Rafael F. Ruiz (Spain) PH Eardley+Tom Harrison(N.Carolina) Hans Zagleur(Montana)
In the space of four nights these three lucky hunters managed to hunt these three bushpigs each at a different baitsite.What made it even more remarkable is that they were all taken in just the moonlight.
The moon was waxing beautifully from 1st quarter on the 18Th July when Rafael arrived and headed straight to the bushpig blind not far from the lodge with myself.At 19h10 he made the moonlight shot to take a boar,congratulations Rafael!
On Monday afternoon the 19Th PH Eric and Hans headed to another bait site and settled into the blind just before dark.They saw a lot of animals moving around them but the elusive bushpigs didn't arrive.They lucked out!
The next afternoon Tom arrived from North Carolina and immediately set off to another bait site with myself. With a cameraman in tow we didn't wait long after dark when the hogs showed up.There were a bunch of them milling about but Tom and myself managed to isolate the biggest one and Tom also made an excellent shot in the moonlight to take a very nice boar.Congratulations Tom!
Meanwhile Hans and Eric where at another blind waiting patiently....As their luck would have it nothing other than warthogs were showing themselves. Again they lucked out!Hans had sat out two nights on his previous safari here in 2008 without success either.So he had spent four nights now without luck.The pressure was on.The next afternoon they headed to the same blind they were in the night before as I said there was no chance the bushpigs would stay away there two nights in a row.At 18h40 the bushpigs appeared and Hans made that shot,congratulations!
Apart from this feat of three bushpigs in four nights at Blaauwkrantz, is that Tom and Rafael had made 25 hunting safaris to Africa between them and had neither taken a bushpig yet.They had been to countries like Tanzania, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Zambia, Namibia, Benin, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa with Tom only once catching a glimpse of them in Tanzania.
No one can ever guarantee getting the extremely shy bushpig, but I can certainly say that Blaauwkrantz has something special here.
Yours in buhpigs,
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