In honor of their elusiveness, Robert Ruark wrote, “A kudu is definite only when he is dead.” Under the influence of Hemingway, he also thought the kudu was a hunter’s grail. But Ruark was a consummate exaggerator who lusted for horn length. I am not Ruark. I’ve never yearned for a kudu on my wall. However, I relish the hunt for kudu more than any African beast that lives on this rotating rock we call home.
My first African safari was with several men, all much wealthier than me. They, like Ruark and most who head to Africa, were obsessed with collecting a kudu and putting him on their wall. To me it seemed unreasonable to lust for something you’d never seen, smelled, heard, or touched, but like the Lord, vanity works in mysterious ways, and the desire to regale your guests with the story of “my kudu” while pointing to the wall is a powerful thing for some.
The first kudu bull I ever saw was just on the other side of a high fence that enclosed nearly 12,000 acres. We were driving by on a paved highway and there he stood under an acacia tree looking less like the subject of a noble pursuit and more like a British lord or a yard ornament — a ceramic deer decorating the curtilage of a home belonging to a man who thought he’d finally made it. That was in 2006 and I never gave the kudu much more thought until seven years later after four more safaris, and after I’d met professional hunter Geoffrey Wayland.
Under his guidance and tutelage, I’ve spent the last decade obsessed with hunting kudu. It’s all Wayland’s fault, partly because of his enthusiasm for a challenging hunt, partly because of his unmatched skill at finding and stalking anything – especially kudu – but mostly because he and I — together — have become damned good kudu hunters.
It started in 2013 with a last evening of the safari hunt where Wayland and l were prone on our tummies for two hours waiting for a free-range kudu bull to jump a cattle fence onto Geoffrey’s property. The addiction was later fueled after a near two mile stalk down a donga deep enough to hide an elephant, and when we got to the end, and could see the bull, I had more adrenalin than I could harness to make the shot.
The next year in the heart of the kudu rut we found them along an infrequently used two mile section of railway line. They were as thick as hobos following a leaky rail car full of wine. With every pass we’d see multiple bulls, and I finally shot one. We heard the bullet smack and saw him drop. Geoffrey immediately radioed for his skinners, but when we walked over, he was gone, and there was no blood. We looked for him for two days and the only explanation was that he went to the same place the bull Harry Selby shot went to when he was hunting with Ruark. “He’s riding up in heaven on a thorn bush cloud.”
But mostly we had success. Partly because I made some good shots but mainly because I listened to Geoffrey. And because I trusted his ability to make kudu materialize out of nothing, and because I depended on his knack for digging them out of brush so think warthogs avoided it. It was also due in no small part to Geoffrey ignoring my stupid ideas.
But during one safari Geoffrey was hosting clients I’d convinced to come to the free-ranging magnificent land of the kudu with me. They’d heard and read my adventurous stories and my kudu hunting addiction had spread to them like Covid. Geoffrey dropped me off to hunt alone, along a pond under the shadow of what we’d named Kudu Mountain. I’d only been there a few moments when a big bull burst from cover with his long and twisted horns extending back past his rump. I started to go after him but remembered the client Geoffrey had with him who desperately wanted a kudu on his wall.
I called Geoffrey on the radio, they came back, and I directed him and his hunter to where the bull had disappeared. An hour later, as the sun turned the sky and the ground around kudu mountain that glorious African orangish-pink that seems to have its own smell and its own silent but symphony-like noise, they were standing over the dead bull, marveling at him and feeling rich.
Another time we’d found two bulls and two cows feeding on a ridge overlooking an open plain. The smart option was to give up and come back in the morning because with the wind in our face, trying to come in from behind them was not an option. I suggested we just walk across the 800 yards of open ground as they watched us, and then climb up the hill and shoot one of them.
It was foolish, but I told Geoffrey that if we did not look at the kudu, they’d not pay us any mind. We made the march, talking and jabbering like we were two gin and tonics into the campfire, and we never looked at the kudu. When we finally reached the hillside, climbed up, and looked over a Volkswagen sized rock, there they were at 90 yards, and they had no idea we were in their world. I threw down on the bull that was fully visible, and Geoffrey said, “Wait, let me look at the other...”
I said, “What the hell is wrong with this one?” and pulled the trigger. We sat beside that bull in silence for some time, marveling at his majesty and our good fortune, and feeling even richer.
I don't want you to think we were consistently killing record book kudu bulls. These were mostly just good representative free-ranging bulls for this magical kudu infested area near the Orange River. More importantly than their ivory tipped headgear was the difficulty they presented us as hunters. My ache to hunt them was as bad as the pain in my worn out knees when I did, but the hurt was my penance for the pleasure of the pursuit and of the protein they provided. The memory – not the horns – was the actual trophy. It does not fade and dust over with time, it only intensifies.
These kudu make you look harder than you’ve ever looked for anything. They’ll make you walk, crawl, laugh, and sometimes cry. They’ll test your shooting skill with the brief opportunities they offer, or the small windows they give you to slip a bullet through. They’ll make you pray for divine assistance and sometimes for drunken relief. These are not the kudu from behind the high fence that once had ear tags and might now even have names. These are ghosts of the bush veld. Ghosts you might see only once by the grace of luck or skill, and then never, ever, see again.
I cannot get enough of the challenge they provide. I only have one kudu on my wall, it’s the one from 2013 that changed my life, and I’ve taken many since. When I look at it, I think more about the hunts to come than the hunts that’ve happened. I only want to hunt them where they want to live, not where they’ve been told to live, and I only want to hunt them in one place, under the shadow of Kudu Mountain just west of the Orange River on a working cattle farm nestled next to an old British Boer War fort that’s owned by the best professional hunter in Africa. Africa is littered with kudu but only these pollute my dreams.
If I someday die on that mountain hunting kudu, my soul will find eternal happiness because it’s where I watched my son take his first and his second kudu bull, it’s where I’ve guided hunters to kudu bulls, but most importantly, it’s where I found the part of Africa, that found the part of me, that mattered. From the Eastern Cape to Mozambique the Dark Continent has given me gifts, but the best it’s given has been free from the constraint of a game fence and in the shadow of Kudu Mountain, with my friend Geoffrey who is the best kudu hunter to ever press their hand into that ghostlike battleship grey fur. Ruark was right, the kudu is the hunter’s grail, but it’s not the hide, horns, or head, that’s the trophy, it’s the hunt.