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Dear Fellow Bowhunter,
As it has been a while
since my last newsletter (February) just a small re-cap, the rain season was
another good one and not just for us, but the large majority of Namibia.
Over the last 2 years,
we have had a lot of rain +1100 mm, which if you were to look at it this way is
the same as 5 years worth of rain as our average is only 230 mm a year.
However it did make
the first half of the trophy hunt season a bit difficult for bowhunting as the bush had so much
moisture that the game did not come to the waterholes that frequently, so we
had to do a lot of stalk hunting.
As for the winter
which we are now in, well where do I start……!
It has been the
coldest winter we have had in the last 5-6 years and in the last 6 weeks there
has been ice on the windscreen of the vehicles a couple of times each morning.
Let me put it this way, I have had more ice this winter on the windscreen than
the last 6 years put together.
. 
The Vieranas Safaris hunt
vehicle had frost on the seats in the mornings,
several layers of clothes were needed to stay
warm.
But with the good
fortune of good grazing comes the misfortune… fire!
As the bush is now
extremely dry the fire hazard has multiplied and the country has had some huge
losses in commercial grazing land, it is estimated that in excess of 92 000
hectares has been lost to date, our thoughts are with lives lost and everyone
that got burned and injured as a result of these un-necessary fires.
Game farms and
commercial livestock farmers have reported huge losses in game, sheep and
cattle that got killed during the fires.
Page 2.
In memory of: A couple
of months ago (End May) Africa’s Bowhunter & Archer magazine lost one of
their key staff members;
Surina Oberholzer died
on the 23rd May 2006 from an illness, which she had been battling with over the
last couple of years. She was a driving force in the office and was Rean’s
(editor) right hand man. I had a lot of
telephone conversations with her and e-mails, it was always a pleasure to talk
and work with her. She will be sadly missed by all and please all pray for her
family and parents who must be missing her even more. May her soul rest in
peace.
-In this issue of the The Archer:
-Some to thing about………!
-Close call with a Red Hartebeest
- NAPHA
-News from the Bowhunting World:
- The Namibian Bow shop
2008 World Championship
Vieranas Safaris is a member of Dallas
Safari Club
Visit the
Vieranas Safaris booth at the Dallas Convention
11 – 14
January 2007
-Something to think about……..!
Buck Fever: Fever of the Buck, only joking.
It is a state that a
hunter goes through before the shot, during or after the shot.
What is buck fever, it
is the excitement, anxiety and fear that a person experiences, when the animal
being hunted (of your dreams), is standing with in shooting range or close too.
With some people the
shakes start as the animal approaches, for others it is when they start to
think about picking up the bow to get ready to make the shot when the animal is
standing broad side and they draw the bow to full draw, then lastly the shakes
can also start when the arrow is in flight, what ever the target may be.
How to deal with buck
fever, well there is no written rule or method on what you can or should not do
to, to combat the shakes (buck fever).
I always say “the day
that I do not get Buck Fever is the day I will stop hunting”. So I hope it
never stops.
For each person it is
different and the method to handle it is also different.
Page 3.
I remember shooting my
first impala in S.A, when I started to go to full draw, the shakes started big
time. I aimed at the Impala and I was shaking like a leaf in a Force 8. So I
let first let down, then waited a few moments for the shakes to stop before
going to full draw again for a second time. I could not believe it; the shakes
came back even faster than before. I decided to close my eyes for 3 seconds and
if the impala was still standing broadside, then I would shoot. In those few
seconds I calmed down a lot, the shakes stopped for a moment, so I made the
shot.
The shot placement
looked good, but I found out later it was not so perfect, but that is another
story, however end of the day I did get it.
I know for some people
buck fever is not such a big problem, but for others it is huge. If Buck Fever
or “the shakes” are very bad, it might be better to let down and wait for your
breathing to get back as close to normal as possible, then draw again or like I
did close your eyes (animal can move its position).
Remember one thing, it
is your decision to shoot and no one can make that decision for you. Every day
is a hunting day, but not always a shooting day.
Some times it helps to
draw on lesser animals for practise controlling the shakes and aim fort the
right spot (remember do not shoot, however)
I think 90 % of wounding
an animal comes down to bad shot placement, which comes with having Buck Fever.
BE RESPONSIBLE FOR
YOUR ACTIONS AND YOU WILL BE THE BEST BOWHUNTER YOU CAN BE.
Big Game Adventures magazine is a
quarterly publication dedicated to providing the finest big game hunting
magazine in the world today. The
great thing about the Big Game Adventures magazine is, it is more than just
Whitetail hunting. The Magazine comprises a rifle section, a bowhunting section
and recently a new section on photographic safaris.
Page 4.
Visit the Double Bull
website and have a look at the Matrix 360 with surround sight technology. They
are more expensive than other brands but well worth the money.
-Close
call with a Red Hartebeest.
Hunting from the
blinds during May this year was hard as we still had rain on the 1st day of May
and it was very slow to say the least.
So as the saying
goes out here; a Boer (Farmer) makes a plan, and you take the bull by the horns
and start to stalk. One of the beauties of stalking you never know what is
around the next corner.
In one case, we were walking down a small ridge in
between the bushes trying to stalk a Hartmann’s Mountain Zebra on the plain
below.
We were both fully camo-ed and kept in the shade of the
trees and bushes. Some places we were able to use small dry river beds to our
advantage being totally submerged below the grass line.
The only real problem was the wind, one minute coming
from the East and next from the South West. Any way, on the way down I
observed a small herd of Red Hartebeest grazing close by
a kopje and it crossed my mind that if they saw us that they might spook the
Zebra.
With every move I was checking the wind and keeping an
eye on the Hartebeest, we moved on to get closer to the zebra, which for the
most part was not in sight.
As the ground got flatter I knew we were close, if you
listened hard you could hear them moving between the bushes ahead of us. Then
in front of us the bush thinned out and we had to look for another route as the
wind dropped.
Francisco saw movement about 30 metres on the other side
of the Mopane where we were under, it was walking slowly in the direction of
the kopje where I had seen the Hartebeest.
This is when you realise, that when you walk and stalk
there is no set plan.
Now having to move with even more caution, we changed
direction and started to head for the kopje as well. Every now and again you
could see the back end or a tail of a Hartebeest or Zebra.
With the afternoon sun on our backs we moved from bush to
bush, now we were only 15 metres from the base of the kopje and the last metres
were open bush. As I started to clear the last bush, we just saw Hartebeest
running around the kopje, straight at us! The herd had split and a very good
Bull nearly ran me over and I had to role quickly out of the way, he saw me and
also took avoiding action.
The Hartebeest stopped at 25 metres from us broadside and
the client very quickly was at full draw, unfortunately the Bull had stopped
with a mopane bush covering the vitals. We looked at him and he looked at us,
for what felt like a good minute, then he was off.
Page 5
After a couple of minutes waiting for our pulses to
return to normal, I thought it might be worth to climb up the kopje and have a
look as we were there any way. The Hartebeest had re-grouped about 150 metres
on the other side and looking in the direction of the kopje.
We did try to get close again, but at first site of
movement they were off.
Francisco and I will remember this stalk for some time to
come…
www.africsbowhunter.co.za www.africanarcher.com
Those of you, who are
traditional archers there is also a section by Rean Steenkamp (the editor of
Africa’s Bowhunter & archer)
For more information
on the German Kinetic broadheads, visit their website. www.germankinetic.com
For local enquires please contact Gerrie
Hough by e-mail: gerrieh@novanam.com.na
To view more on “Fair
Chase” principle I recommend you visit the following website: www.huntfairchase.com
Or visit the Boone and
Crockett club website. They were the first to write down the Fair chase
statement. The Boone and Crocket club, which is a non profit organization, was
founded in 1887 by Theodore Roosevelt. This website is well worth a visit.
Page 6
Book your next Africa Bow Hunt with a Namibia Ministry of Wildlife and
Tourism registered Bow Hunting Guide and or Outfitter.
NAPHA
The next Guides Bowhunting Course is from the 04 -06 December 2006 at
Kambaku Lodge, north of Otjiwarongo.
For more information on bowhunting in Namibia, about NAPHA and the medal system
please contact the office or view their website.
Tel: 061 234455.
E-mail: napha@mweb.com.na website:
www.natron.net/napha.
Hunters Pro:
www.hunterspro.com OR Karim Alameddine at karim@hunterspro.com
Information or
anything hunting related. Subscribe to their free newsletter - it is well worth
it. One of the best general outdoors
Newsletters around!
Karim and the team at
Hunterspro keep up the good work.
- News
from the Bowhunting World
Bow Shop: We are dealers for
Gold Tip, Bow Tech, PSE, German Kinetic, Top Gun and Sniper Africa
clothes. Except for our dealer
products, we have a wide variety for all your competition- or bow hunting
equipment. If we don’t have something
in stock, we will try our utmost best to get it for you!
As we are a family of
four and all four are archers, we know the cost of the sport, therefore we try
to keep our prices as low as possible.
Please feel free to
contact us at:
C/o Hosea Kutako & Sam Nujoma Drives
Tel:
061-238 971 Fax: 061-251 526 Cell: 081 124 6367
E-mail:
driekie@mweb.com.na
Page 7
World Field
Archery Championships 7 -11 April 2008
This archery event
will be hosted by Namibia in 2008 at the Heja Lodge just outside of Windhoek; between
400 and 600 archers will attend the Championships.
Namibia Bow hunting
will be on the world wide map for sure after this event.
For more information,
please contact Jan van Blerk:
Archery
Association of Namibia
Windhoek,
Namibia
Tel:
+264-61-238971
Fax:
+264-61-251526
If
you are interested in bow hunting plains game before of after the World Field
Archery Championships contact Vieranas Safaris for your 2008 trophy hunt prices
as this will be a great opportunity to do some hunting and especially if you
want to experience walk and stalk bow hunting at it’s best.
*Please, if you have any interesting hunting stories or tips that you
feel passionate about and would like to share with fellow Bowhunters, please
forward them to me and I will happily put them in the Newsletter.
Please feel free to
forward to friends or print The Archer Newsletter out for your clients to read.
Sunny regards
Roger E. Coomber
P.O Box 46, Kamanjab, Namibia, Africa
vieranas@mweb.com.na
www.vieranasbowhunt.com
PS. (If you do not want to be on the
mailing list of this newsletter, just send a message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the
subject line.)