Your fear in many different countries throughout southern Africa is unjustified. Especially for Namibia and South Africa. Huge sections of these countries make the majority of their income on tourism and the Outfitters and Hunters that will meet you there in those countries have security and transportation down pat. The cities are your problem and you won’t be spending any time there. You will find that a big portion of the flight to Johannesburg will be other Hunters as well as the flight back. If the fear for your own safety is the concern you should not allow that to be a concern.

I am going to start doing that. Double lung and heart shots on white-tailed deer result in those deer running between 100 and 150 yards way too often. I don’t like ruining the meat in the shoulder area. Even worse is a deer that runs away and I end up with no meat at all.

Mr. Taylor,

My biggest hindrance to an African plains game safari is personal security. I am picturing multiple ways that someone could jam me up on the way into Africa, while I am there, and on the way back.

Obviously, you have done it successfully multiple times and I am very happy for your success. My life seems to tilt extremely heavily toward major misfortunes and I am not seeing how the reward justifies the risk in my case.

You are super welcome and thanks for the read. But to that end, the price of flights has become ridiculous. The cost for a direct flight to Johannesburg is almost twice what it was only 5 years ago and that flight is always packed. Really eats into the trophy fees. Still, you could do a really good plains game safari for about $7k.

Thanks for inviting us to tag along, without us having to buy an expensive trans-Atlantic plane flight… 🙂

Pin them through the shoulder.

Your account of your hunt is helpful to my much smaller scale version where I hunt. Just this last Friday I had an opportunity to stalk a white-tailed deer buck for the first time in my life. Of course I totally blew it and the buck survived to taunt me another day. Nevertheless, I learned from that failed attempt and, more importantly, I learned from your successful hunt. My primary mistake: I rushed everything and wasn’t willing to crawl on the ground where cover was minimal. That’s okay, though. That buck will be back next year. And so will I, a much better hunter who will slow way down and be willing to crawl.

Thank you for your reply Mr. Taylor.

I would like to think that I am a seasoned hunter with ample experience and knowledge, and yet I keep learning simple and profound hunting pearls-of-wisdom which always amazes me. My most recent hunting pearl-of-wisdom that I just learned: “… deer run. I have photo albums of obliterated white-tail hearts from animals that ran more than 100 yards.”

That is very helpful knowledge, especially applied to the nice property that I have been blessed to hunt the last three years. That property is 400 yards wide by 1600 yards long which sounds plenty large for successfully hunting white-tailed deer. And it is plenty large, unless I hunt within 100 yards of the edge of the property, I shoot a deer which is standing very close to the edge of the property, and then that deer runs 120 yards onto the next property. In that scenario, the deer expires 220 yards away from me and 120 yards onto the next property. There is a very good chance that I lose sight of it long before it expires, potentially making it very difficult to even find it. Then, if I find it, I have to drag it 120 yards minimum back to the property I am hunting. And that all assumes that I have permission to retrieve my deer from the next property over.

This new knowledge compels me to seriously reconsider where I hunt on that property, where deer should be when I shoot them, which caliber and load I should use, and which target zone I should choose on deer.

Us Americans tend to shoot a lot heavier than necessary. The number of plains game killed with a .243, 6.5×55 and 7×57 easily number in the many millions.
That said, deer run. I have a photo album of obliterated white tail hearts from animals that ran more than 100 yards.

I suppose that my recent experiences with white-tailed deer have me thinking along the lines that I stated above. I have shot white-tailed deer at 80 yards with .43 caliber (240 grain) and .45 caliber (250 grain) bullets–both with muzzle velocities around 1,600 feet-per-second–and watched them run anywhere from 60 yards to 150 yards. And with good shot placement (broadside double-lung). I figure, if a white-tailed deer (which weighs something like 200 pounds on the hoof) can run as far as 150 yards after absorbing such large and heavy bullets with impact velocities around 1,400 feet-per-second, that I would need similar size bullets with even higher velocities for larger animals such as a zebra.

Perhaps there is something “magical” about a bullet striking an animal with a velocity in excess of 2,000 feet-per-second that we just don’t see with much larger bullets at impact velocities around 1,400 feet-per-second. Either that or my bullets are not expanding and zipping right through (all of my shots are pass-throughs) without imparting much of their energy.