Alamo Chapter SCI

“Smoke ‘em”
By Jason Lee Carter
I’m Jason Lee Carter and this is a hunting report about my third African safari and the 16 high quality trophy animals I harvested, which took place this year. My first hunt was conducted with my friend and “PH of the year” winner, Graham Sales of Madubula Safaris. We start off at a farm about two hours away from Durban, RSA. I’m going after my first nyala, which was my priority on this hunt. I was fortunate that the farm we were hunting was known for its large gold class nyala. On the first day, Graham spotted the lucky beast, which was going to make my day. Graham knows that I only want top gold animals and all I need to hear from him are the words “smoke him” and that’s exactly what I heard. I took this nyala at about 250 yards, no problem when you’re shooting a 300 ultra magnum with Nosler Accu-bond bullets that is zeroed at 250 yards. The nyala had 28” length and 8 ½” bases which scored 72 5/8”. Not bad. Now, that trophy will be the only trophy to be taken with my rifle. It was time to take some photos. I went back to camp to retrieve my camera only to discover it was missing. Come to find out, it was stolen out of my “check-in” luggage on the flight between Johannesburg and Durban. That was a $1200 digital camera. I was furious. I filed a claim with South African Airlines and the SA police. You know what SAA had to say about the theft? They said they are not responsible for lost or stolen items by their employees. That’s absurd! I told them I’ll never fly SAA again and they didn’t care. That’s another story. Back to the safari, all the other trophies on my safari for the next month will be taken with a handgun, which is configured in 30-06 Ackley improved caliber utilizing Nosler Accu-bond bullets.

The first trophy to be harvested with the handgun was an impala. You can’t help but to get one impala a year. They are just inexpensive animals. I took this animal at 100 yards, which is what the handgun was zeroed in at. I need to start getting comfortable with shooting this handgun. I’ll work up to longer yardages as the safari progresses. The impala scored 56 3/8”, which is like #16 in the book for handguns. As we were heading back with the impala we came across a Southern bush duiker, and with Graham’s famous words “smoke him” I took him with the handgun. He scored 12 5/16” which is about #12 in the book. Well, the next day, I said it was time to go find a Cape bushbuck. This place was loaded with ‘em. There was no problem in finding a trophy. We smoked a bushbuck which had 14 ½” horns and scored 40 2/8” which makes it the new #6 in the book.

Going into the second week I was there, we decided to change up the scenery a bit and head off to another farm for the day. Along with Graham and me, John Abraham joined us for this hunt, the proprietor of Madubula Safaris. We were very fortunate to be able to hunt this farm because it has never been hunted before. We convinced the owner to let us hunt because he needed to manage his animals by taking out the old bucks. He gave in and let us hunt. We were after all the reedbucks. And guess what, I got ‘em. You wouldn’t believe this but supposedly I’m the only person in recorded history to ever shoot a Vaal rhebok, common reedbuck and a mountain reedbuck in one day with a handgun! The Vaal rhebok, which I shot at only 30 yards, scored 21 5/8”, which puts it at #4 in the book. The common reedbuck scored 27 6/8”, which puts it at #5, and the mountain reedbuck scored 13”, which puts it somewhere in the top five. That was one of the most exciting hunts I’ve ever done. And it was all in one day!
Now we are back to the first farm to wrap up our two week safari with Madubula before we head off to our second half of our month long safari. I was told there were some common blesbok on the farm high up in the burned grasslands in the mountains. We went up there and after a good deal of time trying to get close enough to this very skittish animal, I found the big guy and decided to take him at an incredible 320 yards with the handgun. Boooom… down he went, no problem. Now I’ve really got some confidence in this handgun. With the 320 yd shot I took down the new #9 blesbok that was 18” long and scored 48 2/8”. On our second to last day there, we decided to try and find this 56” kudu that we spotted a few days earlier. I didn’t need another kudu, but I couldn’t resist, they’re awesome animals. We found him, so we started to stalk. We got close and he started to run toward us. I couldn’t believe it. I had my handgun out and I was ready to roll this big boy. It ran about 8 or 9 yards in front of me. I couldn’t even us the scope on the gun, so I just used “line of sight” and fired. I hit him in the neck, fatal shot but didn’t drop him. Graham’s Jack Russell, Max, came running in to bay the animal which was about 30 yards from me and I put the final round into the kudu. Now, besides the reedbuck event days earlier, this also was one of the most exciting hunts, and it was just one animal. The greater kudu scored 136 4/8”, which puts him at #9 in the book under handgun.

With these nine fine trophies, the hunt with Madubula comes to a close and the next one begins with a very dear friend of mine, Vigen Abkarian of V&O Safaris on his Witkop farm near Elisrass, which is in the Limpopo province. On this hunt the main trophy I was after was my first of the “Big Five”, a leopard. They have had bait out for a couple of weeks now and the leopard has not hit it yet. I can wait for him. The first trophy to be harvested at Witkop was the new #3 klipspringer. Next, I was after the Limpopo bBushbuck. It was tough hunting this guy in the thick brush. However, we got lucky after several days of trying to find one good enough. When I shot him it felt like a part out of an action cop movie. I had to take him fast because I knew he was going to disappear on me. So my shooting instincts kicked in and I stuck the handgun out the side of the hunting vehicle laid down on the seat and shot him freehanded with the handgun lying sideways. It was crazy. My PH couldn’t believe it. I wish I had video of that one. He scored out to be #8 in the book. The next night we went spotlighting to see what we could find. I took two animals that night, a civet and an Africa wild cat. The next morning we went looking for steenbok. We went to a concession down the road, which was known for steenbok. This place was covered with these little guys. They were everywhere. Well I’m sure by now you guessed I took one. Well, I did. We have a rough score on him, which makes him #2 in the book. I believe he is going to make the new #1 steenbok with handgun when we measure him properly. I can’t wait! The next day we are back at Vigen’s farm just riding around now. There was not much else I wanted to get. Now keep in mind, Vigen’s farm is very well known for his enormous greater kudu. He has some beasts there. Well we found one. And again, I couldn’t resist. I took this one at 225 yards and down he went. This guy is 58” and #5 in the book. What a beast. I told Vigen I wanted him full mounted and that’s what we’re doing. Randy Brown over at Wildlife Images in Wimberley (which is the finest taxidermist around) is going to be mounting ten of these sixteen animals life size for me. The rest will be pedestals or shoulder mounts. The nyala, kudu, both bushbucks, one big baboon, cats and all the little guys will be full mounted. And they will all be used in our “safari style” wedding on August 2006 when I wed my long time girlfriend of eight years, Stephanie Winans. For our honeymoon we will be going to Vigen’s new property in Zambia were we’ll be hunting Cape buffalo, leopard, sable and many others. The final animal taken was one big ugly baboon. I just had to get one of these pests. Unfortunately, the leopard never came in. That’s ok; it just leaves more for next year.

What an amazing time I had hunting with these two fine outfitters. I can’t wait to go back. Actually I’ll be going back for two weeks to take the “Professional Hunter’s” course and test to receive my certificate next month. Not only will this help me in guiding hunts in South Africa on our future ranch purchase there but also at our game ranch in Uvalde, TX. It’s called Aroki Game Ranch, and we have many African and North American game along with other game from around the world, all of which may be viewed at www.arokigameranch.com. I look forward to writing and reporting on my future adventures and sharing them with you. If you would like to see the photos of all my adventures from this year and the past, please visit my personal website at www.jasonleecarter.com and feel free to send me an email. See ya after the next adventure. help".

Hunting Reports