Hunting same animals in different areas.

[treeman]

I have always considered Impala easy to hunt, Blesbuck, well - even easier, if thats possible.
Karoo area you shoot a Impala and if it does not fall down, you watch it for a few seconds and see, " daar fal hy" like you know some where over there. You take a walk over, scan the ground and yip - there it lays. Moertoe - klaar - in sy gedoorie wa. No problem ol chap - Impala are easy to hunt easy to shoot and easy to find.

Not so here in the Addo - Kirkwood area, I was again reminded just how different the kinda bush makes the hunting. Look - make no mistake there are times and spots on the farms where they as I described above - easy. Now in the Addo thick stuff its hard to see ahead and elevation is your friend, as the bloke that hunted the Addo elephant almost to extinction found and proved - he carried a step ladder hunting with him. Stop climb up look about shoot.
Its all cluster of bush ranging from the size of a washing machine to that of a bus, but mostly just a bit above human head height, even the big clusters. This is solid stuff with thorns and spikes and tangle that not even Impala go in to. Every thing lives between and around these clusters - they escape between and around and feed between and around these islands of impenetrable, between these old stands is younger lower stuff that you hunt over and between. The usual method of hunting is to look along these passages often being able to see far between islands of impenetrable bush and often not more than a few meters, a game of peek around corners and try see before being seen. The other way is to hunt along higher ridges and humps and look down on hunting field, from this position the paths are seen from a upper position and have a maze like appearance. Problem is as the distance increases the angle of your vision increases and the more dense the velt seems.
The Impala here seem to know this and when shot they do a few bounds in any direction, problem is 2/3 meter in any direction and you can no longer see where they went, I have never battled so much to find a dead animal as in the Addo Kirkwood bush - one spring and its gone. No matter how you mark the spot when you get there its seems wrong spot, and a few steps either way and you lost the "where". We have resorted to staying put till a partner arrives - sending him to spot then joining him, but if the animal bounded left two steps and turned in half circle you will never know. We shoot a animal, 4 of us go to spot and we just can not find it, grounds hard and Impala are usually in group - spoor is not a option and blood is not always there, you just got to look and look till you stumble on it. They disappear right there - poof - gone. Its a different kinda hunting - it really is, finding shooting is the easy part - finding after shooting, thats the battle.

[Brenneke]

Well trained dog --or -- well trained (bushman) tracker
The dog can be kept a bit behind and brought up after the fact.

[Againstthegrains]

That's impala hunting for me too. A boiler room shot gives them just enough time to take a few jumps into never never land.