There we were, Andy and I.  On a farm nestled in the outskirts of the Eastern Transvaal's Lowveldt town, Komatipoort.

Now one thing I have to tell you is that at the time that this adventure played it self out, my long-time buddy was and still is a gun nut, gunpowder sniffer, general firearms encyclopedia and oh, also quite a character. Andy at the time knew a lot about hunting, except that his hunting knowledge did not go much past the shooting range and many piles of Magnum magazines.

The time was right that I shared my limited practical hunting experience with him, so we arranged our hunt. From the outset we knew it had to be done the traditional way. Walk and stalk.

It didn't take us long to shake off the nerves and anticipation that goes with the arrival of a long awaited day. Of course there was lots for us to prove to each other.

We loaded our trusty shooting irons into the open top Land cruiser, his a CZ550 in .308 loaded with his favorite load 190gr Hornady boat tails, deadly on paper targets. Mine a M77 Ruger in 30-06. My load, 200gr Speer boat tails traveling at 2350 fps. 

The place is a bushveld oasis and managed by as colorful a character as there are colors on mopanie worms... and klippies bottles.

With all our kit in the cruiser off we set into the wild Africa, thoughts of that large maned cattle eating lion that that copper shot not far from there a few weeks before were fresh in or minds as we left the protection of the camp. Wondering if his ladies had made it back into Kruger or not.
We were after warthog and impala. The plan was to drive to the furthest side of the farm, 3 km's in "that" direction the manager told us.

As we drove along we passed herds of impala, tame as can be and all in the "bow hunting" camp. On we went till we reached just the right spot. Out came the rifles.

Then out it came, the suppressor, not silencer, as you still need to close your ears when he shoots with that thing. I pretended I didn't see the toilet role core snuggly nestled around the suppressor to keep off the glare. He later said he didn't have bloody time to cammo the pipe... and besides nobody else had a bog roll cammo suppressor!

Eagerly we set off, sneaking down the road, keeping a sharp lookout for our quarry and remembering the all important landmarks to save you a very long, dry walk back to camp, and after all this is lion country.

As things usually happen, when you least expect it, there he was, a magnificently fat warthog boar. We scrambled about in a manner, which can only be understood by Laurel and Hardy fans. Now this hog did not understand what was going on and decided to hit the high road. 

Once our laughter subsided Andy decided to follow into the bush. Not expecting him to find a thing I stayed on the road "incase the pig doubled back". Well, he hadn't been gone for 3 minutes when the muffled shot rang out.

The bush was so dense I couldn't see a thing. I slowly stalked into the bush where Andy had gone in. He'd hardly walked 20 meters into the bush when his keen shooting range eyes spotted the warthog spying him from only 10 meters away. Apart from the wide-eyed look and shaking hands he looked cool as a cucumber. I was impressed; he'd remembered to wind down the scope to 3x and then to nail that porker right between the eyes.

Lots of backslapping and I told you so's later we dragged that fat porker into the road to take some photos for the hunting album. I fetched the cruiser to give him some time to bond with his first warthog ever. And what a fat porker it was. After another good examination of the warthog it was loaded and we were off to find the next.

We parked the cruiser under a big tree to keep the sun off the carcass. We walked as silently as we could through the knee high dry grass for what seemed like a very long time, watching where we stepped just like Mr. Woods tells us to do in the Magnum. There, what was that, a flicker of an ear, a click of a horn on a branch, impalas.

It was my turn to shoot. I sneaked towards the closest acacia tree. I forgot about the rest of the world and focused on the bush in front of us. I managed to find the perfect branch for a rest, just the right height and steady as a rock. I carefully searched the bush in front of me for a target, then before I knew it a nice ram came walking in from our right and walked directly away from me. The cross hair zoomed in on the back of his head as he stopped.

Hardly hearing the shot I saw something flying through the tree branches as things began to fall into place again. The juslikes and blixems coming from behind me told me something had just happened. At the shot the impala dropped in his tracks. In itself an impressive sight to any hunter. The juslikes and blixems were caused by the horn that went flying as the impala went down. We searched but never found that horn. I had a "unicorn." (You hardly notice the missing horn with the side on photo.)

Having used up our quota of adrenalin for the day we decided to call it a day. Back at camp we reversed the cruiser into position under the pole suspended in the tree. Like old hands we had the warthog and impala hanging by their hind legs ready for gutting and at the perfect height. 

All the time I'd been wondering how best to break the news to my long standing mate that the time was near to execute the never mentioned and "disgusting" tradition of chomping on the raw liver of your first antelope. I kept the thought to myself, as I'm sure he also did. I knew the right moment would come.

Back to the job at hand. By this time there was no doubt that the farm hands had made themselves scarce. Being the helpful and knowledgeable fellow that Andy is, he whipped out his fancy new Swiss Army knife, the hunting one with the curved small "bread knife."
Now I will never understand why he chose the big blade but he did. I carefully watched as he zoomed in on the exact spot where he wanted the blade to make the first small incision on the stomach skin. After all he'd done his time in an abattoir and knew exactly what needed to be done.

Well what happened next left me in awe. The moment the blade touched that big pigs gut there was an almightily hissing sound. In an instant by buddies' bald pip had been transformed to olive green. Every crevice was filled. Eyeballs, nose, ears and mouth. What happened next was even more amazing. Cool as a cucumber he wiped the s... out of his eyes, and carried on gutting that pig without even as much as a small gag..

To prove that little things like that don't put a damper on a wonderful days hunting he only washed that facial mask off his face late that evening, after a good few klippies with his mate and the friendly farm manager. What a colorful place, Komatipoort.

He never has eaten that liver, he did one better, he created his very own new initiation for the new hunter.  

Its been a blast, thanks mate!         

Reinhold Redinger