DocKoffee
Active member
Recently Fjold posted an excellent series regarding hunting in Africa, with excellent details on sort of what I will call the technical side of the journey. This encouraged me to post the story of my trip to Botswana in 2021. ( I originally posted this on several boards in late winter of 2022 so you may have seen it before, sorry for the rerun). I thought sharing this might give some of you thinking about making a trip a little more insight on the subject from a very personal view. I will admit that although the 5th anniversary of this adventure is coming up, re-reading it stirs some very deep feeling. I hope you enjoy it.
Kevin
(It is sort of long so I am planning to do in sections as Fjold did his)
DocCoffee's Excellent Adventure
Koch Safaris, PH Gerhard Koch
Sass Post East, Tuli Block, Botswana, Aug. 3-13, 2021
I suppose the best place to start a story is at the beginning. To do that come with me back to the fall of 1967, I was 6-1/2 yrs old and my Dad was headed for Wyoming with a group of guys. To make a long story short there was a little confusion in my mind between the Antelope pictures I found in my “Big Book of Wild Animals” ( A Sable and a Roan) and what Dad was actually going after. Mom helped straighten that out but the seed was sown, one day I would hunt Africa.
Fast forward thru a lot of dreams, a few hunts in different North American locales, a couple of divorces. Dad and I talked of and dreamed together of the Ultimate Hunt. Along the line I put together a .416 Taylor “just in case”. At 86 years old Dad was perhaps now a little old to make the trip but in 2015 I started to do some investigating, research some would call it, to finally make the trip in 2022 with my beautiful wife Jeni, a combination Hunt for me and 20th Anniversary/Honeymoon we never had trip for us. I had sort of settled on Namibia, even had an outfit picked out but had not made contact with them yet. And Jeni knew nothing of my plans. Then things changed. As in REALLY CHANGED in 2018. July 22 to be exact, after several months of illness for Jeni that we could not get a handle on we got the answer no one wants. The big C, breast cancer and Stage 4. Although we tried treatment the side effects were just too much for her and after a few months we stopped them, Jeni choosing a few months of quality life over agony and uncertainty. That Journey ended on May 5th 2019, then a couple months later my Dad passed, actually 1 year to the day of us getting Jeni’s diagnosis. As the dust settled and my mind cleared a little I made the decision. I wasn’t going to wait any longer, I was going to Africa.
Late in Nov. 2019 I contacted a guy that goes by M3Taco (aka Michael) on some of the forums. He had done some pretty thorough write ups on some hunts and it sounded like he had the experience that could make my planning a whole lot easier since I was a complete rookie on any sort of International Travel. My private message through the forum was answered within a couple hours with a phone call from him. I don’t remember all that was said that 1st call but it was followed by several more and probably twice as many emails. Due to some tough conditions in Namibia due to a few years of drought and a Rabies outbreak that had hit the game pretty hard he suggested I look at Botswana, specifically Koch Safaris instead. Gradually a plan came together for us to go together, Michael already had dates reserved with them in August 2020 over the dark moon phase so we solidified our plans. Then CoVid reared its head in the spring of 2020. Although we held out until the very last minute we finally decided, on July 31, that it was not going to happen. We immediately rescheduled for August of ’21 and the planning and anticipation had to be somehow put on pause. It wasn’t easy but somehow I managed. At least I had another year to hone my shooting, especially off the sticks.
Although I had a couple rifles that could have made the trip, for a variety of reasons my Weatherby Mark V Accumark in .300 Weatherby with Leupold VX3 2.5-8x in Conetrol mounts was chosen. A little work at the loading bench and range came up with a load featuring a 200 grain Swift A-Frame running just over 3000 fps and groups off the bench a lot better than I ever expected, ½-5/8” for 5 shots. But you don’t hunt from the bench rest so it was time to stand up and get serious. The range I go to doesn’t accommodate sticks but I came up with a way to simulate them pretty well using an old mostly worn out Outers front rest. I supplemented that range time, which by the time we left amounted to over 200 rounds thru the .300 plus another 100 or so with other rifles, with Air Rifle practice in my backyard off the real sticks which added another 500 rounds to the count. “Minute of Impala” or a little better was achieved. I decided I was ready.
August 1, 2021 finally arrived. Due to the uncertainties of the various Delta and United flights when we booked the plan was American to Chicago O’Hara, meet Michael there then QATAR Air from Chicago to Doha and on to Johannesburg with SA Airlink finally getting us to Gaberone. Everything went smooth and a day and a half after departing we were on the ground in Gaberone. Gerhard was waiting for us, clearing the guns could hardly have been easier and we were in the van. 54 years in the making but I was finally in Africa!
A couple hours drive and we were in camp by about 1pm. The trip was uneventful other than seeing plenty of game since leaving the pavement, including an Impala Ram that still had Gerhard talking to himself a couple days later. Maggie, Gerhard’s wife, had sandwiches waiting for us. After a bite to eat and a little unpack the decision to head for the range to check the rifles and a bit of a drive around before supper won out over a nap, jet lag not having caught up with us yet. This was a bonus since we had gotten in early, the real hunting to start the next day. A couple of shots for each of us showed that the rifles had survived the trip. The plan was just to drive around, see what we could see and shake the kinks out after 35 hours or so of air travel. Impala, zebra and Wildebeest seemed everywhere. Giraffe, Kudu, Waterbuck, Gemsbok, Steenbock are also seen along with various smaller critters. For a guy from Michigan used to seeing a dozen or so whitetail on a good day, it was almost overwhelming, the numbers and variety of game. After driving around a little while we saw a bunch of wildebeest that looked like worth a closer look so decided to take a walk. The wind was not quite right, and as we tried to circle a little we bumped into 3 Zebra that had gone unnoticed due to the bush. They didn’t stick around long enough for a shot so that was that. We repeated this a couple times as we headed back to camp. Braised Kudu Shanks, Vegetables, Salads and fresh baked bread waited for us and really capped off the day. With the travel fatigue catching up on us we called it a night early. 6 am would be here soon enough.
Kevin
(It is sort of long so I am planning to do in sections as Fjold did his)
DocCoffee's Excellent Adventure
Koch Safaris, PH Gerhard Koch
Sass Post East, Tuli Block, Botswana, Aug. 3-13, 2021
I suppose the best place to start a story is at the beginning. To do that come with me back to the fall of 1967, I was 6-1/2 yrs old and my Dad was headed for Wyoming with a group of guys. To make a long story short there was a little confusion in my mind between the Antelope pictures I found in my “Big Book of Wild Animals” ( A Sable and a Roan) and what Dad was actually going after. Mom helped straighten that out but the seed was sown, one day I would hunt Africa.
Fast forward thru a lot of dreams, a few hunts in different North American locales, a couple of divorces. Dad and I talked of and dreamed together of the Ultimate Hunt. Along the line I put together a .416 Taylor “just in case”. At 86 years old Dad was perhaps now a little old to make the trip but in 2015 I started to do some investigating, research some would call it, to finally make the trip in 2022 with my beautiful wife Jeni, a combination Hunt for me and 20th Anniversary/Honeymoon we never had trip for us. I had sort of settled on Namibia, even had an outfit picked out but had not made contact with them yet. And Jeni knew nothing of my plans. Then things changed. As in REALLY CHANGED in 2018. July 22 to be exact, after several months of illness for Jeni that we could not get a handle on we got the answer no one wants. The big C, breast cancer and Stage 4. Although we tried treatment the side effects were just too much for her and after a few months we stopped them, Jeni choosing a few months of quality life over agony and uncertainty. That Journey ended on May 5th 2019, then a couple months later my Dad passed, actually 1 year to the day of us getting Jeni’s diagnosis. As the dust settled and my mind cleared a little I made the decision. I wasn’t going to wait any longer, I was going to Africa.
Late in Nov. 2019 I contacted a guy that goes by M3Taco (aka Michael) on some of the forums. He had done some pretty thorough write ups on some hunts and it sounded like he had the experience that could make my planning a whole lot easier since I was a complete rookie on any sort of International Travel. My private message through the forum was answered within a couple hours with a phone call from him. I don’t remember all that was said that 1st call but it was followed by several more and probably twice as many emails. Due to some tough conditions in Namibia due to a few years of drought and a Rabies outbreak that had hit the game pretty hard he suggested I look at Botswana, specifically Koch Safaris instead. Gradually a plan came together for us to go together, Michael already had dates reserved with them in August 2020 over the dark moon phase so we solidified our plans. Then CoVid reared its head in the spring of 2020. Although we held out until the very last minute we finally decided, on July 31, that it was not going to happen. We immediately rescheduled for August of ’21 and the planning and anticipation had to be somehow put on pause. It wasn’t easy but somehow I managed. At least I had another year to hone my shooting, especially off the sticks.
Although I had a couple rifles that could have made the trip, for a variety of reasons my Weatherby Mark V Accumark in .300 Weatherby with Leupold VX3 2.5-8x in Conetrol mounts was chosen. A little work at the loading bench and range came up with a load featuring a 200 grain Swift A-Frame running just over 3000 fps and groups off the bench a lot better than I ever expected, ½-5/8” for 5 shots. But you don’t hunt from the bench rest so it was time to stand up and get serious. The range I go to doesn’t accommodate sticks but I came up with a way to simulate them pretty well using an old mostly worn out Outers front rest. I supplemented that range time, which by the time we left amounted to over 200 rounds thru the .300 plus another 100 or so with other rifles, with Air Rifle practice in my backyard off the real sticks which added another 500 rounds to the count. “Minute of Impala” or a little better was achieved. I decided I was ready.
August 1, 2021 finally arrived. Due to the uncertainties of the various Delta and United flights when we booked the plan was American to Chicago O’Hara, meet Michael there then QATAR Air from Chicago to Doha and on to Johannesburg with SA Airlink finally getting us to Gaberone. Everything went smooth and a day and a half after departing we were on the ground in Gaberone. Gerhard was waiting for us, clearing the guns could hardly have been easier and we were in the van. 54 years in the making but I was finally in Africa!
A couple hours drive and we were in camp by about 1pm. The trip was uneventful other than seeing plenty of game since leaving the pavement, including an Impala Ram that still had Gerhard talking to himself a couple days later. Maggie, Gerhard’s wife, had sandwiches waiting for us. After a bite to eat and a little unpack the decision to head for the range to check the rifles and a bit of a drive around before supper won out over a nap, jet lag not having caught up with us yet. This was a bonus since we had gotten in early, the real hunting to start the next day. A couple of shots for each of us showed that the rifles had survived the trip. The plan was just to drive around, see what we could see and shake the kinks out after 35 hours or so of air travel. Impala, zebra and Wildebeest seemed everywhere. Giraffe, Kudu, Waterbuck, Gemsbok, Steenbock are also seen along with various smaller critters. For a guy from Michigan used to seeing a dozen or so whitetail on a good day, it was almost overwhelming, the numbers and variety of game. After driving around a little while we saw a bunch of wildebeest that looked like worth a closer look so decided to take a walk. The wind was not quite right, and as we tried to circle a little we bumped into 3 Zebra that had gone unnoticed due to the bush. They didn’t stick around long enough for a shot so that was that. We repeated this a couple times as we headed back to camp. Braised Kudu Shanks, Vegetables, Salads and fresh baked bread waited for us and really capped off the day. With the travel fatigue catching up on us we called it a night early. 6 am would be here soon enough.
