Resuming the 2013 South Africa Safari.... Day Seven, Michelle takes a Zebra!!

Well, here comes the excuses......

First, our computer basically bought the farm. It takes forever just to check emails, let alone try to upload pics or draft a blog posting. My wife finally got around to ordering a new computer so I'm back on the map and ready to help Chad stay current on our sites. Combine a problematic computer with the fall hunts, and you got the making for some fine excuse making. Regardless, the hunting has hit a lull so I thought I'd get back to working on the Safari posts.

A ZEBRA FOR MICHELLE

We'll catch back up with a Day seven posting. With a long trip and plenty of animals harvested on Day 6, the plan for Michelle and I on Day 7 was to take it easy in the morning. Michelle and I would hunt with Daniel again and Andries and Amanda will join us this morning. Dad would head out for a morning hunt to try and find another warthog. Joe and Heather head out early and sit at a blind in hopes of arrowing more animals.

Michelle sights in the 30.06 at the range

Before we headed to Africa, I'd put plenty of time into trying to figure out which animals would make my wish list (at least within what I could afford). At no point had I considered hunting zebra. They just didn't turn my crank. HOWEVER, my wife wanted a zebra rug for the house and even though I have no idea what we'll do with a zebra rug I didn't want to disappoint the wife so we added it to the list. Since Michelle wanted the zebra rug, we made a plan for her to harvest the zebra. There are 2 species of the zebra that Andries can hunt.  The Mountain and Burchell, or as I like the label them, the expensive one and the cheap one. Both are very beautiful but the Burchell species has the shadow stripes where as the Mountain is the straight black and white striping. We slept in a bit, ate a great breakfast, and when Dad returned from his morning warthog hunt, we loaded up in one of the trucks and headed out in search of zebra. As we made our way past Mt Carmel, we spotted the first zebra of the day. Unfortunately the first species we seen were of the expensive type so we spent some time watching them through binoculars, then kept moving along. Not long after, we spotted the type of zebra we were looking for but being the wary animals they are, they did not stick around long and were  quickly swallowed up by the brush. Daniel, Michelle, and I grabbed our gear and headed into the brush to see if we could get the wind right and cut them off before they made it out into the wide open country. Andries had previously told us the zebra and warthog were the two toughest animals to hunt. The zebra are very smart animals and typically do not make getting within shooting range a very easy task. Michelle would shoot the 30. 06 today and I would follow with the video camera. A pretty stiff wind allowed us to move quickly and it wasn't long before Daniel found the zebra again. The zebra were just leaving the cover of the brush heading out into the wide open valleys as we caught up. I set the video camera up as Daniel set out the shooting sticks for Michelle. Daniel then turned his attention to finding a stallion in the herd as I got a range on the zebra. At 347 yards, I told Michelle were to hold as Daniel whistled to get the walking zebra to stop. As Daniel pointed out the stallion, Michelle drew a bead and fired. Through the lens of the camera, I seen dust fly and told Michelle she shot low. Daniel quickly grabbed the sticks and had Michelle moving. He said he was sure she hit the zebra so he wanted to close the distance in case another shot was needed. I stood videoing as they headed out and it wasn't long before I could tell the zebra was hit hard. Michelle had placed a perfect double-lung shot at 347 yards with a bit of crossing wind. When we later watched the video of Michelle's stalk and shot on the Zebra, we were surprised to see the actual bullet in flight and its vapor trail when we walked through the video frame by frame!

Michelle and her beautiful stallion!

We called Andries and Dad on the radio and they found their way to us. Andries was a bit surprised as usually zebra hunting requires more than one stalk but fortunately Michelle and Daniel done their jobs and we had closed the deal on our first stalk. Also, Andries thought the 30.06 was a bit small for zebra and was surprised that the bullet was a complete pass through (you can see the entrance hole directly below Daniel from the 180 gr Barnes bullet in the picture below). As we made our way up to Michelle's zebra, we were  surprised at the beauty and size of these animals. It's pretty amazing to see them up close, with beautiful contrasting stripes and a very stout and muscular frame, and these animals are surprisingly bigger that what we were expecting. Our usual photo session followed as we waited for additional help to show up to help us load this animal. We headed back to the ranch for a great lunch and a quick nap. Later that afternoon, we headed out to look for warthog and duiker. We were able to find some warthog but not of the size we were interested in. A sighting of a great steenbuck and the usual fleeting glimpse of duikers helped round out the day. As we did every day, we finished the evening sitting around the fire having drinks, sharing pictures, and telling stories. It's still hard to believe the fun we had and the memories we made while in Africa. If we could do it, we'd be back every year....

Once again, Daniel did his job. This photo gives a bit more perspective on the size of the Zebra.

By Day 7 we had established a great friendship with Daniel and he wasn't afraid to get a little silly on us!!

It'll sure be hard to beat the relaxing end to the days of hunting that we had while in S Africa

More from Day 7 to follow soon...