Some more tips for practising that moonlit shot

In three more nights the new moon will be bright enough to illuminate a target early in the evening with each night getting brighter as the moon nears the full stage on June 26Th.

A couple more tips that I have thought of in addition to the previous entry to practice looking through the scope in the moonlight , is firstly to make sure the backdrop of the target ( e.g. a 40lbs hay bale ) is lighter than the target. This will easily outline the target.Bushpigs normally appear black in the moonlight,so the backdrops of most bait sites are lighter than the pigs.

The second most important tip here is to make sure that there are no shadows on the target such as from tree branches or other structures.Trying to see something in moon shadow will be difficult for most people.

Obviously the less cloud cover there is the better to see something in the moonlight too.

The distance is always important too, anything further than 100 yards starts getting difficult for anyone when looking through the scope in the moonlight.

Lastly....keep eating those carrots!!!

Preparing yourself for that moonlit shot..

Shooting a bushpig in the moonlight may not be longest shot you'll ever make but it may the most extreme shot you'll ever take in terms of quality of light.In other words it's like the saying goes..."almost a shot in the dark!"The emphasis here is on the word ALMOST, so here is a simple exercise that may help prepare you for this shot of a lifetime.

I'd suggest before embarking on the long trip over here, to practice looking through a very good light gathering scope (such as a Zeiss or Swarovski with at least a 50mm objective) at an object roughly the size of a bushpig during a moonlight night. A 50 lbs hay bale at plus minus 75 yards should do the trick.
If you can see the hay bale in the moonlight through the scope you should be able to see the bushpig at bait when the hunt is on.
I understand that the skies aren't always as clear in the Northern Hemisphere countries as we are lucky to have here in Africa, but when it's full moon there should be ample light filtering through for this exercise.
Don't worry about the cross hair, the scopes we have here have very faintly illuminated reticules to show where to hold. All you need to do is to identify and practice looking into the darkness.

Hunters should also read and research the bushpig before arriving as this will certainly help them understand this elusive and wary quarry they are targeting.

The sense of achievement and the look of pure elation I've seen on many bushpig hunters faces after making this incredible shot certainly goes a long way in me encouraging prospective bushpig hunters to succeed too.

Happy Hunting!

The Southern Africa (SA) HOG SLAM

Tony Silva, May 2010

Dr Terry Witzu, June 2009

In the Southern African countries of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique there are two indigenous wild pig species. Most hog hunters should know these to be the warthog and the bushpig.

Further North in the equatorial belt the red river hog replaces the bushpig and the giant forest hog also occurs in these rain forests. Along the the Mediterranean coast of North Africa the Barbary boar (similar to the European boar) represents the wild pigs there.

In the Eastern Cape of South Africa both the warthog and bushpig occur in relatively good numbers. When considering a safari to Blaauwkrantz the Southern Africa Hog Slam is a goal that all hog hunters should try for, given that hunting these two species is relatively cheap as compared to a current guided safari in Central and East African Countries such as Central African Republic, Cameroon, Benin, Tanzania and Ethiopia where legal trophy hog hunting is still possible but at a hefty price.

Bushpigs are a challenge in themselves (just read all the other blog entries) and the thing with warthogs is to try find a monster boar (10 inch tusks or more). Finding a really big warthog takes a lot of luck , of course location and what is also really important is the time of the year. From end of April until end of June the big warthog boars come out of hiding and start getting restless as they start marking territories and scouting for sows that may be on heat. That eerie sound of a big warthog boar chomping on his tusks is a really strange and exciting sound...

At Blaauwkrantz we have had a few fortunate hunters who have completed the SA Hog Slam and note ably the following clients have done it on a single safari :

1. Danny Hicks (May 2007)

2. Dr. John Tucker (May 2008)

3. Val Nicholls (May 2009)

4. Dr. Terry Witzu (June 2009)

5. Dr. Chad Nelson (April 2010)

6. Tony Silva (May 2010)

Last night Larry Boyd tried but was unlucky in completing this single safari Hog Slam. He took a spectacular warthog (see www.blaauwkrantz.com/latestnews ) a couple days before but true to the wary bushpigs ,they didn't come to the party...Next time Larry!

The One that got away....almost,Anthony (Tony) Silva,California

In May 2007 Danny Hicks from Central Valley,California hunted with me and one of his priority species was the hard-to-target bushpig.His safari lasted 6 days and after an initial disappointment at missing a bushpig at bait,Danny managed to get another chance a few evenings later and shot a very large bushpig.He wrote a story about this hunt and submitted it Safari Club International and they duly published it in their bi-monthly magazine.

Danny wanted to return again with some friends who he hunts with in California, one of their quarry species is feral pigs.

Last week Danny returned to Blaauwkrantz with three of his friends and one of them,Tony Silva, is an avid hog hunter over there and had heard all about bushpigs from Danny and through our meetings at the SCI show in Reno each year.

Tony understood very well that hunting the bushpig was a different ball game all together to feral pigs..

Due to the moon on the waning phase, things were always going to be tough when staking out these nocturnal creatures at bait.

I had a bait set up where I thought the pigs wouldn't be too nervous of the spotlight that we would need to illuminate the target instead of the preferred moonlight.

We spent two nights at this sheep carcass where my camera had indicated some pigs coming in.

The 10 hours we spent there in total proved totally fruitless.It was tough but I must commend Tony on his resilience and intrepidness at being able to sit so still for so long.These bushpigs are worth that effort and Tony fully understood that!

We had two nights left of the safari and we were trying to squeeze in as much other hunting as possible as we were hunting a 2x1 which effectively halved the hunting time per hunter,so the pressure was on..(see the Blaauwkrantz website http://www.blaauwkrantz.com/)

On Friday the 7Th May we returned from a successful gemsbok hunt for Danny and headed straight to another one of my more established bait sites, problem is that at these spots the pigs are often wary of an artificial light.

We settled into the hide at 5:45 pm and waited for 4 hours in complete silence until I noticed two pigs through the dark night making their appearance at the bait from the thickets.The bait was only 35 yards away, so seeing the shapes through my Zeiss 8X56 binos was possible, but barely.

One of the pigs started wandering over to our hide and it looked like the sow, it was now or never as this pig was going to become aware of us inside the hide. I indicated to Tony to get ready and I put my little Surefire flashlight onto the pig at the bait, after a few stern words under my breath telling Tony to SSSShooot, he fired.

The bushpig bolted at tremendous speed and was gone into the night.We didn't hear the shot hit and the bushpig didn't drop at the shot as they often do when they are hit.

We went to investigate at the spot but saw no blood or any sign of the pig.The reality started dawning,Tony might've missed.We were all feeling sick and travelled the 25 min trip back to the lodge in complete silence.

Tony did however say he felt confident at his shot.

The next morning I went to investigate in daylight as this bait site was close to my home.

I saw not a drop of blood and was getting really despondent after a few minutes of it becoming a reality that Tony had missed.Suddenly, Marty my Wife , Carmen's, little cross-breed poodle started barking and growling in the thick bush some distance away.I went over to investigate and to my great relief there was a 160lbs bushpig boar lying stone dead!

The 150 grain 30-06 bullet had hit the bushpig from behind as this is how it was turned when the light went on.The shot went into the stomach and chest,the bushpig probably took a while to die there,but only went 100yards, so it was the best thing we could've done ,to leave it there in the night otherwise we may of had one angry pig charging at us in the darkness.

Needless to say everyone was overjoyed when I arrived at the Lodge with Tony's monster.

Well done Tony, 14 hours at bushpig bait was well rewarded.

Dr CHAD NELSON,UTAH

Chad arrived at Blaauwkrantz with his Dad,Reed and Brother Travis after making the long trip from Salt Lake City as the moon was waxing nicely in the evenings.Thanks to this blog Chad was aware that he would be here in prime bushpig hunting time:THE WAXING MOON PHASE.

On their arrival Chad indicated that he would be interested in hunting one of these ghosts.Chad was already pursuing many of the other fantastic species available too,but I assured him and his PH, Francois, that I was always prepared for bushpig hunters especially when the moon was good...

According to their tight schedule we decide that Wednesday the 28Th would be the night, it was the night of full moon and the second last night that would be available in this months' moon cycle to attempt a moonlit hunt.

The weather forecast indicated cloud cover and a possibility of rain, I had two specific baits that were getting regular hits from big pigs, and as the afternoon progressed we noticed the heavy clouds rolling in, things were looking dicey..

I eventually decided to send them to the Bloustoot Bait site that was further away from the coast than the other good one, as the inclement weather was coming in from the ocean and maybe this would give them time to hunt before the rain set in making visibility at night even harder.

Francois and Chad settled into the blind just before dark which is at 6:15 pm this time of the year. At approximately 7:15 pm a single pig appeared from the thick brush, according to Francois and Chad it seemed very nervous ,darting around the bait and disappearing into the bush again.

They were getting very excited and anxious at the same time as it appeared and disappeared,not sure if it winded them or whether it would return.Eventually at 7:30pm it reappeared and started feeding cautiously,Chad decided to shoot as it didn't seem like there was another pig with it.

Chad levelled the 300 WSM topped with a Trijicon scope on the pig,he could just make out the body through the scope in what was fast becoming a very dark night as the clouds were rolling in. The illuminated reticule indicated where to aim on the shape of the bushpig as Chad squeezed the trigger and the pig dropped dead in its tracks.Chad made a fantastic and unique shot: a bushpig in the moonlight!

The big sow tipped the scale at 67 kg or 147,4 lbs.Congratulations Chad and welcome to the Bushpig Hall of Fame!(see the picture)

Happy Hunting..

(See the rest of Chad and his Family's fantastic trophies on the Blaauwkrantz website at http://www.blaauwkrantz.com/ )

Bushpig Downtime..

The moon is disappearing and soon it will be New Moon...So in the meantime the nights are pretty dark and no good to see those ghosts coming in or not coming in to those baits!
The baits are getting hits but without moon there's cant be too much pig-action..
Watch this space though!

Ghost in the darkness taken!

Fleming Lund and his parents with his trophy bushpig taken in just the moonlight.We've had an early start to season this year,with two Swedish clients arriving in the 1st week of Feb already. The second Swedish hunter,Ulf Daniellson , arrived a couple weeks later and bushpig was on his list.
Although both hunts were conducted in generally hot conditions the other trophies taken were fortunately hot too!
PH Eric guided both hunts and managed to negate the heat and hunting very well.
I took Ulf out on two evenings in the waxing moon phase.The first night was fruitless with no pigs coming to the bait we were staking out.
The next evening I decided to switch locations and it wasn't long and a pig made its appearance.There was a bit of cloud cover obscuring the 1st quarter moon, so Ulf battled to see the bushpig at first.When he managed to pick the pig up in the scope he shot and the pig dropped in its tracks.I could see the bushpig spinning around where it fell and yelled ; shoot again!
Before Ulf could shoot again the pig jumped up and disappeared into the moonlit night never to be seen again.
After a sleepless night we went to investigate the next morning but only found its tracks where it made the speedy getaway into the notorious Eastern Cape thorny thickets that the famous author, Maj. Pretorius , once called "a hunters hell" in his book , Jungle Man.
Ulf's shot was probably high on the shoulder.Bushpigs are one of the harder species to target and this episode clearly illustrated just that.
Hard lines Ulf, maybe next time!

Halfway through March old friend ,Fihl Jensen, from Denmark returned for his seventh visit to Blaauwkrantz.He brought the Lund Family with him for their first African trip.
Fihl, a Bushpig Hall of Famer himself , indicated to Flemming Lund that he should accept the famous bushpig challenge in addition to his plains game package he was hunting. After arriving and spending a few days out in the thick bush and being assured by PH Francois that there were buhpigs all over but hardly ever spotted, he accepted the challenge to target the these "ghosts".
The first evening I took Fleming out , was the night before first quarter (Mon 22March).
Once again that group of bushpigs' sixth sense rescued them and we sat till 10 pm with nothing coming in.
The next evening,at a different spot, saw a clear night with the first quarter shining brightly once the sunlight had gone. At 7:50 pm two pigs came walking almost within touching range from our bush blind.The wind was good so they didn't smell us.They passed by and did their customary "circle" around the bait and then closed in.We could clearly see the boar was larger than the sow,although this is not always the case.(bushpig sows are good trophies too)They had their heads facing us as they started feeding.They stayed in this position for more than 15minutes.These 15 minutes felt more like 15 hours!Finally the boar turned and Fleming made an excellent shot with the bushpig dropping dead in its tracks.Fleming was using his .308 topped with a Swarovski Z6i 3-18 X 50P scope.This scope also has the feint orange dot to indicate the centre.This rig makes for an excellent bushpig combination in this type of hunt.
The bushpig weighed 70 kilograms or 154 lbs.Tusks should go good silver medal SCI.

Congratulations to Fleming Lund ,the first Bushpig Hall of Famer for 2010!