July 2018

Newsletter by Edmond Rouillard (Outfitter) and Niel Uys (Manager):

Dear friends

I trust you are well.

We have had a very good season so far. Two more old Cape buffalo bulls hunted that were over 40 inches and a Nyala of 28.5 inches. We also took some clients bird hunting for the first time in Harloo history and discovered a very good bird hunting area in the Settlers area close to the airport. This can make a very good excursion for those who would like to bird hunt. This bird hunt area is about 1 hour and 15 min from the airport and works well when clients have a day or two after the hunt to kill time and make the drive to the airport shorter. Read more about the bird hunting in the newsletter.
 

IN THIS NEWSLETTER:

1. Trophy animals taken from May 2018 up until the end of June 2018.

2. New bird hunting area. Great excursion to think of!

3. Buffalo story

4. Alien plant control

5. Weather
 

Enjoy!

Yours Sincerely

Edmond Rouillard (Outfitter)

Zebra stallion hunted by a 16 year old is joined by his in the picture.

A huge crocodile of almost 13ft

Impresive Nyala of 28.5 inches.

Big old buffalo bull 40.5 inches taken by Jim Madden

2.  New bird hunting area

Harloo has not really offered bird hunting to their clients in the past. The reason for this was that most of the bird hunting areas are very far away from camp. Harloo was visited by a group of clients (friends) that love their bird hunting and we had to find a way to make this work. The only way that we could find a way was to find a bird hunting area on our way or close to the airport and do the bird hunting on the way back to the airport. Our friends had 2 days to spare after the hunt and we booked them in at a B&B in Settlers Limpopo province for two nights. We started the long drive of 5 hrs from camp that had to be done anyway to get to the airport and drove to Settlers. On our arrival we unpacked at the guesthouse that is on the property where the bird hunting takes place. We then left for dinner at a restaurant close by.

We were picked up by our bird hunting guide the next morning at 7am and he took us to the neighboring farm to hunt Francolin in some sunflower fields. A lot of Francolin were taken in the morning but the guys decided to do some more relaxing (no walking) Dove hunting in the afternoon.

We went back from Francolin hunting to the guest house to have lunch and left again at 2pm for Dove hunting.

The doves was everywhere and the guys had a blast shooting almost 200 doves in an afternoon. It could have been a lot better, the (Dove to shot ratio) if the aim was a bit more accurate. We burnt about a thousand shells and 200 doves were recovered. The best time of the year to hunt birds is April to June and 12 gauge shotguns are used because of the availability of shells in South Africa. We use no 5 for the Guinifowl and Francolin and No 7 for the doves. You are welcome to contact James (Jim) Madden to find out more about his experience with us.

James Madden - vahawgdaddy@yahoo.com

3. Buffalo Story

After 2 days of hard unsuccessful stalks, following buffalo tracks and looking for a hard boss old buffalo bull we finally spot 2 bulls in the afternoon of the third day hunting buffalo from the top of the mountain grazing on the flats down below.  Jim, his son Quinn, myself and Lucky the tracker were planning the stalk from the top and then decided to move closer down below to where the buffalo’s was grazing.

When we reached our position from where we wanted to stalk we checked the wind and started our stalk. We were walking silently with the wind in our faces and the sun behind us, ideal circumstances. In about 15 min of stalking we had visual of the bulls and we were about 80 yards away. We found that there were three bulls and not two as we saw from the top of the mountain. The bulls were laying down when we got to them and we sneaked closer on our knees up to about 50 yards. Quinn and Lucky stayed behind on our approach and only Jim and I sneaked up to them to have a closer look and to find Jim the best bull among the three of them.

I stood up slowly behind an Umbrella Thorn tree open the shooting sticks and got Jim on the sticks with his .375 H&H using 300gn Swift A – Frame bullets. One of the bulls stood up and presented a shot but there was a bigger bull to his left and I told Jim that we will rather wait for the other bull to stand up. After a while the bull we were waiting for stood up and turned looking in our direction.  None of them had any idea that we were there. Looking through my binoculars I realised that the bull Jim and I were looking at had a huge abscess on his cheek below the left horn. I whispered in Jim’s ear to tell him about the abscess and asked him if he would mind that. Jim replied that he would be happy to help us in taking this old sick buffalo. I could tell that this buffalo was big and had very nice bosses but could also tell that it was old and was very grateful when Jim said he don’t mind taking it.

We were waiting patiently for the buff to turn broadside at about 50 Yards. By this time the sun is going down quickly and we only had about 1 hour of sunlight left. The bull turned broadside and Jim made the shot. The other two bulls that were with this bull broke left, stopped, looked at us and then ran for cover. Jim’s bull took 10 paces and went and stood in thick cover. I could tell that Jim's shot was good and that the buff was hit hard after seeing the bulls reaction to the shot. We were waiting for about 5 min for the death bellow but nothing happened. Because we knew there is very little time for sunlight we decided to follow up on his bull knowing that the bull might still be alive. Quinn, Jim’s son had the video camera and was taking video from where he was sitting behind us with Lucky. When we moved closer Quinn and Lucky got themselves positioned to get some footage from behind us.

We carefully walked closer to get a view from a distance at the place where the buffalo went in to. As we came around the corner of the bush I could see Jim's buffalo standing in the bush with his head down. I told Jim to come and stand next to me so that he can make the second shot on his bull. Before I could tell him to shoot the buffalo in the chest the buffalo picked up his head and charged. Jim fired two shots and I fired a shot to bring the buffalo down at about 15 yards from our feet. This happened in a flash, Jim was shaking... I was shaking. From behind us we could hear Lucky saying thank you, thank you, thank you and Quinn all excited said he had it all on video. We walked up to the buffalo and I asked Jim just to put a security shot in the buffalo to make sure it is dead. I congratulated Jim on his buffalo and we asked Quinn to show us the footage on the camera. On playback Jim and I realised that a camera does not work well when you run and take video all you could see was grass, trees and grass again. We were just glad that nobody was injured and didn’t care about the footage. We will though remember to strap the camera at the back of Quins head for future hunts.

4. Alien Plant Control

Harloo is part of an alien plant control initiative driven by the Government. This program is mainly to provide work for people but also to help in a huge way in controlling alien plant species in South Africa. The government supplies the very expensive herbicide and also pays the salaries for 9 of the 10 people in the team on Harloo. 

We are very fortunate to be part of this initiative. A very important factor is that your neighbor should also be in on this otherwise you will always have a problem. Birds and floods after rain spread these unwelcome seeds and they end up in your property again. As most of you know Harloo borders Swaziland for about 9 miles. Sadly, Swaziland is doing nothing to control alien plants which is a huge problem for us and we will have to continue to spray these alien plant species on Harloo until Swaziland do something about the problem they have. 

In the pictures below (or on right) one can clearly see the difference in an area that gets attention and an area that doesn’t get treated. Swaziland on the other side of the border fence that you can see in the picture

Inside Harloo (South Africa) with the picture taken from the same position as the one above just in another direction.

5. Weather

We are in the middle of our winter now and we are very fortunate to still have a lot of green grass for this time of the year compared to the past 4 years where we had a terrible drought. This year is the total opposite. Because we got summer rain this is a very rare sight to see green grass this time of the year. Our rainy season is from October to March and usually the grass starts to die at the end of April. This green vegetation and thick bush made hunting a bit more difficult but we still had a very good season and two more groups of clients to visit us.

6. Fantastic buffalo, sable and other deals on offer:

CAPE BUFFALO FROM 40” TO 43” SPECIAL A:

Trophy fee for old, hard bossed dugga bull up to 43” spread. 

All in for $12 500 

Including 3 nights for one hunter, permits, license fees, and field staff all included, no hidden fees. 

Regular price up to $17 000 in South Africa 

First come basis. Limited numbers available. 

Usual stuff what is in or included below. 

15% discount. 

CAPE BUFFALO UP TO < 40” SPECIAL B: 

Trophy fee for old, hard bossed dugga bull up to <40” spread! 

All in for $9 900 

Including 3 nights for one hunter, permits, license fees, and field staff all included, no hidden fees. 

First come basis. Limited numbers available. 

25 % discount. 

BUFFALO SPECIAL UP TO 37” SPECIAL C

Trophy fee for old, hard bossed thick necked dugga bull up to 37” spread - and tough to hunt! 

All in for $7 750 

Including 3 nights for one hunter, permits, license fees, and field staff all included, no hidden fees. 

First come basis. Limited numbers available. 

35% discount. 

SABLE:

Trophy fee for black mature Sable bull up to 40” 

All in for $6 700. 

Trophy fee for black mature Sable bull up to 42” 

All in for $7 800. Regular price $9 500 and up. 

Plus daily rate as per brochure 

Permits, license fees, field staff all included, no hidden fees. 

First come basis. Limited numbers available. 

ROAN:

Trophy fee for mature Roan bull up to 27” 

All in for $6 700. 

Trophy fee for mature Roan bull up bigger than 27” 

All in for $7 800. Regular price $9 500 and up. 

Plus daily rate as per brochure 

Permits, license fees, field staff all included, no hidden fees. 

First come basis. Limited numbers available. 

NYALA:

Trophy fee for nyala bull (expect 26” to 29” realistically) 

All in for $1990. Regular price around $3 000 and up 

Plus daily rate as per brochure 

Permits, license fees, field staff all included, no hidden fees. 

NB !!PLAINS GAME SPECIAL FOR THE 2018 SEASON

Choose any 6 species or 6 animals in total: Grey Duiker, Warthog , Impala, Blesbuck, Wildebeest, Zebra, Kudu and Nyala 

Daily rate for 2 hunters, 2:1 hunt, 10 days, 9 nights in camp. 

Grand Total for all above worth approx. $14 000. 

2018 Special price is $8 990 for the lot, daily rates and trophy fees included. 

This amounts to nearly 35% discount! 

Please note some species are more expensive e.g. Nyala which makes the package pricier. It's important to compare apples when looking at a package, and not the amount or number of animals included! Nyala generally sell for $2300 each and up, so for one Nyala up to 6 "cheaper" species can be added to make it look good.