I hunted lions back in August with New Trend Safari out of South Africa. Sorry this is posted so late.
Before my hunt, my dad and I made lion targets out of plywood to practice every scenario possible: broadside, frontside, head shot, etc. I practiced for about 4 months prior to the hunt with my Christensen Arms .300 WSM because that's what I was going to shoot with. Three weeks before the hunt, we decided to step up to a .375 RUM. Being a Christensen Arms gun, it took just a few times to practice to get comfortable with the gun. I was shocked of how the gun wasn't too brutal on the shoulder. So, having a huge caliber rifle and super pumped about lion hunting, we jumped on the plane to Africa.
After about a day and a half, we got to South Africa and my PH picked us up. Sighted in the rifle with 2 shots and it was time to get the game face on. Never have hunted African lions, I didn't know what to expect on our first day of hunting. We set out on foot to where the PH saw lions the previous week. We ran into a lion and lioness, both napping. It was my first lion encounter and my blood was pumping. We watched the two lions for about 30 minutes then went on. No luck the first morning, so we headed back to the lodge for brunch and a quick nap. Later that day, we set out in the same area as before but higher elevation. Within an hour of walking, the adventure began. There were 5 lions in front of us about 200 yards, yet they had no idea we were there. 2 of the lions were the ones we saw that morning. The other 3 were all males and HUGE males. We got down on our hands and knees so they wouldn't see us. Slowly, we crawled closer and closer to them. By the time we were about 100 yards away the young lion and lioness were gone, but the other 3 males were still laying in the sun. The PH told me the biggest male was hiding under a tree in a trench and the other males were above him. Patiently waiting for about 30 min. the biggest lion got up and climbed up our side of the trench at about 50 yards from us. My heart was pounding as fast as it could because I knew it was time to take action.
Very quickly, my PH told me where to shoot. The lion was facing and looking right at us, so I knew I had to act fast. Loading my gun, aiming the crosshairs below the lion's mane, I took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. At that moment, everything seemed to go in slow motion. The lion's back legs flipped up and stumbled to the ground before he started charging. The PH beforehand told me to wait until the lion is about 20 yards away to shoot again, so I waited and waited. Suddenly the other PH took a shot to make it veer off to the left of us, then I took the last shot to put him down. Talk about the adrenaline pumping, it was such a great experience!
After we all took a deep breath and realized we just escaped death, the other 2 male lions jumped up to our side of the trench and were not very happy. Long story short, we had to wait it out until we got the truck to scare them off and to load the lion quickly and high tale it out of there to take pictures elsewhere. What a great hunt and great PH's to back me up.
The next day, we set out to hunt zebras. We drove for awhile until we saw a group of zebras up alongside a mountain. There we walked up behind them on top of the mountain to get a shot from above. My PH knew I could shoot at a long distance from the previous year, I shot a gemsbok at 270 yards, so he wasn't worried about the distance as much. We got as close as we could at 277 yards. We sat down alongside a cliff and prepared for the shot. It was downhill and the wind gusts were up to 15 mph. I was pretty nervous but I knew I could take the shot. The other PH's warned me I would have to take a follow-up shot so I would have to reload very quickly. I took several deep breaths, aimed at the zebra's shoulder, and squeezed the trigger. The gun pushed me back to where I couldn't what happened. As soon as I looked back down where I shot the zebra, it was on the ground, not moving at all. I reloaded quickly just in case it got back up, but it never did. I was speechless, as was everyone else. I couldn't believe I took the zebra down in one shot, let alone at 277 yards downhill.
I had a very successful hunt and I had the best PH, Norman Crooks.
