Back from Bowhunt in Namibia

I just returned from a good bowunt with AR member Roger Coomber and Vieranas Safaris. This was a bow hunt for me and my co-host Steve Gruber hunted with bow and gun. Also my good friend Lee Brit went aloong and bowhunted.

We travelled through London Gatwick via Delta and then transferred to Air Namibia. We had a day in London and went out site seeing. I had never been, and it was a good day, but I have learned that I would rather just travel and get to the hunting destination as quickly as possible. I hate going through JoBurg, but I really didn't like the 14 hour layover.
When we arrived in Windhoek, we got all our bags for 5 people except 1. Steve's cameraman had a bag missing and it took a week for it to be delivered to camp.
Roger picked us up and graciously took me to a store where I could buy a pair of Courtney boots. Thanks Rog! Then the 6-ish hour drive to his hunt area.
We arrived late afternoon and got settled in. Here is the cottage I stayed in.

The next morning, we got up and shot our bows to make sure they were on and so Roger could check our shooting abilities. We headed to the blinds about 10 AM.
My cameraman Mike and Roger discussing the days hunt.
Photo of one of Roger's great bow blinds

Some of you may remember Roger had sent me some trail cam photos before the trip with eland and leopard. Before we went to the blinds, one of the trackers went out and collected cards from the trail cams and we checked them out. The afternoon we arrived, the big herd of eland that were using Roger's area had been in to drink a half hour before dark the day we arrived. It seemed they were coming to drink every 2-3 days. There were 2 big blue bulls. One was the short massive bull I posted photos of before, and another old blue bull that had wider horns but wasn't as worn, or quite as massive. Eland was my number 1 priority as these were free range animals, and I wanted to take one with bow in that situation. I wanted one of the 2 blue bulls or nothing and I decided I would sit that blind for a week waiting on them if I had to.
We saw some gemsbok and young kudu that day, but no eland. That evening, Steve killed a good warthog. I sat the whole next day and saw more kudu, gemsbok and giraffe, but the eland didn't show Steve killed a nice 52" kudu that night and Lee killed a 25 1/2" Red hartabeest that should score in the top 5 with a bow.
Back to the blind for an all day sit on day 3. It was really windy and the action was slow most of the day. About 5 pm, a shadow came across my view from the blind window, and I knew it couldn't be from birds flying around. I got up, and a young bull eland was at 20 yards. He had sneaked right in. My cameraman Mike got on him and asked if I was going to shoot him as he had really nice horns, but I told him "NO - he isn't blue". I heard clicking, and looked out to the right, and whispered, "...but here comes one I will shoot.". It was the old blue bull that had the wider horns. He ambled in, and by then the young bull was drinking. The big bull began to drink broadside, but the young bull was blocking his vitals. I kept watching to see if more animals were headed in, but ultimately none did. Finally after an eternity, the young bull cleared out, and I had the old bull broadside at 19 yards. I drew, settled my pin low and straight up the foreleg, and I let fly. The big bull kicked and jumped, and as he took off, he was less than 40 yards out when his back end started getting away from him. I saw him begin to stumble and within 75 yards, he crashed.
I couldn't believe such a huge animal could go down so quickly from an arrow. I got a complete pass through and had hit him square in the heart. ENTRY

It was getting dark by the time we got out and tried to take photos

So I talked Roger into having him gutted so we could take good photos the next mornning. It was a pain to take him out of the cooler and back out, but it was worth it. The old bull was all blue and almost had no hair from the neck back. he was absolutely huge bodied and his horns were 34 1/2" long and right at 11" at the bases.

With my primary animal down after 3 days and about 32 hours in the blind, I wanted a mt zebra, kudu and gemsbok in that priority though I had permits for everything, and was happy to take any of a variety of animals.
The next day my cameraman Mike shot a medium warthog. He really wanted a pig and a gemsbok.


An hour before dark, a big bunch of red harabeest came in, and after 5 minutes of trying to size them up and judge them, one of the 2 big bulls gave me a shot. I took him through both lungs and the top of the heart, and he went about 60 yards and piled up within sight. He was 24 1/2 inches and really heavy. I am sure no judge of hartabeest, but Roger said he was an excellent bull. Sorry about the photos. It was obviously close to dark, and I couldn't get him cleaned up very well. You can see his mass and length in the 2 photos

The next day, I saw quite a few animals including springbok, warthog, kudu, gemsbok, but no shooter bulls or rams. I did shoot a huge old male baboon that afternoon. He came in first before the whole bunch got in, and I nailed him. All 4 canines were broken, and he was just obviously an ancient old guy

This warthog came in and wallowed in the baboon blood...nasty!

..and we got a closeup look at this secretary bird as well. My buddy Lee killed a big mountain Zebra stallion that day. The following day we went in just at daylight, and to my horror, there was a herd of zebra at the water when we got there, and we spooked them off. We saw a decent amount of animals that morning, but nothing shootable.

About noon, Mike whispered "Zebra" and we all went into serious mode. A single zebra came in close to the water, but kept prancing back and forth very nervous. It wanted to drink, but kept running in and out, throwing its head, staring at the blind, backing out, etc. Roger said it looked like a stallion that had just matured and would be challenging a herd stallion for dominance. It just didn't look to me like it would ever calm down enough to drink. It turned broadside at 30 yards and I told Roger I could take it, but before I could draw, it had dashed out again. I made up my mind, the next shot I got, I was taking as I thought the zebra would eventually bug out. It got to about 30 yards and turned broadside again, but as I drew, it turned. It was quartering away, but I knew I could make the shot. I put the pin behind the shoulder, and let fly. The zebra went about 80 yards and dropped. I got both lungs at 32 yards. The zebra ended up being a big mare, but she will make a beautiful rug, and was the only zebra I got a shot at the whole trip, so I was very pleased. Roger and me with the mt zebra. I had my top 2 animals in the salt, and things were looking up. I shot another big male baboon and a medium warthog the next day. We were winding down on time, and I was getting nervous about kudu and gemsbok. I had seen a lot of young kudus with lots of potential, but only one mature bull, and he didn't look to be quite 50". Here is a beautiful young bull.

The morning of day 8 was incredible. Gemsbok began coming in at 7:35 am, followed by a herd springbok, and then Roger spotted a good kudu bull about 200 yards out. He made a slow arc around or position always staying at 200 yards. He got to the extreme right of our vision, and began feeding. He was watching the animals around the water, and it seemed he didn't want to come in with them there. Then 20 hartabeest came in and got their chaos going. More gemsbok and warthog showed, then 2 ostrich came in. It was the most game we had seen all week, but they were all keeping the 1 animal I wanted away. Finally the kudu disappeared in the brush. I hoped when things calmed down, he would slip in. A few minutes later, 5 young kudu bulls showed up. We watched them for a few minutes, and relaxed. Then from nowhere, the mature bull just stepped into the middle of the young bulls at 25 yards. I got my bow, and he edged up to the water. He was quite nervous, so when he backed up from the water, but was still broadside, I drew and sent an arrow straight through his heart. I wasn't waiting around to give him a chance to leave. He went the farthest of any animal I shot - 150 yards. I was so excited and releived to get him. I hated the thought of a plainsgame hunt with no kudu. It was 8:55AM when I shot him, so it took almost an hour and a half for him to come in.

A mature old gemsbok came in about noon, and we saw she had no calf and didn't appear pregnant, so Mike decided to take her. He double lunged her, and she went about 100 yards. He and I had had a great day and were quite pleased.

Our last day, we decided to hunt about 2 1/2 hours and then finish up a lot of the video work we had to complete and take still photos. We sat and didn't see anything and I then climbed a copy and took some sceenery photos showing what the terrain looked like.

You can see a blind in the middle of this one

...my freind Lee took a mature kudu on the last hour of the hunt, as well as a good mature gemsbok and a baboon. Steve Gruber went on to kill another kudu and gemsbok with a rifle, and he also took the female leopard that I had posted the trail cam pix of. She was old and bare. She came in to 21 yards from the blind at 7:45 AM. Sorry I don't have photos of their trophies yet - as we were all hunting in 3 different directions.
I ended up not seeing a mature gemsbok bull or a big springbok, but we all had a great trip. Roger and his wife Amelia treated us like family, and we really enjoyed them and all the staff. Roger is a very dedicated bowhunter, and he obviously lives for the sport. He is very involved with NAPHA and the government when it comes to bowhunting in Namibia. Thanks so much to Roger and Vieranas Safaris for such an enjoyable time.
We ended up taking 19 animals - 16 with bow and 3 with rifle. We got some excellent footage for Outdoor America that will air next year on Outdoor Channel.
I really enjoyed getting up close and personal and bowhunting these beautiful animals, but I must admit, that I do enjoy spot and stalking with a gun more. I love getting close and I missed covering ground, stalking, seing different terrain all the time, etc. I am very glad I did a bowhunt, as it was so different from my past African experiences. I was fortunate in the fact that all the game animals I took were 1 shot clean bow kills. I did shoot the first baboon again, just to save suffering, but he was mortally wounded and bleeding profusely on the first shot.
All the flights home went smoothly, I even got upgraded to 1st class on the Delta flight from London to Cincy which was great. All baggage made it home, and I got a good night ssleep and don't feel terribly jet lagged. I guess it is time to really start finalizing plans for 2009 DG hunt!