbed Mark and they disappeared over a dune. As a shot whizzed across the vast valley of sand, I thought, It can’t be this easy, can it? They scurried back, jumped in and Johan asked if my camera equipment was ready as he shifted gears. I frantically began loading batteries and formatting memory cards. Mark had shot a springbok, and it was imperative we get to it immediately for a trophy shot because, as Johan explained, the pronounced white hair on its rump pricks up for only a few minutes after expiration.

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