The blue wildebeest the author shot with his longbow

By Rean Steenkamp

It was late dusk when the blue wildebeest finally came in. I knew I would have to make good the shot, since it would soon be dark. The animal was standing only ten yards away from me. I drew back the string of my longbow and the arrow was gone.

At that moment a wildebeest knocked my prey with its horn and the animal swerved to the right, changing its position from broadside to very quartering-away. There was nothing I could do; the arrow was already on its way and since it was already fairly dark I could not see clearly where the arrow had struck. I wasn’t even at all sure whether it had even hit the animal.

All the wildebeest took off to my left, but a few seconds later they all ran past me, some 50 yards in front of me, and then stopped to my right, making snorting noises. Another few seconds later a lone wildebeest passed and I could swear five heard it fall, but I wasn’t sure.

By the time the owner of the ranch, Johan Pont arrived 45 minutes later it was dark. After some discussions with Henk du Plessis, who was also hunting with us, we decided to leave the animal for the time being. If the shot was bad and the animal was wounded it was better to leave it for a while to die in peace. If we followed it, it might take fright when we came too close and adrenaline would keep it alive for much longer than necessary.

Reluctantly, I had no choice but to return to camp, hoping that I had heard it drop and that the shot had been good.

About two or three hours later we returned to the spot and followed the spoor. We could find no blood or arrow. I certainly had not missed, and the fact that the animal had spilled no blood made me very uncomfortable.

Henk showed us that the animal’s spoor was spread wide, indicating it was badly hurt. We followed the spoor for about 20 metres when it disappeared in a trampled area covered in wildebeest spoor. It was then we decided to look where I believed I had heard the animal fall. Since it was dark I wasn’t sure. We used the strong spotlight to scan the entire area but could see nothing.

In front of us was a small sand bank, the remains of an old field. As we crossed over it, we scanned the area again. The wildebeest was lying about 30 yards to our left. So I had heard it fall.

On closer inspection we saw that the arrow was still in the animal and had entered it more or less in the kidney-area. Unfortunately, we also noticed that a brown hyena had found the wildebeest before we did and had eaten up the left side of its face and neck. Had I followed my first instincts this would not have happened. I did not complain, however, I had found my prey and the shot had been good.

On later inspection we found that the arrow had penetrated the wildebeest’s stomach, severed the aorta and penetrated one lung. It took only a few seconds to die.

I wasn’t the only successful hunter that long weekend. My friend, Johan van der Merwe successfully hunted a wildebeest two days before I bagged mine. He killed the animal with a double lung shot and it ran only about 50 yards before it died. Johan is a successful bowyer and used one of his own longbows to bag his prey.

On our last hunting day, Nelius Mosterd, another friend of mine, left the camp before sunrise to wait for an impala. About two hours later he made his first bow kill, killing an impala with a double lung shot. The arrow, shot from a 55-pound selfbow, flew through the animal like a hot knife through butter. To me this was a very sweet kill. Not only did my friend bag his first animal with an all-wooden bow, but I had built the bow he used. It was a hickory bow I had made about four years ago. It is whip-ended and has a little stringfollow, but certainly had more than enough power to kill the impala. I believe it would have killed a wildebeest just as efficiently.

The bow I used is a 58-pound bamboo-backed Osage bow and the arrow a 5575 Gold-Tip, with an insert to make it heavier. With the 165-grain Tree Shark it weighed in at 662 grains. Both Johan and Nelius used the same arrows as I; only Johan’s arrow was tipped with a Lan Shark and Nelius’ arrow with a Zwikey.