Thomas Nissen joins the hunt for sing-sing waterbuck in Burkina Faso, as Jens Kjaer Knudsen aims to complete all four huntable subspecies of defassa

BURKINA FASO: Sing-sing waterbuck

Whether it was a sign from some higher power or pure coincidence that sent the rainstorm into the Burkina bush exactly where we were due to hunt I have no idea. That said, it seemed more than a little peculiar that the rain hit us the night before we were going hunting for sing-sing waterbuck; the one type of waterbuck that Jens Kjaer Knudsen is missing to close his grand slam on the four huntable waterbuck species on the Safari Club International (SCI) list.

Memorably the fun started as we – after only a quarter of an hour’s drive from the camp – got stuck in clogged mud. The red soil, typical of the region, had turned into a greasy syrup and the only way to get the car free of the slimy suction was by sheer effort. Using a jack we were able to lift the tyre that had sunk in, then we threw stones underneath and pushed with the full force of five men. We succeeded; the hunt could begin.

WAITING

 On the first day of this eight-day safari, Jens turned down the chance to shoot a reasonably good waterbuck; the first game we saw during the whole trip. It wasn’t very big and the chance was not that presentable, so why not wait? It did not seem to be very difficult to get a chance at one of these beautiful antelope.

Later we realised that, had we had the opportunity to invent a time machine, jump into it and slip quickly back past the first day and have this chance all over again, we might have taken that shot. The hunt for waterbuck was far less easy than we had initially thought. However, we had plenty of practical work to do, which inlucded changing a tyre on the car, as we punctured it half an hour later. So we didn’t have a spare moment to invent a time machine anyway.