The author with the warthog he shot.

The author with the blue wildebeest he hunted.

By Brad Isham

The Thabazimbi bushveld in northern South Africa is a game-rich bowhunter’s paradise. Although it took me 43 years to get here, my excitement and anticipation is that of a child.

I arrive to find the rains have beaten me, however. In fact, the rain came to the bushveld six weeks early. Blind and tree stand hunting at waterholes is suddenly out of the question, as there’s standing water everywhere.

After the third day of sitting in a blind I finally connect with a large blue wildebeest. He reluctantly follows a group of younger bulls to the waterhole. He waits until the young ones are drinking before making his approach. After several anxious minutes of the wildebeest shuffling themselves the large bull takes the position closest to me. I can see his apprehension as his leg muscles spasm, ready to bolt. From the veil of the blind I draw my longbow to anchor and release. I hit the bull higher than I would have liked but he only runs 60 yards before his legs go weak and he collapses at the base of a tree without a struggle. What an exciting moment, to see your first African animal lying on the ground. That evening I set my sights on stalking.

I quietly leave the morning blind and begin the long walk toward camp. The bushveld is great for stalking. The terrain is full of brush that allows you to zigzag your way undetected toward your quarry. The brush is low enough to see long distances across it and tall enough that in a low sneak you’re covered on an approach.

The first animals I see are impala – a small herd feeding away from me. I move in slowly, bush-to-bush, moving only when their eyes and attention are in directions other than mine. Impala never seem to relax. At 80 yards my knees find the soil and I crawl, painfully slow, to 60. A slight, swirling breeze passes and that’s all it takes to alert the impala. All heads up at once and turned in my direction. I freeze behind a small thorny scrub; they don’t see me but they know their lunch has just come to an abrupt end.

The impala don’t bolt like I thought they would; instead they examine the terrain in my direction for the source of the foreign smell, and nervously resume picking at the new, green foliage. I gain more yardage and down at ground level I slide beyond my cover and rise on my knees.

I draw and anchor. I place the broadhead just above mid-chest and over the front leg of the rear impala. I breathe and release the string. The impala bound away, completing their second leap before the arrow harmlessly impacts the sand where my impala was standing. I sit back on my heels and laugh at my failure. The long-bow man just learnt his limits, 30 yards or less or I don’t have a chance. Lesson learnt. I stalk the rest of the way back to camp and arrive with three hours of daylight left. I have a quick snack and decide to walk up the river next to camp until dark.

The warthogs have been feeding on the riverbanks in the evenings now that the rain has made them green. I hope to intercept one while walking up a service road that’s parallel to the river. Every 30 yards or so I find a game trail to cut in towards the river that offers quiet walking to the top of the riverbank where I can check for pork. There are so many trails, I end up catching them back and forth between the road and the river like a sailboat tacking into the wind.

A half-mile or so up the river I see movement in the tall grass ahead of me on the opposite side of the riverbed. The grass whips back and forth at the top and I can hear it cracking and breaking. I have no idea what I’m watching but I slide on my hip slowly down the bank to a small bush to figure it out. A few moments go by and a big, beautiful, mature waterbuck steps out from the grass, turns, lowers his head, and walks back in. He takes my breath away and for a moment I can’t believe I’m here.
As soon as he disappears, three warthogs show themselves in the same stand of grass. They randomly figure eight themselves through the grass, seemingly unwary and comfortable in their surroundings, protected by the thick, tall grass. I think I could actually have a decent chance if I just move when they’re in the grass and stop when they’re out.

With all eyes in I begin to walk the tree line on my side of the river, keeping the trees at my left to mask my outline. At 40 yards I’m feeling pretty good about my circumstances.

The animals are still feeding and all I have to do is negotiate the still mostly dry riverbed to join them. I begin to navigate across the rocky bottom of the river carefully, stepping lightly so the rocks don’t clack together. They sound like grinding teeth as I try to walk lightly and I’m thankful for the noise of the tall, dry grass my quarry is in. At 20 yards I’m completely exposed when the waterbuck steps out head-on and stares me down. I freeze at a crouch and wait for an opportunity that’s gone before it happens.

The waterbuck spins on his rear hooves and crashes back through the grass to higher ground on the bank where he slows to a walk. At 50 yards he turns back to look at me and then disappears into the trees. What a beautiful animal that, before this moment, I’d only seen in pictures. The pictures, by the way, don’t convey the magnificence of a large male waterbuck on the hoof. A memory I’ll never forget.
Oddly enough, the warthogs are still in the grass and I’m just 20 yards away. I continue across the riverbed towards the disturbance in the grass confounded at the unmindful pigs. The warthogs are feeding up toward the bank with tall grass between them and me. I make my final stalk to literally ten feet. The grass is so thick and loud they can’t see or hear me. I know my heavy arrow can blast through the grass with ease, but I can only make out hams and shoulders and they aren’t standing still.

I come to full draw, find a shoulder and release. The warthogs bolt out of the grass and up a game trail. At 15 yards the lead pig puts his nose into the ground, wedges it hard, and somersaults, landing solid and dead, flat on his back. I find my arrow imbedded deep in the bank, at such close range the grass and the warthog seemed to have little effect on its momentum. He wasn’t the biggest of the three warthogs, in fact, he was the smallest, but it was a quick, clean kill and a fantastic first successful African stalk, and my first warthog dinner accompanied by a glass of South African pinotage.

The next morning I am practising before breakfast when I notice a pair of francolin partridges slowly feeding through the bush beyond camp. I pull a shaft from the target, nock it, and make for the cover of the brush. I find a tunnel through the bushes that lead to a small, clear opening about twelve yards away. The francolins are pecking their way right into it. All I can see, is a single, small spot on the francolin’s back as he walks into the opening and before I have a thought the arrow is through the bird and he’s nailed to the ground instantly dead.

I put an eye on the second bird and quickly release, trying, but not able to regain the concentration of the first shot. The arrow strikes the bird on the right side and creates an eruption of small downy feathers as it skips off the ground and arcs far into the riverbed below me. I gather the birds and lift them by their feet to admire them. They’re beautiful. The delight of a good shot, no matter the trophy, especially on a stalk, is long remembered.

That afternoon while walking I find a dead animal deep underground in a hole. There are flies and stink coming from the hole, enough to catch your attention from several yards away. I walk to the hole and find a warthog mandible at the opening, so I bend over and pick it up for closer inspection. I am stuffing the jawbone in my pocket, still standing in front of the hole, when a five-foot monitor lizard runs, unseen and unheard, from behind me, between my feet and into the hole to guard his cache of rotting warthog.
After gathering my faculties I back away from the hole with my bow braced to skewer the large lizard, should he decide I’m a threat to his food supply. He never shows himself and I walk home with the stolen jawbone in my pocket. I would never have experienced an up-close encounter like this sitting in a blind. I’m not collecting a lot of trophies due to the rains, but I’m gathering memories, gaining experience and having great time.

The next morning brings the hope and anticipation that comes with every day in the field with a longbow. It just somehow feels comfortable to be away from daily life and in a place where your only responsibility is to chase game and everybody with you is doing the same, or supporting you in your new, but all to brief vocation. It’s a belonging that’s difficult to match or explain.
I do time in a blind and see absolutely nothing. The week is getting late and the nightly rains are debilitating the blinds to the point that spending time in them now is absurd. I don’t know why but I stay until noon, expecting to see something. It is the first time I’ve been in a blind and not had one animal show and I guess that’s why I stayed so long.

I creep out through the steel door and begin the stalk back to camp. I make stalks on two different warthogs and while I get within 20 yards of each, I just can’t seal the deal on either one. Warthogs are a great diversion to otherwise poor hunting conditions. They’re fun, even when you can’t get an arrow in them. Usually they spot you just as you draw and squirt ten yards or so before stopping to look back to figure you out. They give you a quick look and then an indignant snort as their tails go vertical and they exit your life. After two failed stalks I’m ready to loose an arrow.

The next warthog appears as I’m walking the road to camp, searching the flat expanse of bushveld that is upwind. I catch a dark, spot moving toward me about 60 yards away. It looks like a good pig. It’s slowly feeding, making its way between the bushes toward the road. I drop to the ground on hands and knees and slowly move from cover to cover trying to anticipate the warthog’s path.
We both change directions several times until some stroke of luck puts him head-on at 20 yards. At this I think he will turn either direction, offering a shot or end up in my lap. At 18 yards he walks around a bush, feeding to my left, offering a delightfully exposed ribcage. I am on one knee; I come slowly to full draw, find the arrow in my second vision, find a spot above the front leg and relax my fingers. The longbow makes a quick whisper to bid the arrow farewell. This time, I think, it’s all going right. The arrow thwacks the pig hard and I watch as he runs left into the brush. I radio the PH and wait, knowing that the time spent is good for recovering the pig.

The tracking team arrives to include two professional hunters, two trackers, two wives and two tracking dogs. The professional hunters and their helpers perform brilliantly and we recover what’s my favorite African trophy to date. The PH ages the pig at eleven or twelve years. I sit and admire the warthog; with curiosity I examine the deep cracks in his skin, his enormous warts, and the girth of his broken tusks. He is old and big, handsome and ugly. He is a great trophy and a great memory. I shot him after a long stalk, using a long bow I made myself. For me there’s nothing better.

The last great memory of my walks through Thabazimbi comes with another evening stalk up the riverbank. I drop from the cover of the trees to the bank for a look up river. I walk slowly by the edge of the water. The rains have begun filling the riverbed. The soil is soft and quiet and green with new life. Ahead of me I see a branch imbedded in the mud and half submerged in the water. On the branch, barely visible, sits the head of a python, motionless with exception of the occasional flick of the tongue.

I creep a few steps closer, get higher on the bank, and take a look at the body. I see a beautiful, S-shaped, ready to strike body of twelve feet. I sit and watch the python and think what a patient, perfectly created ambush predator it is. I feel a kinship with the python. I reflect while I watch its silent vigil. I think of all of the thousands of predators over thousands of years that have hunted the Thabazimbi bushveld and I’m honored to have connected with them, if only temporarily.

I learnt many things in South Africa and many things about South Africa. That night, when the bottles of pinotage on the table are mostly empty, I reflect on my first South African safari. There’s a vicious honesty to South Africa that adds to its appeal for the travelling bowhunter. Its animals are always true; they will defeat you when given the slightest opportunity. The fantasy and the tragedy of South Africa will hold my heart until I return. And I will return. Until then, I have great memories.