By Terry Wieland

Old-Time Wisdom

In his book, African Rifles and Cartridges, John “Pondoro” Taylor often mentioned “cheap Continental magazine rifles,” and his comments were usually disparaging.  Taylor set great store by reliability, not only of the rifles he used, but the cartridges and bullets they employed.

The two major names in “Continental magazine rifles” were Mauser of Germany, and Mannlicher-Schönauer of Austria.  No one could knock either on the grounds of workmanship or materials; they were legendary then, and they’re legendary now.  Where Taylor did have a point was with Mauser sporters (or sporterized military rifles) chambered for some eminently forgettable cartridges.

Today, most hunters have never heard of the 10.75×68 Mauser or the 11.2×60 Mauser.  There were several, mostly rimless, in the 9mm to 11.5mm range (.358 to .44 or .45, roughly.)  In the case of the Mauser, many appeared in East Africa between 1919 and 1939, built on surplus military actions, and produced in one- and two-man shops across Germany.  These were most likely the rifles Taylor had in mind.

In the years after the Great War, the British gun trade was struggling and the German trade was desperate.  Tanganyika, of course, had been a German colony until 1919, with many European settlers.  Once it joined Kenya and Uganda in what came to be known as British East Africa, the greatest big-game hunting region in the world, it was natural that German gunmakers would look there for new markets.  And, with ex-military Mausers readily available, those naturally became the basis for building inexpensive hunting rifles.

If you look at the cartridges themselves, there is nothing much wrong with them except bullet construction.  Often, the bullets were flimsy, flew apart, and didn’t penetrate.  This was not true of all, but there was enough to lend the rifles a nasty reputation.

John Taylor himself was not anti-Mauser, by any means.  His Rhodesian friend, Fletcher Jamieson, owned a .500 Jeffery on a Mauser action, which Taylor used and like very much.  If a Mauser-actioned rifle came with the name Rigby, Jeffery, or Holland & Holland on the barrel, it immediately got Taylor’s vote.

This is where it becomes very tangled, because all the actions in those days were made by Mauser at Oberndorf.  Firms like Rigby and Jeffery used them to build some pretty flossy rifles.  So what do you call them, a Jeffery or a Mauser?

And the cartridges?  The .500 Jeffery is actually the 12.5×70 Schuler, designed in the 1920s by the firm of August Schuler to create an elephant round that could be chambered in a standard military Mauseer 98.  W.J. Jeffery adopted it and renamed it, yet when Taylor was writing, and praising the cartridge at length, the only ammunition available came from Germany.  Conversely, the .404 Jeffery was probably a Jeffery design, but it was adopted by Mauser as a standard chambering, and renamed the 10.75×73.

As you can see, there was considerable cross-over and adoption of each others’ designs.  The great London gunmakers had nothing but respect for Mauser Oberndorf, and the compliment was heartily returned.  Both probably considered the periods 1914-18 and 1939-45 as highly inconvenient impediments to trade.

After 1946, the supply of Oberndorf-made Mauser 98 bolt-action rifles dried up, although other manufacturers stepped in to produce Mauser actions, and sometimes entire rifles.  The London trade built rifles on whatever they could get — the Enfield P-14 and P-17, Brevex Magnum Mausers from France, Czech Mausers from Brno, Santa Barbara actions from Spain.  Even with Rigby or Holland & Holland engraved on the barrel, however, these never carried the cachet of, say, a .416 Rigby, made in St. James’s Street, on an Oberndorf magnum action.

Since the war, a lot has happened with both Mauser and its first and greatest associate in London, John Rigby & Co.  The Mauser factory was razed in 1946 on orders of the French occupation forces, and its name and trademark passed through various hands before, in 2000, becoming part of Michael Luke’s Blaser conglomerate based in Isny im Allgäu.  Rigby also changed hands, and was moved to the U.S in 1997.  There it became the centre of varying levels of fraud and ignominy before being purchased in 2012 and moved back to London.  The purchaser was the Blaser group, which put Rigby under the management of Marc Newton with a mandate to return the Rigby name to glory.

One way to do this was to resume manufacture of the famous Mauser 98 action, so that Rigby could once again built its .416s on an action with the Mauser banner on the ring, and make its traditional stalking rifles in .275 Rigby (the name Rigby bestowed on the 7×57 Mauser when it adopted it in the early 1900s.)

Since 1946, the various owners of the Mauser name steadfastly refused to make any of the company’s most famous (and, in my opinion, by far the best and greatest) product:  The turnbolt 98.  Even after it took up residence in Isny, making the 98 once again was not on its immediate list of projects.  As far as I know, it was not until the Rigby acquisition that it began seriously looking at it.  Whether it was Marc Newton who persuaded Mauser, or whether that was the secret plan all along, hardly matters.

Around 2010, Mauser had taken a hesitant step towards making a 98 again.  Using a magnum 98 clone produced by Prechtl, Mauser made a few .416s, but with a price tag of $40,000, I don’t imagine they sold many.  Then they acquired Rigby and, in a surprise move two years ago, Mauser announced it would once again make the magnum action, supply it to Rigby, and also make entire rifles in Isny.  Now, they have added the standard-length action to the line.  In London Rigby is using it to make its Highland stalking rifle in .275 Rigby, while in Isny, Mauser is chambering it in the venerable 7×57, 8×57 JS, 9.3×62, .308 Winchester, and .30-06.

Whatever John Taylor might think of these, he could never call them cheap.  The standard model in the less expensive “Expert” grade lists for $9,100.

All of these calibres are familiar to Americans except, perhaps, the 9.3×62.  This is an old and highly respected big-game cartridge in Europe.  It was designed in 1905, and became a standard Mauser chambering.  Even John Taylor thought quite highly of it, with the right bullets, and today ammunition is loaded by Norma, among others, in a wide variety of bullet weights and types.

Now, for the first time in many years, a hunter can go to Africa with a complete battery bearing the Mauser banner — a .416 Rigby for the big stuff, a 7×57 for plains game, and a 9.3×62 for in between.

* * *

It’s a funny thing, but in 1956 when Winchester introduced the .458 Winchester Magnum, and hired East African professional David Ommanney to tout the rifle for them, all predictions were that this was the end of the line for the big nitro-express cartridges, for the magnificent double rifles that fired them, and for all those “archaic” rounds like the .404 Jeffery.  The .416 Rigby was consigned to the trash bin, and even the .375 Holland & Holland was put on the list of threatened species.

It’s now 60 years later, and look what’s happened:  The .416 Rigby came roaring back, and has become a standard chambering; the .375 H&H is stronger than ever; there is a very vigorous market in double rifles, both old and new.  Many of the nitro express cartridges are being made by Kynamco, loaded with Woodleigh bullets from Australia.  The Mauser 98 — an action that is now 120 years old — is still the most popular bolt-action basis for a dangerous-game or plains-game rifle.

Anyone who buys a new Mauser, however, is not merely wallowing in nostalgia.  There is still no better, more reliable, or versatile action on which to build a rifle, whether you’re culling wildebeeste or pursuing pachyderms.

Through the 1960s, African Rifles and Cartridges and even John Taylor himself were disparaged.  As an ivory poacher, Taylor did not command the reverence of professionals like Sid Downey or W.D.M. Bell.  He died in 1955, and his books, Big Game and Big Game Rifles (1948) and African Rifles and Cartridges (1948) went out of print.  It seemed to be the end for everything.

As it turned out, the books were reprinted, first by Trophy Room Books and The Gun Room Press, respectively, and Taylor’s reputation was gradually rehabilitated.  Today, anyone interested in the history of African hunting and the actual performance of rifles, and of bullets on big game, should read Taylor.  His earlier, smaller book, Big Game and Big Game Rifles, is unfairly neglected, in my view.  I bought it from Ray Riling Arms Books in 1966, for $6.  I was absorbed by it then, and still go back to it now when I want to recapture some of the magic.

What the old-timers learned and knew is still worth learning, and well worth knowing.   Many years ago, boxing writer A.J. Liebling wrote in the New Yorker, quoting Heywood Broun, an even earlier writer, “After all, the old masters did know something.  There is still a kick in style, and tradition carries a nasty wallop.”  It seems that every new generation of boxers needs to learn this, and while Liebling and Broun were both writing about boxing, it could just as well have been big game and big-game rifles.

By Larry Collins

My Namibian safari was the best vacation/hunting trip my wife Pat and I have ever taken.

We left Atlanta, with the usual long flight via Joburg to Windhoek where, after collecting luggage, we met my PH, Dirk de Bod, at the Firearm Check-Out office. He collected our firearms and luggage, and we were soon in his SUV on our way to his hunting area.

On arrival, we went to our tent and unpacked. When I say tent, it was more like a luxurious one-bedroom apartment. Apart from the king-sized bed, large bathroom with a big shower and usual furniture, there was a safe, small refrigerator, and an air conditioner.

After unpacking, we walked to the hunting lodge for drinks and sat around the fire pit until supper and talked hunting.

Dirk asked what my point of aim would be, and when I told him I normally tried to make a heart shot, he said he had trouble with American hunters shooting too low and recommended aiming three or four inches higher than the heart shot, toward the center of the lungs. I told him I had Leupold VX6HD 4×24 Rifle Scope with a custom CDS Ranging dial, and he offered to set it for me before the shoot. We had supper and we were tired from the trip, so we called it a day.

The next morning we woke to find the temperature had dropped below freezing overnight and dressed in layers accordingly, then walked down to the lodge for breakfast.

For the morning hunt, Dirk, the two trackers, the two tracking dogs, Pat, and myself loaded into a Toyota truck with a shooting bench over the cab built into the bed of the truck. We drove for about two hours and saw giraffes, guinea fowl, and other animals. I was feeling a little uncomfortable and found I had an upset stomach. For lunch the others had sandwiches while my lunch was an Imodium!

On the afternoon hunt we saw many animals including giraffe, zebra, waterbuck and gemsbok.  At about 5:00 p.m. Dirk spotted three Cape eland, and the oldest was a shooter. We tracked them up a wide canyon and the two younger bulls moved to the right side of the canyon; the older one moved to the left.  I had still not seen them at that point, but we walked in single file up the canyon about 800 meters.  Dirk set up the shooting sticks and said the animal would be coming out from behind a set of bushes on the left about 120 meters in front of us. I got set, Dirk steadied me on the sticks, and about 15 seconds later the eland came out and stopped broadside to us, his fatal mistake.  I squeezed the trigger, and he took off running over a small knoll. The shot was good. The tracking dogs heard the shot and came running past. About three seconds later I heard a sound I hadn’t heard since I was a teenager squirrel-hunting with my uncle’s dogs: 

“Yap, Yap, Yap, Yap, Yap.”  I knew what it meant.  We walked over and there was a nice Cape eland bull about 50 meters from where I shot him, about 1800 pounds according to Dirk. I got extra credit for dropping him about 10 feet from a road!  I was on an adrenaline high. Dirk and the trackers loaded him in the back of the truck and strapped him in.

We returned to the hunting lodge for drinks around the fire pit, hunting tales, and another three-course meal. But Dirk’s future daughter-in-law, Anka, made a “from scratch” tomato soup that was perfect for me. 

The next day after toast and coffee for me, we loaded into the Toyota. We saw several animals not on my list – gemsbok cows with horns bigger than the bulls, groups of kudu cows, then Dirk and the trackers spotted a sable bull at about 250 meters out. Dirk stopped, I got out, a tracker handed me the rifle.  Dirk adjusted the CDS dial on the scope, and I adjusted the parallax dial to match. I squeezed the trigger.  Nothing happened. I had forgotten to release the safety. I moved the safety to “Fire”.  Yanked the trigger.  Missed the shot. We went to check but found no animal, no blood, no nothing.

For the afternoon hunt, we sat in a raised blind and saw a few animals but no shooter bulls. Later we had another great evening at the lodge.

to fire.  I squeezed the trigger and the bull disappeared. Dirk figured where the bull had gone. He took my gun and he, the trackers and the dogs went after the animal.  About seven minutes later I heard the dogs start barking. The bull had traveled about 100 yards and was standing in a bush.  Dirk fired a finishing shot and we returned to the lodge for another pleasant evening.

The following day we bade farewell to Ace, then worked our way back through hills and valleys, sighting several herds of animals as many as 50 each – gemsbok, impala, kudu, roan, sable, waterbuck, wildebeest, and hartebeest, cows and bulls. We did not find the old kudu bull we were looking for and decided to try again in the afternoon.

We saw lots of everything, but nothing worth shooting, so returned for our sundowners and supper.

Before the next day’s hunt we traveled to the utility area and helped load some meat for workers and drove around the 10 sections adjacent to the utility area for several hours.  We saw four groups of kudu bulls and in the last group, one of the trackers noticed something in the brush. It was an old kudu bull standing dead still in the shadows of a bush, difficult to see.  He was 100 meters away, and Dirk got me on him, a shooter.  At first, I only saw a silhouette that looked like an animal. He was facing the base of the bush he was standing under and his horns looked like a tree branch. Dirk said, “Take him.”  The bull looked back over his right shoulder. I saw the “V” of his horns and as he took a step to the right and presented his shoulder, I took the shot.  He ran off less than 50 yards.  Dirk started after the bull with his dogs. He didn’t take my rifle along; he knew the kudu was down. There was a small problem, though. The animal was piled up in the middle of a bunch of catclaw bushes.  Dirk got on the radio and called in reinforcements to help hack the kudu out of the brush.

On the way to the lodge for lunch we went for some guinea fowl with my Benelli SBE shotgun. We drove up on a group of about 100 birds. I pointed to the middle of the group and fired once and got 10 birds. Pot shot.

On the afternoon hunt we drove through the “Nursery” where Dirk had hundreds of breeding stock to supply the rest of the ranch with huntable trophy animals.  Then we drove around the ranch shooting guinea fowl. I fired a total of eight shots, and we came away with a total of 25 birds.

After the hunt, we returned for drinks at the Fire Pit, and another wonderful meal of eland steaks.

On the way to the lodge for lunch we went for some guinea fowl with my Benelli SBE shotgun. We drove up on a group of about 100 birds. I pointed to the middle of the group and fired once and got 10 birds. Pot shot.

On the afternoon hunt e drove through the “Nursery” where Dirk had hundreds of breeding stock living there supplying the rest of the ranch with huntable trophy animals.  Then we drove around the ranch shooting guinea fowl. I fired eight shots, and we came away with 25 birds.

After the hunt, we returned for more drinks at the fire pit, and another wonderful meal with eland steaks.

Zoltan Boros was born in Szabadka, Hungary in 1976. Nature and animals fascinated him since his early childhood. Zoltan began drawing at a young age, developing his talent by drawing the local wildlife. Later, he began to paint with oils and watercolors and continued to draw using graphite pencils and chalk. After grammar school, Zoltan attended the Agricultural University of Gödöllő. There, he received a degree as a Certificated Agricultural Engineer of Environmental Management with a major in Wildlife Management.

Zoltan spends as much time as possible in the outdoors, observing nature and the behavior of animals in their natural environments. Through his art, Zoltan is able to capture the uniqueness of his subjects, and the situations of their existence. 

His time in nature stirs his imagination, and his creations reflect a close relationship with his subjects and their habitats. “The movements of animals, the breath of ancient nature, original state, those are the things that I want to introduce with my artwork,” he says.

Zoltan has received international recognition for his wildlife art, with pieces appearing in exhibitions around the globe. These include the Weatherby Auction in Reno, Nevada, Holt’s Auction in London, and exhibitions in Spain, Germany, Austria, Canada, the Netherlands, and his native Hungary. In 2020 he got one of the most prestigious awards (Mr. Peter Balogh Grand Prize for Art) for his wildlife art in Hungary.

Find him on www.borosart.hu, or connect on Facebook and Instagram.

Enjoy a selection of Zolton’s African animal portraits.

For more artwork, click here.

By Ken Moody

The subject of what constitutes a trophy Cape Buffalo is one that causes me great irritation. There is a contingent of hunters who firmly believe that for a buffalo to be considered a ‘trophy,’ it must be at least 15 years old, a day away from death, and sport a scrumcap on top of its head. These are the keyboard warriors who chastise, belittle, and criticize every photo posted that doesn’t depict a buff up to their nonsensical standards. These are also the very same hypocrites that will shoot a mature whitetail buck or elk in the rut, even though the animal is still of breeding age. These guys really don’t know what they’re talking about, but somewhere along the line, have listened to some disgruntled professional hunter who likely only hunts a handful of buffalo each season, bemoan and cry about all the breeding age buffalo bulls being killed. Trust me, these guys aren’t buffalo gurus, they simply like to appear to be.

The bottom line is this…the MAJORITY of Cape Buffalo killed on safaris will be mature bulls of eight-plus years in age, possess reasonably hard bosses, and likely still be capable of breeding. This is a fact and anyone stating otherwise doesn’t know buffalo hunting. Here’s another fact. There is absolutely nothing wrong with shooting a mature bull regardless of its age.

‘Hard bossed’ is another misnomer that is not fully understood by the uninitiated. Some mistakenly believe that a hard boss is one that is solid completely across the top of the buffalo’s head, with no gap or hairline present. While this horn configuration represents the ultimate in Cape Buffalo, horn density and growth are primarily a result of genetics, not age.

Many buffalo bulls and their offspring will never fully close on top of the horn and always have a gap between them, sometimes with a thin line of hair showing. These are not immature bulls, per se, but bulls genetically predisposed to grow horns the same way, generation after generation. Other considerations when discussing trophy buffalo are client preferences and likes. Some clients prefer to hunt the oldest buffalo that can be found regardless of horn size, while others insist on hunting for a bull with great drops and width. These are generally 10- to 12-year-old bulls that are fully mature and in their prime, but not yet past the point at which horn deterioration occurs. The professional guiding these clients is not there to satisfy his own ego, but to hunt for buffalo consistent with the wants of the client, though advising the client on area production, genetics, and what to expect is advisable. In my many years of operating a safari company, I’ve found that most clients just want a great hunt with a good buffalo bagged at the end of it. For me, that means a mature buffalo bull regardless of age

Chapter Fourteen

The Family

Part 1

In our years of running safaris in four different countries we have worked with many natives, and it is not my intention to bore everyone to death by giving the life story of each one of them. We have seen so many amazing, funny, good, and often bad, incidents over the years with our staff and other peoples’ staff, that I could fill another book recounting them. I cannot resist briefly mentioning just a few.

Peter Sebele

Early in 1981, Don Price instructed me to find a suitable site and erect a hunting camp on a huge ranch called Seafield Estates on which he had acquired the hunting rights. This ranch was situated almost midway between Nyamandhlovu and Tsholotsho, north west of Bulawayo. The ranch was almost oblong, shoebox in shape, the two long sides being on the east and the west. The lower third of this oblong consisted of acacia woodland carpeted with good thick grass, and towards the top of this segment the ground turned into low undulating mounds, not big enough to be called hills. These mounds butted up to an unusual feature – an east west line of basalt, an igneous extrusion, formed a sort of barrier between this lower third of the ranch and the northern two thirds. This basalt ridge was about twelve to twenty feet high and at the top it levelled into the ‘gusu’ or teak forest typical of northern Matabeleland. This gusu forest was almost completely flat. It had no features at all, no rivers, no hills – just acres and acres of tall, park-like teak, kiaat, msasa and mugondi trees. Underfoot was fine sand which made tracking easy and walking difficult. Because of the stark contrast in terrain and vegetation different kinds of game frequented these two sections of the ranch.

When Don Price commenced safari operations on Seafield Estates buffalo were still plentiful on private land, this was prior to the government’s policy of culling all buffalo that lived in beef areas, which commenced in 1985. These animals spent most of their time up in the gusu forest. Most of them would not drink every day; they would usually skip a day, drinking every second night. I suppose this was because of the poaching pressure and I’m sure that they felt more secure in the thickets of the gusu, and therefore avoided the open area near the river as much as possible. When they did drink, they would make their way southwards, down off of the basalt ridge and onto the open low pebble hills and then into the camel thorn and Mopane grassland. Here they used to graze, still moving slowly south, until they reached the Khami River. Once they had satisfied their two-day thirst, they grazed their way north again, arriving back in the forest in the early hours of the morning.

Once I had the camp built and had a chance to explore the area, it became clear that the only way that we would be able to come up on these buffalo would be to follow their spoor up into the forest. In the dry winter months the gusu forest can be very noisy walking. The sand is littered with curled Julbernardia globiflora pods, dead sticks and dry leaves. This was going to  test us, that was clear.

When I first arrived at Seafield I put the word out that I was looking forsomebody who could track. One of the young fellows who I had already taken on as a general worker, named Fanwell, announced that he himself was the man that I was seeking! Problem solved. Don arrived with the first clients, and early on their first morning they took the road separating the forest from the low river area, looking for buffalo tracks. Within the hour, Don and the hunters were following my brand new tracker north into the gusu. It seemed that a group of buffalo bulls had drunk during the night and were now heading back into the sanctuary of the thick stuff. It was a long sweaty walk. Mopane flies clouded everybody’s ears and eyes, and the sun swelled by the minute. By ten o’clock it was an unpleasant day. The gusu sand saps leg power and the Mopane flies suck away both your sweat and your sanity. After a while you do not care if you stand on the globiflora pods and they crackle underfoot, and soon after that you do not care about buffalo either.

Don called for a rest at a shady spot. Buffalo droppings lay nearby, and on closer inspection they appeared to be fresh. Spirits perked and after a short rest and a long cold drink of water, the hunters once again took up the spoor. They had not progressed more than fifteen minutes when Don stopped, frowning, cocking his head. His heart fell into his boots and his temper rose into his hat. You could hear it clearly now, the incongruous musical clank, clank-clonk, tang, tang of cowbells! Don knew immediately what had happened. For the last five hours they had been following cattle which had strayed out of the communal land to the west. He was furious. My new tracker, one day into the job, immediately joined the ranks of the unemployed and was soundly berated.

Three thirsty hours later, I greeted the despondent weary group back at my camp and was called in for a “meeting” with Don. It seemed he was unhappy and we would have to find a new tracker.

I went around to the skinning shed area and sat down with the recently unemployed Fanwell and some of the other staff. Safari was new to these guys, they could not understand how it all worked, but the one thing they did understand was that the Americans did not come all the way over here with their funny voices and big hats to follow cattle around the forest, that was for sure. Something had to be done.

First of all I assured Fanwell that as soon as the Boss left, I would reinstate him. Not as tracker, he should understand, but he would go back to fetching, carrying and brush cutting. He was pleased, and made an announcement, “I know a man, a friend, who is a good tracker – he is a hunter, I will go tonight to speak with him. If he is home, and if he is willing, I will be here with himas the sun rises.”

Of course I knew that if this fellow was a hunter, he was also a poacher, but I could not have cared less about that then. We needed a good tracker and we needed him quickly. True to his word, Fanwell arrived at the camp early the next morning with a man of about thirty-two years of age accompanying him. This fellow was introduced to me as “Sebele”. Africans usually have a first name and a surname, or family name, just as Europeans do, but when addressing one another they use only the surname. Sebele’s first name was Peter. He was a small man of about five feet seven, and slightly built. Most  poachers I had come across were lithe and strong looking, their musculaturetight and rounded by hours and hours of working and walking in the bush, but this man displayed none of that rugged strength which I had expected and he seemed mild-mannered too. Mr. Sebele had brought with him fourteen multi-coloured yapping, fighting cur-dogs. We were going hunting, were we not? He kicked some of the dogs absent-mindedly in the ribs and the noise quietened down.

Don came over with a sceptical frown and asked what was going on. We explained what had transpired, then he briefly questioned Peter, loaded up the clients, and departed. The fourteen yapping dogs created havoc when their boss climbed into the back of the Land Rover without them, and led by a tall white greyhound-looking thing called Tracey, they galloped off after the vehicle. The vehicle stopped, more rib-kicks were issued and the Land Rover roared off once more leaving the dogs in the dust.

Along the basalt ridge road Peter stopped the vehicle every time he noticed tracks crossing up into the forest. Buffalo. Yesterday. More driving. Stop. Eland bull, last night. Further they went. Stop. Sorry, cattle, this morning. Don was becoming worried. Tap-tap on the roof. Stop. Peter got down, walked a few paces on more tracks, picked up something, and dropped it. “Five buffalo bulls passed this way early this morning” he said. The hunt commenced. Two hours later, buffalo bulls, five of them, were caught unawares, when they were still grazing. Both clients connected with beautiful well-bossed gnarly old bulls, and this time, a happy group arrived back at the camp.

Peter collected his promised money, shouldered some of the buffalo guts and called his dogs which had returned earlier to camp. He was ready for the four-mile walk back to his home in the communal land across the Gwaai River when I stopped him.

In Sindebele I said to him “Sebele, thank you for the job you did today”.

He smiled shyly, and said “Eeehhh”. I continued – “I am looking for a tracker,

I would like you to come to work for me.”

He put the guts down in the grass and once again let go a halfhearted kick at the head of one of his brown curs which was sniffing the meat. It skittered off like a large rat, teeth bared. “I am not seeking a job” he said “I am busy at my home; I am preparing fields for planting”.

“Sebele”, I said, “Let’s not play games. You are a hunter, (I thought I had better leave out the word poacher) these fourteen dogs do not cut bush and they do not plough land. They also eat meat. You know that I have spoken with the people here; they have told me that you are well respected in the area as a hunter. I am offering you a good job as a hunter, a tracker, you will not do menial labour, this I promise you, this is a man’s work”.

We hummed and hawed a bit longer and Sebele made a decision. “I will come tomorrow. I will help you for the next hunt you mention, then we will talk again”.

“Leave the dogs,” I said, and he smiled again and said “Eeehhh”.

That was twenty-six years ago. As I write this, I can sit here now, and say that the relationship, the times, I have shared with this man over all those years takes up a very large segment of my life. It is difficult to articulate. My life is richer, and more complete because of knowing this man, and learning from him. He has been a part of our time here. I knew him when I was twenty-one – I was a different person then, to the one I am now, at forty-seven. So is he. My children knew him from birth, and we all in our different ways, appreciate, and treasure the part he has played in our lives.

A stupid, common misconception that the majority of white people have, – and I fell into this category too, many years ago, – is that any and all rural black Africans can track. What a preconceived ridiculous assumption that is! The art of tracking is like piano playing. Not every person can play a piano. Some can make a tune, many people can play “okay” but few are competent players. And so it is with tracking. Some people are born with the ability to become master trackers, but most are born without that gift. Rural children, especially amongst cattle-loving tribes like the Zulu in South Africa, the Ndebele in Zimbabwe and the Masai in East Africa, are tasked with the job of looking after cattle from a very early age. These kids get to know every nuance, every characteristic of every beast in the herd. When cattle stray, these children, out of necessity and fear of reprimand, have to find them and the best way to do that is by tracking. But once again, you can throw ten kids in the pool and they will probably all make it to the side, they are all swimmers. But maybe only one will grow into a really good swimmer.

The next step in the road to becoming a serious tracker is subsistence hunting in the communal lands. Most communal lands have smatterings of small game like grey duiker, rabbits and the occasional kudu, and these are hunted with dogs and spears and wire snares. The next step is poaching. Once a rural hunter has moved onto poaching in private farmland and National Park land he is a man who knows his way around the bush. He knows all the edible plants in his area, knows where the animals drink, is familiar with their habits, he can hear as well as an animal, and he is usually a hard man who can withstand long walks, adverse weather and great thirst. And he can track. This is how Peter was when I first met him. Don’s new business only brought three or four safaris to the Seafield area in 1981 – he was doing most of his hunting up at Marangora at the edge of the Zambezi valley, so once the camp was built I had much time on my hands. Before Peter came along it was quite a lonely time as the workers left at 5pm for their homes in the communal land and I remained at camp with my bull terrier, Cleo. I was without a vehicle and without electricity, and all I ate was mealie-meal (sadza), the staple diet of the Africans, along with whatever I shot with my .22 or caught in the Khami River. River water and sometimes tea was all I had to drink, but I was healthy. Skinny, but healthy. Weekends with no labour force were especially quiet and I traipsed for miles on that ranch, exploring every corner of it. Once Peter entered the picture I began to become a true hunter. I had grown up in the bush and knew more than most white people my age about birds and animals and the secrets of the wild, but the age-old cliche has to be repeated here – there is no better way of learning something than by doing it. By doing, and failing, and doing it again. And I had the master teacher.

I cannot foolishly incriminate myself here with detailed descriptions of the deeds Peter and I got up to, but I learned from him how to really hunt. We used to hunt barefoot in the gusu forest all day long, and we were silent. Creeping up to a sleeping bull eland was no big deal for Peter. For me, it was thrilling. A lone buffalo bull lived in those gusu forests and some of the “bush blacks” knew him as mhlope (white). Peter and I found him one day. He was not an albino, but a very light grey colour over the back and flanks, whilst the under-parts, where there was hair, was black. Many times I have looked back and wished that I had kept that unusual skin.

Peter knew nothing of safaris, trophies and foreigners, and he knew nothing about elephant and lions and hippos either. But being a natural, it was not long before he was an expert. He took to safari work like he had done it all already in a previous life.

As mentioned, Peter is a mild-mannered man. Not once in twenty-six years have I heard him raise his voice. And in twenty-six years, I have not once raised my voice to him. He can be a sulker though. When we have tracked buffalo for three days solid and lionesses or wind has spooked them, or the client has screwed up, and everyone’s legs are aching and the buffalo are still somewhere far ahead, he becomes sullen and withdrawn. I call a halt and we all rest up in the shade. After a while I ask him, “These buffalo, they are well spooked, do you think they will slow down soon?”

“Ungaaaz,” he answers (I do not know). The sulk has arrived.

“What’s the matter?’ I ask him, “I feel that we will catch them soon -what do you think? Why are you tired, are you sick?”

“I am old,” he answers, “My hip aches. I think after this hunt I will stay home.”

I do not bother to answer; I have heard that retirement speech before. We find the buffalo, shoot a good bull, and the next day Peter’s hips are fine again.

When I first met Peter he was married to a pretty woman about five years younger than himself. Her name was Julia and I believe she had some bushman blood in her. She was a shade of brown in colour, not black, and her eyes were slanted and her teeth small. They had some kind of problem though, because as hard as they tried, they had no children. For rural blacks, this was unusual in the extreme. They were the “odd couple”. When Peter and I discussed this subject be shrugged and informed me that someone (he thought he knew) had thrown a spell on him. Julia had delivered two stillborn babies, each two or three months before time. I informed him that this was a condition which could probably be rectified with proper medical attention in Bulawayo, but he was sceptical.

Maybe the spell man died, or maybe Peter found the right witch doctor, because in 1982, the same year that my daughter Tanith was born, Peter and Julia also had a girl who they named Sikangeli – which means we are watching – obviously aimed at the spell throwers. He was much impressed when I told him that Tanith was Phoenician for “goddess of the moon”. Now that the gates were open, Julia was kept pregnant for many years and gave birth to a total of six children – all alive.

I could fill a whole book on the various adventures – some good, and some bad – experienced by Peter and myself in our years of hunting together, and so trying to paint an accurate picture of him in a single chapter is impossible. Peter’s tracking ability, already extraordinary, grew with every hunt we did. I was learning from him and he was learning from experience alone. From what I can gather from the numerous books I have read about the San, or Bushmen, it would seem that some of their hunters are magicians on spoor. They have a special gift, a higher, more sensitive, finely developed level of the rhythms and pulse of nature and they are able to sense and anticipate, even know what a certain animal, in a certain situation, is going to do. This is how it was with Peter.

Not only did he possess this extraordinary sixth sense, this intuition, about animals’ behaviour, but he had the right temperament for tracking. Just as some people will have a certain style, or method, of playing the piano, or hitting a golf ball, or even commencing a hunt, so it is with trackers. I have worked with trackers who were quite accomplished at following spoor, but some of them were too hasty, and could be a good half mile on an elephant track before they realised that it was a different animal to the one that we had been following for five hours. Often these trackers were nervous of reprimand and scared of looking incompetent if they did not continue smoothly on the spoor, but I think this is a failure on the part of the professional hunter who the tracker is working with. The tracker should know that he can relax and do his job to the best of his ability and he does not need to be under pressure all the time. Peter had patience to spare. We have worked together for so long that words are not necessary in the bush. If he feels that he may have picked up the wrong track he stops, looks at the spoor and shakes his head. He then catches my eye and shakes his head again and we all return to the last confirmed track. This time we will all wait at this spot while Peter goes ahead carefully, so that heavy uncaring feet do not obliterate any more sign. Finding the track may take a few minutes, it may take an hour. If Peter does not find the spoor, (a very rare occasion) it cannot be found.

Peter’s abilities have saved many safaris that could have ended on an unhappy note, and in saving those safaris he has saved my clients a lot of money too. His expertise has not only recovered wounded game against all odds, but it also opened up for us the rare opportunity of being able to hunt lions by tracking them on foot. Long after the blood has dried Peter has continued to carefully unravel and follow the tracks of a wounded animal, because by now he knows the animal. He can recognise tiny characteristics in the mark in the dirt that are different from other marks in the dirt left by animals of the same species.

Twice, both times in Matetsi, Peter has tracked a wounded sable bull for three days. The first one was shot in the neck and rump by a hunter named Dave Young from Canada. He hit the sable with a .270, at about five o’clock in the evening. The blood dried up and the next day Peter continued where he had left off. At nightfall that day, even I was not so sure that Peter was still on the right track. The next day at about 11am Peter led us to the edge of a big vlei. In the centre of it, beneath two Leadwood trees, stood Dave’s sable with a handful of grass in its mouth. I recognised the horn formation instantly and told Dave to shoot. This time he shot the animal in the heart. The government game scout worked himself up into a fever when he saw the animal go down saying that Dave had shot two different sable! I must admit that my anxiety was just under the surface as we marched apprehensively towards that beautiful animal.

I should not have worried. We recovered Dave’s bullet from the sable’s backside and pointed out the wound in its neck to the game scout, who, along with the rest of us, was visibly relieved. Dave, being a professional hunter himself up in the Yukon, in Canada, appreciated Peter’s effort and ability, and tipped him handsomely.

The second sable was wounded by a young Spanish girl and Peter and I followed the animal, also for three days. But I do not want to write about that hunt. I screwed up and the sable ran away. Peter again did an outstanding job, but I failed in mine.

A good friend of mine from Nebraska, named Dave Faust, was hunting with us in the Deka Safari area on the border with Hwange National Park. Early one morning we cut the tracks of a big herd of buffalo which had been spooked. On top of the buffalo tracks we saw the spoor of four lioness and one big male. We set off immediately on the lion tracks and we found them about two hours later, resting in the shade. Dave wounded the big male with an unlucky shot that we found out later (much later) had just grazed the right flank of the animal. The blood dried up within five hundred yards. Anyone who has hunted in the Deka will tell you what an inhospitable place it is. Much of the area is covered with poor soils and stark, dry, rocky terrain, and the mopane flies, or ‘sweat bees’ are more numerous than the stones. Peter tracked the lion, (who had left the females) from about 7am to about 10am all the way to the Hwange National Park boundary without the assistance of blood sign. We radioed for permission to enter the Park and then continued into that heat-blasted landscape. The Mopani groves resembled a nuclear testing ground – the result of far too many elephant.

The spoor told us that we had spooked the lion four times, but we did not see, or hear him. Following a single lion track, without blood, on hard mopane soil in the white heat of an October noon is a task that very few men can take on. Tracks fizzled out and energy and enthusiasm fizzled out too. We rested in scant shade fighting the mopane flies for an hour and then I had a quiet talk with Dave about incentives for the staff. Nothing can revive enthusiasm as quickly as the promise of American dollars and we were all soon back out there looking for tracks. One of the problems was that we were making too much noise. The other was that the lion did not appear to be hindered in any way by Dave’s shot. Our group consisted of Dave, myself, Darren Maughan who was videoing the hunt – Peter, George, the government game scout and one other fellow who was helping carry water. It was now about 3pm. The lion was holding to a dry watercourse which was about the only place that had any cover. Acacia thorns, mopane, and the occasional Leadwood tree lined the stream edges and low cover was quite thick in places, made up of Kneehigh grass and straggly thorn bushes. It did not look like we were going to close with the lion. Peter was doing a magnificent job but we were not getting any closer. I had to make a decision soon about turning back.

I decided to take my shoes off and walk about three hundred yards ahead of the group who would remain on the spoor, and hopefully, in this way, I would be able to sneak up close enough to the lion so that if and when he spooked, I would have a chance for a shot. At about four o’clock I could sense the horrible oppressive dry October heat weaken slightly. My feet were beginning to burn from the thorns, sticks and broken ground when I saw a huge sausage tree (Kigilia africana) about two hundred yards ahead. I decided to wait at that tree for the rest of the team and then we would have to have a talk about calling off the hunt.

When I reached the sausage tree I noticed that in the deep shade it had thrown onto the ground lay a carpet of trodden-down elephant droppings that resembled a sort of coir mat, and smelled like a stable. It was a soothing relief for my feet. I stood there enjoying the shade with my .460 held by the barrel resting over my shoulder. The ‘ready’ mode had changed gradually into the ‘resigned’ mode about five miles back. I stood there looking ahead. Nothing. I turned to look back the way we had come but could not see the rest of the group. I decided to walk back, find them, and start the long trek back to the jeep.

I had only walked about ten yards when I saw the lion. He was lying down, crouched, underneath a fallen, but still-living Leadwood tree. He was watching me. As our eyes met he must have seen the recognition in my face because he came out of the crouch into full charge in one fluid movement. He was only about twenty-five yards away and as he leaped into action be emitted a loud deep grunt that I felt inside my chest and he came for me undulating and low, at sickening speed. I don’t remember exactly those parts of a second but I knew that I had no time to get my rifle into the shoulder. I must have pulled it down off my shoulder into my left hand and thumbed the safety off and fired with the butt at about chest height. Cats have quite a flat head, and if you want to shoot them in the brain you have to be slightly above them, or you have to shoot them in the nose or mouth in order to reach it if you are lower, or on the same level as they are.

My shot stopped the enraged animal in its tracks but as it went down onto it’s side I could see that it was still panting. It now lay only about five yards from me and I frantically reloaded and finished him off. My shot had skimmed the top of the flat head and then angled down behind the skull into the top of the neck and close to the spine. I was very very lucky.

Peter’s skills delivered this lion trophy. It was an amazing job very much appreciated by Dave.

Over the years Peter and I have tracked lions together many times and it is an exciting, specialised, very satisfying form of cat hunting.

John Barth of Adventures Unlimited sent us a hunter named Don Horne.

Don was an easy-going, likeable gentleman who had failed to connect with a leopard on several previous safaris with other operators. I was determined he would not fail on this hunt. We were about halfway through the hunt when AJ sent a messenger to our camp to report a calf kill. Excellent news.

Unfortunately, when we arrived at the scene of the crime, very little remained of the calf. It had been fed on for at least two nights and only the backbone, ribs and some skin remained.

It was quite late in the day when I decided to give it a try. The position was horrible. The calf had been dragged up to the top of about a hundred-footkoppie and there was no good position for a blind. I had the staff scurrying about bringing our equipment from the vehicle when I noticed that Peter was not around. Irritated, I told George to find him.

Just then I recognised his low whistle. I made my way down the hill across to a cattle fence where he stood waiting.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“This leopard has taken some of the meat. The meat is small, he does not drag it. He carries the meat, then lays it down, then he carries it some more,” he answered.

“Where is the meat now?” I became concerned. If we were going to sit, we had to get the set-up finished soon.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I left the tracks. They are going down towards the river”.

I was tempted to set up on what remained of the carcass, but what if he still had food? If he did, he would probably not come back to the koppie. I told the staff to stop moving the equipment and told Peter to take me to where he left the spoor.

When we reached that point, I saw dried blood, one single smear about the size of a postage stamp. I knew better than to query Peter’s findings and asked him to proceed. It was amazing. I consider myself a good tracker, but I could only see the marks of the meat touching the ground every now and then when he pointed them out to me.

About half a mile further, we found the head of the calf with about eight inches of neck still attached to it. This small morsel, about ten pounds of it, was stuffed under a thick bush.

We moved all the equipment down to the river, set up for the night, and I told George and the boys to drive away to a sleeping position and take the remnants of the carcass with him. At seven thirty or so, Don made a good shot on a beautiful male leopard. I do not believe I would have taken that cattle killer if it was not for Peter’s skills.

In 1893, after years of trying to stem the flow of settlers, adventurers, hunters, missionaries, and conniving “empire builders,” Lobengula, last King of the Amandebele, sacked his capital Bulawayo and fled northwards. He had seen the writing on the wall and his scouts were monitoring several columns of white fighters that were advancing on Bulawayo. He was a sick man, and he knew that his warriors were no match for the white man and his Maxim machine guns. Many of his young warriors wanted to attack the armed columns and Lobengula told them, “Fight the white men if you wish. But do not follow me if you are beaten.”

Lobengula fled north under the protection of several of his Impis and the colonial troops under Major Forbes pursued him to the Shangani River. A reconnoitring party of 34 men, under Major Allan Wilson, crossed the wide sandy bed of the Shangani carefully following the Amandebele tracks. It was December. The rains had started and the Shangani was flowing – mostly beneath the sandy surface – so the crossing of the river was uneventful. In the green mopane forests on the other side, however, the Amandebele were waiting. One more battle.

Wilson’s patrol found the warriors. They walked into a trap and commenced fighting for their lives. At this moment the Shangani River came down in full flood. Two scouts and two others were dispatched to try to break out, brief Forbes and bring help, especially the Maxim machine guns. By some miracle these fellows made it, but Forbes could not cross the now raging Shangani and the final chapter of the Matabele war was played out. It is said by old Amandebele recounting of these times, that the Allan Wilson patrol “were men of men”. They fought bravely to the last man and it is also said that the Amandebele warriors, who usually gutted and dismembered the vanquished after battle, laid no knife or spear against these men after they had fallen.  The Amandebele made songs to help them remember and to commemorate important or significant events in their past. There is a song which some of them still sing today and when I hear it the goose bumps raise the hair of my neck. It is a haunting song, more than 100 years past which brings back the brave bloody battle fought in the mopane forests of the Shangani. Like the Zulus, the Amandebele went into battle in “Impis”. An Impi was a separate fighting unit under the command of an Induna, and each Impi carried cowhide shields whose markings were particular to that Impi. These formations were usually named after wild animals. Ingwe – leopard, Inyati – buffalo, Ndhlovu – elephant, and so on.

Imagine Allan Wilson’s men. They are huddled down behind their dead horses facing out in a circle. Some of the men are dead. The remainder are staring out into the cathedral-like trunks of tall mopane trees where they can see the black horde and flashing colour of the shields and animal-skin kilts. They are waiting for their death. Late evening draws down and the muffled movements of hundreds of warriors preparing for battle is terrifying. Night falls. Then an eerie silence. Suddenly a lone voice sings out into the forest.

One word. Ingwe! It starts high on the “Ing”, and comes lower on the “we”. The warriors are encircling Wilson’s men and they are trying to carefully find each other in the dark.

INGWE!

A different voice now answers – INGWE ‘BANILE?

The original one sings back – INGWE MSILA, HELA MA BALA, INGWE

MSILA!

The second voice now – MANA LAPHA, SE NKHLUME LOWE, INGWE

MSILA

The words are basic, and few, but the beautiful haunting harmonising of this song when sung by black people whose family blood flowed back in that time, is an experience that cannot be forgotten.

Translated, the song reads as follows –

“Leopard!

Who is the leopard?

Leopard, with tail, he has spots, leopard, his tail

Wait there! We wish to speak with you!

Leopard, tail.”

As stated, Wilson’s patrol was wiped out. Since most of them were from the Fort Victoria area, their bodies were returned there, and buried. Later Cecil John Rhodes, after obtaining permission from relatives of the dead, had the bodies exhumed and reburied at World’s View in the Matobo hills – where he himself finally came to rest.

Following the battle, Lobengula continued north towards the Zambezi Valley escarpment where he died and was buried in a secret place. Why have I told this story of the Shangani Patrol?

 Peter knew this song and sang it many years ago at the fire one night after we had taken a big old leopard. He has a clear tenor voice and like most blacks he sings exactly in tune. Within minutes the rest of the staff picked it up and came in and out in perfect harmony. It was so beautiful and poignant that it has become tradition for the Ingwe song to be sung around the fire following a successful leopard hunt.

If the leopard is taken early in the evening, then he is invited to the leopard party and crouches in the place of honour just at the edge of the firelight watching proceedings. All the African staff assemble at the fire and crates of beer and soft drinks are laid on for those who want them. Many traditional songs are sung by the staff – some are funny, some, like the Ingwe song, are moving, and others are just nonsense. The hunter, already buoyed by his success, really appreciates and enjoys the show which, at various stages, honours him, the leopard, our company, my staff, me, and anybody else who wants to be honoured.

When the leopard is taken late at night, or if he is only found the next  morning, he cannot attend the next evening’s leopard party as his skin may spoil – but he is honoured in his absence none-the-less.

So many things spring to mind when I talk about this talented man. His love for fishing, his part-time amethyst and agate mining in the pebble hills near the Khami River, his love of cooked cattle feet, the list is endless. One thing I have to mention – and I checked with him first if he would allow it, and that was a lesson in trade and commerce.

Many years ago I gave Peter an old Parker Hale .303 rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun which kicked like hell and sometimes discharged both of its barrels at the same time. Ostensibly, these firearms were requested by Peter in order to shoot bushpigs or kudu that raided his fields.

During safaris, Peter would always cadge a handful of 12-gauge rounds from the client, so these were free of charge. When he arrived home he would set out into the bush looking for one of the by now gun-shy flocks of guinea fowl that foolishly lived near his village.

Peter treasured his scant shells. He is a skilled hunter, and he would painstakingly manoeuvre himself into a position where he could fire at the guinea fowl at close range when their heads were closely bunched together. Usually this kind of shot would yield five or six birds. Sometimes it would yield eight or nine.

Occasionally, when walking back through the bush with his booty slung over one shoulder, Peter bumped into one of his neighbours’ young daughters who was out collecting firewood. Usually the maiden was interested in the guinea fowl, and Peter sometimes was interested in the maiden. Some discussion followed and then, sometime later, Peter would set off home once more, one guinea fowl less. When he arrived home, he would have one bird for supper, he would keep three, sell the rest, and his neighbour’s daughter got to keep one, all from one free shotgun shell!

Serious trading.

We have always encouraged our staff to bring their wives and children to town when they get sick so we can take them to our family doctor. But in Africa, even today, well-educated qualified people continue to consult “traditional healers”. Regularly we read in the newspaper about bizarre “treatments” that have gone wrong, and some of these treatments are just too unbelievable to try to recount here. Bestiality and dismemberment of human  bodies have both featured. I remember one particular headline that grabbedour attention one morning, “Policeman found in compromising position with goat!”, it turned out that this fellow’s Witchdoctor had prescribed sex with a goat in order to rectify some problematic situation at home.

Often, however, when tribal medicines fail, my staff drag their sick to town. Their maladies have varied from gonorrhoea to scabies to shingles to chicken pox and everything in between, malaria being the most common. In June 2003 Peter told me that his wife had been ill for some time and he had taken her several times to the government clinic at Nyamandhlovu, but she continued to be ill. When he finally did bring her on the bus to town we saw that she was sick. She was listless and her body was wasted. Always a small woman, Julia now looked like a sick ten-year-old, she had shrunk so much. We knew immediately what was wrong with her.

When AIDS first started becoming prevalent in the country in the early 90s, hardly anybody, especially rural people, believed that there was such a thing. By the end of the 90s they knew better! Cemeteries overflowed, government hospitals could not cope. The World Health Organisation said that one in five people in Zimbabwe carried the HIV virus. Three and a half thousand people a week were dying from AIDS complications and there were no anti-retroviral treatments available at all.

Mugabe’s activities in 2000 plunged the country into chaos and the economy spun down into depths where it had never been before. When poor people become destitute, their already weakened resistance crumbles even further, and the HIV virus accelerates itself into full-blown AIDS, and that’s exactly what happened. Every one of our staff came home from their rural communities wide eyed and shocked at the deaths. Our telephone began to ring regularly with calls from the communal lands. “Please can you tell so and so that his wife/ brother/ child has died”.

My wife loaded Peter and his wife into the car and took them to our doctor for blood tests. We did not really need to go back there to know what the news would be. They were both positive.

Peter had been fading slowly too, but when this kind of thing happens right in front of your eyes, when you see and work with someone every day  who is losing weight, you do not really notice it. Peter was now in his 50s, and that is fairly old for a rural African, about the equivalent of 60 years old for someone who has lived their life comfortably, and well fed, in town. So I was surprised in a way that Peter tested positive, he was elderly – not the spry, well fed poacher we had met so many years before, and I expected him to be a bit thinner, a bit older looking, but on sitting back and thinking about it, there should have been no surprise at all.

We were devastated. We had already lost George in August 2002, and the thought of losing Peter too brought a lump to my throat. We had been through so much, we had come such a long way, surely this was not the end of our journey?

Immediately we took them both to AIDS counselling and we helped them stock up on good healthy food to take back to their communal home. I telephoned a client – Skip Huston, a doctor and friend in the USA – for advice and this man basically saved, or if not saved, prolonged Peter’s life. He sent over anti-retroviral drugs with our very next hunter, and we started Peter and his wife on treatment. It was too late for Julia and she passed away in February 2004. Peter looked so forlorn without his wife, he still had two small children and two teenagers to care for.

Fortunately for Peter he was quite well off, and between what we were able to do for him, and the income from his store, the children were provided for. He has now been on pills for three years. His days of tracking elephant bulls in the hot Zambezi Valley for days on end in the hot sun are over. But helping to outwit the Matobo cats, and the occasional foray after zebra and wildebeest between the koppies, is still part of his life.

He has been my friend, my teacher, and my companion for twenty-six years and when his family put him in the ground beneath his cattle kraal, a part of me, will be gone.

Part 2 will be available in May 2026.

Ricardo (L) and Peter (R) Reunited at the Harare Airport.

By Ricardo Leone

August 2025

I am sure you do not want to read yet another story about a buffalo hunt. Please, stay with me – this is an account of shooting a brace of buffalo – not once, but three times with the same PH at three different concessions in three different countries. My PH is Peter Chipman. We call each other Bwana. AHG’s Editor, Richard Lendrum, wrote about Peter and his storied career. Without rehashing Peter’s history, he is a modern-day Buffalo Bill Cody. Buffalo Bill killed thousands of American Bison back in the day. Peter is the professional hunter for over one thousand African buffalo – clearly worthy of the name, Buffalo Bwana.

Of my thirteen African hunting safaris, Bwana has been there for nine of them and arranged a tenth. Bwana is more than my outfitter and PH; he has become a dear friend to me, my long-term African hunting partner, Manno, and my youngest son. In fact, he talks English football more with my son than I talk with him about hunting. Last month Bwana was in Zimbabwe with Manno and me, and Bwana and I shot a brace of Cape buffalo – our third double together. I asked him of his thousand buffalo, how many doubles he shot – the answer was five. I replied, “we have three of those five”! Given only five doubles out of thousand and our three together, I feel compelled to share our unique experiences.

A Real Cluster

Manno, Bwana, and I travelled to Bugungu Wildlife Reserve in Uganda back in 2022 where would hunt Nile buffalo, one of the five species of buffalo in Africa; of the five species, the Nile is closest to the Cape buffalo. Bruce Martin, the owner of Lake Albert Safaris was our outfitter. To the best of Bruce’s knowledge, we would be the first folks to legally hunt Nile buffalo in five decades on this concession. Looking at a map you will find Bugungu Wildlife Reserve at the southern boundary of Murchison Falls National Park. To put a finer point on the location, look up the location of Ernest Hemingway’s second plane crash in Uganda back in 1954 – it was at the now defunct airstrip in Butiaba on the shores of Lake Albert just across the road from Bugungu Wildlife Reserve.

As the hunting concession had just opened, there was only one working road cut into the bush – we had to rely on the tracker’s recent knowledge of where the buffalo might be and pick our way carefully through the brush. We all travelled together on one Land Cruiser. Within an hour, we bumped a small herd of less than ten buffalo – mostly cows, a couple of calves and one smallish bull. Bwana, and our local PH, Charles, were guiding me. Bruce was sure there was another bull based on the intelligence from the trackers – neither Bwana, Manno, nor I saw a second bull. Before we could dismount, the herd ran off and shortly thereafter the skies opened and drenched us. We returned to camp, changed shirts, and as we waited out the rain there was continued debate about whether the bull was a shooter or not and, of course, there was the question of a second bull – did we miss something? After an hour, the rain stopped and we continued our hunt. The rest of the drive was quiet.

The next morning, we decided to stay together on one vehicle again due to the wet ground. Sadly, the morning proved unproductive despite an intense stalk through thick brush. We saw a big herd but never saw a shooter. After lunch, we left camp to resume the morning plan. The ground was noticeably dryer. We found the tracks of the small herd from the morning and decided to leave the Land Cruiser to begin our stalk. We had walked for no more than fifteen minutes when I saw the small herd – others in our oversized entourage saw the herd and clearly the herd saw us and ran off. Bwana took over and we walked to our left to use the brush for cover. We made our way around the brush and followed where the herd ran – we could see two bulls ahead, but they moved before we could get a shot. We kept moving to our left behind cover hoping to cut the herd off. As planned, we met up with the herd – there was one bull at one hundred yards, facing to our left. Bwana set the sticks. I set my Rigby .416 rifle on the sticks, took aim at his left front shoulder, and shot. I could see the buffalo buckle – the entire herd ran to our left with no opportunity for a second shot.

We all walked to where the bull was standing hoping to pick up a blood trail. As we arrived where the buffalo was first standing, the herd spotted us from afar and was on the move again. They broke to our right taking cover in brush about 125 yards away. Bringing up the rear was the buffalo I shot – his front left leg was dragging. We made a quick plan to move forward toward the bushes and wait for herd to break again. We hoped my buffalo would give me the chance at a second shot. The cows and calves followed the script but not the bulls. Then a bull poked his head out with part of his front quarter exposed – now facing to our right. Our entourage, some seven strong with Manno on the stalk too, was overly excited with many opinions among the three PHs, guides and trackers. The wisdom of the village decided this was my wounded buffalo despite no clear confirmation. Bwana set the sticks – I stepped up and Bwana told me to put a shot on his shoulder. The buffalo was only partially exposed with the grass covering his knee. I took the shot and hit the buffalo which ran forward in the same direction the cows and out of sight. This buffalo’s front left leg was not dragging. Now there was doubt in the air. Bruce thought there could be two wounded buffaloes. He told Bwana to prepare Manno just in case we had two buffalo to clean up.

We all walked forward angling left to make sure the buffalo with the wounded leg was not waiting behind – remember, we never saw it in all the drama. Bwana led, Charles next, with me on their heels. Bwana and Charles saw the buffalo with the lame leg just as the buffalo saw us – it turned and looked directly at us. Bwana set the sticks and told me put a round into him before he charged us. Given the angle, I put a well-placed shot between his shoulder and head. The buffalo took the load and backed up – he then turned 180 degrees and stepped forward and stopped. Bwana picked up the sticks, walked forward and set the sticks once again. I put two more shots into the buffalo – this time, he rolled. We waited for the death moan. We started to step forward and Bwana said we should hold fast – he did not want to walk into the tall grass with a possible second bull still out there. Bruce and Charles doubled back to retrieve the Land Cruiser while the rest of us waited there.

As Bruce had suggested, Manno was on deck to finish off the second bull. I had already fired five rounds, at least four into the one lying in front of us. As we were waiting, Bwana saw a large black mound in the bushes just thirty-five yards in front of us. He had spotted the second buffalo; it was facing to our left. Bwana set the sticks for Manno who stepped up and fired. We cautiously walked wide to the left of the bushes – the buffalo was still in the same position clearly compromised. Bwana reset the sticks and Manno shot again and then took a third security shot. The second buffalo succumbed to Manno’s Rigby .416. We approached the second buffalo which was lying on his left exposing a high lung shot from my initial shot confirming this was the second buffalo. It must be said Bwana’s sixth sense of forbidding us from entering the tall grass surely saved us from harm’s way. Buffalo Bwana’s experience is second to none.

As we started to unravel events, the Land Cruiser arrived. Collectively we pieced the puzzle together. Bruce looked satisfied with proof the small herd did have two buffalo as he thought. With no more doubt, we made a new plan on how to take photos of the two Nile buffalo together. The two buffaloes were symmetrically aligned and ready for photos. While the picture looked good, the hunt was a real cluster. Too many cooks in the kitchen for sure. Manno helped me clean up, but this was not the buffalo hunt he signed up for. Bruce acknowledged this and arranged for Manno to hunt his own buffalo later in our trip.

Despite the cluster, it should be noted that these two buffalo were the first legally taken in the Bugungu Wildlife Reserve in five decades. Furthermore, this was the first buffalo meat to be delivered to the local village over a similar timespan. Delivering the meat was something we all looked forward to. While the village was clearly happy to be the recipient of fresh nyama, the chairman of the village did not miss the opportunity to tell Lake Albert Safari’s local operations manager that he should hire more local people. I may have been seven thousand miles from home, but the politics were the same.

The Rhetorical Question

A brace of Nile buffalo after a real cluster.

In 2023, Manno, Bwana and I headed to the Selous in Tanzania. This was Manno’s and my tenth safari together, all but three with Bwana. Bwana was my PH for most of this trip. Most days, we left camp looking for old Dagga Boys. Manno had been working a few waterholes and had already taken two buffalo, one 42” wide. Early one morning, Bwana and I spotted two old Dagga Boys on our left walking from a drying waterhole, over two hundred and fifty yards away. The crew jumped into action with Bwana taking the sticks from the head tracker, Longi, with me close behind Bwana with my new Grifin and Howe .404 Jefferys. I had three bullets in the rifle and five on my belt. Bwana set the sticks at 180 yards. The buffalo sensed us and nervously moved about. 

Bwana told me to look at the one on left through my scope and after glassing longer, Bwana told me to take the one on the right and I took a well-placed shot off the sticks into his shoulder. Bwana told me to take another shot, and I missed – I took a third shot as the bull ran and connected. The initial shoulder shot took its toll, and he fell with the third shot. I took another shot while he was on the ground. Bwana then took the sticks and chased after the second buffalo who had moved to our right, away from waterhole into woods. However, he did not want to leave the first buffalo. Bwana then asked if I wanted to shoot a second buffalo – it was clear to me this was a rhetorical question as he was intent on following the second one. Longi had been guiding me from behind with his hand on my back. Bwana had closed the gap to 120 yards. The second buffalo was still moving so Bwana repositioned the sticks and told me to shoot at my pace. I had a good broadside shot and took it – again, a well-placed shoulder shot. Bwana had me keep shooting while the buffalo was moving. I loaded my last bullet and told Bwana I needed more bullets. Longi asked where they were – I told him they were in my pack on the Land Cruiser roof rack. The buffalo had slowed to a stop. The first buffalo let out a moan – the second buffalo moved back towards the first with his head facing in the direction of the first. Bwana repositioned the sticks and I took my last shot which landed well. We waited for Longi who came running with his two hands cupped around seven bullets. While waiting for Longi, I told Bwana he might need to get his .470 double ready – he did not budge. I started to load one bullet and Bwana said to load three. The buffalo was not moving. I took one more shot and we had two old Dagga Boys down – they were one hundred yards apart. I had “a brace” in front of me. Bwana was incredibly happy – in his thirty-five years as a PH he said this was only his fourth double. This was a special time for Bwana, Longi, and me – we stood still and absorbed the moment.

We approached the second buffalo first – he was done. He was a great old Dagga Boy with nice curls. We took pictures, then went to see first buffalo. Despite the several death moans, he was still rolling a bit. He tried to raise his head and that was his last gasp. Bwana really liked this old one – his large boss was worn smooth, and tips worn down. We took pictures with him while the Land Cruiser pulled the second buffalo next to the first. Bwana positioned the two old bulls head-to-head for more pictures.

This was our second double of buffalo in as many years, although the previous year in Uganda was real cluster and I had Manno’s help. This year’s double was mine alone.

Buffalo Bwana celebrating our second double with me.

Buffalo Bwana and my third double together.

tracks, it was Peter who could see the buffalo. Even Guy, who climbed up on a pile of dirt, could not make a visual on the buffalo. Bwana directed traffic from the rear until we all had a visual. The closest buffalo was sixty yards away; he was feeding with his head down so we could not see his boss to know if it was an old Dagga Boy or soft-top. Bwana walked to his right get a better look at the buffalo’s boss and gave the thumbs up. Given the dense brush we decided Bwana would back me up with his borrowed .458. Not sure whose idea it was, but I welcomed the thought of not walking through dense brush to find a dead buffalo – as the saying goes, it’s the dead ones that kill you.

Guy set the sticks for me and asked me to wait until he got a visual. Once he was ready, I heard “shoot.” As soon as I fired, my unprotected right ear felt Bwana’s .458 shot in no uncertain terms. There was barely a full second between shots. We both watched the buffalo about face and disappear into the brush. We waited for a bellow – nothing. While waiting I saw Guy wave me over – he had set the sticks on another buffalo who was looking directly at us from seventy yards out. I asked Guy how he knew that buffalo was the one we had shot? He looked at me and said we are taking a second one. I was totally with the program. I jumped on the sticks while Bwana positioned himself next to me. As I put ear protection into my right ear, Guy said to shoot him in the chest. I took aim and took a frontal shot – Bwana followed suit. We watched this buffalo back-up, turn and drop to the ground. Then we heard the first buffalo’s bellow – we had the “all clear.” Even so, we navigated through the brush with caution and found the two buffalo about fifteen yards apart. The first buffalo required a mercy shot and we had our double.

Bwana and I instinctively knew how we wanted to position our brace for photos – we had done it before. Despite all the brush we were concerned about, there was a clearing adjacent to where the buffalo lay, and with the help of the Land Cruiser, we easily moved the buffalo. Guy was equally stoked and told us this was his first double – welcome to the club.

For Buffalo Bwana this was his fifth double in over a thousand buffalo. I did not have to remind him it was our third together. After the cluster in Uganda and the rhetorical question in the Selous – I told Bwana, this was the way to do it with him backing me up. He said if we were in dense brush again, he would be right behind me locked and loaded – otherwise, he would watch me with pride, especially if we were ever lucky enough to see double trouble again.

Welcome to the club, Guy.

Chapter Thirteen

The Season of Monsters

In the year 2000, political turmoil struck Zimbabwe. The government ignited an aggressive lawless land take over for reasons which I won’t discuss here. The white farmers were beaten and driven from their land and many of them lost everything they owned. Several were unspeakably done to death and their farm workers too were beaten and tortured, their homes burned, and they were also chased off the farms.

This state of affairs basically shut down tourism in all forms, including hunting. Game which had been carefully husbanded over many years was slaughtered within months.

Our two main areas of operation at that time were the open grassland areas east of Bulawayo at Shangani, which belonged to De Beers – the diamond people – and our western Matobo base which was on the Ingwezi River on AJ Bradnick’s ranches.

Both of these areas were shut down for hunting. It was unsafe to take foreign tourists into these areas and the game was disappearing fast. On Shangani, one night a ranch manager stopped an army truck with more than a dozen dead tsesebee on board! There was no avenue of recourse at all. The devastation was ordered by the government. Gunfire across the game lands was constant. This basically killed our livelihood, and like thousands of other white Africans, I was extremely anxious about our immediate future. Eighty percent of private-land safari operations collapsed. Over the next few years more than two million people, among them over one hundred thousand whites, left the country in order to try to make a new stable life elsewhere. Lots of us though, decided to hang on as long as possible in the hope that the violence would abate. Some, like myself, were fourth generation Africans! Where would we go? Africa was the only home that we knew.

When 2001 knocked timidly at the door, prospects were still bleak. But we had to make a decision, we had to “make a plan”. Graham, who had lost nine thousand of his twelve thousand acres, suggested that I take a look at the old ARDA (African Rural Development Authority) land, and run an experimental season there.

In 1980, at the end of the Rhodesian war, the black government came into power and Zimbabwe was born. Britain, the original colonial power that had formed Rhodesia, was instrumental in brokering the peace deal between the white Rhodesian government and the communist-backed guerrillas. It should be remembered that the colonial Rhodesians had declared independence from Britain in 1965. Part of Britain’s deal when organising peace, was an offer to provide funds to the new black government so that they could purchase any and all land offered to the government, by white farmers, on a willing seller willing-buyer agreement. This way, the black government could get their hands on much-needed land without resorting to violence. This system worked perfectly in the early years following independence.

I have mentioned previously that I hunted on land in this Marula south area back in 1982, when I was working for Soren Haagensen. At that time the huge ranches I hunted on were owned by the Greenspan family. This was wonderful plainsgame country in those days and I hope that one day it can be the same again.

In about 1983, many landowners sold their huge Marula south and Kezi area ranches to the government on this willing-seller willing-buyer scheme. The Greenspan ranches, Greef ranches and Collett ranches were all sold. But surprisingly, the government failed to hand over, or develop, any of this land for land-hungry people. I imagine they simply said to themselves – “the white ranchers made money ranching this land, we will do the same!” Millions of acres stretching from the Botswana border in the west to Gwanda town on the Johannesburg road in the east, were handed to the government parastatal, ARDA, for the purpose of farming.

The fast slide into shambolic chaos was amazing. The first thing to go was the wildlife. It was poached right to the brink. The homesteads fell apart, as did all farming infrastructure like fences, gates, roads, dip-tanks, water supply tanks and telephone lines. All machinery died or disappeared. The difference between the once beautiful cattle ranches – many of which had won Natural Resources Board farming prizes – to this abandoned-looking government venture, was as stark and disturbing as if walking into a war zone. It was pitiful.

Then, in the late 1990s, many black Zimbabweans started expressing their anger and dismay toward the government regarding the land problem, in a more aggressive manner. This ARDA land was used as an example. “Why is the government sitting with millions of acres in Matabeleland south, where no proper farming is going on, yet they tell us that there is no land, the white man has all the land?” People were becoming restless. The government hastily advertised for potential ranchers who could meet a certain criteria to send in applications for “new farms”. The old white ranches, and recently ex-ARDA land, was now divided up into 3000-acre sections and allocated to successful applicants.

It should be noted that the parcelling out of the 3000-acre farms was prior to, and had nothing to do with, the illegal land grabbing of 2001. From the names of the new farmers, I recognised one. Alvord Mabena. This man had, in recent history, been head of the National Railways of Zimbabwe and lived quite near to me in Bulawayo.

I decided to take a chance and call him first, as opposed to various other political heavy-weights whose names featured in the new farmers roll, and what a fortuitous choice that turned out to be. I met with Alvord and he turned out to be a thinking man not prone to making rash decisions, and he also seemed to wield a certain amount of respect from most of the other farmers. I explained the whole concept to him. The problem was this; it is impossible to take a paying client down to an area where each separate farm is only 3000 acres. You may be hard on the tracks of a herd of wildebeest for example, and then find that they have crossed onto another farm. We needed to have a workable number of farms under one banner, which we could hunt as one concession. We called a meeting with all the new A2 farmers in the Marula south area and most of them attended. The meeting went well, and the farmers, who had no idea of how the safari industry worked, were impressed when they were shown the figures on what we would pay them for their game animals. The Ingwezi Game Management Project was formed, and we went into business.

This is not the place to describe the headaches, inefficiency, pig-headedness and sheer difficulty of trying to form thirty people into a cohesive association. My hat is off to Alvord Mabena and Israel Ndlovu who shepherded this ungainly beast. They had to deal with all the necessary things that go into running a game operation, kitting out, training and managing an anti-poaching unit, liaising with local police, the sharing out of trophy fees equitably and applying for hunting permits to the Department of Wildlife. One of the biggest problems was trying to change the culture mind-set that most of the new farmers were in regarding wild animals. They simply could not grasp the fact that game, just like cattle, has to be protected, husbanded, in order to make money out of it. These people were happier eating a wildebeest today, than making eight hundred American dollars out of it next year via the trophy fee and still getting the meat then! It was a big uphill battle. We held meeting after meeting after meeting.

One obnoxious individual was kicked out of the project by the other farmers shortly after it started. This fellow, an educated man and ex-newspaper editor, shot four wildebeest on his farm for meat which was expressly against what had just been agreed! He then went to fetch the anti-poaching team, told them to load the poached animals onto his truck, instructing them not to say anything about the incident! When he was confronted by me about this, he became abusive and indignant, and of course had to pull out the old well-worn race card. I could not understand it. Here an opportunity had fallen into his lap to earn good money out of a resource that was not earning him money before, had to do no work at all to reap the benefits, but he still could not get it together! Simple greed. Quite amazing. Slowly most of the farmers came around to a conservation-orientated way of thinking and the project flourished. However, I have run ahead of myself.

So much for the formation of the project. We had lost AJ’s farms and Debshan, but we still wanted to operate safaris. Most of our hunts in the latter part of the nineties were plainsgame hunts with four or five leopard/plainsgame safaris per season as well. With our plainsgame areas now gone, we had to rethink how our operation was going to stay alive.

Before we actually instigated the first project meeting, Graham and I drove around the old Greef and Greenspan ranches which had been plundered during the ARDA era, and which now belonged to the A2 farmers. We spoke to as many of the cattle-herders as we could. These were the “men on the ground” and they would know about game movement. The wildebeest, kudu, impala, zebra and small game had been decimated. There were still small pockets of these animals scattered around but they were few, and they were wild. We asked about leopard. “Hau!” the cattle herders exclaimed, “the leopards are many, and the game animals for them to eat are too few. The leopards are taking the cattle all the time! We even see leopards in the daytime.” So there was bad news, and there was very good news too.

When the white farmers were still in this area in 1982, they were trapping, poisoning and shooting cattle-killing cats. The farmers left in 1983 and seventeen years had passed with very little, if any, predator control at all. We had been operating from the Ingwezi camp on AJ’s property for about twelve years by this time, and we knew how to outwit farm leopards. We decided, “The hell with plainsgame, let us try to sell more leopard”. There had to be large old leopard on the ARDA land which had never seen a trap or a hunter’s bait. A few operators had tried stop-start programmes on these areas under ARDA, but none of them had lasted. The ARDA bureaucracy was just too much to deal with when coupled with the dreadful mismanagement on the ground.

For the first time in twenty years of professional hunting, we organised an advertisement in a hunting magazine and Graham and I planned a marketing trip to America. The advertisement worked and many queries, some serious, some not, came our way.

Our angle, or focus, was total leopard hunting. We did not sugarcoat the information. We were looking for serious leopard hunters who were prepared to work hard. We had very little plainsgame to offer and the hunter would probably see very little as we hung baits, checked baits and scouted for leopard sign. But we promised these hunters that they would be in an area with many large cats and we would work until we dropped, or until we nailed one. Of course we drew hard on our established clientele and many of them came to the party. We killed fourteen leopards that season and eight of them were giant supercats. Out of these eight supercats, four were taken by my established clients which really pleased us.

The marketing trip to USA was successful. Graham and I returned home and prepared for a season of all-out leopard hunting. The “project” seemed to be straining through its birth pangs and we were very pleasantly surprised at the amount of game which had already started to come in to a “safe haven”. I should say “safer” haven, as we still had a lot of poaching problems and the area was still a long way from being completely safe. But the game was definitely increasing.

Peter, George and I scouted hard in April of 2001 and when our first safari commenced in May, we had identified several large male tracks that we were going to target. The first hunter that year was Mike Boyce from Nevada. Unfortunately he had to cut his safari short due to work pressures at home and he left empty-handed. The second hunter was a fellow from Philadelphia named John Strobel who became good friends with all of us. John arrived in early May and he and I “explored” most of our new project area, sleeping out in the bush wherever we stopped at sundown. John should have had a Supercat, and he surely he deserved one, but he went home with a young male of about one hundred and thirty pounds. He made a great shot and treasured his trophy. But he saw the leopard that should have been his, and it was a beauty. Amongst the trophies that John collected was a huge zebra stallion which we hung for bait near the Chavakadze river-road junction.

Warren Mabey was our next client and he took a strikingly marked giant male leopard near the Mangwe Pass monument on his first night. The story of this hunt is described in the chapter “Unexpected Gifts”. Whilst Warren was hunting sable with Graham, our friend from Brazil, Sidney Lovell-Parker, arrived. This was in the second half of May and Sidney had brought another hunter with him named Luis Simoes.

Sidney was originally brought to us by a fellow professional hunter and friend, Neil Lindsay. Neil is a free-lance hunter and had guided Sidney on a big game hunt with another operator. Sidney had expressed interest in a large leopard, so Neil talked him into coming down to the old Ingwezi river camp on AJ’s.

It was one of those hunts which had all the ingredients required to make it a memorable story by itself and is often recounted around our evening campfire. One would be forgiven for going to the airport to pick up someone named Sidney Lovell-Parker, and looking for a white-haired, clipped-moustached, proper old Englishman with gin-embellished cheeks and nose. To me, that’s what the name conjured up. But Sidney is a real Brazilian. His grandfather was an Englishman who fell in love with, and married one of those dusky-skinned black-haired beauties that Brazil is famous for. The double-barrelled pommy name is the only thing English about Sidney. He and Neil arrived at my Ingwezi camp in July 1993 and commenced what Sidney calls “my impala safari”. Most of Neil’s professional hunting experience had been on government big-game safari areas. He had run several successful hunts up on Matetsi Unit Two for us and he had also worked for some time in the Kariba Basin concessions. He had not yet been a pupil at the frustrating leopard school of the Matobo Hills.

Neil and Sidney trudged through a 14-day one-sided game of chess. They hung about fourteen impala and sat in a blind on nine of the fourteen days. Persistence was certainly not their failing. Two large male leopard and one female fed on some of the baits, but the hunters zigged when they should have zagged, and sat at ‘A’ when they should have been sitting at ‘B’. Swirling wind, blinds that were too close to the bait, blinds placed near fortress-koppies where the cat watched the hunters, noise in the blind, all the things that we Matobo Hills hunters have had to learn the hard way. Like Neil and Sidney were doing. And the most important factor of all, Lady Luck, had taken her capricious self a long way from the Ingwezi. One morning the hunters saw the huge tracks of the male they had been sitting for, eight yards behind the blind!

I met with Neil and Sidney at the end of the safari to complete the paperwork. Sidney was tired and obviously disappointed. It was clear to him that the leopards were there but he felt defeated.

I offered Sidney a free safari the following year if he wished to return and that was the start of a great friendship which has lasted all these years and covered many safaris.

As June 1994 approached, I found myself in a bit of a predicament. Neil Lindsay was a personal friend of ours and I did not want, in any way, to make him feel inadequate or just straight “pissed off’ at me. I had the feeling that Sidney wanted, or expected, to hunt with me, and this had actually been my intention. I could not afford to outfit another 14-day safari out of my own pocket and have Sidney fail again. But Neil was expecting to do the hunt! What to do? Neil’s feelings were important, and I asked him to go ahead as he had planned. I based myself at Graham’s farm, twenty miles north of the Ingwezi camp, and I also commenced baiting in earnest. My plan was to geta cat on bait, build the blind, and send word to Neil to come up and finish the job. I wasn’t going to hunt with Sidney, but I was going to do everything I could to make sure he got his cat this time around.

One of Neil’s pre-baits was fed on by a medium sized male. Sidney, at this time was in Johannesburg, where he stayed overnight before his connection to Bulawayo the following day. Neil telephoned Sidney at the hotel and gave him the good news, telling him to be prepared to go straight from the airport into the blind. It is a good two-hour drive from Bulawayo to Ingwezi and I was doubtful that they would make it in time.

Sidney told me later that he realised because of the failure the previous year, he must do this (go straight from the airport into the blind), but he was very unhappy about it. He felt that since he had no input at all into the hunt, this was more “leopard shooting” than leopard hunting. He should not have worried. He and Neil motored on down to the Ingwezi, checked the rifle, and entered the blind. Murphy was still on this safari. They sat in the blind until 10pm and then went back to camp. Exactly like the year before. I firmly believe that if these guys had stayed through the night, not only on this night, but the previous year as well, they would have had a leopard by now. So many of our big male leopards are killed in the late hours.

So for Sidney it was back to impala safariing. In the next four days the hunters collected and hung another six impala, making a total of nine, when added to Neil’s three pre-baits.

There is a large koppie about a mile southwest of the Ingwezi camp called Dombolefu. Over the years we have taken many leopard within sight of this prominent feature and that is the direction Neil and Sidney took on day five. Before you reach Dombolefu the road crosses a small nameless sandy streambed. It is no longer nameless. From that day on it was known as Dead Woman Creek. When Neil was halfway across, he noticed a person lying in the dry sand. He stopped the car and he and Sidney and the trackers went to investigate.

The streambed is about twenty-five yards wide and flows east into the Ingwezi about a mile away, downstream from the camp. The hunters saw that the body was that of an old emaciated dead woman. It turned out later that she had gone missing three days previously from a village fourteen miles away and she had possibly died of thirst or starvation, or both. Neil was obliged to report the dead person, so they drove an hour north to AJ’s homestead where they were able to use the telephone. The police asked Neil to meet them at the body so that they could record a statement from him and the staff. When Neil left AJ’s house they hunted hard for yet another impala to hang, but it was one of those days. Not a wild animal to be seen. Finally, after several hours, Sidney glimpsed movement in the bush. They stopped the Toyota and he snuck into the thickets to investigate. Impala. Sidney managed to find a small avenue through the thorns and took a chance. Impala number ten fell. When Neil parked the Jeep back at the stream, the police Land Rover was already there and the body was being loaded up. By the time the statements were all taken down it was 4pm, and not much time remained that day to scout around for new leopard tracks. Neil mentioned to Sidney that they were not far from the spot where, the year before, Neil and Sidney had a big leopard eat one of their baits and never return. Neil thought maybe they should just hang this impala at the edge of this streambed since it probably fell within the big cat’s territory. They decided this was as good a spot as any and dragged the impala upstream to the first bend in search of a thicket. There was none. They hung the impala anyway and returned to camp.

Meanwhile, I had managed to get a large female leopard on bait up at Graham’s place. I had built the blind and sent George down to the Ingwezi camp with a message for Neil, asking him to come up as soon as he could. When Neil and Sidney arrived back at their camp, George was waiting. They discussed the news and Sidney was sorely tempted. He did not want to fail again, but he was now determined to succeed by his and Neil’s own efforts. He had a good feeling about the Dead Woman Creek bait and decided not to come up to take the female.

The next morning Neil turned the Toyota onto the track which led to the start of the bait-checking circuit. Sidney stopped him and said, “Let’s go first to the Dead Woman bait Neil. I have a feeling.”

Neil turned the car and headed for the creek near Dombolefu. Pay day!  The giant track that they had seen under their bait a year ago was back! The big leopard had fed on the back legs of Sidney’s impala but it had not eaten much. The approach and departure tracks were clear in the dry sand, and luckily, they came from, and returned to the east towards the Ingwezi river. This meant that a blind could be situated downwind to the west of the bait without problems involving the cat’s approach. Sidney decided to do things his way this year and Neil humoured his wishes. Instead of the grass sides that Neil wanted to collect from camp, Sidney insisted on using natural materials found on the spot. They built a blind about 80 yards away on the opposite side of the creek from the bait, inside a clump of guarrie bushes. The truck was sent to the camp for the mattresses, blankets and other gear that was needed and when it returned, Sidney lined the inside of the blind walls with extra blankets.

The hunters tried to rest in camp in preparation for a night in the blind but Sidney was too wound up about this cat and coerced Neil into leaving camp at 2.30! They settled in by 3.30pm, warning line attached and ready to go. This early start left them exposed to a long hot afternoon in the blind but Sidney felt that this time things were different. The sun finally slipped away and leopard time crept in. Sidney lay on his back watching the night sky and thinking about the dead woman.

At a quarter past eight the stick bowed. The hunters eased slowly, silently, into position. Sidney whispered, “Okay”. The light blazed. The cat was sitting in the sand behind the bait, his head hidden by the dead impala. Sidney eased the scope left a little, centred on the chest, and touched off. The cat collapsed, heart shot and spine shot, into the sand. Finally. Neil and Sidney were not only jubilant at their success, they were seriously relieved. They recovered the leopard, which was a big one, and proceeded to camp where a leopard party par-excellence soon followed. The next morning as I was preparing my vehicle in Graham’s yard, I saw Neil’s Land Cruiser barrelling in like he was on a rally, dust billowing behind him. I knew then. I was happy for Sidney, and I was also damned happy for Neil. When he skidded to a reckless halt I looked in the back of the truck at the biggest leopard up until that time – that I had ever seen. It was a beauty! It was a long, well-proportioned animal, big everywhere. Thick tail, massive head and neck, and outstanding colouring. If the cat had not been gutted we would have weighed it. Looking back now, I imagine that it must have been in the one hundred and eighty pound region at least. In Murphy’s absence my friend Neil had come good.

So that is the story of Sidney’s first leopard. Back to the season of monsters. Sidney and Luis Simoes arrived in mid-May 2001. “Wayne, Luis would like to hunt some plainsgame – maybe kudu, zebra, wildebeest to start, what do you think?”

“No problem,” I answered. “But you mentioned in your letter that you want to hunt another leopard. How does that fit in? Are you going to hunt two on one, with Luis?”

“Yes, of course,” says Sidney. “We will hunt together. Have a good time. But I want to shoot a leopard bigger than the one I have already. Okay?” I stared at him incredulously. Did I detect a twinkle in the eye with that wry half-smile? I sincerely hoped so, but decided to tackle this head-on anyway. “Sidney,” I said, “you have taken one of the biggest leopards any of us have ever seen. You may shoot another nice cat, but it’s not possible to improve on the giant you took with Neil!”

“Hey, we try,” he said, and with that the hunt commenced. We had only been hunting for five days, and had taken wildebeest and zebra with Luis, when luck arrived. It is one of those strange things, but whenever my wife came out to join a safari, she seemed to bring cat-luck with her. This safari was no exception. The day after she arrived at the mountain camp, we found that the zebra leg that I had placed with John Strobel on the Chavakadze river, down on the project, had been torn apart by a huge male leopard. The cat had eaten and then drunk water from a wet sandy beach at the edge of the stream. His big tracks were clear and we measured them at ten and a quarter. The reason we had baited this spot was because during John Strobel’s safari we had found that a big cat crossed the main Mangwe-Thornville road regularly, heading west. The spoor veered around a cattle  herder’s village and then walked down a long exposed granite dwala all the way to the Chavakadze. He had not followed this route whilst John was with us, but he had followed it now, and he had found our offering. There was, however, a small problem. We climbed out of the streambed, west, up a low rise and stood on a huge flat open granite dwala. We now faced east back towards the river and the bait – into the wind. On our right, about three hundred yards away, stood an isolated koppie about one hundred and forty feet high. Not large, but prominent anyway. The cat’s tracks, after feeding, had headed towards this koppie. I did not feel that the big leopard had taken refuge there, however. As we stood looking towards the stream and the bait, the koppie to our right, a dirt road linking the Mangwe road and the project farms behind us, lay on our left-hand side about 80 yards away. This road was used by the farm owners, usually on weekends when they came out from town, and itwas also used by the farm workers and other locals who travelled on foot and bicycle. I felt that this leopard would probably not want to lay up so close to the road, especially not in a koppie which did not really provide much thick cover. My worry was that if he had left this way, then it was likely he would return this way. That meant that he would possibly climb the koppie some time near or after dusk and survey the area where he had fed. If we put the blind on, or near the dwala, which I wanted to do because of wind direction and view of the bait, then he may detect us in the blind. He would be higher than us and only three hundred yards away and I did not feel good about this original choice of a blind site.

We walked north, to our left, until we stood on the road. I looked towards the bait. This could work. It was a long shot of one hundred and thirty yards or so, but it could work. A stunted, but thickly leafed bush willow (Combretum zeyheri) tree grew right next to the farm track. I decided to put the blind underneath it. If the cat climbed the hill before coming in to the zebra meat, we would now be about 380 yards away to the north hidden under good cover. We erected the blind, camouflaged it, and were done by noon. We returned to the mountain camp stopping on the way to check the zero of Sidney’s rifle at 130 yards. It was perfect.

We returned to the blind at four o’clock. The plan was for my wife, Luis, Peter and George, to camp down on the road about a mile to the north east of where Sidney and I sat in the blind. We were settled in with the rifle securely bedded and cocked by 4.45. We had hardly settled in when I heard a clanking sound followed by womens’ voices. I looked out the back of the blind and saw three women approaching the river, one carrying a bucket. They looked like they had endured a hard walk and they sat down at the water preparing to wash and take a drink. My low whistle startled them. I told them to hurry up and have a drink and get going, which they did, staring curiously into the back of the blind as they walked past.

The sun slid into the thorn trees to our right and the last evening cries of roosting francolin were suddenly joined by human voices! Sidney and I frowned at each other. They were singing voices! It was Sunday. Sundays, like Friday nights and Saturdays, are serious drinking days in rural Africa. Many of the rural Africans, no matter how poor they might be, drink themselves into a state of near paralysis on Sundays. Many times I have come across people laying next to discarded bicycles, way out in the bush, completely incapacitated by drink. This was something that I had not taken into account when siting our blind on this, a Sunday. Damn it! It was now just on 6pm. Leopard time. Sitting back and thinking about it made me realise that this was an old cat. He had lived here for maybe a decade or more. He knew the villages, the cattle, and he knew all about people. I decided this intrusion was no big deal, it shouldn’t spook our cat. The singing grew louder. I looked out the back of the blind toward the stream where the women had stopped. Two elderly fellows, completely wrecked from drink and battling to move themselves efficiently, came into view. Although they were together, they were shouting to each other as if they had been hundreds of yards apart. More singing.

As they reached the back of the blind I stuck my head out and asked them to quieten down and move along. If a spirit had emerged from the ground in the road I do not think their reaction could have been much different than it was when they saw this white man’s head pop out of the bush. It is probably a good thing that these two people were seriously inebriated, as I felt that their ability to register shock had been dulled somewhat, and their reaction now, although hilarious, was a lot quieter and less drastic than it could have been. Margie told me later that when the two singers had come upon our party on the road further east, she had warned them that we were hunting leopard nearby and they should hurry along and be quiet about it. I do not think they knew anything about how leopard were hunted and they definitely did not expect to see a head speaking to them from inside a bush.

When I addressed these fellows in hushed tones, the nearest fell down in shock whilst the other back-pedalled about half a dozen yards, his red eyes bulging and his heavy old car-tyre sandals clap-clapping on the hard dirt. The fallen one scrabbled around furiously before he managed to balance himself enough to get upright whereupon he made off as fast as he could walk down the road to the west. He said absolutely nothing, his rickety thin legs conveying him in a noisy zigzag manner as fast as they could go. I was choked with the urge to laugh. The back-pedalling upright singer uttered only a loud “Hau!” before he too scuffled off down the road. We did not hear them sing or talk again so they must have made off at a good rate.

I felt that the leopard would have come in sooner that night if it had not been for our two loud groups of visitors, but even with all the disturbance, we did not have long to wait. Ten minutes before seven the warning stick arched. Sidney moved into position and the light went on. At 130 yards the leopard looked small. I had warned Sidney about this, especially since the first cat he took with Neil had been much closer.

“If it’s a leopard Sidney, I will ask you to shoot – please don’t query about the size, at this distance, it will not look big!” I had told Sidney.

He did not query or waste time. I saw that it was a leopard. He was sitting in dog position facing the meat, and us.

“Take him Sidney.” Boom!

The cat roared as it sprang into the air, and it came down in a thrashing ball and then took off into the thick stuff.

Sidney felt good about his shot. “I was steady, the cross hairs looked good,” he said.

Several minutes later Margie arrived with the others and we drove right up to the bait. The freshly torn earth where the enraged cat had spun around was sprinkled with lung blood. Good news. George geared himself up to carry the battery whilst I clipped on my belt and pistol. When I had the .460 cocked, we moved slowly past the bait, Peter in front, crouched, looking for blood.

We had hardly got going when I saw the pale fur on the side of the dead cat up ahead. I sneaked up carefully to make sure that he was dead and then enjoyed my first clear look at him. He was a brute. Big headed, heavy wrinkled neck, massive arms and thick lion tail. He was a beauty in the prime of life. Sidney had shot him perfectly through the heart and lungs. When we moved the giant cat out of the bush back to the car, and all the congratulations and back slapping were done, we picked him up so that Sidney could hold him for the photographs. This cat was a lot heavier than we initially thought and it was a mission for one man to hold him up.

“Sidney, you ordered up one leopard bigger than your first one, is this the one?” I asked.

Sidney laughed, “Yes, he is bigger.”

I was not so sure. It had been a few years since I had seen Sidney’s first leopard and it still sticks in my mind as an absolute giant. I would not like to have to choose between them.

The first one taken down near Dombolefu with Neil seemed to me to have been longer than this cat. When the skull was dried though, this one proved to have a bigger skull measurement.

Two giant supercats were in the salt, and it was only May! Our next hunter was Ralph Kieley, from South Dakota, who arrived in June. The story of his hunt is told in “A Koppie Called Kevin”. Another monster of a cat, and supercat number three. After Ralph came Fred and Julie Herbst whose hunt took place in late June and early July. “Ambush Alley” recounts the details of this exciting hunt where yet another supercat, heavier than anything I had ever seen before, was killed.

After Fred and Julie’s hunt, a group of our friends from California arrived to check out our new leopard areas. Ron and Cynthia McKim arrived in July with their friends John and Denise Peck. John and Denise’s son Eric, and his fiancée Rachel, were also along on this safari.

The McKims and the Pecks were good friends and we had already enjoyed several successful safaris together. Both Ron and John had taken nice leopard with me and, interestingly, both cats had come off Graham’s farm. Both were nice mature males in the 140-pound class.

The plan on this safari was for Ron and I to hunt the new project areas in the traditional manner by baiting and blind, while Eric, in the company of his Dad, John, was going to hunt with hounds. We had contracted Tristan and his pack of dogs for this hunt and Graham was to be the PH. Their main focus was leopard and sable for Eric. Eric took the best sable we have ever taken in our Matobo areas on this safari, and I recall that the horns measured somewhere around the 42 inch mark. The hound hunt was not successful, however, and Eric did not get a look at a cat.

Ron and I had been hunting for about a week when a bait down on the project, on what used to be a Greenspan ranch called Castle Block, was taken. This bait was really back in the bush off the beaten track, near a hunting road which we had recently opened not far west of the Mangwe River. Ron and I were settled in by about five o’clock that day and the pressure was on me. This bait had been eaten by a big male leopard, but the problem was that he had a girlfriend in attendance. Ron was explicit about this. He already had a nice Tom, and he would take another, but he did not want a female. I had to sex the cat. He was prepared to accept the risk that we may spook the leopard whilst trying to accomplish this. In order to be able to use both hands on my binoculars, it was necessary for me to strap the spotlight onto a cross-pole which was braced across the top of the blind. When the cat, or cats, hit the bait, I would turn the light on, then glass the cats and decide which was the male. A task I was dreading. All was set but I still needed to wait until near dusk so that I could switch on the light and make sure that it was focused on the bait. It was not a good idea to be moving about shining and adjusting the light in prime leopard time, but I saw no other solution. As soon as it was dim enough for the light’s beam to register, I stood up, switched on, and adjusted the aim of the light. Perfect.

I sat down quietly, shifted my blankets a little, and prepared to lay down. Ron was on his back with his hands behind his head. Suddenly the warning stick lurched forward!

It was still daylight! I motioned Ron to stay down.

“Probably a kudu or impala walked into the line,” I whispered to him. I stood up slowly with my binoculars until I could see over the top of the front of the blind.

There, in daylight, was a leopard in our bait tree! As soon as I saw him, I could see that he had a massive ‘Tyson-head’ and thick neck. There was no female present! I urgently ushered Ron up into his shooting position. “Take him Ron, take him.”

The shot clapped out over the twilight bush, echoing off amongst the koppies. The cat snagged the bait with his front left-foot claws as he took the shot and he hung there silently for a few seconds, then fell, grunted, and took off into the grass. We were jubilant. This was the first leopard that I had taken on private land in broad daylight in quite some time. It was a rare occasion. And it was a rare leopard. When the truck arrived it took us a good half hour or so to find the cat but we found him dead, shot through the heart, about ninety yards away from the bait. This was a magnificent beast, considerably bigger than Ron’s first 140 pounder. He was in perfect condition and measured 7 feet 8 inches long. Later, his dried skull would measure a hair under 17 inches. A supercat indeed.

The project land was delivering. It was only mid-July and we had now taken five really big males, one of them on Graham’s farm and the other four on the project. Surely we would not see any more giant cats this season. I was wrong.

Richard Greene, good friend, also from California, and friends with the McKims and the Pecks, arrived in the latter half of July. With Richard was John Dagle and his companion Debbie. John and Debbie would be hunting with Graham, Richard would hunt with me.

On a previous hunt Richard had endured some bad luck in his quest for leopard and we were determined to close that book now in this new area. Graham and John were the first to score. West of the Mangwe river, also on the old Greenspan property (now project), Graham’s bait, placed on the bank of a small dry streambed, was hit once again by two leopards. A mating pair. When Graham and John Dagle sat in their blind, the wind direction shifted fitfully and Graham was worried that this might spook the cats before they arrived to feed. The leopards arrived shortly after dark from the right hand, or south side, as the hunters faced the bait. At first Graham was puzzled as to what was approaching. Low grumbling, a snarl, more growling. At the time he was sure that the cats had detected the hunters and were expressing their irritation. But on piecing everything together afterwards, it seems that these sounds were the mating growls and snarls common to the big cats when with a partner in season. The cats came in and John Dagle shot a beautiful big male. Supercat number six. We all had a serious leopard party for John and Graham at the mountain camp that night. Some very sick-looking men reluctantly prepared for bait checking the following morning.

We were travelling long distances in our bait-checking and scouting duties, so Richard and I loaded everything that we would need in case we needed to sit for a leopard. There would not be enough time to make it back to camp and then back to the bait if one of the furthest baits was hit. This was fortunate.

This was the second day after John Dagel’s beautiful cat was taken. Unbeknown to us, we were using the same road that they had used to get to their bait. Peter tapped on the roof. We stopped. He jumped off the truck and walked back down the road a short distance, and he bent down. Ever watchful, he had spotted some leopard tracks in a sandy patch near the road. There were certainly large fresh leopard tracks there, made the previous night, but there were also lots of tracks made by humans and vehicles. Lots of recent activity. It did not take Peter long to work out whose tracks they were. This was where Graham and John had taken their cat! We found their broken-down blind and we walked over to their bait which was still hanging at the edge of a narrow streambed. The fresh leopard tracks we had seen on the road had also been to this bait! Two days after the death of a large male leopard, another large male’s tracks were seen in the same place! It became obvious that the female was still in heat and this big cat had come calling. We looked carefully around trying to assess where the leopard had gone after his perfunctory feed on Graham’s bait. His tracks were evident all around the disassembled blind.

Fortunately we had a fresh impala in the truck along with all our leopard blind equipment and we decided after much debate, to gut the impala, drag its stomach all around the area and hang the new bait about 20 yards north of where the old bait hung. We decided on this ploy because of the interest the cat had shown in Graham and John’s blind. We were going to put up a new blind about a hundred yards north, and hopefully, in this way, we would remain undetected if the cat came back.

Because of his half-hearted nibble on the old bait, we felt that he was far more interested in the scent of the female in heat and her now deceased boyfriend, than he was in the putrid impala meat. Hopefully the fresh bloody drag that we had made would attract his interest to our new impala. Of course there remained the big IF. Would he visit this spot again tonight? Had he already found his Juliet? We had to try.

There was much to do. While Richard helped me construct the blind, Peter and George dragged the fresh guts all over the road, the streambed, around Graham’s blind, and up and down the road covering a distance of about two hundred yards in both directions. We took down the old bait and hung the new one. We set up the shooting sticks and bedded Richard’s rifle and attached the warning line. There were still about forty minutes of daylight left when George drove off to the west leaving us in the blind. Richard had now sat for three different leopard on three different safaris. Was this the final chapter? Or was this going to be just another cold night out in the bush?

The cat came in at about a quarter-past-eight and we were ready for him.

When I turned the light on he was standing sideways to us, his head left, right paw up on the meat. It took Richard a few vital seconds to steady the scope. “Shoot Rich, shoot! Take him!” I urged.

The leopard pulled his paw down and began to move off in the direction he was facing – to our left.

“Shoot Rich!” Boom! Finally. The cat leapt, roared in the air, hit the ground, and was gone.

Richard looked up with a surprised quizzical look on his face, but the frown was not there long. We were jubilant, rehashed the shot and how big the leopard had looked, and speculated on how far he had gone before dying. My first impression was that the cat was a big male but I was a little worried about the shot. Richard had taken a long time (about four seconds) to get his shot off, and when he did, the cat had been moving. It was pointless debating the details any further. The truck had arrived, and we kitted up for a night follow-up. We went cautiously up to the bait and Peter picked up the torn soil marks where the leopard had come up out of the streambed. Tracks, but no blood. Puzzling. If a cat is shot, side on in the chest-lung area, there is always blood-spatter at the site. The bullet tears in and out of a vulnerable area full of organs with little resistance.

We found no fat, no blood, no hair and no bone. We could see the huge splayed pugmarks in the sand easily but when we reached the hard clay where the cat had gone up the bank, we saw nothing. I would have to make a decision soon. About five yards back from the edge of the streambed, we could see the beginnings of a low, dense Mopane-scrub thicket. We did not want to blunder around there in the dark, not only because of the danger it presented, but we did not want to obliterate any tell-tale signs of a lightly wounded cat that we may have to follow in the morning.

At the top of the eight-foot bank Peter found blood. Under the spotlight it was difficult to be sure as to where exactly it came from. It did not seem watery stomach blood, and it was definitely not frothy, bright, lung blood. We went forward. After an hour of painstakingly, slow tracking, I decided to give it up. We were losing concentration and I felt sure that someone was going to get hurt. The leopard was crisscrossing a thicket about a hundred and fifty yards long by sixty wide. This was good news as he was obviously in some difficulty due to the shot. If he had been lightly wounded he would be a long way from here by now and not playing hide and seek in such a confined area. We retired back to the hide where we slept for what remained of the night.

At first light we were back to the spot where we had halted the chase. We had not gone more than forty yards, when we found our quarry crouched down in the thickest part of the patch we had crawled through so carefully during the night. He was dead, but still warm. Rigor mortis had not yet set in and it was clear that this cat had died within the last hour or so! How fortunate we were that we had not continued the pursuit during the night! This was another monster. He was in the absolute prime of life with a thick dark-gold pelt, thick neck complete with dewlap and wrinkles, and he was the longest leopard I had ever taken, measuring eight feet exactly. What a beauty. My friend’s leopard jinx was finally over. This beautiful cat had been shot in the liver which explained why he had remained in the thicket. Supercat number seven was now in the salt.

I travelled north to Tanzania in August to hunt the splendid full-maned lions that live in the west of that country, and we took two more leopard as well as the lions on those successful safaris. My next appointment with the western Matobo cats was in late October. October in Zimbabwe is known as “suicide month” and it is the hottest, driest month of the year. Farmers and ranchers are not the only ones who stare crinkly-eyed to the north, hoping to see a build-up of cumulus nimbus that may bring blessed relief to the baked white land. The trees are leafless and stark, and both grass and water are finished. It is said that more suicides are committed in Zimbabwe in October than any other month. I believe it. Joe Crawley, a hunter from Missouri, favoured October for African hunts. The heat did not bother him and visibility in the game areas was good, as all the leaves, and most of the grass, was down. Of equal importance was that the hunting year was drawing to a close. Often, at this time of the year, unsold, unshot quotas could be purchased below their usual cost. Deals could pop up for elephant, buffalo and lion as operators tried to finish their quotas for the year.

But this year, 2001, end of season deals were not part of Joe’s plans. Joe was determined, and also due, to collect a supercat. We had taken several leopard together over the years but none of them passed “average” size. I do not think it was the size so much that prompted Joe to keep coming back, I just think he loves to hunt leopards, and the quest for one of our bucket-headed giants was simply an excuse. October is not my favourite leopard-hunting month. The peak leopard mating season is long since over, and the baits don’t last more than three days in the blazing heat before they are reduced to black water. The leopard themselves are not as sleek and handsome as they are  in winter. But some Octobers, when the ground feels like a furnace and the rivers have forgotten how to run, the land is transformed overnight by the arrival of early thunderstorms. The official rainy season, does not commence until November or December, but the lifesaving, hope-giving first showers, often come in October. Mopane trees push out bright green leaves literally within a week and the acacia grows a fuzz of tiny leaves almost within hours, and the dishes of precious water captured in the granite, often saves the lives of gaunt game animals and cattle alike.

October may not be my favourite leopard month, but those first rains are most certainly my favourite time of the year. You can smell the thankful earth, and you can feel the start of life for another season. The year may start in January but life starts with the first rains. Joe arrived just as the first ramparts of black clouds had ballooned up over Botswana and unleashed their crashing white bolts of lightning into the dead ground. Two inches of rain fell turning dusty footpaths into fast red rivers and cracked hard clay into wet mud. Impala once more pranced about looking alive and you could see the skeletal cattle saying, “I am going to make it.”

Baits, however, were given no reprieve. October is full of flies and bugs and there are maggots and bacteria in the hot meat but we hang them anyway. After I had given Joe a blow-by-blow account of the season’s giant cats, he was a bit pensive.

“Maybe I should have come earlier, maybe all the big ones are finished,” he said. I did not say anything. I thought he may be right.

About a week into the hunt AJ radioed Graham with a message for me. A cattle herder had reported to him that a calf had been taken down on the Ingwezi River near my old washed-away camp. We were always sceptical when investigating calf-kill reports because quite often the cattle herders gave false information. When calves are killed by predators, the mothers bawl continuously, and this bawling, or a drag-mark, are what usually alert the herder to the fact that things have gone wrong in the bush. On weekends, some herders are on duty, some are not. Of course, way out in the far reaches of a cattle ranch, the boss doesn’t always know if the herder who is on duty is actually present, at work. It’s Africa, remember. So when Monday comes along and our man returns dizzy and red-eyed from drink, he assembles all the cattle and finds that a calf is missing. He works feverishly, ignoring his horrendous hangover until he finds drag marks. But now there is trouble here. He can tell by the sign, and by the state of the calf, (what’s left of it) that the murder took place on Saturday night. His dereliction of duty could be found out! Maybe not. Our man now makes the long walk to AJ’s headquarters.

“Boss,” says he, “a leopard killed a calf last night. I looked hard for the calf this morning, found some leopard tracks, thought that this leopard must be up to no good, followed its spoor, and found that it had killed the calf.” This is the kind of stuff we hear frequently. But bad luck befalls our man.

“Patson, wait here, because the hunters are on a ranch nearby and they will want to kill this leopard. I will call them here, then you can show them to the calf,” says the boss.

Patson’s eyes are suddenly downcast. The hunters and their trackers are skilled men and it will be impossible to trick them. “Possibly they will not arrive,” thinks he, and promptly sits down in the shade. But the hunters do arrive. And they walk to the calf which is no longer a calf but two femurs held together by a piece of dry skin.

I look at what remains of the calf’s carcass and then I look at Patson. “Patson we have driven two-and-a-half hours to this place because of you. And now we have to drive two-and-a-half hours back. Because you know, and I know, and the trackers know, that this calf was killed two days ago, maybe three. It has definitely been fed-on, twice, and now it is finished! No leopard is coming back. You are a liar and a waste of a salary. I will tell your boss about this and I hope he fires you.” Two more words from me and we leave. This is how many of the calf reports end up. But we have to react, not only to maintain good relations with the rancher, but because calf-kills often offer us our best chance at a big, old cat.

Joe, the trackers and myself loaded up our leopard gear and headed down to my old camp. I hate going there. A giant Acacia albida tree, uprooted by the flood, lies through the centre of what used to be my chalet. No buildings are standing except walls of the old lounge. The Bradnicks, Graham’s family, and my family had some good times at that quiet shady spot, and we had enjoyed many a cold Castle beer sitting around the fire next to the sandy riverbed with a dead leopard as our guest.

We met a man like Patson at the old camp. We eyed each other warily, because we’d played this game before. But the information was good. It was a Wednesday, so there were no complications involving drink and absenteeism. The herder directed us upstream from the old camp for about a hundred yards. We stopped the car and followed him to the east bank of the riverbed where we found a calf which had been killed and eaten the previous night. The Ingwezi riverbed here is about eighty yards wide. The east bank, which is where the old camp used to stand, and where the dead calf now lay, was covered with dense vegetation. The west bank was not. This side was sparsely wooded with acacia thorn trees, donkey berry bushes, and a few clumps of Chinese lantern. The trackers and I quickly trimmed as little vegetation as we had to, so that we could see the dead calf. It was now about four thirty in the afternoon and we did not have much time.

Thankfully the wind was steady from the east, so we placed our blind against and behind an anthill which stood about twenty-five yards back from the riverbank. This was going to be a long 130-yard shot. The anthill was about four feet high and about twenty feet around at its base; thick bush and grass grew all around it. Perfect. Or nearly perfect. I don’t like anthills, because often, especially in this area, they are home to black mambas or huge Egyptian cobras. Every minute I sit in a blind which is next to one, I think what the snake will look like when he comes out. Will he be angry? What will he do? Shall I run? What about my hunter? Should I shoot? What if it is pitch dark and can’t see him, I only hear him? These thoughts are too troubling. But it was late and this was the best spot. We erected the blind, laid the mattresses and blankets, and Peter and I crossed the sand back to the calf so that we could secure the warning line.

We were all set by 5pm. Joe’s rifle was secured to two sets of tripods with the sandbags securely bedded. He was going to take a standing shot from this blind as we had had no time to trim the grass to enable us to see the bait whilst sitting down. He was not worried, the view was good, and the sticks were firm.

As mentioned previously, Joe and I had taken several leopard together, prior to this hunt, and we had also turned a couple down. Was this finally the thick-necked brute we were looking for? The tracks in the riverbed gave us an unreliable reading of ten inches, as they were splayed in the sand. We had found no tracks in the lush grass around the kill or on the footpaths nearby. We had to hope for the best.

Before 6pm the warning stick bent! It was still daylight, but the visibility under the foliage on the far bank was borderline. I motioned Joe to be still while I took a look through the binoculars. It was indeed the leopard! But I could tell nothing about the size of it at this distance! I gestured for Joe to come up to the rifle. He came quietly and eased up to the scope.

“See him Joe?” I asked. “He’s behind and to the right hand side of the calf, sideways-on. You see him?”

“Yeah, I see him,” he answered.

“Okay, take him!”

At the shot, the cat went straight down. I could see him no longer. This was the second leopard of the season that came in during daylight, and that pleased Joe immensely. To take a Matobo Hills cattle-killer was a prize in itself, to take one in daylight was icing on the cake.

I asked Joe how he felt about his shot, but I was not concerned. I have a handful of clients who are accomplished riflemen, and Joe is one of them. A few others, like Homer Deckard, George Ulmer and Ron McKim come to mind. These people seldom miss. In all our safaris together I think I had only seen Joe make a mistake once, and that was on a crocodile at the Gwaai River mouth. To turn the barb a little further, a giant crocodile was taken at that exact spot a few weeks after Joe’s miss, and that crocodile was measured as the new world number one. I believe it was the same crocodile. Incidentally, that crocodile, which I think was about sixteen feet long, was dethroned down to second place when professional hunter, Mark Ellement, guided his client on to an eighteen-foot dinosaur a few miles west of this spot a few years later. While we waited for the trackers to arrive in the Cruiser, I picked up the battery and spotlight, and with Joe carrying both rifles we climbed the far bank onto a small vantage point where we could view the calf. I placed the light on the ground and glassed the gloomy, shadowy grass. We didn’t need the light. There, on its side, next to his last stolen calf, lay the leopard. I was immensely relieved but still very apprehensive about the size of the cat. I went forward alone, .460 at the ready. When I stood next to this cat my feelings of relief for myself, and pleasure for Joe, were almost almost tangible.

“Joe!”

“Yeah?”

“It’s not a big male, Joe.”

“Huh,” he says, “Oh well.” Resignation. “What is it?”

“It’s a goddamned super cat that’s what!”

Joe Crawley has hunted just about every African animal and has several World Slams of sheep under his belt. He is a serious hunter. But I have never seen him as happy as he was when he saw this leopard. Not even when we nailed his fifty-pound elephant. He was split with smiling. This was the eighth, and last, giant male of the season. And what an incredible season it was. This leopard was one of the truly big ones. His head lolled like some kind of giant melon and his neck and tail were thick. He was beautiful. Joe was greedy and nearly took another huge cattle-killer a few days later, when AJ once more summoned us to another gruesome scene of a ripped-apart calf. But the rains were starting. Cracking bolts burst into the hills nearby and the rain poured down on us. When it showed no sign of letting up we trudged, sodden, back to the Jeep. I was glad. One giant leopard was enough.