In February I had the luck and pleasure to hunt with my good friend over many years – Paul from GEM Safaris. This small story is not so much about the hunt itself – it’s more about what makes a real hunter… 

My luck is, that I was on my first South African Mountain Zebra hunt this time, and Paul had agreed to be my PH - as so many times before. 

Early morning we drove the short distance from Paul to the hunting area – almost in Pauls back yard. Arriving at the farm where the Zebras was to be hunted, the farmer also joined us – to give us direction on how to find the game. 

As I said, this story is not about the hunt, but about the fact that a real good hunter/PH can have luck, but also “search” his luck, in order to get success for the hunting guest. And that was precisely what happened this day. 

A small group of Zebras positioned themselves on the lower part of a hill side with large open area below and in front of them… After a short period we realized, that there was no way we could get to them, unseen at least… and here Pauls unique way of “searching the luck” went into action, as he said “lets just walk straight towards them and see what happens…”. 

Despite they could easily follow us all the way, we got into about 120 m before they got visible nervous – up with the shooting stick, and you can see the result on the picture below…