I was always wondering how to start this first blog article. Nothing else came to my mind except looking back how my passion started 25 years in time and going back to my childhood, the time when I was 12-13 year old boy, instead of learning usual school subjects like history, math or biology from textbooks for the fifth or sixth grade primary school, I was lying on the carpet in mine room, absorbed in reading hunting books, which were ordered from the Polish Hunter. Some of you may not remember those times, so I will introduce you to them briefly. In the 90s of the last century, there was no online ordering yet. You had to fill in the cut-off coupon from our trade union Gazeta Łowiec Polski, write the title of the item you wanted to order, put it in an envelope and send it via Poczta Polska to the editorial office in Warsaw. A few days later a gray package was coming with the content that I was looking forward to. From what I remember, when ordering 5 or 3 books, one extra book was for free, so I put there a note written in children’s handwriting, with the title of a free book, one that I do not have in the collection yet, to not duplicate the position I already have. It was then, after reading stories from hunting in the Dark Continent, in mine teenager’s head was born a desire to hunt an African animal. Now I know that it was the beginning of realizing one of the greatest childhood dreams.
After this short introduction dear readers, I will take you 25 years back to 2021. As you know, at the moment I am already quite active in social media, first there was and still is a blog on faccebok, then a YouTube channel and an instagram account were created, and Currently, a website that puts all these platforms together and you are just browsing it. It is no secret and I do not intend to hide it from anyone that after 12 or maybe 13 years of hunting I have grown up to have my favorite brand of both weapons and optics. Some guys have a favorite brand of cars, and women have perfumes, I don’t pay as much attention to cars as to weapons, and I rarely use perfume, so I have a bottle of 150 ml of Fahrenheit for 10 years now (you need to save up somewhere).
As you know, the brand of weapon I use is Blaser, and my favorite optics is Zeiss. In 2021, I will not tell you exactly in what month I was called by Adam S. who is the distributor of both of these brands on the Polish market with the proposal, Adam started :
-Hello Kamil
-Hey
-I have an quite unique proposition for you
-what is it ?
-wouldn’t you like to go to Namibii for hunting organized at Blaser Safaris? There is green light from Blaser and I would like to invite you as organizable of this journey.
I was totally astonished, I didn’t say nothing for moment and I replied
-Adam I have no idea how to reply for your offer… I’m totally surprised with your question
-there is one condition that you need to fulfill- we would need to record our trip so your camera man would go with us
-thank you so much ! Yes we are going!
-Great ! Exact date I’ll give you in I think January, let’s be in touch.
-Ok, I’ll wait for information from you. Bye.
If you could only see my face after I’ve hang up with Adam… I was as happy as if I would win a lottery.
I don’t want to bore you but time of preparations for the departure was incredibly long … so let’s move on to the time before and the departure itself.
Packing
and here the indispensable helpers were colleagues who were already in the Dark Continent. A lot of necessary information was provided to me by Mr. Andrzej P. whom you had the opportunity to meet in episodes of Sudecka Ostoja, as he talked about his hunting adventures not only from Africa. Once again, I would like to sincerely thank Mr. Andrzej here on the blog. Clothes, shoes, hat, gloves, scarf … etc …. yes yes a hat. Gloves, chimney, it may sound trivial, after all, he’s packing to Africa, but it’s winter in Namibia in June! The temperature in the morning and at night often drops below 0C! What we experienced many times when we went hunting at 7.00 am. I do not want to bore you with what shirts or pants I packed, I tried to show everything in the first episode of our series from Hunting for Blaser Safari.
Threat this article as companion to YouTube channel Sudecka Ostoja where you can see most of my journey. However, what was missed by the camera, and will remain in the memory forever, using the keyboard, I will transfer it to the glass screen of your monitors or smartphones.
Journey
The way from home to the airport in Warsaw was quick and pleasant and our mood was improved by a colleague, whom we met on the highway. That friend was probably returning from a hunting trip and, while driving, with the windows in our cars down, he showed us his hunting area. If you are reading this, best regards Michał. While driving the car, we recorded short scenes for the material and before we knew it, we landed in the parking lot at the airport. We were the first to attend Okęcie, eating wild boar bacon sandwiches, we waited for the rest of the group. The second ones reached Gabrysia with her husband Marcin, both hunters, and most importantly for me it was also the „first time” when it comes to hunting in Africa. Adam was the last one to arrive, because he was coming from Warsaw
We all met together, which was not difficult, for example because of the hunting strikte outfit, which strongly distinguished from other travelers staying in the terminal, and already such a hallmark that we were hunters were our suitcases , everyone with the same Blaser travel bag, only Michał had a „civil” suitcase. Quick check-in and we’re flying to Frankfurt but … of course the first little adventure. The nice lady who checked us in gives us the tickets and informs us that in Frankfurt there may be a problem with the flight to Windhouk because she sees in the system that she cannot give us exact seats on the plane because the airlines sold more tickets than seats on the plane, she ensures that everything should be clarified at an airport in Germany.
In Frankfurt, a colleague of Gunter joins our group, a representative of the Blaser company, who will accompany us and hunt with us, so our group already consists of 6 people. Fortunately, there were enough seats on board the Boeing 747 for us and after 10 hours we landed around 5:00 in the morning at the red airport near the capital of Namibia. Lorenc, who turned out to be one of the Profesional Hunters, was waiting for us at the airport. We packed the suitcases for the Toyota bus and after 2 hours we crossed the Blaser Safaris gate.
A greeting that each of the participants, except maybe Adam, who was in this resort several or a dozen times, surprised us very pleasantly, none of us expected such a reception, there was local music played on African drums, there was also an incredibly natural singing of blacks women, on a silver tray held in the waiter’s hands were glasses with aperol, and glasses with fresh, refreshing, incredibly good orange juice. The head of Blaser Safari from South Africa and bearing the interesting name of Conway showed us around the lodge, presenting the facility in all its glory, from the fireplace room, through the terrace, fireplace, open bar to the swimming pool. Short information about the rest of the day, at 12:30 lunch, at 14:30 we go to the shooting range to check our skills and in the evening a special afternoon tea in a breathtaking place.
Hunting
And now probably most of you have been waiting for this moment and this part. However, you may disappoint yourself because I am not going to describe in detail every day separately, and not because I can’t, or because I don’t want to … you just have to see each episode on the channel, but that this paragraph is not empty. I will describe my impressions and I will try to briefly summarize the hunting itself and the meaning of hunting in Namibia.
The hunting ground that we hunted and managed by Conway covers an area of 43,000 ha! So I was not mistaken 430 sq km! That is not much less than the entire Zakopane poviat !!! and now it is necessary to refute the myth that in Africa you hunt in farms. In a way, this is true, because these areas are fenced, but in real terms, please fence the entire Zakopane poviat and go hunting, find animal there and hunt it, dear readers, I tried to illustrate it precisely that it is not so simple and easy. The way of hunting itself is very different from the European one, although mainly stalking is hunted and this approach lasts up to several hours, and thus translating it into a length of several or several kilometers. The professionalism of PH surprised me personally, I did not realize how well my bush guide was prepared and, more importantly, how good he was as a hunter, observer and tracker. To confirm these words, I am forced to send you back to one of the sections of the Sudecka Ostoja.
As a side note, because it is not in the film, I will tell you that the favorite caliber of most PHs in Africa is 375 H&H, which personally does not surprise me. I read this information as a kid in the above-mentioned books about hunting on the black land.
As for the animals itself, they are extremely hard! The ammunition that is used for hunting in Africa must be of the hardest, such as RWS EVO or Norma Oryx (not for nothing the Swedish manufacturer named this bullet Oryx). It is often shot through thick bushes, and the bushes that make up the bush are a natural barrier that is almost impossible for humans to pass through. Here, every plant, from small shrubs to trees, has thorns, spikes several centimeters long !!! our blackberries compared to the Namibian bushes are geraniums! Coming back to PH, I have to tell you that I have no idea how they can locate the game at a distance of 4-6 km, at the same time determining the species and the direction in which the animals moves without using binoculars !!!
In addition to the hunting itself, the greatest impression on me was primarily the nature and general „atmosphere” accompanying the entire African hunting. The most wonderful thing that can happen to a man from Europe is the sight of an endless bush unpolluted by a human hand, no power line, no highway, no chimney, no railroad tracks, no skyscraper, just natural soil, vegetation, no civilization, what we have every day! Here you can simply rest from the noise of motorization, both on the ground and in the sky. Today, after returning home, to work, to the city, sitting and writing these few sentences for you, I realized what a wonderful time these almost 7 days spent in real nature were! In a place where people from the city have no idea what silence is, the silence „disturbed” by the singing of birds, the sounds of impalas ending their mating season in June, the silence of the wind lashing the hunter’s face, after the hunt is finished, who is staring at the bush in one hand holding a glass with Whiskey perfectly matching the climate, and a smoldering cigar in the other.
The whole adventure would not have been possible without Adam, for which I am grateful! The people with whom I spent this time turned out to be great companions and even better hunters! Gabrysia, Marcin and Gunter, it was an honor for me to be able to hunt with you, and in the evenings by the fire to share my hunting experiences together.
You probably think if I will go back there? Hmmmm, let me tell you something, the Warsaw-Frankfurt-Windhok ticket I bought for June 9, 2023:
Darz Busz
