To my luck we began tracking the wildebeest on foot. It became clear that Jason's shot had broken the right front leg, which meant the Blue would be extremely vigilant. Yakub explained that in this state, animals would often stop to look back just to see if anything was following them, thus he concluded that hunting it on foot would be useless. He called Francis via radio and we jumped into the pick up.
The plan was simple: Francis would follow the Blue while we drove around to hopefully catch it head-on. The owner Tinus was also joining us in his own pick up to help locate the Wildebeest. The radio began going off every other second: it was heading south of us.
We met with Tinus at one of the frequently driven on dirt path intersections just as a massive Blue Wildebeest burst into the clearing. With practiced motions, Yakub moved the .308 into position and fired, breaking the other front leg. The wildebeest fell forward. Yakub got out of the truck and hurriedly told us to get out as well.
Yakub sprinted over to the railing above a water trough that is used in the dry season, resting the rifle on the metal bar. Jason grabbed the gun and began to look down the scope.
Despite its excruciating injuries, the wildebeest attempted to hop away. It used its back legs to jump this way or that.
"Shoot- no, don't shoot," Yakub kept having to say.
Finally it rested long enough for a shot, and Jason delivered a perfect neck shot. Yakub gave the Blue Wildebeest its last meal, and it took THREE guys to load it into the back truck. Jason was extremely proud of his shot, and had an even bigger smile than before.
While we were driving back to the lodge with the wildebeest in tow, the craziest thing happened...
Animals at game farms don't just stand around in the middle of the roads as a pick up truck with hunters approaches, so the female waterbuck standing in the road was certainly a shock to see. She was sick, as we found out when Yakub tried to catch it and the waterbuck ran headlong into the pick up!
It took two trackers, one hunter, and a belt to finally restrain the waterbuck. She couldn't breath, it turned out, and since there was no chance of getting her to a vet in time, Yakub put her out of her misery.
After all that, it was time to head back to drop off Jason's wildebeest. My little brother refused to eat Wildebeest Balls, so we took a break instead. I managed to find Afrikaans monopoly and convinced Yakub to play with my brother and I. By lunch, I truly don't know who had won, because Tinus had snuck me a monopoly and Yakub seemed to have a key to the jail lock...
The monopoly board got destroyed during an unexpected man made earthquake, and we were back out hunting. We took some Jackal bait along -entrails- and tied them to a tree trunk for a later stakeout in the afternoon. My early coffee had served me well.
We chanced upon helmeted guinefowl while driving, and I got to shoot one from the back of the pick up! Turns out there's not much left after you shoot a guinefowl with a .308 though...
Not much later, we spotted baboon about a kilometer away. My attempt at shooting one missed, but it sure scared the pants off of all of em!
It had seemed that we wouldn't be finding much more out, until we drove right up to a Puff Adder laying in the road. For those that don't know, Puff Adders have a seriously poisonous bite that can kill in under an hour. Just like Jackals and Baboon, Puff Adders are serious trouble and killed on sight. Yakub used the shooting sticks and the stock of the rifle to effectively accomplish this, with the help of Francis, of course!
We hadn't gone much farther after that until we spotted blue wildebeest. Yakub stopped the truck and said I would be shooting one for meat. We got out and approached them from a kilometer away, careful to keep silent.
When we finally came close enough for a shot, the sound of a wildebeest calling out stopped us in our tracks. Yakub responded, and the whole herd faced towards us.
"Take the one farthest left," he whispered, placing the rifle on his shoulder and motioning for me to move forward.
Once again I fired, so focused that the recoil couldn't be felt and neither the shot heard. We ran up to find it unmoving on the ground. Yakub congratulated me on another perfect shot.
Yakub and Francis loaded the wildebeest into the back of the truck so we could get on with our stakeout.
No jackals came to our bait, and we ended up waiting for two hours with no luck. But that wasn't the agonizing part. Halfway through the stakeout, the wildebeest I had shot decided to have the last laugh, releasing its stomach gasses through its mouth and making the ENTIRE pick up smell like a dead animal. It smelled awful!
We were all glad to get going when evening fell, and spent the rest of the night playing yet another round of monopoly.
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