buckfever

i went hunting this past saturday! or, i went along for a hunting trip....i didn't actually do the hunting. but i went with tommy and zales, two americans i work with, and a guy named jason who works for the us embassy and is a big hunter. we went to a farm about an hour and a half outside of lusaka that jason knows from past hunting; it was great to get out of the city, since i hadn't really been out of the city since i got here (7 weeks ago, which is crazy).

we got up at 5:30am (again, another early saturday), and headed out at 6am. we took jason's car, which is i think my new dream car - a land rover defender, but decked out looking all safari like. (kara, if you would like to keep an eye out for one of these cars on autotrader.com for me, that would be super duper :) )

we arrived at the farm and met the family who owns it and their 5 gigantic lab dogs. all super nice and friendly. then the 4 of us hopped into the bed of their pickup truck while xander, their 17 year old son, and zulu, our scout, rode up front.

we drove for a bit to get more into the bush. it was beautiful seeing all the untouched bush and all sorts of animals - kudu (bigger than deer), impala (about deer size), zebra, warthogs, ostrich, reedbuck, and more.

tommy and zales decided they were gonna hunt impala - not too large, but good meat. tommy went first. we found some impala and he set up on top of a hill with zulu and jason to line up his shot. unfortunately, he missed his first shot, which made the animals scatter. at first we thought he had maybe nicked one of the impala, so we all started sprinting closer to where the animals were scattering to see if one would eventually stop running from the wound. after about a half mile of sprinting towards them, we realized it was a lost cause and it must have been a clean miss.

then it was zales' turn. we drove for a bit more and found a few new impala. again, he took a shot, missed, and the animals scattered. this time though, zales, jason, and zulu went and stalked the impala. me and tommy chilled back at the truck with xander asking him about a billion questions about their farm, hunting, zambia, etc. about an hour later they emerged from the forest. but alas, no impala.

tommy's turn again with the rifle. this time he proved victorious! we were all crawled up in some bushes/trees and tommy was able to get a clean shot of a female impala on his first shot. the shot about scared the shit out of me cause i didn't realize it was coming and it's super loud. luckily the shot was so loud i don't think any of them heard me scream.

we drove the truck over to the impala, about 150m away, and loaded it into the bed of the truck. its insides started bubbling out of the gun shot wound which was pretty gross. and then it started to smell really bad cause the insides had all been blown apart so the animal started bloating. an interesting tid bit though, impala only have bottom teeth, no top teeth. they don't need the top teeth cause they just rip the grass up to eat it rather than chew it.

so, zales was up again and determined to hit something. we drove around a bit more, found some impala, zales set up, and killed one on his first shot as well. his shot tore through on the other side making a huge hole where the bullet came out. when we had it loaded on the truck on the way home the hole filled all the way up with blood. kinda cool/gross.

when we were driving back we were all standing up in the bed of the truck and kept having to dodge tree branches as we were driving. a couple times i almost got fully taken out cause i got distracted and wasn't paying attention. once i almost lost my balance when i was dodging a branch and almost fell over on the dead impala...that would not have been very pleasant at all.

we got back to the farm house and i went inside to get some water and talk to the owner for a bit. by the time i got back outside, they had already gutted the impala and there was a huge pile of the insides and the blood sitting on the cleaning platform. it was really gross looking. the female impala had been pregnant which was kinda sad. you couldn't see the baby, but you could see the sack that it was in.

so, that was the end of the hunting trip. we loaded the impala into containers and headed back to lusaka. tommy and zales are getting the impala butchered today, so hopefully tomorrow were going to have a nice braii and grill the impala to see how it tastes.

were going to try to go again sometime in the spring for a kudu. they're more expensive, though, since they're larger, so probably just go for one. the impala was 400,000 zmk, which is only like $80 us, to kill. but the kudu can be upwards of 1,200,000 zmk, which is a bit more expensive.

the whole trip was very cool. maybe next time we go i'll shoot myself an impala. this time it was just fun to go along for the ride, though, and see how it all worked.