On 15 March we only had 3 animals in sight, Springbuck, baboon, and a surprise gift for our client. After leaving The Wild Olive where we stayed for the last couple of days at around 06:30, we met up with old friend to see if we could get a baboon, but for 3 hours the baboons outsmarted us.

We left to see if we could get a big old Springbuck ram. As soon as we entered Aasvoëlvlei, we spotted a lone Springbuck on the ridge about 900 meters out and decided to stalk closer with the temperature raising close to 40° Celsius in the Karoo. We grabbed a few drinks from the cooler box and set off walking and after staying connected with the truck, we came close to the Springbuck ewe at about 60 meters. We decided to leave here and go to the only tree on the ridge about 150 meters from here to wait and see what will happen. 

After about 30 minutes, the truck went around and picked up a big herd of Springbuck. Unfortunately, they startled them, and they ran a wide turn. They stopped about 500 meters from, stopped, scanned the area and they took off, running towards us. The whole herd of about 60 Springbuck came past us, mostly young rams’ ewes, and lambs. We waited before the ram came trailing them by about 5 minutes and he followed the same path the herd did. With the shooting sticks out, the 6.5 RPM resting on the sticks, we waited for him to stop about 150 meters from us. With the tall grass we only had 50% visibility of Springbuck. With the instruction of "Take it" the morning silence was broken by the loud sound of the bullet being sent towards the selected animal. He went down in his tracks and the celebration started as the client just successfully finished his first trip (starter package) in Africa in 2 days with super formidable shooting skills. He shot 5 shots / 5 animals.

We took photos and loaded Springbuck onto the truck. We took him back to the skinning shed as it was 43° Celsius now and we still had to take Jeremy for his surprise animal.