F
Field Ethos
Guest
By Caleb McClain
There was a feeling of relief across the dinner table. After four slow days of hunting, I had taken a zebra and an impala on the fifth day. My PH, Gert, was smiling with the satisfaction of a successful day’s hunt as we shared a glass of brandy before the meal.
“We need to find you a duiker tonight,” my PH said. I admire the way Afrikaners say the word duiker. It was more like “dee-kah,” but with a strange inflection in the middle. But finding seemed like an impossible task after the past few days.
To the unknowing layperson, hunting in Africa is about killing big trophies—elephants with 100-pound tusks, ferocious lions with flowing manes, and the like. Sure, this is a portion of African hunting, but it’s the minority. Like most hunters’ first trip to Africa, this safari was focused on plains game. Now, I was after my first species from Africa’s “Tiny Ten” antelopes: the common duiker.
“Where can we go that we haven’t yet?” I asked. It wasn’t an unreasonable question. After three nights of hunting, we had come up empty-handed. Sure, there were females everywhere we looked, but we only needed a male. We had seen one cross the road for a split second, and another peeking through the bush in the night, but being only 18 to 20 inches tall at the shoulder, both had vanished in an instant.
“Let’s check the airstrip. Maybe you can find one there. Maybe some jackals too. I know you wanted one of those.” As he finished speaking, the chef rang the dinner bell, and we shifted the conversation to the medium-rare impala steaks from that morning’s kill, of which I must have eaten at least a pound.
By the time I needed to loosen a notch on my belt, Gert spoke up again. “Are you ready to find our duiker?”
I nodded as he handed me the rifle, and we crept around the complex to the airstrip that offered at least half a mile of unobstructed visibility.
“I see something,” I whispered as I pointed at the small animal illuminated by the spotlight ahead of us.
Gert pulled up the binoculars hanging from his chest. “Steenbok,” he said. We marched onward into the night.
“I think I see one,” Gert whispered. In the tall grass on a hillside, another small animal could be made out.
“I don’t see horns,” I said, peering through my binoculars. “It’s a female.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Perhaps he’d learned to double-check his clients from experience, but he pulled up his binoculars to verify my call.
“It’s a male. A nice one. Get on the sticks,” he instructed, setting up the wooden tripod I was to rest my gun on for this 75-yard shot at a beagle-sized antelope.
Upon seeing our commotion, the small creature faded into the grass. I gridded the hillside methodically for any signs of movement. Then, a subtle motion caught my eye.
“There he is!”
I lined up the shot on the small vital zone and eased slowly on the trigger. As the fireball erupted into the night, a stillness settled over us.
“He’s down,” Gert said.
The shot was perfect, running straight down his chest cavity, causing little to no damage to the meat on this rather large common duiker.
“That’s a good ram! Very long horns. Maybe five and a half inches.” Gert shook my hand in congratulations.
As the skinners cleaned up the animal, we called it a night after just one more brandy.
The next evening, we returned from the hunt to another dinner bell ringing.
“Tonight, we have duiker potjie,” the chef said, opening a steaming cauldron.
I thanked him, then turned to Gert. “What is this?”
“Potjie. It’s a traditional South African stew. It’s named for the pot it’s cooked in. Every house has a potjie in it. He cooked it with your duiker,” he explained. “You take this mealie,” he pointed to a type of maize grits with the consistency of thick mashed potatoes, “then you pour the stew on top.”
I followed his instructions, and I can honestly say it was the best dish I had in the country, even better than the previous night’s steaks.
I’ve since tried to replicate potjie in America, but it never comes out quite right. Whether it’s not having the proper pot, not getting the stew to the proper consistency, or the mealie not being firm enough, I don’t know. I do know, however, that I’m praying it’s cooked my next time in the bush.
The post Flavors of the Tiny Ten appeared first on Field Ethos.
Continue reading...
There was a feeling of relief across the dinner table. After four slow days of hunting, I had taken a zebra and an impala on the fifth day. My PH, Gert, was smiling with the satisfaction of a successful day’s hunt as we shared a glass of brandy before the meal.
“We need to find you a duiker tonight,” my PH said. I admire the way Afrikaners say the word duiker. It was more like “dee-kah,” but with a strange inflection in the middle. But finding seemed like an impossible task after the past few days.
To the unknowing layperson, hunting in Africa is about killing big trophies—elephants with 100-pound tusks, ferocious lions with flowing manes, and the like. Sure, this is a portion of African hunting, but it’s the minority. Like most hunters’ first trip to Africa, this safari was focused on plains game. Now, I was after my first species from Africa’s “Tiny Ten” antelopes: the common duiker.
“Where can we go that we haven’t yet?” I asked. It wasn’t an unreasonable question. After three nights of hunting, we had come up empty-handed. Sure, there were females everywhere we looked, but we only needed a male. We had seen one cross the road for a split second, and another peeking through the bush in the night, but being only 18 to 20 inches tall at the shoulder, both had vanished in an instant.
“Let’s check the airstrip. Maybe you can find one there. Maybe some jackals too. I know you wanted one of those.” As he finished speaking, the chef rang the dinner bell, and we shifted the conversation to the medium-rare impala steaks from that morning’s kill, of which I must have eaten at least a pound.
Night Moves
By the time I needed to loosen a notch on my belt, Gert spoke up again. “Are you ready to find our duiker?”
I nodded as he handed me the rifle, and we crept around the complex to the airstrip that offered at least half a mile of unobstructed visibility.
“I see something,” I whispered as I pointed at the small animal illuminated by the spotlight ahead of us.
Gert pulled up the binoculars hanging from his chest. “Steenbok,” he said. We marched onward into the night.
“I think I see one,” Gert whispered. In the tall grass on a hillside, another small animal could be made out.
“I don’t see horns,” I said, peering through my binoculars. “It’s a female.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Perhaps he’d learned to double-check his clients from experience, but he pulled up his binoculars to verify my call.
“It’s a male. A nice one. Get on the sticks,” he instructed, setting up the wooden tripod I was to rest my gun on for this 75-yard shot at a beagle-sized antelope.
Upon seeing our commotion, the small creature faded into the grass. I gridded the hillside methodically for any signs of movement. Then, a subtle motion caught my eye.
“There he is!”
I lined up the shot on the small vital zone and eased slowly on the trigger. As the fireball erupted into the night, a stillness settled over us.
“He’s down,” Gert said.
The shot was perfect, running straight down his chest cavity, causing little to no damage to the meat on this rather large common duiker.
“That’s a good ram! Very long horns. Maybe five and a half inches.” Gert shook my hand in congratulations.
A Taste of Africa
As the skinners cleaned up the animal, we called it a night after just one more brandy.
The next evening, we returned from the hunt to another dinner bell ringing.
“Tonight, we have duiker potjie,” the chef said, opening a steaming cauldron.
I thanked him, then turned to Gert. “What is this?”
“Potjie. It’s a traditional South African stew. It’s named for the pot it’s cooked in. Every house has a potjie in it. He cooked it with your duiker,” he explained. “You take this mealie,” he pointed to a type of maize grits with the consistency of thick mashed potatoes, “then you pour the stew on top.”
I followed his instructions, and I can honestly say it was the best dish I had in the country, even better than the previous night’s steaks.
I’ve since tried to replicate potjie in America, but it never comes out quite right. Whether it’s not having the proper pot, not getting the stew to the proper consistency, or the mealie not being firm enough, I don’t know. I do know, however, that I’m praying it’s cooked my next time in the bush.
The post Flavors of the Tiny Ten appeared first on Field Ethos.
Continue reading...
