Semi-Live South Africa Plains Game (mostly archery) with the family

jpc01101 · 2026-07-29T17:48:21-0600

Next up…Ostrich! Different property for this one — steepest ground and worst roads we’d been on - think Moab or Sedona. Slow rough going.
Ostriches on this place were spooky as anything we’d hunted. Every time we got a stalk going, a worker on a quad bike would come idling up from somewhere and blow the whole thing, even from a mile out (one worker, the guy was following us I swear). Burned through about five stalks that way
Eventually my wife and the PH climbed a hill and got a shot at 250 yards. Hit one in the drumstick — which on an ostrich is huge, bigger than my thigh, and it went straight through and out the wing. Bird took off running. Not stumbling, not slowing down. Ran a full mile with a 6.5 PRC hole clean through it.
Caught up to it at 670 yards. Wind was 10, gusting to 20, full crosswind. My wife asked me to please shoot it. I dialed and let it fly, way looser rules on follow up shots for me. Two follow-up shots, two hits. When we got up to it, it was still alive, so my son finished it off.
Hardest hunt of the trip. Also one of the best.

Sheltowee · 2026-07-30T09:03:31-0600

Well, how did the ostrich eat? I'm envisioning grande-sized buffalo wings.

jpc01101 · 2026-07-30T09:48:48-0600

Sheltowee said:
Well, how did the ostrich eat? I'm envisioning grande-sized buffalo wings.

Ostrich tenderloin was darn good! Marinated for several days and prepared like beef filet. I have Alpha Gal (red meat allergy) and it was the closest I've had to a steak in years. We're buying some locally now that we are home. I also brought some Ostrich biltong home, it's pretty good as well.

jpc01101 · 2026-07-30T09:49:18-0600

I would have LOVED to see that drumstick on a rotisserie over coals!

Sheltowee · 2026-07-30T09:56:27-0600

jpc01101 said:
Ostrich tenderloin was darn good! Marinated for several days and prepared like beef filet. I have Alpha Gal (red meat allergy) and it was the closest I've had to a steak in years. We're buying some locally now that we are home. I also brought some Ostrich biltong home, it's pretty good as well.

Hmmm: https://texashuntlodge.com/hunt-packages/ostrich-hunt/

Make it sporting and try to work one in over decoys? Bearded Butchers have a couple pretty good videos on DIY biltong. You might check that out if you're trying to make some of your own ostrich-tong.

kansasdad · 2026-07-30T09:56:40-0600

jpc01101 said:
Ostrich tenderloin was darn good! Marinated for several days and prepared like beef filet. I have Alpha Gal (red meat allergy) and it was the closest I've had to a steak in years. We're buying some locally now that we are home. I also brought some Ostrich biltong home, it's pretty good as well.

Re: alpha gal

I’ve seen Instagram stories of acupuncture having a very significant positive result. Somewhere over 75% totally free to eat the previously avoided meats.

So hard for me to think it’s true, but if I had Alpha Gal issues I’d be up for trying it.

jpc01101 · 2026-07-30T10:00:13-0600

kansasdad said:
Re: alpha gal

I’ve seen Instagram stories of acupuncture having a very significant positive result. Somewhere over 75% totally free to eat the previously avoided meats.

So hard for me to think it’s true, but if I had Alpha Gal issues I’d be up for trying it.

I had one round that was unsuccessful. Going to try it again, I know some guys who are cured after the accupuncture. I'm not giving up on red meat. My Dad got it at the same time I did and he can freely eat wild game. Can't eat any beef or even farm raised bison, but eats all the coues, whitetail, mule deer, elk that he wants. I just want to get to that level.

jpc01101 · 2026-07-30T11:16:36-0600

Last day at camp:
Rained most of the morning, so we slept in instead of forcing a hunt in it. Wasn't even supposed to be a hunting day, but around lunch one of the other PH's clients didn't want to go out, so he grabbed me instead and we went looking for a wildebeest with a broken leg — not one anybody had shot, just hurt on its own.
Never found that one. Instead we came across an old cow (crazy old, check out the teeth)— the same one I'd hit with the bow over a week earlier. dirt covered passenger hip from the blood, no arrow it had pulled out broadhead and all (yikes, that had to hurt). Shot her with the PH's rifle, mine was already packed up. My wife finally gets the rug she's wanted the whole trip. Closed out something that had been bugging me since our second evening.
Dinner and celebratory drinks that night, said our goodbyes. My son cried again telling Dale goodbye — that guy was patient with him the entire trip, made every day fun for a 9-year-old, and Beau's going to remember him for a long time. Packed up and went to bed early.

jpc01101 · 2026-07-30T11:27:16-0600

Back to Port Elizabeth:
Up early Saturday for the drive out. Same mountain pass, same baboons and vervet monkeys along the road — still strange seeing monkeys instead of raccoons.
Two nights back at Summerstrand to decompress before the flights home. Hit the boardwalk mall and killed time watching Toy Story 5 while we waited on our room. Got back in the ocean, which was darn cold, but my son wasn't missing the chance. Tossed the rugby ball around on the beach for a while. Massages at the hotel spa, then dinner and beers at a place right on the water. Crashed early.
Sunday was more of the same, no complaints there.
Monday, started the trip home — PE to Joburg, Joburg to Atlanta, Atlanta to Cincinnati.
Side note: I'm so jealous of these trucks...why the heck can't we buy a diesel Hilux or Landcruiser or this sweet Ranger Diesel Wildtrack (or something of the sort).

Carl 9.3x62 · 2026-07-30T11:41:05-0600

That old wildebeest cow is awesome. Did keep the skull and lower jaw?

jpc01101 · 2026-07-30T12:04:49-0600

Here's my attempt at wrapping up the trip.
As far as terrain, I didn't have much of an idea what to expect going in, but it was different than last year. Bushes were green, plenty of water, tall bush, rolling hills good for glassing — pretty much the whole trip, one consistent landscape. If I had to compare it to somewhere back home, it looked a lot like southern New Mexico. Loose rock everywhere, and everything out there wants to stab you. The one real exception was the dairy farm which had irrigated alfalfa and clover fields, flat and green in a totally different way than everywhere else we hunted.
Hunting vs. Shooting: For me it comes down to difficulty and skill. Did you have to read the wind, use the terrain, close distance on your own — or did you throw a gun on a bag on the truck and wait for something to look at you. That's the real line, at least for how I think about it.
This trip absolutely leaned "hunting". My wife's impala and blesbok, both off sticks at real distance after a real stalk. My son's springboks, same deal. Every wildebeest stalk we made, successful or not — the wind shifts, the miscommunications, the defection on the wildebeest, the eventual recovery of that cow. The ostrich too. None of that came easy, and none of it happened without doing the work to get there.
Looking back, my trip last year was more on the shooting side of that line, and I'm at peace with why. Big family group, something like 50 animals on the list between everybody — the outfitter ran it the way they had to for a group that size to get through it. Made sense for what it was. This trip was smaller, slower, and let us actually hunt most of what we went after. Different trip, different purpose, both have their place.
I went in thinking there was one way African hunting worked. Turns out there isn't. This trip — no shooting from trucks, one miserable blind sit I refused to repeat, everything else off sticks at real distance after a real stalk — was closer to a western hunt than anything else. Glass it up, close the distance, make the shot happen. That style fit me. I know now there are other styles out there, and I know which one I want next time.
Went in wanting to bowhunt everything. Didn't happen, and I'm fine with how it played out. Time pressure was part of it, but the bigger piece was that shifting to the rifle on some hunts didn't feel like cutting corners — the terrain and the stalking demanded the same skill either way, gun or bow in hand. The moment that flipped it for me was after that brutal kudu blind sit, telling the PH I wasn't doing that again. From there it opened up — bow on some stalks, rifle on others, whichever gave the better shot at doing it right.
On having my family there...There's a version of an Africa trip that's about you — shooting a lot, chasing your own list, making the trip about your own trophies. This wasn't that trip, and I didn't plan for it to be or not to be, it just happened that way. Watching my wife and son get put in position to succeed mattered more to me by the end than anything I shot myself. I don't think one version is better than the other. Just different trips, and I got the one I didn't know I wanted going in.
If there's a single high point of this trip, it's the people. Dale, our PH, and BoyBoy, our tracker — caring, hardworking, knowledgeable, willing to do whatever it took to make us happy the entire two weeks. Dale's hound Rip earned his keep too — without him we don't recover that caracal, full stop. Derrick the chef and Clayton the bartender, Nora keeping our rooms fresh and laundry clean and all of the other hunters. Guys like that are the difference between a good trip and a great one, and we had a great one because of them.
I think I said this after last years trip, but, I'd go back tomorrow if I could. The travel doesn't scare me a bit after everything that happened this trip, and if I had the money and the PTO I'd spend a month a year over there. New Zealand's next on the list, but it's a coin flip — there's a real chance we end up back on the dark continent instead next year.
If you are thinking of an Africa trip shoot me a PM I have a couple folks that I can put you in contact with. Somerby Safari (from last year) and Karoo Legacy are both absolutely first class in all regards. Man I miss it already...