The Spirit of the Bush: My First African Hunts
I have been a bow hunter since 2008, first in eastern France and later near Paris, and I have always dreamed of hunting in South Africa. A fan of Philippe Baumann’s traditional bows (a fitting name, “Bow man”), I sought an authentic hunting experience during my trips to northern South Africa, near Kruger. But this quest turned out to be more challenging than expected. What I seek is the freedom to take my bow and go stalking for a day, then do it again a few days later, without always aiming for a trophy. Unfortunately, the offers I found were rare, too expensive, or too long.
After many meetings and a lot of patience, I finally had the opportunity to participate in my first hunt. Eleven hours spent in the bush alongside a former rugby player from the South African national team, a two-meter-tall giant, whose stealth in this environment astonished me. The silence was heavy, each step measured. Then, suddenly, he stopped dead: “There’s a rhino behind that bush.” My heart raced. As I carefully backed up, I found myself face to face with a rhinoceros, just a few meters away. I did what seemed the safest thing at that precise moment: I took a picture! It was a white rhino, calmer than a black one, and luckily for me, it quietly walked away.
A few months later, my quest for the holy grail of hunting led me to Timbila Game Lodge, a wild territory dominated by over a hundred Cape buffalo. Here, predators roam: leopards, hyenas… but no lions, except on rare occasions when they accidentally wander in from neighboring reserves and are introduced by mistake during game relocations… but that’s another story. The game is elusive, fleeing at the approach of a hunter. A hundred Cape buffalos, giraffes, sable antelopes, oryx/gemsbok, nyalas, greater kudus, waterbucks, and even rare species like Sharpe’s grysboks inhabit this land.
That’s where I met Pieter, an experienced hunter but unfamiliar with traditional bow hunting, though he knew compound bows well. Together, we spent hours trekking through the bush, a hostile environment where every branch seemed ready to scratch you. On a narrow trail, we came across some nyalas, including a large male weighing 80 kg. But something inside me stopped me from shooting. The nyala, the antelope that flees humans the least, fascinated me. Pieter assured me they were indeed hunted here and therefore feared humans, but still, I couldn’t even draw my bow.
We kept walking, the silence thick with positive nervous tension. An hour later, I spotted a magnificent Roan antelope, weighing over 200 kg. A prime target, but my mind was set on a more modest quest: I wanted a smaller antelope that I could share with my friends around a fire the following week. Pieter then led me to a herd of impalas, the most common antelope in South Africa. But here, something strange awaited: among them, a few individuals were black. Not just darker, but truly black. A rarity.
My bow, a Philbows longbow SRX 52#@29″ right-handed, 62″, seemed almost insufficient for this unique opportunity. Pieter had me climb into a tree, without a treestand, balancing with my longbow. I was safe from danger thanks to the numerous branches. However, the tree was so dense that when a magnificent black impala passed within range, I missed a shot that was impossible to miss! Dusk was approaching, and with it, the first distant laughs of hyenas. Discouragement began to creep in.
As we drove back on the track, my heart leaped at a bend in the road. Three impalas in the twilight. Two of them were tawny, but the third, black as night, was barely visible in the fading light. I got out, took a few steps, and without thinking, I drew and shot in two seconds, in pure instinctive style. The impala leaped, its hind legs raising too high: a sign that my arrow had struck true. It had pierced the rear thigh and lodged in the lung.
It took some time to find it, but finally, I had my first African game. It was a poignant moment. The impala proved to be delicious: served as carpaccio, roasted with garlic and herbs, and in knife-cut hamburgers (a treat with American condiments).
