RedSand Safaris

17/10/2024

Being on safari in South Africa is a lot more than just the hero shots that make it to socials.

Everything revolves around our base camp and hunting trucks taking everyone in and out of their hunting area.

We enjoy the whole process, from planning the day ahead, to the excitement once everyone loads up and goes out for the morning and then when we all meet again at the skinning shed to see what the bush offered us today.

We are grateful to call this work and this place home.

09/10/2024

As a company and guiding team we have moved away from the traditional shooting sticks that is synonymous with hunting in the bush of Africa. For our plains game guiding we almost exclusively use carbon tripods with a small bag ontop of it. The stability is non-comparable and we are regularly make mid distance shots that we would never have considered from the shooting sticks.
We spend a extra few minutes on the RSS shooting range with the clients, going through height of the tripod, work flow and communication during those last few seconds before you press the trigger. With modern carbon tripods you can actually control the wobble zone to a certain degree where with shooting sticks you actually muscle the rifle to get that reticle to stop moving.

What we noticed over that last few seasons is that making a accurate 250-300 yard shot from a stable position is a better recipe for success compared to making a fast shot off the sticks from 80 yards. The big difference is TIME. Usually at longer distances the animals have no idea of the hunting party, that gives the hunter and guiding team time to discuss a proper plan, calm some nerves, discuss trophy quality and angle of the shot, breathe and go through a non rushed trigger sequence.

Our terrain does not always allow for a prone shot and if you have a trip planned to Africa in the near future, make sure you practice shooting standing from a tripod!

02/10/2024

It's a guide thing.

It's not always beers around the campfire, sitting on the back of the truck kinda lifestyle.

The guiding team works extremely hard before and after the shot, finding animals and then getting them back after they have been shot. Would not trade it for any other job in the world.

30/09/2024

When the wife's outshow the husband's on safari. Absolutely loved guiding these ladies on our last safari, they never skipped a session and made some epic shots.

24/09/2024

With that our 2024 season is officially done.

Thank you to everyone who had a part to play in making this hunting season a memorable one.

An extra special thanks goes out to all the staff of RedSand Safaris, they are the unsung heroes of every hunting story. They make sure the system works and without them RSS would not be what it is today, our values as a company is best shown through the work ethic of our staff and that light shines bright.

19/09/2024

I received a big file with pictures from the camera crew, they accompanied our guides on this buffalo hunt and a full week of plains game hunting.

These pictures of the buffalo hunt with Blaine are just blowing my mind and they speak so loudly on just how raw buffalo hunting can be, it's hard to explain the emotions, tension and excitement but these snaps are about the closest I have seen. Those who have been down that path will relate to every picture.

I am looking forward to sharing them and later on the video of this hunt. To think this was only day 2 of the hunt!

15/09/2024

Just an absolute peach of a kudu bull. Coming out of our main kudu area right at the home base of RedSand Safaris. That space has delivered big bulls on a consistent basis over the last 6 years and by the looks of things for many years to come.
We take pride in our big kudu bulls and we manage them very well, only removing a handful of bulls in the class every season.

Congratulations Jessica with this proper bull and your 1st African animal, you could not have started this journey any better. Hunting kudu spot and stalk is no easy task but with the help of our skilled guiding team here at RSS we made it happen.

13/09/2024

After seeing a gemsbuck at Nylstroom taxidermy Jake asked if we could put in some time and finding him a bull. In the back of my mind I thought "easy button" I know where a bull lives in the sand at our home concession.
Well as most good hunting stories go, we could not locate a bull for several days in the sand.

Now here is where things get interesting.

The back of our shooting range is a multi tier rocky hill that acts as a good backstop for our range. You can glass most of it from the zero range but there are zero roads up there. We came to the conclusion that this gemsbuck bull must be hiding somewhere in that hill on one of the plateau layers, so for only the 2nd time in the history of RSS we intentionally went in that rocky hell hole looking to shoot something.
Working with the wind in their faces, Neville and Jake hunted the hill and long grass very slowly, after carefully walking in between the loose rocks they eventually spotted the elusive gemsbuck. He was feeding head into the wind and his backside towards the hunting party. Now if any of you know Mr he is not blessed with the world's patients and what he described as 4 hours was about 10min of waiting for this bull to turn.
Eventually he gave him a slight angle and Jake let it fly with the 6.5 and like a good Iraq war movie he wasn't letting this anything leave the mountain. Giving him 3 quick shots on the body and the bull was down.
If you look through the pictures you can see it's not an area where one would expect gemsbuck to be shot in and it wasn't a fun recovery, doing it old style cut up and carry, but for this bull we would do it 10 more times!
Good Job Jake

09/09/2024

The gold standard of common dyker. This old ram makes Rowland ward by some margin and its hard to think that this small antelope is a big big trophy. Ryan came in clutch when this ram gave him half a chance through the grass!

08/09/2024

Impala's are very common at RSS and this last week was not a good week for them. Everybody got multiple chances at them and we managed to get everybody a nice ram with some hunters even getting a good double. We are definitely not complaining because impala is very tasty

07/09/2024

When hunting Africa for the 1st time you should always keep a open mind they say... This hunting couple certainly did, like sand absorbing rain water they submurged themselves in the moment of hunting in Africa, grabbing opportunities as they came forward, the only constant is a smile that never left anyone's face. Jake opened his African hunting story with this very good Waterbuck bull. One just never knows what might pop out when you are walking softly into the wind.

Jake and Jessica definitely put the 6.5/7prc through its paces and it stood up to some big African animals.

05/09/2024

04/09/2024

With the clients back home its time for us to start telling the story. A story that is a 100 days in the making.
For his very 1st Africa trip Blaine had one animal way on top of his list and that was cape buffalo. I got instructions from his wife saying "no ugly bull please".
The word on the concession was that the buffalo move into the flats at night and make their way into the mountains at sunrise so we made sure we had our butts up in the mountains while it was dark.
On our way there Blaine said that the last few years he had very bad luck in getting animals and that he feels its time for the ball to jump in his direction. Well armed with 2X Winchesters, a good plan and full week of hunting we got out of the truck at the 1st look out point.
We saw some plains game animals and admired the Africa sun coming over our eastern border, it wasn't log before we spotted a very big herd of buffalo (the exact herd we were looking for) from prior scouting we knew that herd was +-70 strong with some hard bossed bulls amongst them. We watched the direction they took and went down into the valley, the hunting vehicle was filled with a mix of excitement and tension.
We got out and briefed the hunting party which consisted of me in the front, Blaine with the 416 behind me, Luke the camera man and following along Dougy my tracker carrying my 458 lott.
As we approached the herd some cows saw us and spooked, leaving behind one or 2 sentries, after checking out the one bull that stayed behind the herd I could tell he was hard with closed bosses.
We got Blaine set up and moved a few times as the bull was ready to follow the herd into the thickets. As he turned Blaine let a 400gr A frame fly and hit the bull right up the front leg breaking the shoulder. The bull spun around and tried to run away but that hand brake was up all the way. He made it 20yards and he got a solid from the 416. We topped the mags up and moved closer. He was still standing up when we came to about 40yards from him. Blaine gave him another 400gr swith A frame and his bull was down for the count.
We recovered both A frames from the opposite shoulder with 100% weight retention.
What a way to start a safari!

25/08/2024

On our last hunt at one of the bowhunters wounded a eland cow (not a terrible shot, just very little pe*******on). We found good blood and running track for several hundred meters before things started to slow down as she kept on stopping and walking of in a different direction, we put the track to bed with last light and headed back to camp.

Here is where the story gets interesting.

We returned the next morning to our marked area. I had both my trackers on the spoor (Douglas and Solly). Solly is a absolute mastermind on the track and in tandem with Douglas they made easy work of the eland track in the soft sand. I got the radio call about 45min into the session that they bumped the eland in thick brush and that she was still in good enough condition to run away. These tracking and follow ups are perfect practice for buffalo hunts and I carry my 458 Lott with dangerous game loads when we need to dispatch a wounded plains game animal. It creates familiarity in my dangerous game setup and a who does what and where between backup and trackers. Now im in behind my 2 trackers, their eyes on the ground my eyes working the brush infront of them looking for fleeing eland. We went another 30min on the track and approached a thicket of sickle bush. I had a strong feeling that she might be held up in there as the track stopped running and was now a slow walking track. The trackers staying true, I flanked the thick brush moving along the outside rather than through it and sure enough found the eland in the shade on the other side. She was broadside at about 100m. Then and there I knew it was going to be a long one for open sights, I picked a tree about 10m infront of me and took a deadrest, the bead settled on the upper half of the body and I punched the trigger, I could hear the 500gr cup nose solid hitting the eland hard and she went down in seconds.

My 3 1/2 year old son was on the blood track with us the previous night but I left him in camp for the morning track as I did not know how far we would walk. He was very happy we got the eland because now he gets to work the winch buttons!!

I was glad we were able to close this one out.

20/08/2024

Last scouting session before we take out the big bores to hunt buffalo. Despite the heat and literally thousands of acres to scout, we managed to find bulls in good spots. With luck we find one in a flat area otherwise its off into the mountains to check all the valleys they hide like to hide in. Stay tuned for a lot of buffalo action coming next week!

07/08/2024

A bowhunters view...
These are all different blinds and stands for our bowhunters on the main camp concession. Our total hunting area has 8 permanent blinds with a whole bunch of ladder and climbing stands to switch things up if the wind is not doing its part.
We have been running trailcams at all these spots and the group of bowhunters coming in tomorrow are in for a busy week.. Stay turned for some blood trails, trophy pictures and big smiles!

04/08/2024

July was the quiet before the storm. August is here and its going to be a big one for the whole RedSand Safaris crew. Here is some reflections and feedback of everything we did on our month off.
Neville Foord (one of our main guides) went on a hunting trip further north and got stuck in with multiple animals including this nice zebra.
We managed to get camp meat for next month with a impala here and there.
We have a whole series of bowhunts in the next 2 months and we were very busy repairing water pipes to some of the points on RSS main. Checking cameras, setting up shooting lanes, hanging treestands and cleaning blinds. All the fun things that comes with planning for multiple bowhunts.
We also have a few dangerous game safari's in the month of August and making sure we have enough ammo and training behind the dangerous game rigs is essential!

16/07/2024

In the winter we have fires.
Bushfires are very common in the winter here, everything is bone dry. We had a big bushfire about 6 miles from main camp and here you can see the end of a very big smoke cloud hanging over a small herd of buffalo.

10/07/2024

With Eduan and out with .lilly looking for zebra. I took down to our best kudu area where we keep seeing bulls every day but getting a shot seemed to be difficult. With my dad behind the wheel of the truck we spotted a few bulls and jumped off and headed in their direction. We could see kudu but again nothing in a clearing big enough to shoot, then this bull came through a opening and Mike made a quick but very precise shot on him from the tripod. We gave him 20min because it was a slightly quarter towards shot, but we only went 20yards before we found him stone dead.
A kudu was Michael's nr1 animal for the trip and getting this bull was awesome,definitely a turning point in what was a difficult hunt thus far(early season). We took the kudu mojo further through the hunt and got several more trophies for both Mike and Kili everything except a zebra (but thats a story for another day)

03/06/2024

The Cherry on top trophy for the trip was definitely finding this big blue. A blue wildebeest was not on the list initially but after our tour @ Nylstroom taxidermy, it quickly made its way on there.. We did not go out looking for this specific male, we kind of stumbled on him to be quite honest, but man did he deliver. This bull had it all, the firecracked horns, good width, scared up face, busted ear, only one eye and he had a very well defined striped skin, almost zebra like.
Well done on a beaut of a trophy my friend!

31/05/2024

Bennie's impala ram, shot from the tripod at 220yards. One shot from the 6.5 PRC and the ram was down. A very tall horn impala ram. Christiaan took a liking in Uncle Bennie and his ram!

30/05/2024

We finally got our zebra. Making the most of a small opportunity over lunch time, where we followed zebra tracks down a long dirt road, leading to a small herd of 6. They saw us and moved through a opening infront of us and Bennie made the shot count!