Once Reza and I had taken photos of the White Blesbuck Ram and loaded it into the back of the pick-up. We started back for the lodge and the skinning shed, where my skinner Jacob, would do the caping of the White Blesbuck. We had not gone far when we spotted a large Eland herd grazing on a side of a hill. We could see even from a distance, that there were some good Eland bulls amongst the herd. To cut a long story short we had a long, fruitless walk as there was very little cover between us and the Eland. The Eland eventually went up into the mountain. We slowly followed andfound them on a plateaux. Again there was very little cover for us to get close enough for a shot, so we had to wait it out and see what they would do. While waiting in the only cover available, the wind shifted and the Eland got a good whiff of us and quickly moved off as only an Eland can do. The plateaux that we were on was in 3 tiers, the 3rd tier being a very deep gully with very thick vegetation. Luckily for us the Eland went down to the 2nd tier and after a mad dash, we had them below us at about 120 meters. Leading the herd was the big bull that we had been after. Once the shooting sticks were up, Reza positioned himself for a downward shoulder shot. At the shot the Eland staggered but did not go down and started forward. At the second shot the Eland went down but to our amazement, started to thrash around on the ground and slowly edge towards the 3rd tier of the mountain, where it unceremoniously rolled over the edge and down the embankment. The Eland came to rest against a fair-sized tree which stopped it going all the way down where we found it on its back dead.
Reza after his first africa animal the White Blesbuck.