Spent a week with Adam Batot and Riaan Ras from Double Shot Outfitters down in Africa. I booked this trip over a year ago as a bday present to my self..One of the perks of being single:). Adam was more than helpful from the start with my million questions I had and decision changes through out the year. Going into it I was nervous as hell having never left the country for a hunt and never meeting Adam. After some serious research and asking around I booked the trip and we worked the details out. I left May 28th for a trip I've dreamed about since I was a kid. I wont go into all the details but I will say it was everything I expected and more. the terrain is absolutely beautiful, the animals are awesome the people are wonderful and the food good as any where. hunted a week and enjoyed every minute of it. A different adventure everyday. Ive already started talking to them about a trip next year haha... looks like it will become a yearly venture for me. All in All made some great friends and memories to last a life time.

Great stuff mate, love to do it myself one day. Love a nice impala and big eland bull on the wall.

Congrats! Wonderful trophies!

Great animals! I really like that warthog!

Congrats I am leaving next Sunday for a week over there myself with my daughter and can't wait!

Congrats on a great hunt

Great trophies! Congrats

Glad you had a great time! Riaan is an awesome guy and I wish I would have been there with ya'll! Congrats again on all your wonderful trophies and hope to see ya over there again next year!

Cody

Kudu?

AWESOME trophies, glad you had a great hunt. the first time I went I said it would was a one time thing. wrong, I am booked for my third trip in june of 2015. africa gets in your blood. Forrest

Great looking trophies! What are the details on your rifle/bullet used?

Thanks guys, It was an awesome trip. I am really looking forward to going back already. Already talking with Riaan and Adam about a package. Caterpillar.. That was a .257 Weatherby. Was funny cause no one there had heard of that rifle before but everyone that shot it said they going to look into. I was shooting 100gr Speer points. I had bought some 120Noselers for the bigger stuff but I managed to mix up the boxes. Owell Those worked fine. BMD..Had a few chances at some real Bull kudus I mean some monsters. I managed to get a shot on one that's well over 50inches but I used some bad judgment and pulled a bad shot. We tracked him almost all day and never managed to get another shot on him. They are still looking for him though as Riaan assures they'll find him. I had passed many a bad shot up already and I just wasn't thinking clearly that morning when I pulled the trigger.

Thanks for sharing the photos and the stories. Africa is as addictive as cocaine.

I guess you had to pay the trophy fee for the wounded kudu? Hopefully, the staff will find the bull before the cape becomes unusable from decay. Nonetheless, a 50+" kudu makes an awesome European mount!

It was already paid for, It was in the package. Not a big deal that I lost a trophy I just feel worse that if it does die the meat goes to waste. The meat around there is donated to churches and families and feeds the workers. That Kudu could have fed a lot of people. It was a bad judgment on my part I wasn't thinking clearly and I should have just held off the shot. But its the first animal I've lost like that other than a wounded duck or dove. I've always taken extra care to use good judgment but I guess its bound to happen sooner are later. If they do find the horns he's told me he can get me a cape and if not I've already talked to my taxi he has a lead on a few of them locally I can just cost a little more.

If he's hit, they'll find it no doubt. Same thing happened to me about 13 days ago in South Africa. Shot at a monster kudu at 300 something yards, could tell he was hit on the video but couldn't find a speck of blood. The trackers were on his trail for that whole afternoon and most of the next day and found nothing. Got home a few days after that and two days later I got a call saying they had found my Kudu and he was 55". He was hit low in the stomach and didn't bleed a drop. They found him by the smell.

I got an email today... They found him... Adam sad he was probably hit in the stomach... I still feel terrible for it but thankful they found him.. unofficial measurement as he said he stunk bad hell re measure soon. 51 and 52...

ha, told ya they'd find it. Congrats, thats a good looking Kudu.

Awesome!

Great kudu. I'm glad they found it.

This happy ending reminds me of another several years ago when I hunted Santa Rosa Island for the first time. Before the National Park Service "stole" all the Channel Islands and exterminated the animals, the 88 square mile island had perhaps the best mule deer and Roosevelt elk hunting in North America. Back then, a combo hunt for a trophy elk and muley was $18,000. A hunt for a single animal was $9000. The outfitter had a strict policy--as do most these days--that if your shot drew blood or hair and the wounded animal escaped, you paid the entire fee anyway. In fact, we had already prepaid for the hunt 60 days before arrival.

I was a combo hunter and was paired up with another combo hunter. We shared one guide and took turns being the primary shooter. My partner was a dentist and a great guy. The guide and dentist spotted a bachelor herd of 5 bulls and began their stalk. I took the spotting scope and moved down an adjoining ridge and set up to watch the action. I witnessed his shot, saw his elk hop, and watched the five bulls run down a canyon. Then they stopped and mingled for at least five minutes. I could plainly see them, but the guide and shooter could not. The wounded bull had a spot of blood where the bullet had clipped the top of his withers, but he was otherwise fine. After a while, the five bulls moved off down the canyon, the wounded elk showing no ill effects whatsoever.

We walked down the canyon where the bulls were last seen and found some blood, and there was a big tuft of hair at the spot where the bull was initially shot. The guide told the dentist that his elk hunt was over, but we'd continue to look for the bull. I argued that I could plainly tell that the elk was not fatally hit and that my partner should be allowed to hunt another bull. But the guide was firm--the dentist's hunt was over.

That evening the despondent dentist told me in private that, when you think about it, his high shot was a $9000 mistake. He wasn't angry at the outfitter; we all understood the policy. So he went back to Pennsylvania without an elk. Back home 3 or 4 days later, my receptionist called me out of an exam telling me I had a doctor from Pennsylvania long distance on the phone. The dentist was giddy-happy. His guide called and said that during the 2-day lull before the next hunt started, the entire guiding crew went looking for the wounded bull. They found him holed up in a nearby canyon, still very much alive but moving a bit slowly, and our guide finished him off. So the hunter was reunited with his trophy, and his pocketbook felt a little better.

Like the kudu, the elk hunt had a happy ending.....finally.

Those situations, I think everyone can agree, SUCK! We do our best as an Outfitter to ensure that every wounded animal is found one way or another. For me, when hunting with a client and this happens I feel like I have let the client down even though I know I am not the one holding the gun. Just an empty feeling! Luckily it has only happened once or twice, but we did eventually find the trophy and reunited it with the client. Which brings me to my question of Back up shots? Do you ever let a guide back up your shot?

There is not a doubt in my mind that many guides can shoot circles around me but I would not want a guide backing me up. I've never hunted dangerous game either so I might rethink that if I did but for now I'd say "No Thanks, I'll sink or swim on my own". Just my .02, Baker

I prefer it that way unless we get in a dangerous game situation or unless the client ask me to step in. Unfortunately there is often no time to get a second shot off even if you wanted to, or think that there needs to be one to begin with. As everyone knows once that trigger is pulled a lot of stuff is happening at once. I plug my ears and watch the animal through my Binos to make sure I see exactly where it hits and which way its heading, leaving very little time to do anything else.

I had a guy wound a 200" deer we looked for days and didn't find it. A month later we found him. He had just died a day prior from a wound a month ago. I capped the scull and sent it to him with a cape from a cull. It sucks I know but sometimes things work out.

Yes it does suck but 99.99% of the time when that happens its not the outfitters fault. Yall work your tails off to get us to the animals and get us a shot. If you have to aim the gun and pull the trigger for me then I don't need to be out there lol In my case it was a bad judgment call. 100% My fault. I don't hold the outfitter liable for any bad shot I make. Its the clients call if he is comfortable with the shot and ive never had a guide or outfitter rush me to shoot. Many times I have had an animal in the cross hairs and held off shooting cause it wasn't a prefect clear shot or I was shaking to much and ive never had an outfitter get uspet cause of that. I chased an elk with a guide that took almost all day to get on and when we finally got a shot I was so winded I couldn't hold steady and didn't shoot. Elk walked off and disappeared. Guide said he was happier I didn't take a chance shot more than he would have been if I shot and wounded it. Didn't get that one the next day but did get a smaller one im just as happy with. When it comes down to it its up to the client to take the shot or not. Far as a guide and back up shot I wouldn't mind it. If the guide is ready and watching and sees I made a bad shot then by all means finish it off before it becomes a chase are worse a lost animal. But like said earlier most the time there's no time for a back up shot. In my case of the Kudu I told everyone that was helping track that day by all means carry a rifle and if you see it before I do take it down. Im more worried about the animals suffering and the meat going to waste than getting my trophy.