I like old things. In my house I’ve got a wooden carving from a Flemish church dating from the 1800s, some pewter tankards from the mid-1600s, and a smoking pipe of New Zealand origin from around the last war. My usual hunting rifle is an early 1970s Heckler and Koch .308, obtained via the deceased estate of a friend of Erich Honecker, the former communist East German party leader. Piet van Rooyen
Recently I got hold of a German WWI military 7.9x57JS Mauser. The rifle is still in its original condition, made at Spandau in 1916, thus giving it a provenance of almost 110 years ago. From what I could deduce, it saw war service in East Africa, probably issued to one of Colonel Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s askaris. Its barrel bore looked good when viewed against the light, with no evidence of rust or pitting. I tested the rifle with Czech-made military ammunition dating from the early 1950s, which I obtained in an original ammunition crate from Rosenthal Guns in Windhoek. The rifle kicked like a mule, and made a lot of noise, but with proper ear protection and some shoulder desensitisation I got used to it. After a few adjustments to the sights, it zeroed spot-on at the shooting range on my farm, with a bullet grouping of only five centimetres from a hundred yards.
My quest for old things also led me to a post-WWII Willys Jeep, of the so-called flat-fender type, which I found in a backyard at Rehoboth. The Willys needed some tender love and care, but after rewelding its drive shaft, stripping it of some unnecessary extras, replacing its engine oil seals, and some adjustment to the steering, it runs as new. Although the Willys is ideal for climbing the rocky terrain on my farm, looking for game, it has no proper loading space for anything bigger than a warthog. From a scrap yard at a neighbouring farm, recently sold to a new owner from Europe, I retrieved a broken-down donkey cart, which we slowly got back onto its wheels again. This I adapted for use as a flatbed trailer at the back of the Willys. At a Windhoek-based arms dealer I got hold of a packet of modern Sellier & Bellot ammunition for the Mauser, which I tested on the range and got even better results than with the military ammo. Now we were ready for a hunt.
The rocky hills at the northern end of my farm are an ideal habitat for kudu. I often find cows with accompanying young ones of up to fifteen in a group. Now and then, a single breeding bull would join them. Especially in the winter months, during the rut, the single bulls come out of the mountains where they spent time resting and eating browse, in order to herd together the cows for mating. Also in this area, I sometimes find older bulls singly or in a bachelor group. I generally do not shoot kudu bulls, as I have a standing agreement with my neighbour to leave these at an inflated price to his trophy hunting clients. But, with rifle and jalopy ready to rumble, I decided that this was too good an opportunity to let go. I made sure that the Willys’ battery was fully charged and the fuel tank filled up. With my trusted companion Mannetjie /Uirab as lookout and tracker, we set out to look for an animal to hunt.
The terrain is rocky, strewn with quartzite for most parts, with small outcrops of granite spaced throughout the landscape. Trees are scarce. Only here and there some lone wait-a-bit thorn, raisin bush or Shepherd’s tree dots the landscape. Kudu bulls like resting in the shade of these trees, where they are difficult to see, during the heat of the day. Therefore we waited for later in the afternoon before we set out from the homestead. I needed to shift into low range at two places, when we crossed the thick sand in the bed of the Gaub River coming down from the Gamsberg and from the Hakos Mountains, but the Willys took it in its stride.
Just as we rounded the first prominent rocky outcrop, Mannetjie tapped me on the shoulder: “I think I saw the horns of some animal flashing in the sunlight, just behind those rocks over there”, he said. I gave him the binoculars, and indeed, after some focusing of the lenses, he came out with a crisp: “Kudu bull!”
What a privilege to be still able to hunt at this age, and with open sights no less, with good companions, with a rifle that has tasted some blood before, and from a classic hunting vehicle of the old- school type.
One advantage of the open-bodied Willys is that one can get out of the vehicle fast, without having to slam any doors. Already in advance I had learnt to adopt a sort of tactical roll from behind the steering wheel down to ground level. This was done in one fluid motion, with creaking joints and aching muscles, but anyway. Mannetjie had already decamped and was waiting for me. With the body of the Willys as the initial obstruction we were able to move in behind some rocks from where we could approach unobserved to within 50 metres of the bull. From where we were now we could observe him being very much occupied with a single jittery kudu cow. Fortunately for us, she was so distracted by his antics that she was not in fully-alert mode either.
I shifted myself into position over the broad flat surface of the rocks in front of us and got myself ready for taking the shot. But at the very moment when I had the bull in my sights, my glasses started to get foggy from the sweat in my eyes. “Here, take this!” I hissed at Mannetjie. Now without my glasses, everything shifted out of focus, however. “Give back my glasses!” I instructed the impatient Mannetjie.
Amidst all this commotion the cow picked up some suspicious movement from our side and started running up the slope, towards an area thickly-wooded with blackthorn. Lucky for us, the bull was so focused on the cow as not to heed the danger, and he stopped at about a hundred yards, apparently unsure of why his lady took off so suddenly. That gave me the time I needed to take careful aim and squeeze the trigger. He fell where he stood.
It took some time to get the Willys up to where the bull had fallen, but the loading went smoothly and quickly, even with the manpower consisting only of the two of us. The low bed of the donkey cart provided an ideal surface to slide the carcass onto and secure it with ratchet straps.
Now then, where is the third Oldie? Oh, that’s me. I almost forgot. At 71 years of age, and after a few emergency repairs under anesthetics, I still feel like a youngster, but the calendar tells me something different. What a privilege to be still able to hunt at this age, and with open sights no less, with good companions, with a rifle that has tasted some blood before, and from a classic hunting vehicle of the old-school type.
From the 2025 issue of Huntinamibia
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