A Tropical Igloo
The first blinds I hunted from back in my
childhood days at Fazenda Taboa were nothing more than a bunch of branches
piled up under a likely tree that would disguise the “hunter’s” outline from
the always sharp vision of the big white winged pigeons (Patagioenas picazuro, formerly known as Columba picazuro), and allow us to shoot them at close enough range
so the tiny load of No. 12 shot from the .310 rimfire “Mini-Skeet” shotgun would
bring them down from the branches they were perched and into our fry pan.
Later on I hunted capybaras (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) in
the farm swamps from giraus or
elevated shooting platforms, some of which were nothing more than a fork in a
branch where we perched from, while we called the capybaras with whistles made
from bottle caps.
A
couple decades later when I started hunting whitetail deer in Michigan I
started using different pop-up blinds, and most deer that I bagged over the
last ten years where shot from one of these practical and relatively
inexpensive blinds.
The one
down side of most pop-up blinds is that they are not ideal to bow hunt from,
most of them lacking the space and height for a proper draw.
Last
April my friend (and at that time, co-worker) Fanie Venter invited me for a
weekend bow hunting in South Africa’s Limpopo. My adventure in the bushveld was both unforgettable and bitter-sweet,
and this is the first time that I write about it.
Fanie’s
brother-in-law Pieter and his friend and business partner Louis have a game
farm in the heart of Limpopo’s bushveld and they are developing it to be a bow
hunter’s paradise, since both are fanatic bow hunters.
Falmouth
is simple and rustic, yet it is welcoming and idyllic. It shows the results of
Pieter and Louis hard work and ideals, as well their love of hunting and of
wilderness and respects for all its facets and idiosyncrasies. Because there are
Black Mamba and Puff Adder in the bushveld both Pieter and Louis wear high
boots made of strong but soft Kudu leather, and since Pieter’s wife met the
resident leopard on her way to the outhouse, he is now building an inside
bathroom so he does not need to escort her out during nights.
But
back to hunting blinds…
Like
most of South Africa, Limpopo’s bushveld is dry, and there is no surface water
at Falmouth, so Pieter and Louis drilled a borehole and pump water with the
help of solar panels which they provide to the resident wildlife in a “waterhole”,
and in front of it they build a blind from where they can bow hunt.
The
construction starts by digging a hole about three feet deep and at least seven
feet in diameter. Then small gauge construction rebar was placed around the
circle as the structure for this tropical igloo. The structure was wrapped with
chicken wire and wet newspaper placed over it. The final touch is to cover
everything with cement so it resembles a rock or boulder.
But the
devil is in the details, and there are many nice features to this blind. The
spotting windows are covered with “see-through” mirror, so the hunters inside
can see outside, but animals cannot see any movement inside. There are three
shooting windows, and because the floor is lower than the water hole, the bow
hunter would have a flat shot at the intended animal, without having to worry
about which would be the trajectory from a steep angle, like if shooting from a
tree stand.
The
floor of the blind was covered by rugs and blankets that would muff the hunter’s
footsteps, there are sitting benches and you can keep all your gear in the
ample area. Finally, there is a four inch PVC pipe that stands at least twelve
or fifteen feet above the blind roof that serves both as ventilation as well to
send the hunter’s sent away from the area.
Needless
to mention that when not in use the blind is kept well closed in order to
prevent some of the local reptile to take residence in its cooler interior or
the many blue monkeys to havoc the place.
From
this fantastic set-up I spent several hours watching the African wildlife
cornucopia, including the most beautiful Impala ram I ever saw and that I was
able to completely miss at around twenty yards, killing a tree with the broad
head arrow instead, sand grouse which came picking their own image in the
mirrors, a magnificent but somewhat young Kudu bull that I was “mature” enough
not to shoot, guinea fowl, a large troop of the aforementioned blue monkeys,
more impala, a very long eared rabbit, and warthog, one of which broke my
heart.
Falmouth
also holds blue wildebeest and Pieter and Louis were planning on releasing
Gemsbok later on the year. As most, if not all, South African game ranches
Falmouth has twelve foot high fences around it, but that fence cannot contain
either the warthogs that go under it, or Kudu that just fly over the highest
wire without much concern.
But
back to warthog and a broken heart. Towards the end of the afternoon traffic
really picked up around the waterhole, and both the large impala ram that I had
missed earlier and a couple of great warthogs were around.
When
opportunity came I shot the largest warthog and it immediately dived into the
surrounding bush. Pieter called Louis and Fannie back at the lodge, and then we
started tracking the wounded animal. And I received a lesson in tracking and
disappointment.
We came
back well after dark without locating the animal, and next morning we tracked
it for several hours, until the spoor and blood were gone. Mea culpa, mea unica culpa.
A week
later I got an e-mail from Pieter telling me that they had found the dead
warthog, but it was already all rotten. I just hope that the resident leopard had
a nice meal out of my mistake.
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