By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
It was the adventure of a lifetime!
Overton resident Chad Gentry and his wife Tami recently returned home from a safari hunt in South Africa. While there they spent 10 days hunting some of the most exciting game in the African wilderness. By the time it was all finished, they would be bringing home ten different trophy animals.
Perhaps the most exciting hunt of the trip was when Chad ventured far out into the bush to bring down a cape buffalo. This was certainly the most dangerous hunt of the trip as this huge animal is known for being a particularly tough quarry. There are plenty of stories out there of hunters being killed or seriously injured when a cape buffalo, that should have been dead, rose up and fiercely charges back on its hunters.
“They are particularly dangerous when they are injured,” Chad said of the cape buffalo. “They’re the only dangerous game that will double back on its blood trail and lie in the shadows to wait for you. That’s why you want it to be a one-and-out shot with a cape buffalo.”
The animal that Gentry was after lived deep in the back country of an 85,000 acre game ranch. It was a 12-15 year old bull. At that age, the animal has passed the point of being a breeder bull. Healthy, it is still far from being old or decrepit. But usually it has gone off into the wild to live the rest of its life alone, Gentry said.
“The tough thing is that, at this stage, they have been hunted for 12 years and never been taken,” Gentry said. “So they are the smartest and the biggest animals out there. And they are all alone so they are that much tougher to spot.”
Gentry had three days to find that specific bull….on 85,000 acres! It was a distinct challenge.
But luck was with him. The animal hadn’t been seen by anyone on the ranch for a a couple of weeks before the hunt. But just the night before Gentry arrived, someone had spotted it again. So they knew the general area to start hunting.
Within the first hour of the hunt Gentry had a close encounter with his bull. The cape buffalo’s dark color makes it very difficult to spot when it is hiding in the shadows of the thick African brush. So Gentry’s hunting party suddenly ambled within 10-15 yards of the bull without even knowing it. Fortunately, the bull was spooked by the hunters and ran further out into the bush, Gentry said.
“I was real glad that he didn’t charge us there,” he said. “At that close distance, I don’t think we would have had much time to get off a shot. It would have been just like knocking over bowling pins for him on his first pass. Then whoever of us was left after that might have been able to take a shot at him. It wouldn’t have been pretty.”
As it was, this close call was followed by several hours of tracking the bull through some pretty rough terrain.
“We followed him a long ways up a river that was nearby,” Gentry said. “He was heading out into some pretty nasty terrain and some of our team were afraid that we would get to a point where we wouldn’t be able to track him anymore. Fortunately we spotted him just before he got to deep into the brush for us to follow.”
In the end Gentry brought the animal down at about 65 yards with his .375 Holland & Holland rifle. Gentry said that he had studied some hunting guides to learn what to aim for on a cape buffalo to bring it down the very first time. He wanted to be sure.
“He was staring right at us and I knew just where I needed to hit him,” Gentry said. “It worked just right and down he went.”
Chad and Tami had plenty more adventures during their trip in Africa in addition to the buffalo hunt. They spent much of the time hunting plains game which include antelopes of various types and sizes.
Normally the Gentrys spend a lot of time together target shooting in the desert near their Overton home. This extensive practice, along with their state-of-the-art gear, allow them to be deadly accurate at extensive distances. Chad said this came as something of a surprise to the professional hunters who were their guides on the Africa trip.
“They had us spending the first days crawling on our knees with knee-pads, stalking through the tall grass to get within 250 yards of these animals,” Gentry said. “By the second day, I’d had enough of that. I told them: no more crawling around. We were ready to shoot from greater distances. They didn’t believe us at first.”
Tami had no problem taking down a beautiful specimen of the spiral-horned kudu at 365 yards.
But she was only getting warmed up. During the week, Tami also won the distinction of winning the camp record in shooting distance. She shot a tiny springbok at a distance of 725 yards. These small antelopes have a vital area of only about 6-7 inches, Chad said.
“It was a great time!” Chad said. “Africa is an amazing place and we are glad that we went.”
