Campfire Thoughts & Reminiscences Part 9

Oct 11, 2022 | Archive, News, News

Written by Neil Harmse

 

Chapter 10. Bad Luck Safari

 

 

There are times when, no matter how carefully things are planned, nothing seems to work out as one hoped. I remember one safari to Botswana years ago which seemed to go wrong from the very beginning.

 

I was contracted to do a photographic safari with a client who was the principal of the College of Photography in Johannesburg. He wanted to experience and compile a photographic journey through a varied wilderness region, desert, swamp and bushveld. I felt that Botswana would offer exactly the trip he was seeking.

 

In those years, there was not as much choice of four-wheel-drive vehicles in South Africa as there is today. Toyota Land Cruiser and Land Rover were about all. Just before commencing this trip, the Jeep agency brought out the model CJ-6 long wheelbase and, as my old Land Rover had seen a lot of wear and tear, I decided that this Jeep seemed a good proposition for the safari and decided to purchase one. I had it fitted out with a bush bar, roof rack, jerry-can brackets and high-lift jack and felt this vehicle from the USA was just the right thing for our pending adventure.

 

Stephen and I left Johannesburg early in the morning with the aim of travelling across the Botswana border at Martin’s Drift and carrying on to Francistown, where we planned to overnight. This stage of our journey was quite uneventful and I must admit that the Jeep seats were a lot more comfortable than the old Landy. Instead of finding accommodation in the town, we travelled a few kilometres out of it and set up a fly camp on the road to Nata in order to get an early start the following day. Little did we know what was in store for us.

 

After early-morning coffee and rusks, we packed up camp and set off for Nata, one of the few places where we could refuel en route to Maun. Our plan was to refuel and have ‘brunch’, then travel south-west along one of the tracks leading to the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans. This system consists of several desolate pans, collectively covering about 16 058km² of nothing but white salt-covered expanse, an extremely inhospitable area with virtually no wildlife or plant life. Stephen was very keen to experience and photograph this region.

After a few hours’ grinding along in fourwheel- drive, we made our way to Sua Pan, one of the largest of the salt pan systems, where I stopped to allow Stephen to walk along the crust-covered surface taking photographs of some of the few varieties of algae which occurred in spots. It was impressive to just stand and stare across the vast expanse of white salt surface stretching to the horizon.

 

After about two hours, I suggested to Stephen that we get going if we still wanted to reach Maun by late afternoon. After he had stored all his photographic paraphernalia safely in his boxes, we were ready to set off. I turned the key – and NOTHING! The engine did not turn over. I tried several times, with the same result. The Jeep was dead. I checked everything, but could not get it to start. The battery was stone-dead. We were now in a very tight spot. We tried to push-start the vehicle, but because of the thick salt crust surface, there was no way of moving the Jeep. In desperation, I used the high-lift jack to raise the rear wheels, wound a rope around the tyres and, with the vehicle’s gears in second, tried hauling on the rope to spin the wheels in order to start the vehicle. We simply did not have the strength to get a kick out of the engine. It was now growing late in the day and I suggested that we get some food going and try to take stock of our situation.

 

After a meal of mostly tinned foods, I suggested that I take a knapsack with some food and two water bottles and make my way northwards, towards the main Nata road, to find help. I planned to leave early the next morning, while it was still cool. Stephen would stay with the vehicle and supplies to wait for my return. I warned him that it could be two days before I got back.

 

Following a fitful night’s sleep, and after taking some careful compass bearings, I was ready to leave the next morning. About roughly 3km along our backtrack, I heard a droning sound which I thought could be an aircraft or vehicle. As the sound got nearer, I realised it was a vehicle. After a while, I saw a Land Rover heading towards me. I have never felt so relieved in my life. It turned out to be one of the Botswana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries rangers who had seen our tracks from the previous day and decided to follow them to investigate. I could have hugged him! Before long, and with a pull-start from his Landy, the Jeep was mobile again. He offered to follow us to the main Nata-Maun road and then he would have to turn off on the Pandamatenga road. We would keep going non-stop to Maun, where we could hopefully get a new battery.

 

Maun in those days consisted of Riley’s Hotel, Riley’s Garage, Riley’s General Dealer and a few trading stores. The mechanic checked the battery, only to find a dead cell, but he had no suitable battery in stock. He managed to contact a supplier in Francistown who had a truck coming through the following day and would bring a battery for us.

 

We managed to book in at the hotel for a comfortable and congenial evening. After an excellent meal, we spent an interesting evening in the bar chatting to some of the guides and professional hunters. They included the famous Harry Selby, Lionel Palmer and Darryl Dandridge, who were killing time in the off-season. It was a great privilege to spend time with these guys and hear their hunting stories and experiences. I must say that Stephen took all this in his stride and accepted it as part of his ‘African adventure’.

 

The truck with the new battery arrived at about 10.30am and an hour later, we were ready to begin the next leg of our safari. We had arranged to hire two camp helpers and guides to accompany us to the Okavango. We had planned to travel along the road following the Thamalakane River, turning off along a track following the Santantadibe River, skirting Chief’s Island on the west, and making our way north to Seronga, then westwards to Tsodilo Hills in the far north, famous for its Bushman rock art.

 

The thick sand of the track along the Thamalakane made for terribly slow travelling and by late afternoon, after turning off on the Santantadibe track, we decided to set up a fly camp to call it a day. We soon had a fire going with some of our fresh meat on the coals and relaxed with cold beers from the cooler box. The meat done, we placed it in a dish and were busy preparing a salad when a hyena rushed in, grabbed the dish and made off, leaving us staring and cursing. Our stock of precious fresh meat had just been drastically reduced. Our first supper turned into tinned sausages and beans, but at least we still had salad. We would have to take more care in future. Hyenas proved a damn nuisance, as they tried to get at meat and supplies in our Coleman cooler boxes and chewed one corner almost off. A few uneventful days took us into the swamps, where Stephen managed to get some good photos of game in the area, including elephant, buffalo, lion and the usual selection of antelope species. Unfortunately, trying to get shots of hippo and crocodile proved a challenge, as these would never quite come out of the water and just photographing their heads in the water made for rather indifferent images.

 

There was a pool with some hippo and a few fairly large crocs, and earlier we had come across a camp of local citizen hunters. They had shot a buffalo and I had the idea of drawing a croc out by baiting it with a buffalo lung. After a bit of haggling, we traded for a lung, which we hauled near the water. I hacked off a few pieces and threw them into the water to attract the creatures. Then, with the help of our guides, we started to drag the lung to the water’s edge. I motioned to Stephen to keep his camera ready. He was walking along with us as we dragged the lung when a croc of about 5m suddenly came charging out the water at great speed, heading directly towards us. I had never realised just how fast these creatures could move on land. The guides dropped the lung and fled. With a lunge, the croc grabbed the lung and, in a flash, was back in the water, lung and all. I looked around for Stephen, but he had taken off with the guides and did not even think of using his camera. He did manage to get a few photos of the frenetic activities as the crocs twisted and tore at the lung in the water.

 

To make up, a while later Stephen managed to take some great shots of a pride of lions which were fairly close and some cubs engaged in playful antics with the adults.

 

Our next misfortune came the following day, and the blame was mostly mine. While crossing one of the smaller swampy streams, water splashed up into the engine compartment of the Jeep, which brought us spluttering to a stop about midstream. The water was only about knee- or thigh-high and we climbed out to dry the spark plugs and distributor. I opened the distributor taking out the rotor and then dried and sprayed Q-20 into the unit.

 

After this, I replaced the cap and dried and sprayed the spark plugs. I then tried to start the engine. It simply cranked, but would not start. I told the guys to push it across to dry ground, where I would check it. After moving it about 15m, a thought occurred to me. Had I replaced the rotor? Jumping out, I found the rotor was not there. I remembered placing it on the edge of the mudguard panel, but it was now missing. It was somewhere in the water. I realised that I did not have a spare rotor – after all, who brings along a spare rotor!? Moreover, it was about four days’ walk back to Maun. Our tracks could be seen where the Jeep had moved through the water. I had everyone on hands and knees, chins above the water, groping on the bottom along the tracks, trying to feel the missing rotor. After about an hour’s search, finding bits of wood and stones, as well as the odd piece of bone, one of the guys finally found the rotor. I was so relieved that I could have kissed him! I now always carry a spare rotor as part of my spares kit.

 

The next few days were quite uneventful and a good variety of game animals kept Stephen busy with camera, lenses and filters. He was enjoying the trip immensely and just as I was hoping we had used up all the bad luck in the barrel, the Jeep suddenly lost all its brakes. When I pushed the brake pedal, it simply sank to the floor with no pressure. On crawling underneath the vehicle, I found the problem: a metal brake pipe had been rubbing on the side of the chassis and had worn through, leaking brake fluid out and resulting in a loss of pressure. I turned a small self-tapping screw with adhesive sealer into the broken pipe and managed to bleed the brakes with four bottles of brake fluid I had in my spares. Then we were off again, with brakes on only three wheels.

 

After this, our luck finally seemed to change and we managed to complete the rest of our journey northwards with no further mishaps. However, while heading back to Maun through some longish grass, we suddenly crashed to a grinding halt. The Jeep had hit a hidden tree stump, badly buckling one of the tie-rods, so we now had no steering. After a lot of head-scratching and throwing ideas back and forth, one of our guides remembered experiencing a similar problem and suggested cutting a straight mopane branch and binding it in place. We removed the buckled tie-rod and managed to use binding wire to fix a reasonably straight mopane branch on the steering system. This did not give us much of a turning circle, but at least we made the last part of the journey, very carefully, to Maun, where we could have the vehicle repaired. We then drove the long road back to Johannesburg, still with brakes on only three wheels.

 

Thus ended a rather disastrous safari, although Stephen enjoyed his African adventure and said it was a trip he would always remember.

Above: Discussing routes with a game warden.

Left: Stephen viewing the vast salt pans of Makgadikgadi.

To order Campfire Thoughts & Reminiscences – the complete book with illustrations (US $15 excluding S&H), contact Andrew Meyer at andrewisikhova@icloud.com

Classic and Contemporary African Hunting Literature

Oct 10, 2022 | Archive, News

Land of the Black Buffalo

Paul Smiles (Faber and Faber Limited, 1961, 184 pages.)

Reviewed by Ken Bailey

 

On a comparative basis, there is very little in the way of classic hunting literature focussed on what is today’s Botswana; professional hunting wasn’t prevalent there through the golden years of East African hunting. Paul Smiles’ autobiographical Land of the Black Buffalo is one of the few available books dedicated to this wonderful game land.

 

In 1948, after serving in WWII, Smiles took on the job of game ranger in northeastern Bechuanaland, in what became Botswana following its independence in the mid-1960s. He lived in a camp called Chuchubegho, which was little more than a small two-room house and a couple of outbuildings in a grove of trees, from where he and his small staff had responsibility for a vast and remote region. His job was twofold – to rid the area of tsetse flies and, concurrently, of buffalo. Tsetse’s and the sleeping sickness (Trypanosomiasis) they carried were a threat to the emerging cattle industry, and buffalo were prime hosts of the disease. Land of the Black Buffalo details Smiles’ time battling these two disparate animals in a linear area created by the establishment of two miles-long fences that separated the “settled” area from the game area.

 

As one might expect, the book describes his many harrowing encounters with buffalo in the thorn veldt, but he gives equal billing to his efforts to eradicate the tsetse, and the reader is sure to learn plenty about the ecology of tsetse flies and their impacts on game, cattle and people. Did you know, as an example, that tsetse flies don’t lay eggs? Instead, as Smiles describes, they extrude nine or 10 grubs, or larva, that they hide in rock piles and under logs. There the larva pupate before eventually emerging as adults, winged marauders that live on blood and potentially transmit a disease that can be fatal to people and livestock, but to which game is immune. And they aren’t born carrying the parasite that causes sleeping sickness, but pick it up when feeding on the blood of animals carrying it. It was for that reason that his orders were also to wipe out any buffalo between the fences.

 

In Land of the Black Buffalo, Smiles also describes his encounters with elephants and giraffe that were notorious for destroying the fences, along with his many confrontations with lions, one of which had severely mauled his predecessor.

 

What’s particularly enjoyable about Smiles’ book is how well it’s written. He was clearly well-educated and crafts a sentence well. His writing is descriptive but down-to-earth, not the stuffy writing you find from many Englishmen of his era; it’s an easy and enjoyable read that should be in everybody’s library of African hunting literature.

Ian Wilmot’s Monster Eastern Cape Kudu

Oct 7, 2022 | Hunting Stories, News

By Ian Wilmot

 

The biggest kudu we ever shot in the Eastern Cape was a 63-inch kudu, shot 3 or 4 years back. Still the biggest kudu to come out of the Eastern Cape. And it was an interesting hunt, an enjoyable hunt. The terrain is challenging. And this kudu had been known about for a good number of years. They’ve been trying… the owners told me that for 4 years they’ve tried to shoot this kudu, and there are a lot of kudu on this place, and quite a lot of good kudu – but nobody could get a shot at this kudu, for whatever reason. I had a very good client with me, and the guy could shoot pretty well. I just put it in the back of my mind. I didn’t even know if we’d see this animal, but I put it in the back of my mind then, that really, I would like to get this kudu if we could.

 

We started hunting, and I always try and get on very well with the staff, wherever I am. And in chatting with the tracker, local tracker from the place, I said to him, this kudu bull, that everybody’s talking about, does he still live in this area, general area? And he said, yes, still in the same general area. So I knew where the area was. The owners had told me where the area was. I said, well, how do you people actually hunt this kudu? And he said, the way we all hunt kudu – we go out in the morning, and we find some vantage points, we sit in that area and we look for 2 to 3 hours, and if we don’t see the thing, then we move off. We carry on hunting something else, come back in the afternoon any time from half past 3, 4 o’clock until dark, we sit there and we look for this kudu bull – and we never see it. And I said, so how do you know it’s still alive? He said to me, because in the off-season we see it, when nobody is hunting – Christmas time we’ll see it. I figured, okay, fair enough. Thank you, that’s the information I need. I thought well, so how do I find this kudu and get a shot at it?

I said to the client, tomorrow is going to be different to what we’ve been hunting. We’re going to get up early, we’re going to get up and we’re going to go and hunt, but we’re going to have a short hurt. Whatever it is, we’re going to have a short hunt, we’re going to be back here by 9 o’clock – nice prime time in the morning, but we’re going to have breakfast, and then we’re going to have a break, dry out our shoes from the dew in the sun, and then we’re going to go hunting again. And he quizzed as to why? I said, I’ve just got an idea; I’m trying to shoot a big kudu bull, get you a big kudu bull and we all know about this kudu. He knew about it by then. And I said, I want to try something that nobody else has tried, and that’s what we did.

Ian Wilmot

At quarter to 11 we got back into the Toyota and off we went, and in the general area I went and I parked, hid the pickup in some brush and there was this one particular valley that I wanted to look in, and then just over the rise from the pickup there’s another valley, and I said, you people head into that valley, there’s a nice vantage point from which to look around. I’ll catch up with you guys probably in about 15 minutes. And off they went. I then went and sat quietly in the shade, in some brush, and I just kept still. And I was just literally getting up to move when this bull showed himself. So I snuck out of there, went back up to the client, left the trackers and everybody trying to keep still, went back there, and we couldn’t get close to it. We had to shoot across the valley, and it ended up a 350-yard shot to be, and he hit it. And that kudu bull, clearly, every morning, every afternoon people were hunting – he knew. And he could see them out of the brush and things like that. So in the middle of the day, when there’s nobody hunting, is when he showed himself and that’s how we managed to get it.

Young and Dumb, but Alive!

Oct 7, 2022 | Hunting Stories, News

By Ryan Phelan of Hotfire Safaris

In the early 2000s, I was running a private game reserve in the Tuli Block in Botswana. We had one particular elephant bull that was becoming a nuisance, as he was destroying our solar pumps and panels and threatening my fencing staff.

 

I brought this to the attention of the Botswana Game Department, and they proceeded to show me the ordinance that said I could go ahead and destroy the animal and notify them of the GPS location and mark the left and right tusks.

 

Being still fairly young, cocky and relatively inexperienced, I loaded up my 9.3×62 with four 286gr Barnes Super Solids and hopped on my motorbike to find a culprit elephant.

 

Once I reached the area that the fencing guys were working in, it did not take long to locate the offending bull. I parked the bike, loaded a round, and adjusted my scope power to minimum, this being 4x magnification. I started slowly after the bull, which was walking slowly into the wind in the scrub mopane.

 

I sensed the bull knew of my presence, but he was not too perturbed. Each time he walked I would run closer, and when he stopped to listen, I would stop. This continued for a while, until I thought I was close enough. I then remembered my PH mentor saying to me, “When you think you are at the right distance, get closer.” So I did. At approximately 18m, I rested on a scrub mopane and took aim on the bull that had stopped to listen.

 

He turned broad-side, and I just remembered my teachings: “Aim for the top of the back of the zygomatic arch.” I squeezed off. In a flash the bull turned 180 degrees, and I fired the second round in the same place on the other side of the head. He spun right around once more. I let fly the third round, upon which his back legs gave way, and I put the fourth round into the back of his head as it flung up into the sky. I was later to discover that this fourth round exited the front of his head.

 

I was left standing and shaking, with an empty rifle and many thoughts running through my head. I put a few more rounds into the rifle, cocked it and slowly headed up to the bull. He was dead!

 

At the end of the conflict, my emotions hit home, very hard. I had read all the books on the early ivory hunters, and all I wanted to do was hunt my own elephant. I had done it. But the feeling was not what I thought it would be. Here I was, a mere 24-year-old, and this bull a good 40 years old or more. I walked away quietly and sat down under a mopane tree to gather my thoughts and to thank the bull for giving me this opportunity that many people nowadays will not get. It was a very somber moment.

 

Thinking about the lessons learnt from this, I was fairly inexperienced and had gone out on my own. Secondly, using a scoped rifle at 18m is not ideal, especially when trying to put second, third and fourth shots in when there is just grey matter in your scope picture. What I did learn was that if you are to miss the brain, miss on the low side, as it clearly interrupts the blood flow to the brain and disorients the animal. This was what saved me.

 

However, the penetration of all the rounds was faultless, as was evident by the last shot entering the back of the head and exiting the forehead.

 

This area in Botswana had high numbers of elephants and they were, in a way, boxed in between the backline fence, which was the western edge of the Tuli block, and the South African game farms all bordering it across the Limpopo River. It was inevitable that human animal conflict would arise, and nothing was being done about the rising numbers. The reason cited for this was that funding for the game department was coming in in part from NGOs that were anti hunting or anti culling. They thus felt stuck between a hard place and a rock. Knowing numbers needed to be brought down but not being able to do it themselves. They thus were quite happy for any landowners etc in the area to deal with the problems themselves as it absolved them from being in hot water.

 

Nine Nights in the Selous – Authentic East Africa

Oct 6, 2022 | News

By Richard Lendrum

Named after the famous African hunter whose life ended here, the reserve in this East African wilderness is difficult to describe in a few hundred words, let alone do justice to. But I will try.     

 

In the heart of, and largely surrounded by the Julius Nyerere National Park, is the iconic hunting ground of the Selous Game Reserve, for decades a hunting mecca. At the outset, the government needs applauding for valuing and protecting their hunting heritage as well as they have for decades.

 

And what a heritage it is.

 

Omari was there to greet me – and what a welcoming gent he is – and after a short trip to rest in the blue Ford Sapphire, we got transferred to the domestic airport for our charter. The hustle and bustle of Dar es Salam, and vendors peddling their wares are soon a distant memory as you take the short flight in the Grand caravan, into the hunting heartland. A short drive after landing to the camp on the banks of the Rufiji, and it is not difficult to see why this was a base camp for 43 years, longer than 99% of all African outfitters have been operating in Africa. It is where legendary safari operator and doyen of Tanzanian hunting, Luke Samaras called it his hunting home.

 

However, their next chapter is looming. Stephan Stamm my host at Heritage Safaris, has worked closely with Luke for over 10 years, earned his respect, and is now in partnership in the company’s next chapter. And with government auctions and block changes, Heritage Safaris & Luke Samaras are managing the largest area in the Selous. Part of this change meant they needed a new base camp location for the 2023 season.

 

To explore 265 000 hectares (630 000 acres) of pristine African bushveld is extraordinary. Quite something, and a privilege for anyone that loves nature, the African bushveld, and even more so if you’re a big-game hunter.

 

THIS is what you pay for when you’re on a safari.

 

Everything seems bigger: more expansive, more varied, in the Selous. Be it the topography, vegetation, the trees, birdlife, and game. Even the ant hills!

 

For these nine nights, Marc, Stephan’s long-time Swiss friend and now business partner was out for a hunt, and on this mission, buffalo was his priority, his big love. I was an observer.

There was a rich variety of game that first morning that we passed while searching for buffalo. Admittedly, the suni darted off in the undergrowth in a flash, but there was duiker, hartebeest, impala, warthog, distinctive Niassa wildebeest, and the magnificent subspecies of zebra you get in the Selous. Late afternoon we came across the buffalo. We struck it lucky at the end of the first day.

 

Beyond the burnt grass from the road’s edge, in the middle distance was the taller grass. I certainly couldn’t see them well. It wasn’t critical for me – I just needed to stay close and follow instructions and relax in the comfort of knowing there was sufficient firepower ahead of me and behind. I was soaking up the experience. One solid, well-placed .470 and the beast ran only about 15 yards before toppling over. A second round ended his life. We admired the mud-crusted fallen beast, his majestic, smoothly worn boss, his scarred face. “Probably from lions,” James our tracker said. It was only a minute before the sounds of the Selous resumed.

 

To ward off tsetse flies, the smoke of elephant dung burning in a steel bucket in the back of the Cruiser – was a comforting smell each morning. As we drove out, it was the bushveld and the trees that got my attention. Every day. Trees and trees for Africa. Birdlife darting off either side of the road in numbers I have not seen before.

Mid-morning coffee was simple and welcomed. Mid-day lunch was always under some spectacular grove of trees, in a riverbed, or overlooking a waterhole – always in some magical setting. And then, as we rounded the curve of a twisting semi-dry riverbed, there were two bulls wallowing in a mud pool.  Off the pack went stalking.

 

The challenge of hunting here was that in 15 yards, after the first shot, this big-game warrior was in the thick bush at the riverbank. Just waiting. Wounded. Not ready to call it quits. Waiting with his companion at his side for the posse to come for them. It was a standoff. I watched from afar. Tanzania is strict with game scouts on the hunt ensuring standards are kept high and safe. Another reason why this destination has earned the respect it has. Despite two rounds in him, he was waiting. So was the posse, reluctant to venture into dangerous thicket. It was a waiting game to see who would make the first move. Fortunately, a slight rustle gave away his location and more rounds went in. Still with a healthy respect for the wounded warrior. Eventually, behind the security of the Land Cruiser crashing through to form a barrier between him and his mate that was simply not

budging, we managed to rope the now-dead buffalo and bring him back into the riverbed for all the post-hunt preparation work – skinning, photos, and simply recalling all that went into the downing of this powerful beast.

 

Nothing goes to waste in the Selous. What is not eaten by guests, is given to the staff, or used for bait, and if no predators are being hunted, the remains go to the scavengers. In the first few days I was there, a skinned crocodile was the main meal in the bush near the camp for dozens of vultures, and by the end, once the bone-crunchers (hyenas) had got to it, there was nothing left.

 

In camp on the banks of the Rufiji, everything was simple and perfectly adequately furnished for camps that need completely clearing at the end of each season. Fantastic food, drink and general all-round exceptional hospitality.

And talking of staff; camp staff help you feel nothing other than that you are in a forgotten east Africa. From the morning wake up with a hand delivered cup of coffee, silver service fine dining, snacks at the fire side, daily laundry, hot water carried to heat the shower water, through to boot polishing at the end of every day. Nothing is left out. 

 

Ultimately the haunting call of the Fish Eagle and the grunts of hippo were those nostalgic sounds of Africa – along with sunsets flaming the evening sky that leave an indelible mark on the memory – of what was and still is under Heritage Safaris – ‘Authentic East Africa.’

Silhouettes in the Mist at Lake Mburo

Oct 6, 2022 | Hunting Stories, News

Abdullah in position next to the sitatunga and screaming in the mist.

By Ricardo Leone

 

I had met my friend Peter “Bwana” Chipman of Kwalata Safaris in Zambia at the Safari Show in early 2020 and made his booth my home for the three days that I explored the exhibition halls. I asked Bwana’s advice for other “must do” destinations in Africa, and he strongly recommended considering Uganda where there would be many unique indigenous species like the Ugandan kob as well Nile buffalo. He took me to meet Bruce Martin, the owner of Lake Albert Safaris to discuss it. When I saw the full species list included topi and sitatunga, I was sold. 

 

A sitatunga hunt became my primary goal. Most African hunters have a passion for spiral horns and as my collection already included nyala, eland, kudu, kudu, and bushbuck, I confirmed my final species list as kob, topi and sitatunga and a Nile buffalo. The sitatunga is often referred to as the “Ghost of the Swamps” or the “Swamp Ghost” given their elusive nature in the natural habitat within the dense papyrus swamps. In fact, to hunt a sitatunga may take weeks to prepare when factoring the time to slash an opening in the papyrus swamps and to build an elevated platform, or machan.

 

I had heard that three sitatunga trackers, Abdullah, Kasozi and Matovu, all of whom were former poachers, had travelled from Sesse Islands to Lake Mburo to prepare the swamps for my arrival. Their task was to slash the papyrus in front of an existing machan two weeks before of our arrival. The slashing served several purposes. It created shooting lanes and open areas for me to see the sitatunga and it allowed time for re-growth which provided a highly desirable food source to draw the sitatunga into the lanes and the open. The last purpose was to allow time for all scent of humans to dissipate prior to our arrival which, in our case, was aided by heavy rains days beforehand. 

 

My plan was straightforward – I was to spend each dawn and dusk on the machan until I was successful, or our hunt ended. All my late mornings would be on game drives looking for plains game, specifically topi. With the plan set, I met my PH, Charles at 4 p.m. to drive to the machan. On our way we dropped Kasozi and Matovu – each was positioned at two other machans, alternatives to mine. At our machan, Abdullah, Charles and I left the Land Cruiser, keeping scent and noise at a minimum. We settled in to wait as Charles said the sitatunga would not arrive until at least 6 p.m. – sunset being about an hour later. I glassed the area carefully and agreed with Charles on markers so we could communicate easily if necessary. There were three distinct dark stripes across the shooting pan – these were created by slashed papyrus that had turned dark as it dried. The closest stripe was from 150 to 175 yards, the second at 200 yards and the third at 225 to 240 yards. All three stripes were close enough not to have to worry too much about adjusting my vertical scope turret as my Griffin & Howe Highlander .300 Win Mag was sighted at 200 yards. At the right end of the first stripe, there was a large dark patch of brown slashed papyrus – this was our fourth marker at 175 yards. We still had time on our hands, so I spent it practicing resting my gun on the railing. I had realized that any movement on the machan would affect my aim – not great. 

The three trackers retrieving the sitatunga with machetes in hand.

The author (L) and Charles on the machan waiting for the trophy to be retrieved.

We were briefly distracted by an angry hippo that appeared from the edge of the papyrus and charged the area next to the machan’s ladder. At first we thought it had gone for Abdullah who had remained below, but he was quick to join us on the machan and explained that the hippo had charged local villagers passing on the small dirt road just behind the machan. Thankfully no harm done – however, it did make me worry about our exit when it came time to climb down at dusk. As I anxiously waited for 6 p.m. to arrive, fifty short minutes later it was sunset, and Charles said it was time to go. Even though there was sunlight left, there would not be enough time to retrieve a sitatunga if we were lucky enough to see and shoot one. We climbed down without incident from the hippo, then back to the Land Cruiser and onto camp. Hunting sitatunga each evening meant we would arrive back at camp well into sundowners with just a few minutes to enjoy a cocktail and the campfire before dinner.

 

We planned to leave camp before sunrise to ensure we were settled into the machan pre-dawn, and next morning the wake-up call came early. Breakfast would be after the hunt. The morning mist across the pan was perfect for the sitatunga to venture out to eat, although it burned off quickly. The previous evening was relatively mosquito free until we climbed down from the machan where we were attacked. However, instead of mosquitos, bees visited us. By 9 a.m. there were several bees, but I remained calm despite their increasing number. Half an hour later, Charles and Abdullah motioned for me to ready my gun – there was a female sitatunga just below at the near side of the open area. She was not walking, rather hopping along, and took cover as quickly as she emerged. She was a brown color, quite different from what I was told the male looked like – she was also small. I stayed ready for another 15 minutes when the bee numbers became worrisome. Charles said it was too late in the morning and we should just return to the Land Cruiser. Thankfully, no incident with the bees, but we decided to bring insect repellant in future.

 

We sat for a while and enjoyed our breakfast as the air warmed, then off we went to find some plains game as we still had a good two hours before we returned to camp for lunch. We spotted the third of four priority trophies on my list – the most amazing topi. I had always been drawn to the topi’s red-brown color and black markings on the face and legs. This one turned out to be a particularly good specimen which exceeded the Rowland Ward minimum of sixteen inches. Clearly a successful morning, seeing a female sitatunga and taking a topi.

 

The evening session was the same as before, and although no sitatunga, there was a beautiful sunset to enjoy and, happily, there were no bees. I was not disheartened by the lack of activity – we had plenty of opportunities ahead. We returned to camp for the tail-end of the pre-dinner campfire, then dinner and bed. The next morning, back to the machan. The weather was noticeably different – there was more moisture in the air, and we saw lightning bolts in the distance which, Charles said, would make for a misty morning – perfect for our hunt.

 

By 6.30 we were settled into the machan. My gun was locked and loaded, but I had not put in my ear protectors when Charles and Abdullah told me to get ready – there was a male sitatunga in the mist heading from right to left in the large brown patch. I knew exactly where to look. I glassed and could see his silhouette. Just as Charles had predicted, the mist was noticeably thicker than the day before. Charles thought the sitatunga looked young. He used my binos to take a better look, and I used my scope to follow the animal. Charles told me to look carefully at the horns which were almost touching – not a perfect trophy. We could do better.

 

I checked the mist and spotted another silhouette coming from left to right on the second stripe just 10 to 15 yards from the edge of the papyrus. I told Charles, and before I could take a closer look, he said to shoot it. Gun resting on the railing, I put the illuminated crosshairs onto the right front shoulder and squeezed the trigger – the sitatunga dropped and disappeared from sight. My unprotected ears were ringing as I saw the young sitatunga on the right still walking as if nothing had happened.

Rowland Ward quality topi with Griffin & Howe Highlander .300 Win Mag.

We took a quick moment to celebrate, then Charles called the Land Cruiser to collect the two trackers from their respective machans. Abdullah climbed down and disappeared into the papyrus with a long stick in one hand and machete in the other. I looked at my watch – only 12 minutes had elapsed!

 

Now we had two sitatungas in the mist – the young bull and the downed one. We saw Abdullah briefly in the open, then he was hidden again by the mist. The moment he spotted the sitatunga Abdullah yelled for joy and did not stop for the next few minutes. Charles said he knew it must be a good trophy as the reaction of the tracker always indicates its quality. Then the Land Cruiser arrived with the other trackers.

 

As Kasozi and Matovu made their way through the papyrus into the open area, they followed Abdullah’s shouts. The mist was slowly burning off, and we could just see Abdullah. I ranged him at exactly 200 yards. The three trackers joined forces to extract the trophy from the swamp. We could just make out the head of the sitatunga as the three trackers wrestled with it while navigating the water, swamp, and thick papyrus. Thankfully, they did not encounter any pythons. As the three emerged from the papyrus with the sitatunga, we could finally see the trophy. It was indeed a good one.

 

They brought it near to the Land Cruiser – we needed a place to display the trophy for pictures. The morning sun was still low enough for great photographic light. The sitatunga was wet and even the horns which were lighter colored than normal, glistened in the sunlight. We took many pictures with all of us getting into the act. Once the photo session was done, the sitatunga was carefully loaded onto bush cuttings lining the vehicle, its horns tied upright to protect them on the drive back. I saw Kasozi cut a lot of papyrus which I was told was to cover the sitatunga – I did not think any more of it.

 

I had sent an early photo of my trophy back to Bwana and Bruce who were still having their breakfast in camp. As we approached camp, the trackers held up the papyrus and start to shake the pom-pom tops. As we drove into camp, everyone broke into song – the celebration began. Bwana filmed me raised up in a chair, a papyrus pom-pom on my head. I was handed a beer and I was paraded around camp to a song in the local language – the only words I recognized were ‘’Ricardo’’, ‘’sitatunga’’ and ‘’America’’.

A very happy hunter and crew with a spectacular trophy sitatunga.

We took the trophy to the skinning shed for a quick measurement and to study the aquatic hooves. Sitatungas are built for the swamps in almost every way.

 

Later we replayed the morning – the preparation, the hard work that paid off, the trackers, and especially the mist, which was what Charles and Bruce and hoped for.

 

For me, there are two lasting memories – the first is the image of two bull sitatunga silhouettes in the mist at Lake Mburo. That image is forever etched in my mind. The second was learning that this successful hunt was Charles’s first sitatunga since obtaining his full PH license – a memory we will both share for the rest of our lives.

Dugga Boy! A Zambian Adventure

Sep 19, 2022 | Hunting Stories, News

 By Stuart Ward, February 2022

 

Hello and welcome to Africa.
Jeannette and I are greeted warmly with smiles.
Zambia is a very pleasant breezy cool in early June. 
The air is rich with earthy mopane smoke aromas.
It’s that back woods campfire smell, only different and deeper, calling your hunter’s heart to the ancient past.

 

Kicking off from Lusaka.

Hi-Ho!  Today we journey off on a special hunting safari first conceived at SCI Reno 2019.  After many SCI conventions and missed schedules, we were finally able to connect the dots.  You see, Sylvia’s passion for safari and Zambia really lit the fire for Jeannette and I.   So, eschewing the standard single base camp system established for years, PH Derick and Sylvia van Staden (Derick van Staden Safaris) have arranged a Hemingway Green Hills adventure exploring by diesel Toyota LandCruiser a variety of game terrain, river crossings and camps across thousands of wilderness square miles.   It is “simply not done this way old boy” since the early years.  But with a goal set to hunt and fish, we with double rifles, shot guns and rods in hand, they drew a ranging course through Zambia’s West Petauke GMA, then onto the Kafue Flats and that is where we will go.  We shall see!

Safari couple enjoying the scenery and short pot-hole rest break at Talabuku pass.

Sylvia and Jeannette buying fresh squash and sweet potatoes on the way in.

Luangwa River Camp

Back in the bush again.  We are safely into camp on the Luangwa River arriving late in the afternoon after purchasing vegetables along the way.   The full staff and crew cheerfully welcomed us.  It was a bit of a home-coming for PH Derick and Sylvia as they have many, many happy memories here, long before the new camp was rebuilt after the floods.  And that new camp would be on the other flooded side!  The two-man muscle powered pontoon proved stable enough, just watch your step on precarious not quite PE stamped “post and beam” docks.  Nicely the raft is “Bristol” ready, fitted out with “partial” expanded 

metal deck cover, which only lays there, sort of, not welded.  You stand precariously outside the vehicle as you definitely don’t want to be inside should an upset occur.  The grate’s real purpose is to keep crocs from exploding up from the abyss and pulling the odd hapless voyager through the open bottom for an easy squealing snack!

 

Not good for repeat business.

It only took 4 straight days of travel to reach this Capstick heaven on earth.

The West Petauke hunting block encompasses a million largely uninhabited acres; excepting the neighborhood elephants, lions, hippo and leopards.  They are our friendly jungle mates.  But should you step the wrong way watch out!  The .470 Nitro Express is our bed partner, duly loaded with 500 grains of expanding mayhem of course.

“Good morning, Bwana”.  That is your daily wake-up greeting from the staff outside your grass thatch chalet.  “Good morning, thank-you” in courteous reply.  You’d have been laying there awake listening to the myriad chorus of bird calls in the waking dawn.  They compete in harmonious synchronized waves.

Hippo Encounter

 

And it is a good day to be alive!  Yesterday the unexpected challenge was met, everyone retained all their fingers, toes and is among the living.  Our PH Derick thought it would be a good idea to check the newly redecorated river for ~8 miles downstream of camp for hippo by canoe so we would know where to set up a blind for ambush…safely from land.  The girls were invited on our surprise canoe scouting trip down the river.

 

Knowing Jeannette and not wanting to risk it I declined for her.  It was a correct assumption.  Derick had not done this previously with a client, and both of us I suspect being a little naive, departed on our lark adventure.  The hippo had other plans as we were now on their aquatic turf and invading their “refuge”.   Their safe haven.  Their nursery-space.  Get the picture?  What happened I have never read in a magazine or book nor seen in film as this was to be no typical sniper hunt from the bush.

The normal hippo posture, safe distance and just keeping a watchful eye.

No life preserves or flotation devices were available.  I guess the point is moot with the Luangwa being one of the most hippo and croc infested rivers in Africa.  They’re not gonna find’ya.  Besides water wings just makes you a “bob the apple” snack toy.  Silently sliding along, occasional raucous Meyer’s parrot calls are interjected by Grey go-away bird taunts.  Just me literally riding shotgun at the bow, PH Derick in the middle, Sylvester and Kennedy as pole men at the back.  They did have a wooden shovel in case paddling was needed.  In the rush for adventure the drinking water was forgotten in camp for the day’s voyage.  Your mouth gets a wee bit dry when face to face with hippos. 

Our canoe, loading the minimal hunting gear, 2 guns and a camera.

Bon voyage time….as it generally happens, hippo keep a discrete distance.  They move, maneuver and dive.  They don’t know you.  They don’t trust you.  They don’t want to be near you.  But once in a while you meet one who’s happy to greet you personally.  That was this day.  After many miles of floating, pushing off sand bars by our men in the water and sighting some good specimens for our intended land hunt a particular hippo decided it didn’t like our aftershave.  We spotted it a long way off.  The hippo had us in its beady eyed sight as well.  It stayed planted in the middle of the current seam facing us upriver.  Bopping, waiting, gauging its attack, the hippo was patiently timing our arrival!  Hippo pods to the right and crocs to left, the conveyor belt of rippling liquid swept us forward on a collision course.

Being Bwana, this was my gig with no backup from behind.  PH Derick was not holding his famed 1910 Rigby .470.  It sat neatly ready beside him as there was no shot opportunity as backup.  Besides, as a rule PH’s don’t fare well explaining to the Magistrate how the former Bwana had his hair parted in the crown of their head!

 

PH Derick did do a fine job as stand-in videographer capturing the Hippo Encounter moment.  That hippo was at whisker close shave distance from the bow and a perilous shot from a rocking boat.  Lined up, no time to think, “If he gets any closer than that” distance and immediately squeeeezing the left barrel rear trigger, I heard no sound other than the hippo slow rolling under.  You will need to see the feature film for the finish.  Just try putting your cheek on that stock!  I am not ashamed of the video captured tension in my jaw and shaking hand afterwards.

 

Now that my friend, is (delete long beeep) hunting!

Ill intentions and still closing the distance as there is no stopping the Luangwa current.  This hippo was purposely, malevolently waiting our arrival and the next head bob surfacing would have been right in my end of the canoe.

Above the bulging eye sockets are large bumps on each side of the snout.  Those are where the ivory canine tusks thrust up.  Large bumps are what we looked for.

What a challenge.  Admittedly photos show the single shot was 1” low and 1” point of aim right.   Note the head was tipped slightly.  Hummph, nitpickers.  PH Derick wants to add this Disney thrill ride as the only way to hunt hippo in the future.  I told him afterwards he put a lot of faith in my shooting ability.  I, for the first-time hunting and holding any double rifle just the day before, had only taken 4 practice shots with the open sighted Krieghoff .470 Nitro Express.  Hitting the tree 4 times I was declared ready to go.  Good thing I hunted squirrels with a baling wired iron sight .22LR almost half a century ago among the southern Oregon oaks.  Its worthwhile practice, small target and all.  Maybe next time I’ll tell him about my misses first.

 

That’s how you recover a hippo- team work.  As it was dusk, two scouts stood guard over the hippo throughout the night by camp-fire, against crocs, lions and such.

The Great Rift

Enjoyable day spent touring the glory of the African bush today including hot springs and one of the worlds grandest Baobab trees.  Having seen more than a few, this one is immense.  Only stuck and winched out once.  The Luangwa River flows through Africa’s great rift valley and terminates at the mighty Zambezi.  Its headwaters are at the intersection of Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania.  The hot springs are evidence from the Jurassic epoch forward of tectonic upheaval close to the surface.  Wonder what it would be like to hunt the great lizards of the past?

 

Bwana needs a bigger gun came the answer.

Jeannette and Sylvia relaxed in camp today while the boys hunted.  So onward Ho!…the bush is very dense and the game easily hidden.  There are many fleeting glimpses and rare opportunities in the leafy shadow.  Open plains shots in danbos or karunga are rare here.  You are sneaking quietly and slowly through vines, creepers and thorns.  Our prey’s cunning wiles on the simian chase increases the challenge.  Finding a baboon is not so hard as lesser troop members scamper and climb in chaotic screaming confusion.   Particularly since they find you first.  Catching the big dog arrogantly strutting about is the thing.  And today they won several times as we retreated to barking insults and obscene baboon gestures.  We did hear a troop explode as a leopard caught and devoured her morsel.  How a female?  PH Derick heard her call.  There was utter pandemonium and then silence.  Cats prefer dining in peace.

Took photo of really large leopard print in the mud.  None taken of the male lion prints in the road.  To keep tsetse flies away they have a novel method of burning elephant dung in a can wired and hung on the back rack of the battlewagon “Iron Maiden”.

 

We all fished later for tigers, a savage toothed monster as well as vundu, a large catfish from the pontoon.  You may have seen this on River Monsters with Jeremy Wade.

Bouncing back from fishing on the track to camp a trophy class 60lb a side Jumbo ghosted into the jungle.  Of course, a minute later a big bull kudu was just standing with his lady in the wide open five minutes from camp just at dark.  No gun.  That’s hunting.

 

It is very late or early at 3am, as the satellites align the flights are rebooked straight through, ha technology….you be the judge of this itinerary: Zambia-Zimbabwe-Ethiopia-Ireland-WA DC-CHI-PDX.  Good thing we rented our weapons.  I had sprinted in the dark by torchlight over to PH Derick’s chalet to retrieve the credit card from the safe.  “Thank-you Derick”…”No problem Bwana”.  Oops, the .470NE double is in the tent….a leopard is grunting a raspy cough right behind the perimeter grass fence ten feet from me in my skivvies, now tight under our bedsheets baboons alarm bark from the trees.  He’s after’em.  Then CRASH!  I forgot to mention the elephant bulls knocking down palms all around us for the fruit as well.  Its night terrors for light sleepers.

The Boer Trek

The Boer Trek was a famous historical event when the Dutch refused to live under British rule, fought and bitterly left South Africa northward and westward.  Hey we Americans couldn’t live with them either and kicked the Brits out too!  PH Derick and Sylvia are Dutch descendants, Afrikaans.  So, today’s trip is officially the Boer Trek from the Luangwa in the great rift valley and through the Muchinga Mts Escarpment to the Lunsemfwa river and Lukusashi river camp.  It was sixty miles in 8.5 hours at 7.5mph.  There were 69 named crossings not counting side feeders.  Officially the final crossing counts were: Ilinda 5, Miyaeye 19, Nyonga 29, Misaka 14, Noname 2.  The watershed summit was 2700 feet by GPS.  There is no road or track.  Not virgin fresh but fully overgrown.  Many years had passed since anyone had come this way.  It took 6 weeks for the advance crew working from each direction to cut the trace with pangas, a locally crafted machete tool.  The two sides were now re-joined.

And we are still in the same massive hunting block.  For comparison, West Petauke GMA is bigger by one hundred thousand acres than Olympic N.P., and bigger than the following by a quarter million acres each- Yosemite N.P., North Cascades N.P. or Rhode Island!  Take your pick.  The scenery from the escarpment summit where we lunched was stupendous.  The surrounding area forest had been burned as the road crew wanted to improve the view for us!  Thoughtful.  That low gap in the distance was 2 hours from Luangwa camp and we are at the summit 2 hours from that gap.  There were still 4.5 hours to go down to Lukusashi

The Muchinga Mts are heavy with quartz.  There were boulders half as big as cars.  The best white quartz rock was at the escarpment summit.  Dear God don’t let them find gold here.

Fun along the way included a young bull elephant, full size fun mind you, with 12” tusks flushing out of the bush absolutely right next to my open door, off the fender at speed darting across wild eyed and missing the front bumper by mere feet.  He almost made a fine hood ornament.  As the saying goes, he was just trying to meet his buddies like the chicken that crossed the road.  No warning, just flushed like fowl.  Luckily no harm, no foul.  It can happen that fast in the African bush.

 

FYI- That is precisely why PH Derick drives the Iron Maiden with no windshield and his Rigby loaded pointed ahead.  He has had to shoot charging elephant boarders as there isn’t room in the passenger seat!

 

Challenges

The crossings each had their own challenges.  Jeannette and Sylvia opted to wait on the other side for the Ilinda2 crossing.  The video would make a good Toyota and BF Goodrich ad.  Next up the crew had a rough go making a climb out of one of the crossings.  It took the Iron Maiden 4 tries on her 16ply tires.  The Boer Trek was made without a winch used by either rig.  “Muddie but no stuckie”.  PH Derick related a story from the 1990’s when Sylvia’s brother broke a drive shaft half way through the escarpment and finished the route driving backwards with one rearview mirror!   Men were men back in the day, eh.

The Muchinga Mts Escarpment “trace” was a low gear four-wheel drive scramble pitching down river and creek embankments, over boulders and through hand cleared wilderness.  Driving the Iron Maiden, Alex earned great status having successfully run the gauntlet for the first time.  Very few have made this trek and even fewer driven it.  No Dakar prize money, just tribal fame and glory, with the usual winning driver “perks”.

 

A little story about PH Derick.  In 2008 there were two man-eating lions creating havoc on the Luangwa River near our camp.  Two lions killed and ate a local village city councilor (sneaking out at night to visit a girlfriend, never-mind his wife) and also nearly killed a 13yr old boy sleeping by a campfire but failed when the parents threw fire brands, then yet another attack on a fisherman who was saved by his buddies.  PH Derick and a Zim PH, brought in to assist sorting out the issue, set a bait near where the boy was dragged screaming into the bush.  Turns out the marauders were two females.  Man eating lionesses.  Kind of reminds me of some….any-who….they readily came for the bait, at night of course.

Quiet please, lights on, ACTION!  The Zim guy forgot to load and his firearm spued a sickening “click”.  PH Derick cranked up and drilled one, killing it.  Helter-skelter snarling roars, the Zim PH quickly loaded, followed up and nailed the other.  Ahh such is the comfortable bush life.

 

Final note.  PH Derick related how he came across a 3’ deep by 6’ wide trench running for miles deep in the Muchinga Mts.  He asked his local crew if it was for irrigation.  No Bwana, that be slave route.  Solemn thought that.

Lukusashi River Camp

The Boer Trek pounded our stamina through continuous jostling and banging away on rocks, holes and logs; so with gritted teeth we pulled in relieved to a staff greeting at Lukusashi camp.  As you might imagine, Jeannette is pleased with the picturesque riverside camp nestled in a shady grove.

But it was COLD in camp this morning, about 5C.  A foggy mist rose from the water as Carmine bee-eaters flicked through the tendrils.  The sunshine warmed us up quickly though as PH Derick and I fished until midday via canoe.  The only thing moving or biting were the crocs, not even the pesky tsetse.  After lunch at camp, we went hunting.  Our goal was Kudu, Impala, Baboon and Pumba.  Many stalks, sightings and suitable specimens located…and we did find two of our quarries in a position to be hunted.  Ended with a huge baboon and very old impala ram.

Peaceful Lukusashi Camp setting.

 Dawn on the Lukusashi river.

Keeping a watchful eye for the gut pile stealing twelve-foot crocodile while fishing.

The big male dawg was spotted across a semi-dry river bed in the final slanting sun rays of the day.  The baboon was a tricky proposition as he was jumping, straining high to reach ripe fruit and landing behind a screen of purple, yellow and white flowers dotting river edge vegetation.  As he bounced up and down for fruit at 150 yards, I commented to PH Derick, 7mm rifle on the sticks, “Umm, I can’t make that shot.”  The reply was “Neither can I”!  Ha-ha what fun.  Finally, he strutted free of the brush in a tiny gap and he was truly drilled.  KA-BOOM.  Baboon troop chaos, howling screams and as the king is dead, they unceremoniously scrambled for cover.

 

The old impala ram gave a spirted run to no avail after a heart shot.  Also harvested two more impala on the camp quota for the scouts and staff.  They are quite pleased having triple meat to eat.  The baboon guts will be used for chumming tigers and vundu in the river.  We will all go fishing after a morning kudu hunt.  The impala was especially tasty served with a fine South Africa red.  It is 10pm and I can see my breath…chilling down after sweating today.

 

Jeannette and Sylvia enjoyed camp again while PH Derick and I hunted Kudu and Pumba.  Chased kudu through the thorn thickets without success.  Sunshine blazing hot at mid-day.  Jeez I’m tired.  PH Derick eyes me as I drift off seated under a tree.  He retreats to get the Iron 

Maiden.  Caught up with Pumba right at dark.  It goes from light to dark in 15 minutes.  Less than a 10yard shot with the silenced 7mm.  Death dash and done.  That warthog is as fine as you can ever hope for.  He sports a full blond flowing mane head to tail, the Fabio of hogs.  The staff was giddy with joy as they love eating warthog.  High fives all around.

There is a large croc trying to get into the skinning shed where the baboon corpse lies in state.  Slivers of yellow light slip through gaps in the grass siding.  The mood in there has a gory death dirge tinge and he doesn’t quite smell like aromatic incense.  They don’t put Pumba in there as they fear the croc stealing their meal.

 

For several nights lion have been calling back and forth across the river…..

UUUaaamPHH, UUUaaamPHH, UUUaaamPHH, UUUaaamPHH! 

 

This is my Africa!

Close Call

Good morning, sort of.  The kitchen staff work diligently to prepare and serve game and garden fare.  Breakfast was omelets with cheese, tomato and green onion, papaya fruit with Nescafe and orange juice.  But I can’t eat.

 

After returning with Pumba last night, I stumbled from the Iron Maiden and was flattened with an extreme high fever, uncontrollable violent shaking and dropped immediately into bed.  Started double dose antibiotics and ibuprofen.  Missed sundowners and dinner.  Burning fever until midnight followed by bed soaking sweats.  Sticking a foot or hand out would bring an icy shock of cold and quivering shakes.  By morning back to 90%, well maybe.  PH Derick was ready to Evac me.  Dodged a bullet there as Africa strikes in her return uncompromising fashion.  Must stay on medication.  It has travelled to all the joints, very stiff.  Carry on.

 

Back on Track

Things happen for a reason, so you appreciate them all the more.  We have spent 26 days in the African field on three safaris pursuing her grand prize- the Greater Southern Kudu.  They are the size of an elk or horse for comparison.  A bull over 50” of horn is considered a real trophy.  PH Derick and I spotted and stalked mostly cows, as there is usually a bull hanging about as they are rutting.  This day we had nothing for breakfast, taking a water bottle for a quick hunt.  Several busted attempts later due to the high numbers of impala and kudu cows (too many eyes) we found ourselves dry, hot, hungry and trying to get a bead on a lurking bull in the riverine shadows.

 

While searching, seeking, peeking to pick out the bull in the leafy murk I found the big guy sneaking away from the cows 35 yards out headed right, nose down low, horns tipped back not quite at a trot.  Branches, earth, leaves and the escaping bull all were black silhouettes against the bright sun dappled river highlighted beyond our little now or never world.   Silent “hsssss, he’s coming this way”!  With black-on-black zippo for 6X fixed scope cross hairs, a snap booming .375H&H Magnum shot shook the overhead leaves off and they fluttered down like a tickertape parade.  I felt good.

 

I hadn’t asked PH Derick (to my left), but having always hunted alone and killed seven bull elk without ever taking a shot over 70 yards on thickly forested Washington and Oregon public land, it was my element and time.  The bull went crashing away in a dramatic loop without offering a follow-up shot.  The one shot proved true after tracking the faint, almost dainty prints and splattered blood spoor quite some distance away from the river.  Kennedy and I found him in the hard-pan mopane scrub.  The crimson earth told the tale.  Bled out he had crashed into heavy brush, breaking limbs then reared up over backward and collapsed.  What a beautiful beast.

 

Final score:

Left horn       57-1/2” w 10” bases

Right horn     56-3/4” w 10-1/2” bases

Chevron striped muzzle, chalk stripe suit with a tosseled mane and shaggy beard, the Greater Southern Kudu is a formattable adversary as with his head tipped forward for fighting, he can look straight down the barrel of both his horn curls to be sure of his deadly aim and skewer you.

You can nearly pass a grapefruit down those curls.  He is a huge lifetime prize.

 

With full curls for the girls and flared horn tips, this boy is old, as his tips are the color of amber, a fossilized tree resin turned to precious stone.

 

Ah the sundowner.  A couple of gin & tonics and your memory goes bushy.  OK maybe a lot of gin & tonics as the crew had to organize a midnight re-supply run via motorcycle tag team.  That was a feat!  Well done boys, thank-you.

Fishing Africa Style

We have fished several locations, including the treacherous Chipinda Rapids, a cavernous jagged jaws of a gorge on the Lukusashi river.  While fishing there a scenic spectacle unfolded as a lion killed and munched a kudu across from us in a thicket.  We listened as the “circle of life” song played out with the river din for chorus.  Vultures wheeled patiently above.

 

We did both finally score fishing on “the beach” above camp.  Having brought $100’s of dollars’ worth of fancy fishing gear the deal was sealed with baboon entrails chumming the water.  FYI- the croc broke into the skinning shed and made off with our impala gut pile last night.  All that was needed to fish was a big hook and large blob of fresh heart meat.  The bloodier the better.  Everything eats meat in Africa.  Genteel fly fishing it ain’t.  Both Jeannette and I landed good sized Burbot, kind of a croaking catfish…and a certain female someone caught the bigger one by a wide margin!

Glad he’s on that side of the river.

 

That is our 6’ fishing buddy across the river.

Meat and Greet

The local nSenga-Ambu tribe villagers provide all the camp staff, road crews, trackers and skinners for this safari adventure.  It is their industry.  Cash payments are made providing the only real income.  They do some subsistence farming.  There is no market but there is a medical clinic in a village on the tar road to Bangweulu swamp.  The only commercial “export” is woman hand dug, hand watered and handpicked cotton. The volume is absolutely pitiful for the effort. They also do most of the farming for food.  Christian is the headman of the local Lukusashi river village and is in charge of the hunting camp staff.  Part of his role is meat distribution to his local tribe.  The village consists of 32 families with grass huts, a central open pillared thatched pavilion and inhabits ~150 men, women and children.

 

The meat is divided in 32 equal shares for everyone to see.  They are quite happy with their unsophisticated rural lives.  Who can blame them?  No CNN or their self-worshipping miscreant misfits!

The Way Out

This morning we embarked on the final leg of our journey and made the Lukusashi river crossing into another huge hunting block via pontoon.  It is the only way out unless you want to re-cross the Muchinga Mts Escarpment and take the other pontoon back.  PH Derick welded this watercraft together with bush ingenuity.  The first crew truck, the Iron Maiden, was much heavier, more guys and toting a diesel generator on the back to boot.  Looked quite rollie-pollie on the plastic drums.  Our turn came and you can see we are out of the truck again with toes on the slim steel yellow tire track….the drums sink if you step on them.  They are held in place only by floating against the frame.  Jeannette has that same look when we first encountered a Cape buffalo at 25’ on safari one day one, maybe a little happier as we were leaving, headed out for the final hunt.

Four hours more of tsetse infested bush driving, lots of game and almost no people brought us to the tar road.  Two hours more and back in Lusaka for the night at a golf resort complete with wandering Impala.  This enabled our Covid test to be swabbed when the doctor came to the hotel on special request.  Better pass.  The hotel, while not quite the standard of the old and distinguished InterContinental or it’s Safari Bar, was acceptable.  They did grant, after careful consideration, the use of the Board Room for the medical procedure rather than the lobby.  The slap of “reality” brings into question the ontological status of our supposed modern civilization.  Just food for thought.

 

Kafue Flats

Tomorrow it is an early departure for the Kafue Flats GMA and its Blue Lagoon North Bank area.  This is another hunting block established especially for the management of the Kafue lechwe, where it is the only place to be found on earth.   As for the hunt, if a mature ram can’t be located quickly on the limited dry ground along the swampy river lakeshore, then it is into the leaking wood dugout canoes for us.  Hired fishermen would provide the power.  From there it is slow poling through reeds and small islands amongst the crocodiles.  Hmmm sounds fun.

 

Let’s see if there is a cherry for this cake.

Getting directions on the myriad of intertwined Kafue Flats dusty tracks.

Kafue Flats GMA Game Scout station, signing in and checking the year’s harvest log.

What a Day

Forget the valley girl puns, OMG!  This long hunting day entailed an early start well before first light, rutted blacktop on the roughest official road ever seen for 6 hours each way in and out, piles of billowing dust with sizzling sunshine before finally getting back after dark.  They don’t put that ugly part in the brochure!  This is a wet year which has the small islands still flooded on the Kafue Flats.  That meant no need for poling a canoe through reeds amongst the crocodiles as the Kafue lechwe were on the main shore.  Jeannette said “darn” no croc canoe ride.  Imagine that.

While the girls stayed high and dry with the rig, we set off afoot and scouted out a number of herds, moving, milling, grazing.  The poo covered ground starts solidly enough and gradually changes to a gray/black muck which slowly goes from 1” to 6” deep.  It isn’t that Texas sticky gumbo, just a nice fine carbon colored poo goo.  It would make a fine lady’s facial mask.  But then the water starts appearing on top in large pools so now your deeper and soaked.  There are mini “islands” posing as termite mounds that the lechwe gather on like cattle.  We use these for strategic cover as dry glassing points and finally as a shooting rest.

Only One

The distance is long with herds keeping a 250yard initial safe zone, then they’re out to 450 yards.  That was after hazing rounds were dispensed just to make it interesting.  Bullets hit like little Yellowstone mud-pot geysers.  Yep, another miss.  PH Derick was sure it was the wind’s fault. 

A lot of glassing and waiting for movement revealed a very credible trophy.   The missed one would still have beat the government records book 29” average.  You can scan that book when you check in.  The Game Scout station records revealed this year’s best to date was 31-1/2”.  Anything over 30” is very good and that is why we missed.  “We” as in me, the gun and the wind.  I did learn later from a well-respected Zambian PH at the SCI convention his client’s 2021 best Kafue lechwe was 33”.

 

Then “the One” was spotted at the back.  You could almost see a halo and hear angels.  His horn tips waggled above the herd and when he came clear in view the bases were heavy, mucho grande!  Wrong lingual continent but you get the idea as even at what we thought was 400 yards we were tickled at the sight of him.   Oh, so sneaky now.  No, no range finder, just hunter guesstimation.   Ensuing mud, anthill islands, water wading and waiting for him to clear the lesser crowd multiple times took its toll.  He finally opened up at 350 yards and the 7mm trigger more carefully, gently applied.  THUNK is the returning sound of success.

 

He was down but not out.  Very sick and immobile.  Creeping forward two more termite heaps closed the gap to 200 yards.  We again had to wait as a young lechwe buck stood in the line of fire, forever.   The herd milled about their monarch, the blocking animal moved left and finally our trophy was given mercy and peace.

High Five as Borat says.  My Kafue lechwe is the largest PH Derick clients have ever shot.  The trophy measures by steel tape 34-1/2” x 33-3/4” with a pair of 8” bases.  This toad weighs around 300lbs, simply huge.  It is likely to be the best Kafue lechwe in Zambia this year.  We will have to wait to see what else gets harvested; but OMG!!!

Over an hour of mud hauling brought our “bull” back to dry land….he’s too big to be considered an ordinary “ram”.  We each traded off in pairs as there is no way but the hard way.  The game scout was useless, which is not normal.  Tip noted.  She still got a whole hind leg for her “effort” and then picked up the entrails as an extra “snack goodie”.  Mmmmm.  The guys kept the rest of the meat, heart, liver and stomach.  We lunched while trackers Stanley and Alec prepped the cape and meat.  They flushed the rumen out with pooey muddy Kafue Flats water for quality control.  More Mmmmm.  And the world worries about Covid.  These guys are nearly indestructible.  FYI- two trackers splitting that meat is a luxury.  It normally goes to the group and tribal village community.  Being a Government GMA, there is no community.  More High Fives.

 

Test results in very late, we are good to go.  For the record, I bagged a single Guinea fowl on the wing….don’t ask about misses.  And don’t ask the miss witnesses about misses as their silence wasn’t cheap 🙂

 

Full Circle

A journey in Swahili is Safari.  And Africa adventure is an experience as much as passage drawn through a portal.  The unknown stepped into, traversed with beating heart and spent breath, finishing with the mind’s eye silently replaying success in chronographic sunshine.  Time evaporates through a bit of mystery, very close to the Beginning and the End simultaneously; simply life’s Eternity.  It’s right there, there in the bush; the connection that is hunting and life.  I know I am lucky.

There are 12 ivory teeth in a hippo’s chompers.  About 8 inches of canine “tusk” sticks out of the lower gum, so your looking at about 2 feet of ivory.  This is the best value going for a “poor man’s” elephant hunt with less walking…..and just as exciting!

Springbok Slam on a Short Timeline

Sep 19, 2022 | Hunting Stories, News

By Michael W. Mills, Maricopa, AZ, USA

 

Africa is a place that grows on you. The more I experience Africa, the more I want to return. Planning for my Africa 2022 trip started before I completed a hunt in 2021.

 

Fast forward a year, I’m in South Africa with my wife, Greeta, and long-time hunting partner, Bruce. After a few days in the Limpopo Province, attempting to add to my Tiny 10 goal by hunting klipspringer and duiker, then seeing the biggest kudu I’ve ever seen in the wild, a 59” brute, my attention turned to the Karoo and the main focus of the safari—springbok.

 

Concluding the Limpopo portion of our hunt, we left very early in the morning on the fourth day of a seven-day hunt, for the 12-hour overland trip south, in order to arrive as early in the afternoon as possible to get in some hunting time before dark. Two of those seven days were travel days – so hunting time was precious.

White Springbok

About The Karoo

The Great Karoo is a plateau region extending across a vast area and several provinces. It consists of open rolling grasslands interspersed with volcanic hills and the occasional tree; it’s quite different from the Limpopo bushveld. The Karoo is comparable to the landscapes of northeastern New Mexico, where I’ve hunted pronghorn antelope. While the landscapes may look similar, the similarity ends there, as the Karoo offers a far greater amount and variety of wildlife, and is the native range of springbok.

 

Operating in the Northern Cape Province, Julian (Jules) Theron, known as, “Jules of the Karoo,” owns the Plaatfontein farm, located near the town of De Aar. Jules has spent decades nurturing springbok development, and it shows. Jules’s relatives first came to this area in the 1840s. Now, five and six generations later, he and his son Izak continue the family’s commitment to the Karoo and springbok. There are an estimated 30,000 Springbok on Plaatfontein’s roughly 300,000 acres, making for good opportunity to see springbok without having to spend days locating animals.

 

The Springbok Hunt

The objective in the Karoo for both Bruce and me was to obtain Springbok Grand Slams. I trusted Numzaan Safaris and Jules of the Karoo would help make my dream a reality. That trust proved to be well placed.

 

A Springbok Grand Slam (“slam” hereafter) consists of the four colors variations of this species, the common, copper, white, and the smallest and more rare, black springbok. There are herds of common springbok only, but often we encountered mixed herds, some with all four colors.

 

A big plus for the hunt was our local tracker’s incredible eyesight accompanied by very good optics. In reality, he should be called an expert spotter, rather than a tracker.

Above: Copper Springbok

Right: Common Springbok

With minimal cover, our stalks had to be well-planned. We found the springbok’s comfort zone was generally 250 to 300 yards.

 

We had less than three days to hunt. It’s recommended that five to seven days be allocated for the pursuit of a quality springbok slam, but we just didn’t have that luxury. One could complete a slam in a day, and some people have done so, but to secure large-horned trophies typically requires more time.

 

Hunting that first afternoon proved rewarding, relieving some pressure on this condensed hunt. Bruce connected with two springbok before dark, taking a nice common ram and adding a larger-than-normal white ram.

 

Simultaneously, after finding a small herd with a good common ram, Arnold Cloete, my PH, and I stalked slowly using a lone tree as cover. We got within 300 yards, but needed to get to a better shooting location. Leaving our tracker at the tree, we walked together in the open.

 

“Bend 90 degrees at your hips and grab my belt to stay immediately behind me,” he requested. “We’ll appear as a four-legged animal.” He held his shooting sticks high as we walked to simulate gemsbok horns. 

 

We made our way to a rock outcropping without disturbing the grazing herd, putting us in position to connect with the common springbok ram. I assumed the ram we were seeing was a representative animal for the species. That assumption was later corrected when Arnold put a tape to his horns; they measured just under 17 inches in length.

 

Common springbok are the most frequently seen and were the originating sub-species for the other springbok types. They also have the largest body and horn size.  Trophy pricing for the common springbok is generally in graduated cost as the horn length exceeds 14 inches. Rams larger than 17 inches are rare.  At the Theron Lodge we did see horns that measured close to 20 inches— those are exceptional horns!

 

The next morning Bruce completed his slam, having obtained a very nice assemblage of rams. Arnold wanted to begin the day looking for a respectable black ram, knowing that it might take time to locate, but we quickly shifted our attention to a white ram the tracker spotted in a distant pasture.  After shooting high, the ram moved off, requiring a short pursuit in the truck.  A follow-up shot and we had our second ram.

 

Shortly thereafter, good fortune was with us, and we found a large black ram. A quick stalk, and two rams were headed to the skinning shed. With these successes, the pressure was easing for getting my slam.

Black Wildebeest

Black Wildebeest – Greeta and Arnold

We started the day intending to hunt springbok all day, but our plans changed at lunch as management wanted us to turn our attention to pursuing black wildebeest, given the coordination of hunters. That gave me a chance to relax a little, as it was now my wife’s turn to be the hunter.

 

Greeta was hunting for the first time in Africa and was seeking a black wildebeest to continue moving our trophy collection towards the “Beest” Grand Slam completion. She had already taken her first Africa animal in Limpopo, a common blesbok.

 

After arriving to an area where black wildebeest have existed in their natural range for millennia, we glassed several lone bulls, and a short stalk ensued. While Greeta lined up vertically on the front leg, as instructed by Arnold, her shot was low and carved a light groove in his leg. What are the chances of a grazing shot that does not draw blood and only shaves off the hair? The way the animal reacted, Arnold thought it had been hit. But subsequent groundwork and glassing of the bull did not reveal any blood.  It was only later we would discover the groove in the hair.

 

Now spooked, those bulls joined a small herd of cows, circled around a small mountain, and headed over a shallow pass. Greeta and Arnold attempted a second stalk, but with disturbed animals, they couldn’t close the gap to a reasonable shooting distance before dark set in.

 

The focus of the morning on the final day of our hunt in the Karoo was to find a copper springbok. Arnold’s plan included a lunch away from the lodge to allow maximum time to get a copper and then get back on wildebeest.

 

Mornings are cool to cold on the Karoo in July; it’s the southern hemisphere’s winter. This particular dawn we had frost on windshields, and fog. In fact, the fog was so thick we had to delay getting into the field over an hour past the normal starting time.

 

Once afield, with the fog gradually burning off, we spotted several copper springbok in a mixed herd. We were facing into the sun and maneuvered to approach them from the east. As we moved into position they were gone. Springbok can run very fast, and this group, possibly spooked by our movement or a wind shift, had vanished.

White Springbok

Black Springbok

A little later a reasonable copper ram moved to within shooting distance. With the foggy overcast and the soft light, I questioned if it was a copper or a common. I was firmly told, “Remember Rule #1 and shoot.” My slam was completed.

 

Rule #1—trust & obey the PH—had come up at the beginning of the hunt, in Limpopo. After Greeta and I tuned in our rifles, Arnold sighted-in his .223, in addition to his heavy backup gun. I found that odd. He told me the first day in the field that my rifle was too much for the pygmy antelope, but perfect for springbok shot at longer distances. I had taken a RW record steenbok the prior year with that same rifle at short range and dismissed his comment.

 

He must have talked with Johan, the camp manager, as the correct calibers for various game was the topic of discussion at supper that night. Johan convinced me that hunting klipspringer and duiker with a smaller caliber was the correct thing to do. Now I understood why the .223 had come along on the hunt. Arnold was thinking ahead, knowing what caliber I was bringing to this safari. After making the decision to use his .223 for pygmy antelope, he reminded me of Rule #1. While it carried a serious tone, it became a running joke between us the subsequent few times I questioned what was going on.

 

Having completed my springbok slam, the day’s hunt plan was holding. We dropped the ram for skinning, then headed southwest for black wildebeest. We anticipated correctly that the herd would remain in the hilly area where we’d left them the evening before. True to form, our tracker sighted a herd first, several miles away. The herd included the bull Greeta had shot at the previous afternoon. The tracker, Arnold and Greeta set off on what would turn out to be a very careful two-hour stalk. With a little tree cover, they slowly worked their way along a depression that closed roughly a third of the gap to the herd, moved to a hill and then carefully moved again, further east to another smaller hill.

 

The herd had shifted during the stalk to the side of small mountain, unaware of the approaching hunters. The three stalkers remained out of sight and closely watched the wind, which remained favorable the entire stalk; they gradually closed to within 150 yards.

 

Arnold positioned her on a perfectly placed flat rock on that small hill, giving her a solid shooting platform. After the shot, Arnold summoned us on the radio with the good news and a request to bring the truck as close as possible in that rocky terrain. His plan had been executed perfectly and we completed our Karoo hunt with four hours to spare. What a relief!

 

Summary

 

Three of the four rams have larger-than-average to exceptional horn lengths and could score SCI Gold. My slam was completed in under two full hunting days. This is not the norm, and serves as a tribute to the tracker employed by Jules and Izak, and to Arnold’s excellent PH and people skills, a team effort for which I am very appreciative. The lesson? When on a tight timeline, the right team at the right place is critical.

Campfire Thoughts & Reminiscences Part 8

Sep 14, 2022 | Archive, News, News

Written by Neil Harmse

 

Chapter 9. Concerning Snakes

 

One of the most frequent questions I am asked by people venturing into the bush on a trail or hunt is: ‘Do we have to worry about snakes?’ To be honest, there are snakes all over, even in suburban gardens, but they do their best to avoid contact with humans. Over the years I have spent in the bush, covering many miles on trails and hunts, my incidents and encounters with snakes have been relatively few and, as mentioned, these reptiles do their best to keep out of our way.

 

My first serious encounter was on a day in the late 1960s in the Waterberg. I was working on a geological survey and when it was almost midday, I decided to sit down and have a sandwich for lunch. I found a convenient tree log to park on while eating. I placed my field bag with my notebooks, maps and equipment on the ground with a bit of a thump, which must have disturbed the reptile – a yellow Cape cobra, which shot out from under the log. It was trying to get away, but as I jumped up, it turned and spat venom directly into my eyes. The snake then disappeared, and I was left squirming with excruciating pain, especially in my left eye, which had taken the most venom. Grabbing my water bottle, I rinsed my eyes, but this did not seem to help. I was about 2km from camp and, like a halfblind man, stumbled back to it. There was a Fitzsimmons snake-bite kit and I managed to use a vial of anti-venom serum, diluted with water, to rinse my eyes again. I then made my way to the farmhouse and phoned a doctor in Warmbaths, who suggested rinsing my eyes with milk and then coming through to him as soon as I could. After rinsing my eyes, the farmer drove me to the doctor for treatment. He flushed my eyes and then bandaged them, with instructions to keep them closed and out of sunlight for a day or two. After two days, the bandages were removed, and medicated drops prescribed. My left eye was still badly inflamed and had to remain covered for about a week. My eyesight eventually recovered, but to this day, I still have trouble with my left eye, especially in harsh light or while night driving with oncoming headlights.

 

Many years ago, in the early 1970s, I was doing some geological mapping in a very remote area in South West Africa (now Namibia). I was alone and had parked my Land Rover and 46 proceeded on foot towards some rocky outcrops, plotting and mapping as I went along. I had my field bag over my shoulder with my notebook, reference books, measuring tape and pens, and had my clipboard and geological pick in my hands.

 

Ahead was a large outcrop of sandstone with a high and vertical cliff face reaching above it. Suddenly a black mamba shot out from some scrub and sped away towards the cliff. It reached the cliff face and moved left and right, trying to find an escape route. Unable to find a gap, it then turned and came back directly at me. Now, the black mamba is one of the most dangerous, venomous and aggressive snakes in Africa, and definitely not a creature to take lightly. This one must have been about 3m long and seemed to be moving like lightning. All I could think of was that if it bit me, I had no hope and my body would not be found for weeks, maybe months. I simply froze! Not a movement. I think I had stopped breathing. The mamba shot past me, about half a metre away, at unbelievable speed and kept going, just wanting to get away. Had I moved or taken any aggressive action, it would have struck and I would not be writing these words.

 

Another snake incident was years later and concerned a Mozambique spitting cobra or

Mfezi.

 

My good friend and expert wildlife guide, John Locke and I were contracted by the North West Province Nature Conservation to conduct a training course for prospective rangers in the Borakalalo Reserve. One evening, John and I had a campfire going and I went to the bathroom to clean up. This facility was rather rustic, constructed of poles, reeds and thatch. Standing at the washbasin, I heard a strange, hissing noise emanating from beneath it. Looking down, I saw a large snake curled up on a ledge. Needless to say, I beat a hasty retreat, hoping that the snake would move away on its own if left undisturbed. After about an hour, John and I went to see whether the reptile had gone. As it was getting dark, we had torches to see better in the dark recesses of the facility. We saw no sign of the snake, so we went back to our campfire to get a few chops and sausages going.

 

While sitting and enjoying a drink and dinner, we heard a strange, swishing sound moving closer. Jumping up and flashing torches, we saw a large Mfezi or Mozambique spitting cobra making its way over the loose sand from the ablution block and heading directly towards our camp. The snake must have picked up our movements and swung off to the left, directly to my tent, where it slid under the groundsheet. There was no way I was going to sleep in the tent while the snake was sharing the same space, even if it was under the canvas sheet. Wanting to make it move, I went inside the tent with a broom to try to push it to the side and out, while John was on the outside with his torch trying to see which way it was moving. Eventually a terribly angry Mfezi shot out and sped up a tree, below which my Land Rover was parked. Not wanting the snake to get into the car, I drove it away and parked on the other side of the camp. After a very uneasy night, at sun-up we could see where it had slid from the tree and moved into the bushes away from camp. We could again breathe easily. Thankfully, we did not encounter the snake again for the remainder of our stay.

 

Once, on a walking trail in the Manyeleti, I was leading a family group when I heard the sound of a herd of elephant ahead of us. My old tracker, Petrus, with us. He was walking ahead, following the tracks. As usual, when we approached the herd, he moved back to see to the safety of the people in the event of us having to back away suddenly, should the matriarch or one of the cows become a bit nasty. A breeding herd is always unpredictable because of the cows with young calves and sometimes immature bulls within the herd. We were walking slowly along and I was concentrating fully on the elephants. As Petrus was passing me to move to the rear of the group, I felt him grab my jacket and pull me backwards. Astonished at this sudden move, I looked at him and he pointed down, in front of me. There, where I was about to put my foot, was a nasty-looking puff adder curled up, watching me with beady eyes.

 

I was saved from what could have been a very bad bite by Petrus’s sharp eyes and quick reaction. We watched the ‘puffy’ for a short while and then left it in peace, giving it a wide berth and carried on observing the elephant herd. Again, the snake was simply basking in the sun and not really aggressive, but this would have changed, had I put my foot on it. While involved with game control operations in the southern area along the Kruger National Park border, my family and I had a house on a large estate in the Malelane area. Early one morning, I heard a high-pitched screeching or squealing coming from somewhere at the front of the house. Grabbing my shotgun, I ran through the house and onto the enclosed veranda. There was a large mamba trying to grab a big frog, which was the cause of the high-pitched screech. Before I could fire a shot, the mamba turned and was gone, into a tree on the side of the house. I fired a few shots into the tree, but with no result. I could not see where the snake had disappeared to.

 

When I eventually returned to the porch, the frog was dead, obviously bitten by the mamba. My two children, six-year-old Janet and five-year-old Craig, were standing wide-eyed, watching the incident. The snake gone and the frog dead, I went to put the shotgun away and asked the children to fetch a spade, pick up the frog and throw it over the fence into the veld. Inside the house, while storing the shotgun, I suddenly heard loud screaming from the children and, grabbing the gun, ran back. The mamba had returned to collect its prey and as the children ran away, it turned to chase them. I had heard of this behaviour before, but had never experienced it. I once again grabbed the gun and as I came around the side of the house, I encountered the terrified children with the mamba in pursuit, going in the opposite direction. Without hesitation, I blasted the snake, almost in two halves, from the close-range shot of the shotgun. With children and dogs around the house, I was taking no chances sharing our home space with a reptile like that.

 

Over many years and many miles through the bush, I can honestly say that the encounters I have had with snakes have been few and far between. Snakes are generally less of a problem than people imagine and for the most part, given their instinct for survival, they will move out of your way and do their best to avoid contact with humans.

To order Campfire Thoughts & Reminiscences – the complete book with illustrations (US $15 excluding S&H), contact Andrew Meyer at andrewisikhova@icloud.com

Hurry up and “Wag n Bietjie”

Sep 14, 2022 | Hunting Stories, News

A Kalahari Leopard 

By Ryan Phelan of Hotfire Safaris

 

 

Max was back! Back on his fourth adventure with Hotfire Safaris, this time in the vast Kalahari of Botswana. The quarry, a leopard.

 

We had ten days booked to search over a million acres of Kalahari in Unit KD6 for a majestic leopard, and we teamed up with good friend Adrian and his awesome hounds for the hunt.

The ‘Wag-n-Bietjie’ bush has small, black, hook-thorns that grab and hold you – the ‘wait-a-bit’ bush. Hurry up and wag-n-bietjie, aptly describes the ebb and flow of hunting leopard in the Kalahari bushveld. The highs and lows, the slow, frustrating nothing-happening periods suddenly broken by frantic, crazy, adrenalin-pumping action.

 

The planning and build-up was done, but the anticipation was heightened when we met Max at Johannesburg airport and set off on the road trip to Botswana. We were surprised during our drive to the camp to see the Kalahari transformed into a sea of long grass by an unusually wet season, when about a 1,000mm of rain had fallen. I feared that the odds had been heavily altered in favor of the quarry.

 

At the camp we settled around the fire with refreshments to discuss how the hunt would be conducted as this was a new type of adventure for Max. This hunt would be different from the normal leopard hunt where a bait is used to lure the cats. The wily Kalahari leopard in the KD6 area do not come to bait!

 

Adrian explained how his dogs operated, the different scenarios that could happen and how we would need to deal with each eventuality. He said that the scent-holding ability of the dry Kalahari sand is very low and makes it difficult for the dogs to work. It was therefore necessary for us to traverse the vast area by checking all the cut lines and sandy roads in an attempt to find the fresh tracks of a large male leopard. Trackers would then have to follow the track until we bumped the cat and the dogs could be released onto the fresh scent. The vehicles would follow as closely as possible for the safety of dogs, trackers, and hunters in the thick, thorny Kalahari bushveld.

 

Sounded easy at the time!

With plans all laid out and everyone understanding their roles during the hunt, we flattened a good, hearty Botswana beefsteak and turned in for the night. 

 

Day 1 started at first light, and the two vehicles went out in different directions to scout for fresh tracks. The KD6 area is loaded with predators of all types, from cheetah to wild dog, brown hyena to lynx, jackal, and the occasional wandering lion and, of course, leopards. So, scouting for leopard track was not as simple as it had sounded the previous evening.

 

Travel a short distance, stop, check the tracks. No, it’s brown hyena. Go, stop. No, it’s cheetah, and so on. I realised as we made our slow progress along the traverse, what a headache the numerous predators were for the local tribes folk living with their goats and cattle.

 

We had seen many different tracks when sunset brought Day 1 to a close, but the only fresh leopard track was a female. The traversing was, however, a good introduction to the area, conditions, and how the days would unfold.

 

Before daybreak on Day 2, we set out to look for tracks on a long cutline, which is a straight clear-cut line through the bushveld. We travelled about 280 kilometers, talked to some local villagers about leopard in their area without learning anything helpful, and found some decent leopard tracks that were, disappointingly, about two days old.

 

We were feeling very down when we got a call from the second vehicle informing us that they had picked up a fresh male leopard track some 60 kilometers away from our location. We hastily headed in their direction with revived enthusiasm and high expectations.

There we learned that the male leopard had killed a porcupine the evening before, rested, and then started moving again. The track looked good, but we only had about two and a half hours of daylight left when the 12 trackers eagerly got to work following the leopard tracks.

 

Tracking in a normal year in the Kalahari would be done by two to four trackers, but this year, because the incredible rains had resulted in a thick cover of long grass and crusted soil, a large team of highly skilled trackers was needed.

Tracking is slow going at the best of times, but it is incredible to watch these talented men methodically go about their work. They seem to understand the cat and see through its eyes, picking up on the slightest evidence of where it has moved in order to keep on following it. The pace quickened at times in more open areas and then ground to a halt when the track was lost. The group would then fan out, sometimes up to 400 meters apart and circle back, searching for a clue. A faint whistle in the distance would jolt the hunters parked in the shade of an acacia thorn tree, out of their daydreams. The track had been found, and off we would go again.

 

Hurry up and wait-a-bit.

 

When the giant red orb began descending in the western sky, we decided to GPS the spot and return the next morning to continue on the tracks. We were lucky to see a pack of wild dogs on our way back. A great sighting, but I pessimistically fretted that the wild dogs might push that leopard further and faster.

 

Later, after a few whiskeys and an incredible Botswana meat dish at a hot fire, we were off to bed after a hot shower to remove the Kalahari dust.

 

Day 3 was a cold start, a typical semi-desert chilly morning with a beautiful sunrise. It was back to the last GPS location and on with the tracking.

 

The day was long but when you walk with the trackers and see and learn from them, and try to understand what they are seeing, time passes quickly. We tracked the cat until dusk with only a short break for food and drinks during the peak heat of the day. Getting closer but still nowhere close enough to let the dogs loose.

 

We plotted the route of our two days’ tracking in the GPS and concluded that the cat was moving northwest in the direction of our camp, which was about 35 kilometers away. He was probably heading in that direction because of a higher concentration of wildlife attracted by the availability of water in the area around the camp. We did not know whether he would take a day to get there or make a kill en route and take longer, but we decided to look for his tracks in the vicinity of the camp over the next few days.

 

Needless to say, after that long day, a whiskey beckoned to settle the dust in the throat and boost the spirits again. 

Day 4. We started working outwards from camp in two directions and eventually we found a fresh cat track.

 

We could not decide whether or not it was the male leopard. We compared pictures and measurements of the various leopard tracks we had found. A leopard track in soft red sand pushes out to different dimensions compared with one on firmer sand. The debate raged on and by this point the dogs were baying for action, but we had to be careful. If we committed and released the dogs, there was no calling them off. We had to be sure of the size and sex of the leopard.

 

Finally, considering that it was only Day 4, we called it off on that track and headed for camp. The dogs would get their day!

 

Day 5. Dawn broke and we had mixed feelings; heightened concern about time whittling away, we were halfway through the hunt, as well as a strange sense that the big leopard was in the area, and this could be the day. 

 

Once again, we divided our forces to scour the dry sand roads for tracks. At 8.45 a.m.  a call came through from Patrick and Max. They had found a fresh track entering the area and fresh scat on the road. Adrian and I rushed to their area with the dogs to where the trackers were waiting, and confirmed that this was the leopard we were after, and off went the trackers. We were hopeful of catching the cat bedded up after a night hunting and feeding, as it was only 10.30 a.m.

 

The move and wait-a-bit scenario continued in the long grass throughout the day. The body language of the trackers soon started showing that things were heating-up. They even kicked into a jogtrot at times. 

 

We must have bumped the cat but not seen him at around 3.30 p.m. as evidenced by the lie-up area and running tracks. Things started to get real, and the pace quickened. The dogs in the vehicle also seemed to sense the presence of the cat, and started howling.

Suddenly, a tracker up front in the thick thorns shouted that he had caught a glimpse of the cat as it crossed a cut line. It was heading for some very thick stands of ‘wag n bietjie’ thorn bushes. Adrian let loose some of his front runner scent hounds and the chase was on. Trackers running, dogs baying, Land Cruiser trying to keep up, going over, round or through the thick bush.

 

The rest of the pack was set loose, and the intensity increased. The cat was smart and knew his terrain. He was running circle after circle losing the younger dogs, but the older ones were staying the course and then calling in the younger ones to join the fray. It became clear that this cat was not going to tree, and we realised that things could erupt at any second and then blind fury could come hurling out at us in a flash of spots.

 

We knew that the cat was getting tired and would soon make a stand but where, and would we see it. The sun was setting, eyes playing tricks, adrenalin playing havoc with the senses.

Then, at last shooting light, the dogs started consistently baying around a small grey bush and I realised that this was it.

 

‘Wait for my command! We don’t want a dog shot,’ I said to Max.

I spotted the head and neck of the cat. Max suddenly saw it as well and upped the shotgun.  ‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, the dogs are around it,’ I warned.

 

And then the cat lunged out at the dogs, causing them to back off slightly and a clear shooting lane opened up.

 

‘Sho..,’

 

Boom. Max was ready and dropped the hammer before I could finish the word. The cat spun around and took off for about 25 yards before crashing to the ground.

 

Just incredible, the sound of the dogs, the trackers elation, the dust in the air, dry throats, the palpable release of tension. It was done, and all were safe.

A clean kill.

 

A moment to remember for a thousand sunsets.

 

A few plains game animals were taken in the remaining days to round off an epic adventure.

 

A big thank you to Max and Hotfire Safaris yet again, as well as to Adrian and his hounds for making a joint success on this hunt.

 

A special dedication to Dutchess, a lovely young hound that was taken before her prime on this hunt. May she continue to run the scent in her star-life.

The community in KD6 were grateful that the animal that preyed on their livestock was down. They only tolerated the cats in their grazing land because of the benefit that the fees that the trophy tag world bring to them.

 

The success of organised hunting in community concessions was evident. The 15 local trackers and guides as well as all the camp staff had regular employment and thousands of dollars go into a trust for the community to build schools, drill boreholes for water, build clinics and other upliftment projects.

 

This model shows that, when animals have a value and the local community benefit from that value, the animals will be conserved even if there is a risk to domestic livestock. The model assures that only the old males will be taken, allowing the number of the species in that area to increase. Strict adherence to the limited tags for leopard in that vast area also shows that it is not about greed and more about sustainable utilization of our natural wildlife. 

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