My first blesbuck with a muzzeloader

By Rean Steenkamp

It is often said that history repeats itself. Well, when it comes to hunting my first animals with a bow and with a blackpowder rifle it certainly did to a remarkable extend.
It was quite a few years ago that I set off to Lichtenburg to hunt a sprinbok with my first compound bow, a PSE Stringray. I was to hunt on Oom Tinus Diederick’s farm. I would be the first hunter to kill an animal with a bow and arrow on his ranch, placing quite a burden on my shoulders. A blind was contracted a short while before for this purpose.

After nearly a day in the blind, a few springbok eves finely came in. The problem was, I was to only shoot rams. Nick Smit, Oom Tinus’ son in law, quickly phoned to find out whether an eve was fair game. It was, and I got the order to shoot quickly, since it was close to dusk. I chose the biggest eve and started to draw my bow. However, for some reason the cam would not roll over – I could not draw the bow. I checked to see if there was something stuck in the cam, but it was clean. The problem was buck fever! I was in such a shaken state that I could not manage enough strength to draw the bow.

I relaxed, took a few deep breaths and tried again. This time I was successful. I aimed and touched the trigger. I don’t think I remembered to pick a spot and I did not know much about stringjumping, but the arrow smacked into the animal and it took off. When Oom Tinus arrived we picked up the arrow and to my dismay it smelled of stomach juice. It certainly wasn’t a good shot. Oom Tinus found the animal 800 yards from where I shot it. My first shot was a wound an not a proper hunt. Oom Tinus, a kind gentleman, invited me back to try again.

On the second hunt we again waited most of the day before a springbok ram and a few eves entered. Nick was in the blind with me again, while I had another severe bout of heart booming buckfever. The ram was standing at 22 yards. I aimed and the arrow flew off, zooming in on the kill zone. However, the ram ducked and the arrow passed harmlessly over his shoulder.

I went back a third time, about a month later. This is no lie, but the same ram walked in again. I was prepared this time. I discarded my heavier aluminium arrows for lighter, faster flying, carbon arrows. I waited for the ram to stand at 17 yards, aimed fairly low and pulled the trigger. The shot was true. The arrow passed right through the animal and it jumped forward and ran a couple of paces. It was clear that neither the animal nor the eves with him knew what happened. The ram started to swing back and forward slowly, as if drunk – and then dropped dead in his tracks. Later, at closer inspection, we found the arrow had split the lower part of the impala’s heart. I was pretty happy, it was a case of third time lucky and I had my first successful bow kill.

Nearly eight years later I found myself on Oom Tinus’ farm again. This time with my Kentucky .50 muzzleloader in the hand. With me was my good friend Johan Smit, brother of Nick who accompanied me on my first bowhunt. Johan had his .375 with him as backup. We were out stalking.
After walking slowly through the veld for about an hour we spotted a group of blesbok standing a few hundred yards from us. We were in the bushes and they were in an open area. To get to them I would have to walk closer, keeping a big bush between me and them. Then I would have to leopard crawl another 50 to 60 yards to get within my shooting distance – which was about 55 yards or closer.
I promptly set of to do so. When I got to the bush I got down on my stomach and started to leopard crawl closer, keeping my head lower than the small shrubs and grass growing in the open veld. To my surprise I was quite successful. Since Oom Tinus allows rifle hunting on his farm, the blesbok was all but tame and relaxed. I was dressed in a self-made gilly-type shirt and my face was mostly covered by a camo net.

I had to reach out and put my rifle as far forward as possible and then slither forward like a snake. Every now and then I would rest and range the distance.

At about 70 yards things got a little difficult. A few cows approached and I was directly in their path. When they saw me the were slightly perturbed, but their curiosity was what disturbed me most. These cows had horns and I was afraid they might decide to attach me, especially when one of the cows started to move forward manacling. Johan, who was watching from a distance, later told me he was worried as well and was getting ready to shoot the animal.

I was in a stale mate situation. If I chased of the cows, I would also scare of the blesbok. If I didn’t I might be gored by a cow. Fortunately the cows decided I wasn’t worth the effort and left. Needless to say, I was quite relieved when they walked off.

At 55 yards I decided to take aim. I chose a blesbok standing quartering away, aimed at a spot on the vitals, pulled back the hammer and slowly squeezed the trigger. “Ka” but no “Boom”! Only the cap went of, but the blackpowder did not ignite and no ball and patch left the barrel. The blesbok left in a great hurry.

We were pretty disappointed, after having crawled for sixty yards or more, nearly being attached by cattle, I had nothing to show. Well, that is hunting and we were not ready to give up.
Since I was in the veld, I could only remove the used cap, make s

re the channel to the black powder is open and recap – hoping that the next time the rifle would fire.
About a half an hour later we saw a blesbok lying down close to two trees – about a 100 yards from were we were. The only cover I would have walking down a slope would be the two trees close to the blesbok. It looked a little hopeless, but I reckoned I at least had to try.

I cautiously walked down the slope, keeping the blesbok’s head behind the tree, thus hiding myself from his view, although I could see the rest of his body. I was hoping that whatever showed from behind the tree would be seen as a bush and, since he was not looking in my direction, would not detect that I was moving closer. It worked and when I got closer to the tree I got down on my belly again and started to crawl. When I ranged 33 yards I lifted up my rifle, aimed at his vitals and fired. Or rather misfired. “Ka” again and certainly no “Boom”. The blesbok was on his legs in less than a second in gone in a flash.

When I later inspected the rifle, I found that there were a two-by-four in the barrel, behind the blackpowder and ball and patch. It seemed that when I cleaned the barrel the previous night, I accidentally used two pieces of cleaning material instead of one, thus leaving one behind in the barrel without noticing. When I poured in the blackpowder it was on top of the material. The cap thus had no chance of igniting the blackpowder, since the chamber was blocked.

Both my first bowhunts were unsuccessful, and so was my first two blackpowder attempts.
I returned to Lichtenburg and Oom Tinus’ farm a month later. This time I made sure my barrel was clean, had no obscure little “lappies” inside and I was using pistol grain Sannadex instead of rifle grain. I found that since the pistol grain is finer than the rifle grain, it tends to run right into the cap nipple, ensuring much less of a chance for a misfire.

Johan was with me again as we looked for a blesbok. After a few attempts at getting close to blesbok we saw a couple of blesbok. Two were standing, while the rest was lying down.

The distance I had to cover was slightly sloped downwards with only small bushed to hide behind. I would have to cover about 10 yards on my knees or belly. Fortunately for me, the two blesbok that was standing on

he opposite embankment walked away, leaving only the blesbok that was lying in a hollow.
I slowly crawled closer over a rocky area, which was rather uncomfortable, but John Wayne said a man has to do what a man has to do, so I had no option but to keep my head low and push my rifle ahead. I took the first range at 101 yards. My aim was to get as close to 50 yards as possible.
I soon reached an area where the slope made it impossible for me to move forward without being detected. I reached for my range finder, that was in a poach on by belt. The range finder was gone. Pretty stupid of me of course, since I had it on the front side of my body and not at the back. As ‘n crawled forward on my belly the pouch opened and gave up the rangefinder. I had no choice but to judge the distance myself and I measured the blesbok to be about 75 yards away.

I chose the blesbok that was showing the most of its torso. Aimed at the vitals and then shifted my sights a little higher, since it was 25 yards further than 50 yards – where my sight were set for. I pulled back the hammer and lowly squeeze the trigger. This time I heard a loud “ka-boom” and the rifle spew out a cloud of smoke.

To my amazement the blesbok dropped sideways, while the rest of the group ran of in a great hurry. My blesbo

wasn’t dead, however. The animal only lifted his head and I knew I had spined the poor animal.
I quickly got up and reloaded the muzzleloader as fast as I could and then fired at the animals head. It dropped dead instantly. It was my first successful blackpowder hunt. Third time lucky again on the same game farm.

When we measured the distance later with the rangefinder, which I found about 30 yards from where I took the shot, it measured about 53 yards, much closer than I estimated. I was also quite happy when we found that the 177 grain ball had smacked through the scapula, struck the spine and exitted the scapula and skin on the other side – a complete pass through. I used 70 grains of pistol grain Sannadex.

Updated: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 2:42 PM