Hunting Springbok is about shooting at a pretty small animal at a far distance in a very short time.
Hunting Springbok is all about shooting a pretty small animal at a far distance in a very short time. Normally Springbok take off and jump run a bit, fall into a trot and curiosity wins. You as a hunter should know, that your time has come when curiosity befalls this beautiful antelope, since this only takes a few seconds.
These beautiful little antelope inhabit the more western reaches of Southern Africa. Once their numbers were in the millions, however, today they are confined mostly to the game reserves and game ranches. Both the males and females of this unmistakable little gazelle carry horns, the ewe’s horns being somewhat shorter and more slender.
This social herd animal is at home on dry, semi-desert, open grasslands, including the Kalahari. He is both a grazer and a browser and not dependent on water. When hunting springbok, trophy evaluation can be very difficult; as mentioned, both rams and ewes carry horns, and herds can be very large and thus hard to approach with all those eyes and ears trained on the hunter. Because of his phenomenal eyesight and his natural paranoia with regard to being approached, if you try to walk and stalk this little antelope, be prepared to do some crawling while hunting springbok. Try setting up ambushes on the approaches to feeding areas and pans, or even physical barriers such as fences.
If you can approach within 300 yards, you are doing well and best take your shot. The flat-shooters will be the ticket when hunting springbok. A good quality 6X scope will be indispensable for the ranges that you might encounter. The springbok is legendary as the tastiest of all African game. For the meat hunter, the side-on lung shot should be the choice; aim just behind the shoulder. Trophy hunting calls for the high heart/lung shot right up the front leg, one third to one half into the body and squeeze. Hunting springbok will always be a challenge due to his size and excellent senses; stalk carefully, keep the wind in your favor, get as close as you can, bring the right equipment and then shoot straight.
While hunting springbok, we often have situations were hunters fiddle with there scopes while the springbok patiently awaits his kill. As soon as the hunter has set everything for the perfect shot, the springbok takes a small jumping stut and trots away. We therefore recommend every hunter to practice long distance shooting, getting used to his rifle and follow the one big scope rule, always shoot with the same magnification. Namibia is Springbok territory with plenty of Springbok roaming our beautiful land. Come and take a nice trophy or two and we gaurentee you will be back for more!
