8,571 Miles Close to Home

A Warm Bonfire Turns Night Into Home

On Friday 10^th July 2015 I left my home at Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City, Michigan, USA (44°52’41”N, 85°31’46”W) and after about twenty-four hours of not necessarily comfortable travel I arrived at Richard Hobbs’ Buffalo Thorn Farm, not far from Modimolle, in the Limpopo, Republic of South Africa (24°47’59”S, 28°37’21”E).

The planning for this trip started over one year ago, when Pieter and Fanie began to scheme my return to South Africa after our weekend in the bushveld at Falmouth in April of 2012, which took place on the front end of a business trip.

It is amazing how a short weekend of hunting and comradeship in the great outdoors can forge the strongest friendship knot. While Fanie and I worked together for several years at the same company (which I left shortly after that weekend) and had the opportunity to create strong personal and professional bonds, Pieter and I only met for very short three days that many years ago. But those three days could as well have been three decades!

Besides basic luggage and an old Hoyt Razortech bow with all the necessary supporting elements I brought a single bottle of The Macallan Fine Oak 15 Year Old Scotch which amanzingly enough survived the first night! But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Fanie and his family picked me up the the Johannesburg OR Tambo Airport and then we drove about two hours to Buffalo Thorn to be met by a warm bonfire tended by Pieter, who was talking with Richard and his wife Ana, both of whom I would get to know and admire over the next week.

After an embrace from Pieter, at least as warm as the burning fire, and proper introductions, I had the opportunity to quench my thirsty by sipping from a cold bottle of Carlin Black Label after a ten year hiatus.

Dinner main course was buffalo stew and dessert was a fantastic English style pudin with custard. Ana's cooking would set me back almost a pound per day over the next week!

Before the stress and strain of the trip and the amber warmth of The Macallan drove me into the land of dreams, we set around the bonfire telling tall tales and small lies, and the feeling I had was that I was just 8,571 miles close to home.

Kevin's Amusement Park

View from one of the many tree stands

Last weekend I met my friend and business associate Kevin McKervey who had invited me for a weekend of bow hunting for whitetail deer in his "up north" property just south of Cadillac, Michigan.

I arrived at his "cabin" around 3:00 PM on Friday and Kevin introduced me to his lovely wife Patty and friend Mark (the second Mark would only arrive on Saturday), and after a great venison roast he took me on an ATV ride to reconnoiter the 37 acres and eight food plots, and multiple ground blinds and tree stands.

It is amazing how much can be learned by a simple ride, a bit of observation and a lot of conversation. I had never attentively hunted before a property intensively managed for deer, and i can only say that it requires a labor of love for the whitetail and the sport from Kevin and Patty.

After a three hour drive (each way), they spend almost every single weekend of summer and early fall spraying weeds, tilling, disking, planting and fertilizing food plots, cutting down trees and trimming branches to open shooting lanes, and they share the potential fruits of their labor, money and time with good friends.

We hunted Friday afternoon and while seating on my stand I observed squirrels, rabbits, blue jays, robins and chickadees galore. Just before dusk the distant honking of Canada geese provided the music to put the sun to sleep. With darkness came a beautiful half moon and Kevin calling me to help to track a doe he shot about an hour ago.

Arriving at his stand I met Brenda, a neighbor and friend that was also helping tracking the doe and who first spotted the blood trail. After half an hour or so we (or Brenda) located the doe, and Patty came with the tractor to haul the animal back to Kevin's barn where he has a fantastic butchering set-up. Dinner was pizza and libations.

Next morning we were back at the same stands, I heard the flight of Canadas going the opposite way from last night, but none of us saw any deer. Kevin cooked breakfast with eggs, potatoes and absolutely great venison brats. During afternoon we watched another Spartan's victory at the Big 10 college football and the weather starting to change with a constant wind from southwest.

By 4:30 PM we were out to our respective stands or blinds, and due to the wind everything was very, very quiet. Towards dusk the wind die out a bit and squirrels moved to their nests, rabbits came to graze at the food plot, birds flew around, but the geese did not bring their music to welcome the gathering storm.

The coming rain synchronized our return to the "cabin" (really, not a cabin at all, but a very comfortable home), and very soon I had hot cools in the grill and where fresh deer liver and venison back straps were grilled and enjoyed with healthy salads and good almost fresh french bread.

At the end of a typical hunting season Kevin, Patty and friends may on average harvest four to six deers, but their hard work creates not only a fantastic amusement park, but health habitat that is a piece of paradise for multiple species of the great northern woods of Michigan.

The Best Blind I Ever Hunted From

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.

Pope on Hunting

Saxton Pope

Bow hunting is an art and a challenge. It took me 9 seasons to bag my first whitetail deer using bow and arrow (see my post “Appointment in Bangor” from October 2011), and along with the black bear that I also shot using bow and arrow in Ontario in August 2010 those are among the highlights of my hunting life.

While hunting with bow and arrow is clearly more challenging that with a firearms, I don’t think that this lessens the firearms hunter, especially since I do both. We need to be united as a hunting community, and cannot let ethics be confused with preferences (for an excellent article in this subject, click at the link http://www.huntright.org/where-we-stand/ethics-vs-preferences). We must keep in mind that united we stand, and if we brake our ranks we will fail and those that wanted to prohibit hunting and see men apart from nature will prevail.

But this is not the reason that I am writing about. On my last posting I talked about the “Love of the Chase”, and tried to articulate the reason of why I hunt, probably in a very clumsy way, but while reading “Hunting with the Bow and Arrow” by Dr. Saxton Pope, one the fathers of modern archery, I came across a passage called THE PRINCIPLES OF HUNTING, that I reproduce below. I only wish I could write as well as Dr. Pope.

“In the early dawn of life man took up weapons against the beasts about him. With club, ax, spear, knife, and sling he protected himself or sought his game. To strike at a distance, he devised the bow. With the implements of the chase he has won his way in the world.

Today there is no need to battle with the beasts of prey and little necessity to kill wild animals for food; but still the hunting instinct persists. The love of the chase still thrills us and all the misty past echoes with the hunter's call.

In the joy of hunting is intimately woven the love of the great outdoors. The beauty of woods, valleys, mountains, and skies feeds the soul of the sportsman where the quest of game only whets his appetite.

After all, it is not the killing that brings satisfaction; it is the contest of skill and cunning. The true hunter counts his achievement in proportion to the effort involved and the fairness of the sport.

…

Here we have a weapon of beauty and romance. He, who shoots with a bow, puts his life's energy into it. The force behind the flying shaft must be placed there by the archer. At the moment of greatest strain he must draw every sinew to the utmost; his hand must be steady; his nerves under absolute control; his eye keen and clear. In the hunt he pits his well-trained skill against the instinctive cunning of his quarry. By the most adroit cleverness, he must approach within striking distance, and when he speeds his low whispering shaft and strikes his game, he has won by the strength of arm and nerve. It is a noble sport.

However, not all temperaments are suited to archery. There must be something within the deeper memories of his inheritance to which the bow appeals. A mere passing fancy will not suffice to make him an archer. It is the unusual person who will overcome the early difficulties and persevere with the bow through love of it.

The real archer when he goes afield enters a land of subtle delight. The dew glistens on the leaves, the thrush sings in the bush, the soft wind blows, and all nature welcomes him as she has the hunter since the world began. With his bow in his hand, his arrows softly rustling in the quiver, a horn at his back, and a hound at his heels, what more can a man want in life?”

Note: The book “Hunting with the Bow and Arrow”, as well as many other fantastic books, can be downloaded for free at several internet sources, including www.Amazon.com and Project Gutenberg (www.guntenberg.org).

Appointment in Bangor

I started learning English from my mother, and one of the books that she used in her private language school (located in our own home) was David Draper’s “Lighter English”, which has a series of one page stories that provide the background for grammar and vocabulary studies.

One of the stories is “Appointment in Samarra”, by W. Somerset Maugham. I first read it as a teenager, and it continues to impress me how no one can runaway from fate. I highly recommend that you read it.

Earlier this month I wrote a blog titled “An Unfinished Morning” describing a close encounter with a young whitetail buck, and how I missed an opportunity to bag him in my first outing during this year’s archery season.

But since we cannot kill deer from our TV room recliners, I get going back to Kay Alderman’s property in Bangor, Michigan.

Some weeks ago, my friend Bob Scott came hunting with me. I set under the same pine tree, now with a makeshift burlap blind in front of it and Bob used my tree stand that is located between the center and the big East fields.

By around 11:00 AM we decided to call it a day. It was getting warm and there was nothing moving in the woods. I came to the tree stand and Bob told me he only saw a small “unicorn” deer. Bob then asked me if I intended to hunt from the tree stand and recommended that I rotated in to have both a better view of the two fields and have a more comfortable position on the sit.

Bob is a much more experienced hunter than me, and he has forgotten more about tree stands than I will ever learn, so I gladly accepted his advice.

Last Tuesday night we had a big storm in Southwest Michigan, I thought that game would be moving the next day.

On Wednesday, 26^th, I left work early and went hunting. Since I had had no luck from the tree stand in the last several days, I decided to go back to the “pine tree blind”. But then an accident happened. The chair I using ripped apart and sent me to the ground. Luckily pine needles are soft and nothing but my pride was hurt or damaged.

Since this was around 4:00 PM I decided to move to the tree stand, rather that sitting on the wet ground.

I used the next two hours to finish reading the “2012 Deer Hunter’s Almanac”, which includes a chapter on how to hunt cornfields, and since I was surrounded by cornfields it was interesting learning.

At dusk it started drizzling and I thought about going home, but seconds later I noticed movement on the big East field, just of my right side. A nice small book was walking parallel to the tree line where I was sitting.

I got my bow from the hook in the adjoining trunk already with a nocked arrow, and struggled for a couple seconds to engage the release. As I came to full draw I put my 30-yard pin just behind the buck’s left shoulder and before he could get out of sight I let the arrow fly.

There was a solid slap when the arrow connected and the buck jumped kicking back with his hind legs, before he went on a dead run between the corn rolls.

Based on experience from past painful mistakes, I decided to give him time. I lowered my gear from the stand, came down, and slowly moved to the point I had shot him. In seconds I located blood all over the corn stalks.

I came back to the stand, removed my safety harness, stowed away the “tree stand gear” that I always leave in a closed bucket hooked to the stand gear line and decided to kill some more time.

In another 15 minutes or so I started tracking the buck. I really could not see any tracks, but there was a lot of blood sprayed in the corn stalks. Since I could see that he was marking two corn rolls, I was confident that the arrow that gone completely through him.

He run may 120 yards after being shot and I found him lying over his left side with a corn leaf on his mouth, which reminded me of the cecular European tradition of honoring the game. The arrow had entered towards the back of the left ribs, passed through left ling and heart and came out between the chest and the right shoulder. He turned out to be a six-pointer.

By the time I dragged him back to my car, parked three quarters of a mile away, I guarantee that he weighted at least two and a half tons.

I am really sure that he was the same deer that I missed the opportunity on the first day out. You will be able to relate to this once you have read “Appointment in Samarra”.