By Terry Wieland

Lions, Kittens, and Cats

A first encounter with a wild lion is a life-changing event.  It may not seem like much at the time.  Both of you may walk away unscathed.  But I defy anyone to eradicate the memory.  It stays with you until you die.  And, in truth, you hope it will.

Of all the Big Five, lions hold a fascination for human beings that is mysterious and inexplicable.   Everyone acknowledges it, but no one can put their finger on exactly why.  There is no single lion trait that’s exclusive to the big cat.  They can be man-eaters, but so can leopards; they form family groups, but so do elephants; they can hold a grudge against humans for no apparent reason, but so do Cape buffalo.

One big difference is that humans find lions almost universally admirable — at least, humans who don’t live among them, day after day and, more critically, night after night.  Every time I’m tempted into a reverie about my experiences with lions, into my head pops the voice of a Tswana friend from years ago.  We somehow got talking about lions.  “Lie-owns are bad,” he said, shaking his head.  “Ver’ ver’ bad.”  Since he had lost a cousin or two to hungry lions, and I had not, it was difficult to argue.

Still, man-eating lions are rare, like the rogue humans who commit armed robbery.  No one glorifies them, although the man-eaters of Tsavo gained world-wide notoriety and really put Kenya on the map.  Bonnie and Clyde did much the same thing for east Texas.

Although I’d been to many parts of Africa, and spent the better part of year there, in total, since 1971, I never encountered a lion in the wild until a safari in Tanzania in 1990.  Driving along a narrow hillside track, we came around a turn and found a pride of lions sprawled on the road.  Robin Hurt was driving, and immediately hit the brakes.  One big maned fellow looked at us calmly with his pale amber eyes, not 20 yards away.  We backed up, Leo thought it over, and then rose and strolled into the bush.

Nothing really happened (although it certainly could have) except that, at that moment, any desire I ever had to hunt lions evaporated.

Like others of the Big Five, as well as the greater kudu, the lion has the power to fascinate, and some men become primarily lion hunters.  J.A. Hunter was supposedly one such; Jack O’Connor, the American writer, was another.  “I have hunted the lion,” he wrote proudly after a safari in the 1950s, and the fascination stayed with him.  Robert Ruark, on the other hand, hunted lions but was really fascinated by leopards.  Personally, I consider myself a buffalo hunter, and would hunt mbogo in preference to almost anything else.

Later on the same trip, hunting buffalo in the Okavango in Botswana, I had my second encounter with wild lions.  We were tracking a herd of buffalo which had come to water during the night and withdrawn into the bush.  With two trackers, my PH and I crept along, catching glimpses of black hide.  For some reason, the buffalo kept spooking and thundering off.  Sometimes, we knew they’d caught a whiff of us, but other times there was no explanation.  Finally, they withdrew for good, leaving a cloud of dust hanging in the late-morning air as the sound of hooves faded to nothing.

Hot, tired, and thirsty, we began the long trudge through the sand to the hunting car, five or six miles back.  We came to a clearing, one of the dry pans that dot the Okavango, and found, lying there, a lion and a lioness.  The lady jumped to her feet, but the lion just raised his head and glared at us.  He wasn’t moving.  We backed away and circled well around.  It all became clear what had happened.  While we’d been hunting one side of the buffalo herd, they were hunting the other.  We had taken turns ruining each other’s stalk.

I felt bad about it, as if the lions were somehow colleagues.  We at least had the chop box in the safari car, whereas if they wanted lunch, they had to start over.  No wonder he glared at us.

The most famous case of a white man being killed by a lion was George Grey, in 1911.  Grey was the brother of Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign minister, during the Great War.  He was hunting lions on horseback on a farm in the Aberdares, got too close (by his own admission later), and failed to stop a charging lion with his .280 Ross.  The high velocity bullet has been blamed ever since but, before he died in a Nairobi hospital, Grey said it was his own fault.

Another famous story concerns Denys Finch Hatton, the well-known professional hunter and lover of Karen Blixen, who died in a plane crash in 1931.  He was buried in the Ngong Hills, and it was said that for years afterwards, a lion would come and lie beside his grave, looking out over the plain.

Humans have a tendency to anthropomorphize lions more than other African animals, crowning him the King of Beasts, and writing cute stories like “The Lion King.”  That is, when they are not living in fear.  This gives our relationship with lions a contradictory duality, and results in the kind of pro-lion, anti-lion conflict that we see in North America with wolves.  My old Tswana friend had no doubt where lions fit into the scheme of things, and wanted no part of them.

Generally, except for man-eaters, lions seem to treat humans, if not as equals, at least as something interesting but inoffensive.  Willy Engelbrecht was a PH in Botswana who had a great reputation as a hunter of lions, but he also liked them.  Willy hated sleeping in a tent, preferring to pitch a little pup tent away from everyone else, and heating his water for tea in the morning over a small fire.  One morning, he opened his eyes and looked up through the mosquito net to find a lioness sitting there, calmly looking down at him.  Their noses were about a foot apart.  What did you do, Willy, I asked?  “Lay as still as I could,” he replied.  “What else was there to do?”

Sometimes, lions seem to like to tag along.  Another PH friend of mine was clearing some roads in a concession up in Kwando, near the Caprivi Strip.  They were sleeping under the stars, moving camp every day.  One night, Chris woke up to find a lion sitting by the fire, staring into the coals.  Just sitting there.  Another time, he found a lion stretched out across one of his sleeping men, snoozing like a cat in a lap.  The sleeping man was snoring away.  The lion was just being sociable.

As tamers of lions have found, to their cost, over the centuries, taking a lion for granted, and letting down your guard, or forgetting you are dealing with one of the most dangerous and accomplished killers on earth, may be the last thing you ever do.

My last encounter was in a camp in the Okavango, the year before hunting was closed.  There were lions all around — we’d find their footprints in the sand around our tents in the morning — and walking back from the campfire after dark was a little hair-raising.

One night, a herd of Cape buffalo took up residence just behind our tents, and we went to sleep to the gentle sounds of herbivores.  Around one in the morning, we snapped awake to hooves pounding like thunder.  The buffalo were being chased, and as the pounding faded, it was replaced by the sounds of a terrific battle — a buffalo bull, bawling and fighting for his life, and the roars of lions, all just a few yards away through the bush.  We were painfully aware that we had nothing but a length of 12-oz. canvas between us and the Great Outdoors.

Finally, the battle ended, and we drifted off to the relatively peaceful sound of tearing flesh, crunching bones, and lions exchanging testy growls as they sorted out who would eat where.

As we later learned, there were six big male lions, hunting together.  They used our camp as a screen, coming at the buffalo from between the tents in a long line, and brought down a big bull just behind my tent at the end.  We drove out in the morning and found them in a clearing.  Three were still eating, two were licking their paws and grooming, and one was lying on his back, all four paws in the air, sleeping it off.

We stopped the safari car and watched them.  They looked at us, and kept eating.  That was my last memory of the Okavango as hunting country, and I couldn’t ask for better.

By Dennis Schumacher

The group of eland were clustered behind a grove of trees deep in the bush of northern Cameroon, thirty sets of eyes arrayed in a circle looking outward for any perceived threat. I swatted at the mopane bees circling my face and diving into my ears. Gadal, the lead tracker whispered, “Don’t move!”  Even though we were still 250 yards from the group, their sharp eyes could identify any movement that did not normally belong in their environment. The eland turned and began to move away. The three of us inched forward in single file while their attention was distracted. I held onto the shirt back of Patrick Dahlan, the professional hunter, while he held on to Gadal’s shirt as we moved slowly in single file, hunched over and placing each foot in the footprint of the one ahead. It occurred to me just how skilled these two men ahead of me were. It was Day 5 of our Lord Derby Eland hunt.

The moment was not lost on me as my mind went back to my friend and mentor, Sauro Albertini who, one day in the late 1980s, showed me a picture of a giant eland he had taken in the C.A.R. Since that day, I had my mind set on taking a giant eland, or Lord Derby eland as they are known. Cameroon is now the premier place to hunt these magnificent creatures, and I had signed on with Faro East Safaris for this hunt in 2024. Now, in early 2026, it was happening!

Over the intervening time while preparing for the trip to Cameroon, I watched every YouTube video and read every account of Lord Derby eland hunting I could find. One theme was constant: it was a physically and mentally punishing hunt. This is what I wanted, not some easy walk in the park. I had started preparing months before: diet, exercise, working in my new boots, and walking miles each day. Then the unexpected happened. While mowing the pasture on my tractor, the mis-adjusted seat bottomed out when the tractor hit a deep rut, and I felt something go wrong in my lower back. Almost instantly my right leg went numb. Within a few days I was in serious pain with sciatica and loss of function in my right quad.

What followed was mentally torturing as I went to several doctors, got medicated, went through spine decompression therapy, and spent many pain-filled nights sleeping in a recliner. Should I cancel the hunt? Although unable to continue long-distance walking, I was steadily improving and through good pain management, got back to a reasonable level of mobility. In the YouTube videos I had watched, I saw other big old Texas boys who could hardly walk manage to bag an eland, and I determined not to let this setback change my plans; not the least because I had just turned 70 and there was no assurance that if I cancelled, I would ever be able to make it happen in the future.

Three days after Christmas 2025, I travelled from Houston to Paris where I met my brother Dale who was coming along as an observer (and main guy to pull me out of dry riverbeds). He had arrived from Washington DC and we then travelled together to Douala arriving late in the evening. The most difficult part of the entire journey then took place in the airport in Douala, where we cleared customs and had my Whitworth .375 H&H Magnum and the 50 rounds of ammo I had brought along inspected at least four times by different authorities. Every person we encountered in Cameroon was polite and kind. However, after a long trip, the tedious and bureaucratic processes were very tiring, and the heat and humidity in the airport building was stifling. We had paid for a meet-and-greet service provided by Isles & Voyage travel agency in France to clear us through the formalities and transport us to our lodging. They were very efficient and helpful, and I would not recommend trying to do all this oneself. Our agent Bruno was excellent and eventually we were deposited at our hotel, La Falaise, in Douala, which was very nice and well-appointed with good air-conditioning.

The next morning, we were treated to a magnificent breakfast in the hotel, buffet style with enough varieties of delicious food and pastries to last us all day. Then it was off to the airport again, to go through the same process we had gone through the night before, inspecting the gun repeatedly as if I had possibly changed the serial number in my hotel room overnight!

Finally, we were on the commuter airplane to Ngaoundere in the northern part of the country. We were pleasantly surprised by the dry, cool weather in the north, where the elevation was just under 2,000 feet, and although the sun was hot in the daytime, there was always a cool breeze. Nights in early January could get down to the mid-50s Fahrenheit, which suited us just fine!

In Ngaoundere we were met by Bakari, the representative of Faro East Safaris and, after having to inspect the gun once again, we were loaded into their Toyota for the trip to camp. First however, we were treated to a tour of Ngaoundere as Bakari rounded up various supplies for camp, including two drums of diesel fuel. Having lived in Africa before, this seemed completely normal to me, but for the uninitiated it is often difficult to understand that when living in the bush, you must bring everything with you, including your own infrastructure. Every nut and bolt, sack of cement, kilo of flour, stick of butter, must be brought in. The trip to camp was three and a half hours over very rough roads; the last 17 kilometers was an almost impossible dirt track.

The camp is picturesque, situated on a hill overlooking a valley with a mayo (stream) just below. Basic, but clean and functional, the rooms were large with running hot and cold water and individual toilets and showers. Air conditioners had been fitted in the rooms but were subject to the available power in the solar batteries or when the generator was running which was around three to four hours a day. I had AC in my room about four hours per day, which I rationed to an hour for siesta when we were in camp, and the rest in evening when going to bed. By midnight it was cool enough to sleep without AC.

The central part of the camp consisted of a lodge-style open concept building with a thatch roof where we took our meals at a table set up in the breezeway. Also under cover was a seating area with a view over the valley for evening drinks and socializing while further down was the “cigar lounge” – easy chairs arranged around a fire pit. We spent a lot of time there; the bar was well stocked and the beer was cold!

The African staff were amazing, catering to our every need. I could not believe how the camp cook, working in a small 12×12 foot out-kitchen could whip up such fabulous French cuisine that we enjoyed the entire time we were there. Patrick had asked us our food preferences in advance, and I made sure he knew we were up for French cuisine, although he was fully prepared to give us traditional Texas cuisine too, such as ribs, burgers, and Tex Mex.

We enjoyed such dishes as Moroccan couscous with mutton, guinea fowl in peanut sauce, and many meat dishes made from local game meat and, of course, my favorite steak frites made with eland, or kob steaks. One night we had spit-roasted warthog. All was delicious, and followed by incredible fancy desserts, including banana flambé, crêpes, or homemade ice cream on chocolate mousse cake made in camp.

When we arrived in camp after our three-day journey, we indulged in a welcome drink of cold beer and then headed straight down to the air strip to sight in the gun. It was apparent that no time would be lost, as we were told we would be getting up at five in the morning to hit the tracks!  That night at dinner, I told Patrick, the owner of Faro East and professional hunter, that I was able to walk, but not fast; I was able to run, but only for short distances; however, I was able to see well and shoot straight! He took me at my word and tested me to the limit.

Block 5 in Cameroon consists of a hunting concession of around 300,000 acres of virgin bush bounded on the north side by high blue-green mountains, and on the south and west by other concessions. The beauty of the savanna is astounding, and there is no sign of people, fences, or civilization, other than the public road that splits the concession between the north and south sections. The nearest village is 17 kilometers away. Wildlife abounds including eland, kob, roan, buffalo, waterbuck, hartebeest, duikers, small antelope, hyenas, lions, leopards, elephant, and many other small species. The birdlife was also incredible with many beautiful tropical and savanna bird species. Listening to the bird sounds early in the morning and in the evening was a special treat.

That first day, we rode some of the 500 kilometers of well-maintained roads in the concession looking for eland tracks from the back of the Land Cruiser. When we found tracks, we got down and inspected them and decided to follow them on foot. Watching the trackers divine the nature of the tracks was a wonder to behold. They can tell the age, sex, and type of animal from any track, how old the track is, and in which direction it went, whether in a herd or alone. It was one of my favorite parts of the entire safari to watch them work, true professionals through and through.

The terrain is the most difficult part of the hunt in my opinion. Rough, uneven, and covered in mounds of dried, hard balls of dirt created by underground worm; it was like walking on clumps of marbles that had been glued together. Good footwear is essential. The rains were late last year, finishing in September, so in many areas the grass was still too green to burn. This complicated the hunt due to large areas of unburnt high grass. When walking through these areas, it was essential to watch our footing. It being early in the season, the eland were still not grouped, with many of the good bulls still solitary. This led to a lot of walking and much territory to cover to find a good bull. It was three days before I saw my first eland!

Day after day we followed tracks only to be frustrated by the lack of a good bull or by groups that traversed the boundary into the neighboring concession, or groups that were just too fast for me to keep up with the trackers. To save time, we had lunch in the bush. Patrick had packed a small table and three chairs in the Land Cruiser, and we had our lunches packed in a cool box, and we ate under the shade of a tree. Usually there was a good breeze to help keep the tsetse flies and mopane bees to a minimum. I had been told to pack Avon Skin-So-Soft to deter these pests but found that another product that I brought called “No Natz” performed better and was made from natural plant oils and botanicals.

In the evenings on the way back to camp we hunted for guinea fowl and partridges and generally enjoyed looking at the scenery and wildlife. There were opportunities to shoot other game, but I was focused on the Lord Derby eland and nothing would deter that goal! The annual Harmattan was just starting, and the sunsets were magnificent with the orange ball of the sun hanging above the bush making for lovely photographs. My spirit soared during these times just for being in the wilds of Africa. It was especially poignant to have my brother Dale with me enjoying these moments since we had grown up in West Africa together and this was like a trip home for us. Relaxing in the cigar lounge after dinner and telling tall tales around the fire while we rested our weary legs was a balm for the soul.

with us and there was dancing and rejoicing. I joined in with the dancing and hand shaking and back slapping, while some of the trackers and porters cut branches of trees and danced around waving them in excitement for a few minutes.

It was done.

The Little Thug is remarkably comfortable to shoot, with negligible muzzle jump, but puts forth a hard-hitting charge and a choking cloud of smoke that can be very handy in a defense situation.

The E.M. Reilly, made in the 1870s for the outposts of Empire.

The E.M. Reilly, now a 20-bore, began life as a .577 Snider double rifle.  Oh, to know where it’s been, and what it’s done!

I bought the gun off the “rust & dust” shelf at Puglisi’s in Duluth a few years ago.  It was dirty, damaged, needed a new forend tip, a horrible hot-blue job removed from its frame, the metal restored, and some wood refinishing.  Puglisi’s bought it from a local bartender, who’d acquired it in a trade with the mate off a Great Lakes freighter, and who knows how he came by it, or where it’s been for 140 years.  Guarding pack trains in the Khyber Pass?  Repelling boarders in the China Sea?  On a river boat up the Congo?  These are all genuine possibilities.

One thing I know for certain is that it was originally built for warlike purposes, not for hunting.  E.M. Reilly was a maker of fine guns of every type, catering mainly to officers and civil servants off to guard the Empire — the kind of man found on the Northwest Frontier, shooting it out with Pathans.

With its 2 1/2-inch chambers, I was a little limited, but my friend Bob Hayley (Hayley’s Custom Ammunition, 940-888-3352) conjured up some 20-bore brass cases as well as some old 20-gauge paper we could cut to length.  For the brass, we had both 20-gauge round balls and 20-gauge spire-point slugs, while the paper hulls were stuffed with shot.  All are powered by black powder, although it’s not really necessary.  The thug’s barrel walls are thick and heavy for a shotgun.  The little guy weighs 7 lbs., 3 oz., most of it in the barrels.  For my purposes, though, black powder serves a purpose.

Ballistically, the little thug will outdo a .45 Auto at close range.  Those 350-grain pumpkin balls leave the muzzle at around 800 fps, and with one from each barrel, the gun plants them about two inches apart at 15 yards.  The shot charge prints a pattern right over top.  That will most assuredly stop anyone barging through the office door.

The black powder adds further injury in the form of a choking cloud of smoke and wad fragments.  Since I would be expecting this gas attack, and an invader wouldn’t, it gives me a few precious seconds to get to the secondary armament — an AUG, a couple of P.38s, and…well, you get the idea.

Such a scenario opens up the field to all kinds of “what ifs…” and “yes, buts…”  Certainly, those are all things that might happen — the aforementioned unexpected and unthinkable — and you cannot prepare for every single eventuality.  No one can.  You just try to keep things from “gang agley.”  For that, the Little Thug is in his element.

Chapter Twelve

The Hunting of Leopards

A Conservation Perspective

Not enough is known about the leopard. Even though he is the most widely distributed member of the “big” cats, not many detailed studies of this fascinating animal have been completed. Even hunters, who are fascinated, sometimes even obsessed, by this prince of the forest, know little about him. What he really needs to survive, how many partners he needs in order to maintain his numbers, how large an area he needs in order to live a natural free life. Most of us know the basics but the rest is just guesswork. Many boffins maintain that there is no room for hunting when considering an animal like the leopard, which is endangered in much of its range. Others, who have conducted studies in areas where leopards still exist in healthy numbers, say that hunting can be part of an overall plan in conserving leopards.

Theodore Bailey is one of those. Toward the end of his fascinating book, The African Leopard Ecology and Behaviour of a Solitary Felid, Bailey wrote a chapter titled “The Conservation of Leopards” in which he covers hunting.

Here are some extracts from that chapter:

A controversial alternative that may provide economic incentives to conserve leopards outside of parks and preserves in some countries is a highly regulated hunting program that removes only a small proportion of a leopard population each year. A closely regulated take of leopards may be not only practical but necessary, as some claim (Myers 1974; Eaton 1977b; Myers 1981; Hamilton 1986; Martin and Meulenaer 1988). to promote leopard and other wildlife conservation in Africa. Although I believe it will be increasingly difficult in the long run to justify maintaining wildlife populations solely on economic criteria, because of livestock and agriculture needs and development, hunting may be an effective conservation alternative for the immediate future. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the ethics of hunting leopards outside parks and preserves, hunting can probably be managed to benefit some leopard populations. A closely regulated hunting program for leopards for trophy purposes should not be confused with hunting leopards commercially for the fur trade. To prevent unregulated hunting and poaching of leopards for skins in areas opened to trophy hunting will require increased enforcement of current restrictions on the international trade of Leopard skins – a difficult law enforcement task for most African countries.

Ideally, a hunting program for leopards should be only one part of a more comprehensive program designed to provide conservation-related economic benefits for local inhabitants. Properly managed, it could be combined with tourism or a game cropping operation where selected herbivores are also harvested on a sustained basis for protein or profit. Such programs are already conducted on some large game ranches in Namibia, Zimbabwe, and the Republic of South Africa and on concessioned lands in Botswana. The hunting of leopards will be best managed on large tracts of land that support ample populations of prey and leopards. After some preliminary surveys an estimate should be made of how many leopards could be removed annually without jeopardizing the population.

Smaller tracts or tracts with highly human-altered wildlife populations will be more difficult to manage because the leopard populations there are likely to be low, with unpredictable annual recruitment. If hunting of leopards from such areas occurs, it must be extremely conservative and accompanied by frequent surveys. All hunting programs should be based on accurate assessments of leopard numbers and annual recruitment.

Further on, he says “The region surrounding a proposed leopard hunting area should be carefully evaluated to determine whether a population is completely isolated or whether leopards in adjacent areas might immigrate into the hunting area to replace removed leopards. If isolated but large enough to support a viable population and sustained hunting, a conservative hunting strategy would be essential – to ensure that harvesting did not deplete individuals faster than they can be naturally recruited into the population. If an influx of males, which bring different genes into the population, is unlikely, problems associated with inbreeding may arise, especially with small populations.

Leopard populations probably should not be hunted unless a minimum effective population size of fifty breeding adults, or at least eighty to one hundred individuals, are present and a viable population of leopards exists in adjacent areas. Hunting smaller, isolated populations may only contribute to their eventual demise. The size of an area that can support eighty to one hundred leopards will vary with habitat quality and may range from three hundred kilometres square in high-quality habitats to five thousand square kilometres in low quality habitats. As a very crude estimate, most proposed hunting areas should be at least two thousand five hundred square kilometres if habitat appears average and is adjacent to other areas supporting leopards.

Many hunters – myself included – have been led to believe that some portion, or percent, of a leopard quota should be females, but Bailey says: Only male leopards should be taken by hunters until further information suggests otherwise. Males seem to be naturally replaced more rapidly than females; they have a higher natural mortality rate; and they are more apt to respond to baits for survey or hunting purposes. Because of their larger size and visible genitalia, they can be easily distinguished from females. Several options are available for estimating hunting rates of males, all of which result in relatively low hunting levels. One method assumes that all natural mortality is compensatory and replaced by hunting mortality. The other more realistic method assumes hunting and natural mortality may not be completely compensatory and may even be additive. One can also base hunting rates on the proportions and natural mortality rates of adult or sub adult males in the population.

Some leopard studies say that up to l0% of a leopard population can be hunted without damaging that population. But Bailey had this to say: Information from the Kruger National Park leopard study areas suggests a hunting rate of four percent to six per cent of a total population may be possible if one assumes complete compensatory mortality. When a hunting level of one-half the natural mortality rate is assumed, the hunting rate declines from two per cent to three per cent of the total population. A hypothetical population of one hundred leopards whose population composition and mortality patterns are similar to leopards in the Kruger National Park study areas are speculated to withstand a hunting kill of at least two, possibly as many as six, male leopards per year. Hunting rates will undoubtedly vary among populations. One computer model of leopard population dynamics predicted a five per cent safe and a ten per cent maximum sustainable harvest level for leopards (Martin and Meulenaer 1988). One factor to consider is whether other, perhaps significant, forms of human-related mortality, such as poaching and poisoning, are already impacting a leopard population. These additional forms of mortality would lower the legal hunting rate.

Hunted leopard populations should be closely monitored to ensure that hunting is not contributing to a population decline. Only selected locations within a hunting area should actually have leopards removed from them. Reduced hunting pressure should be enforced if hunted males are not rapidly replaced. Areas frequented by females, such as koppies and other rocky outcrops used as denning areas, should be avoided to prevent disrupting the females’ habits and their unintentional killing. Actual hunting sites should be specific places where males are periodically observed or attracted to baits. Only specific baiting locations should be hunted, and then only on a rotational basis. For example, if a male was taken at one bait location, the next male removed from the hunting area should be taken at least two to three male-home-range-distances away. This would prevent creating a large vacancy among males, which could prevent or reduce female productivity. Baiting should occur even after a male has been taken to ensure that his replacement has appeared. In healthy leopard populations, males taken by hunters should be replaced within one to six months. To help maintain genetic diversity within the population and reduce the possibility that infanticide will become a significant mortality factor among cubs, newly arriving males should be allowed to reproduce for at least one to two years before being taken by hunters.

This last paragraph illustrates how far we actually are from being able to practice ‘sustainable utilisation’ policies in hunting our leopards. What operator would ever consider only hunting “two to three male-home-range distances away” from where he took his last big Tom leopard? Not many.

So little is known about this animal, and so little is known about what we need to do in order to ensure his survival in good huntable numbers, that I fear if and when we do learn, it will be too late.

The sun slid into the thorn trees and the last evening cries of roosting francolin were suddenly joined by human voices! As they reached the back of the blind I stuck my head out and asked them to quieten down and move along. When I addressed these fellows in hushed tones, the nearest fell down in shock whilst the other back-pedalled about half a dozen yards, his red eyes bulging and his heavy old car-tyre sandals clap-clapping on the hard dirt. The fallen one scrabbled around furiously before he managed to balance himself enough to get upright, whereupon he made off as fast as he could walk. He said absolutely nothing, his rickety thin legs conveying him in a noisy zigzag manner as fast as they could go. I was choked with the urge to laugh. The backpedalling upright singer uttered only a loud “Hau!” before he, too, scuffled off down the road.

By Ken Moody

‘To take this old man into those reeds after those buffalo is a bad plan.’ I can still hear those words as clearly today as when they were first uttered so many months ago when my accompanying Zulu PH on this hunt, Musa, explained his trepidation in moving along the half-mile-long trek into the thick reeds which hid an unknown number of the black beasts we were pursuing. We could see with our binos the small flock of egrets which rode atop the backs of the buffalo, but we had no idea how many mature bulls were in the herd given the height and density of the reeds engulfing the landscape for miles in every direction along the river we were hunting. Musa was a cautious PH and prone to moving slowly while I have always been a bit of an aggressive hunter, quick to move in on our quarry when it’s buffalo we’re after. I knew the buffalo were there, and I wanted to get into the reeds after them, but Musa’s point did not fall on deaf ears. The client was older and very hard of hearing and maybe getting him into a tight spot with very limited visibility was not the best of plans. A cornered buffalo bull can quickly become agitated, and an agitated buffalo is not good under ideal conditions, let alone within the confines of those dense reeds. As Musa and I discussed an alternate plan, the decision was made for us as the wind shifted and blew our foul human scent in amongst the reeds and eventually to the buffalo.

Thundering from the cover of the reeds, we watched as a tremendous bull with accompanying cows moved away from the water’s edge and back towards the dense bush that surrounded the huge swath of reeds along the banks of the river. In a matter of minutes, they covered the long distance from the reeds to the bush and in a blink, they were gone from sight and any further attempt to stalk them. This hunt was not proving easy.

The above encounter occurred in the early morning on day six of our seven-day safari. We had hunted hard to this point, but the buffalo had proven to be both elusive and extremely wild. You could not make a mistake with these buffalo and hope to be successful. Every bit of skill and ability as an experienced buffalo hunter would need to be utilized to get close enough for a clean shot. We had two clients in camp hunting in two teams, both pursuing buffalo, and so far, we hadn’t got one of them onto the sticks. Time was running out and everyone knew it. On the way back to camp for lunch, I could see my client Barry was feeling a bit concerned as he too could count the days, we had been at it. Leaning over towards him, I alleviated his concerns a bit with some positive words and encouraged him not to give up. I’ve always believed that one attracts what they project. Projecting a positive, affirmative attitude will usually result in those receiving that projection feeling more positive and upbeat about the mission at hand. Negative energy is strong and to allow it to permeate within the team will never, ever result in a positive outcome. I reassured Barry that the opportunity would present itself and that he was a superb shot, so when the time came, we’d be celebrating a buff in the salt. After lunch, we were out and at it again.

The afternoon plan found us in higher elevations, looking for tracks and any other spoor that might indicate the presence of buffalo. Time and again we struck out on bagging a bull in these hills, so we decided to return to the river and reeds and search for some feeding buffalo as they moved towards the water. The hour was getting late, and the buffalo would be on the move. Patrolling slowly along the dusty trails that wove throughout the reedbeds, we were ever vigilant for any movement or sign of buffalo. Just before it became too dark to shoot and as we went around a bend in the road, Jabulani, our tracker, reached forward, took the shooting sticks from their resting place, and slipped silently off the back of the cruiser. Knowing what this meant, I signaled to Musa to stop the vehicle, which he did. Working within a team means knowing what to do and when to do it without having to say a word.

From previous experience, we knew that when Jabulani put his hands on the shooting sticks, he had spotted buffalo a few minutes earlier. He never alerted us when he saw them, preferring to keep us moving and away from the proximity of the buffalo as the sudden stop of a vehicle and movement from us would alert a suspicious bull. Jabulani was Zulu and one of the finest and smartest buffalo trackers I have ever worked with. Exiting the cruiser, I told Barry what was going on and that we would be quietly stalking back to where the buffalo was spotted. Quiet was called for now and only hand and arm signals would be used from this point forward. Creeping back along the route we had just taken, I followed Jabulani’s lead, with Barry on my heels. As we rounded the last bend, Jabulani pointed off to a small tree only about 50 yards from our location.

Scanning the area below the tree with my binos, I could see the old bull lying there completely unaware of our presence. Moving forward with the sticks, I placed them in position and motioned to Barry to put his rifle up and get ready. Whispering directly into his ear, I told him where the bull was in relation to the tree and for him to find it in his scope. Not to shoot, but just find it first before I gave him the shot placement. Struggling to find the buffalo in the growing darkness, Barry just looked at me and shook his head. He could not see the buffalo, which was just yards ahead facing us, laying down under that tree.

Once again, I instructed him to follow the trunk of the tree down to the ground and look to its right. There was a buffalo! Still, Barry could not see him. Finally, the buffalo sensed our presence and came to his feet in one fluid motion and in an instant, he was gone. I must admit that the frustration of the moment was nearly overwhelming, and I bit my tongue, turned, and walked away for a few paces. I glanced at Musa, who simply looked at me shaking his head. I have seen this affliction time and again as hunters not used to the bush seem to go ‘bush blind’ at the worst moments and not be able to see what the rest of us clearly can. Composing myself and regaining positivity, I told Barry, ‘no worries, tomorrow is another day. We will get your buffalo!’

We had taken Barry to the shooting range on the first day of the safari and his marksmanship skills were superb. I knew that we just needed to get him into position to see the right bull at the right time and he would finish this hunt with one deadly shot.

Realizing that Barry did not possess the best ‘bush eyes’, I figured that we really needed to get onto buffalo in the morning when there was ample light, as that would provide the best visibility for his seasoned eyes. So, on day seven of the seven-day safari, we set out with renewed confidence that success was just an opportunity away. Heading straight to the reeds, we began the morning as we had done every morning previous, glassing and looking for egrets. As we rounded a familiar bend, I saw the thin arm of Jabulani reaching for the sticks, and I knew that he had seen something that had eluded the rest of us.

With our routine now standardized, we exited the vehicle, took our positions, and followed Jabulani back down the winding two-track for about a quarter of a mile. As we moved off the bush trail and into the reeds, visibility took a turn for the worse. Fortunately, we had a good wind and as I strained to listen, I heard the distinct and unmistakable sound of buffalo feeding. Barry could hear nothing however, but I assured him that we were about to get into a lot of buffalo. Snaking our way deeper into the reeds and winding towards the river, we got our first glance at the herd about 300 yards in. There before us stood cows and calves but no visible bulls. As we crouched down and glassed, I prayed that the wind would hold steady, as we were only 30 to 40 yards away from the nearest buffalo. Finding a suitable bull in those tangles of reeds and amongst those cows and calves was impossible. We had a narrow field of view but could hear buffalo feeding all around us. At this stage, all we could do was sit and wait. If we pressed the herd, they would bolt and run, so waiting is exactly what we did.

About 15 minutes into our wait, an old cow caught sight of us, and the stare down began. Sitting motionless, it felt as if we were barely breathing as the old gal gazed and stared, willing us to move. Eventually, her actions were noticed by others in the herd and finally our presence was fully detected. In one swift snort and scoot, the little group in front of us trotted off towards the river, disappearing into the reeds. It was only good fortune that they did not smell us, as no alarm sound was uttered as the little group ran.

Standing up, we decided to pursue the herd a bit and see if we could get deeper into them. Just as we started to move, however, I heard more buffalo feeding coming from behind, where the original group we spotted had been standing. Raising my hand, I alerted our party to the sound and pointed to where it was coming from. We moved forward and set up the sticks facing a small gap in the reeds where I hoped the buffalo would move through. Magically, a few cows appeared at first and moved through the gap and towards the river. Then, there he was, a nice big-bodied bull following the cows. With Barry on the sticks, I let out a war whoop as the bull walked into the center of the gap. I have found that with buffalo, a loud, audible whoop will usually stop them, whereas a whistle might not be heard. The whoop stopped him broadside and as the crosshairs found the spot, a shot cracked off and the big bull sped away, not making it 100 yards before we heard the telltale death bellow of a dying buffalo. Our bull was on the ground! Barry was elated. We had hunted hard and fair and there before us lay the reward. As the word went out on the radio, our other team arrived to congratulate Barry and help load the buffalo.

Stephen, our other client, still hadn’t any opportunity and today was the last day of hunting. As we finished with the photos, his PH looked at me and said that he would carry on loading Barry’s buffalo and would I please take Stephen with me to find another bull. He knew that I had this area figured out, and that we were all there to do our best for our clients. As I had a good mojo, I agreed to this plan of action. In a flash, we loaded Stephen and his wife onto our cruiser and out we went for one last try at bagging a buffalo. We could not fail!

Working our way around the bends and narrows of the bush trails, we ran out of the reeds momentarily as we headed further down river. I am sure we had not been moving 10 or 15 minutes when I looked out onto the plain and spotted a decent sized herd of buffalo making their way from the river towards the dense bush behind us. Pointing them out to Jabulani, we continued driving for about a quarter mile before disembarking and heading back for the herd. The group of buffalo originally appeared to be all cows, but then we saw one outstanding bull in the mix as well. We wanted that bull.

Pressed for time and trying to beat the buffalo to the road before they crossed and got past us, we moved at a good pace to get back to the a where they were spotted. As we came around the last curve, we spotted the herd and headed out onto the fringe of the reeds in hopes of securing a good shooting position. The movement did not go unnoticed, however, and the buffalo quickly turned and sped away towards the river. Fortunately, they were moving over relatively open ground, so we could visually follow them all the way along their route as they ran into the reeds that were right along the water’s edge. At least we knew where they were.

Our final stalk of the safari began with a slow, half crouched steady march from the point where we were detected to that area where we had last seen the buffalo enter. If they ran from the reeds, we would likely see them as they were now between the river and us, in the only cover the immediate area offered. Slowly we progressed, trying to keep the fickle wind in our favor. Once we closed the gap to around 200 yards, we stopped and began to glass the reed patch for any sign. As if sent from the hunting gods, a lone egret flew down from the sky and landed on the back of one of the buffalo. Bingo! There they were. With the help of that one white bird, we could now just make out the horizontal lines of the backs of several buffalo as they milled around in that patch of reeds.

Fighting a poor wind, I looked at Stephen and asked him if he was  confident in taking a running shot as we would probably be winded by this herd and the buffalo would have to run one way or the other to escape. Stephen affirmed that he was very confident in taking a moving shot if such a shot was presented. Musa and I then decided that we would manipulate this finicky wind in our favor to see if we could make the buffalo do what we wanted them to do, providing us with a shooting opportunity.

The plan was simple. Jabulani would circle to our left and arc out about a half mile or so moving towards the river so that the wind would carry his scent into the reeds and to the buffalo who, once spooked by this scent, would run out of the reeds directly in front of us providing an open shot of around 150 yards. This plan had to work! Inching forward, I moved Stephen into a good location and placed the sticks directly in front of him. He crouched behind the sticks, and I crouched behind him. I told him that we would both stand up at the same time when the time came and that he was to get onto the sticks and await my instructions. I would tell him which buffalo to shoot once I identified the bull in the group.

Jabulani had been gone for about half an hour when Musa and I noticed the herd had become suspicious of something. We could just see the very tops of their backs, but they were no longer milling around, they were standing perfectly still, indicating that something had their attention. A moment later, they began to move to their right, picking up speed as they headed from the safety of the reeds. I told Stephen to stand, and I stood up directly behind him. As he got his rifle in place, I told him that they would break out of cover right at the point where the reeds met the open plain to our right and that I would tell him which one to engage as they would be in a single file. Just as planned, the herd broke out from the reeds, running directly to our right. They had no clue that we were there waiting on that very thing to happen and as they ran out in single file; I told Stephen that the bull was the third buffalo in line.

Once he confirmed that he was on the bull, I let out a long, loud, and continuous war whoop, which caused the bull to stop in his tracks and look in our direction. That moment of hesitation was all that Stephen needed and the big .416 spoke once, striking the buffalo perfectly. On impact of the shot the buffalo began to run and I told Stephen to hit him again which he did in perfect fashion and then a third time, which caused this big, black train of a bull to nosedive into the earth, his huge body somersaulting over his head as he expired on the spot. It was over! We had done it.

Two buffalo for two clients on the last morning of the safari. We were all elated as we had hunted very hard to get to this point. All the shooting preparation by the clients and all the buffalo hunting knowledge that we possessed were needed to secure this positive outcome.

As important as this preparation and experience is, the projection and belief in that positive outcome is paramount. To be rewarded with success, you must want to be successful and project that positive attitude to everyone in your sphere of influence. You must believe it and make your clients believe that persistence and positivity will yield positive results. Never fall victim to a negative attitude and never, ever allow negativity into your hunting camp. I firmly believe that our great success on that last day was a result of the positivity we projected. We made our luck!

By Ken Moody

Richard, our client, was cheerful as always, never doubting that we would persevere in the end, but those of us in the know were becoming a bit anxious. Day in and day out, we had spotted, tracked, crawled, snuck into, and engaged dozens of buffalo bulls within the large herds we were hunting. Still, no dice. Everything so far had been soft bossed and too young to consider. ‘Where are the big boys?’ I pondered as we pulled off another group of six bulls not up to snuff. Returning to camp that evening, I decided that we would implement a new plan and split up our resources to cover more ground and find more buffalo. It had been a hard hunt to this point. Five days into a 10-day safari and still not a quality bull spotted.

The following day I left camp at 4:30am with binos in hand, determined to locate a shootable bull. Richard and our PH Jannie would scout in the denseness of the northern portions of the property while I headed south to check out the larger waterholes in other areas known to hold buffalo. If I spotted anything, I would radio and relay to them my findings. If not, we would meet back at camp for lunch and discuss an afternoon plan. A fruitless morning ensued, with me scouring every haunt and hiding place I knew of, but no trace of the black beasts was found. My hours of searching proved to be a bust.

Returning to camp around noon, I spoke with Jannie, and we decided to continue in the areas we had hunted that morning. The property was huge with a few hundred buffalo, but they had to drink, and they had to feed. We would make contact with a big boy if we were persistent and kept to the bush as much as we could. At 2:00pm we were back at it, driving, checking for tracks, and climbing the little rocky hills, glassing for buffalo. A routine we had grown all too familiar with. With me this afternoon were my daughter and son-in-law, riding in the back, hoping to capture photos of the game. My daughter, a professional photographer, was fully equipped with her long-range lens Canon, which could provide some nice marketing material if I could find subjects for her camera. At around a half hour before dark, I decided to check an old, dirt airfield that was close to camp. The airfield was long and open terrain surrounded it. Many times, we had spotted herds of buffalo feeding adjacent to the field just at dark and if I could find them there now, we’d have a good place to start the hunt the following day.

I pointed the Toyota towards the airfield road and proceeded to drive upon it, searching the surrounding plains for any sign of movement. A quiet rap on the roof of my bakkie caused me to stop as I entered the airfield and as I looked up to see what had caused it, I saw my daughter pointing across the field and out onto an open flat. Her elevated vantage point had allowed her to spot what was impossible for me to see, buffalo! I quietly exited the truck and climbed into the bed where I too could see the ‘black river’ of a buffalo herd coursing through the bush, feeding as they snaked their way towards a large waterhole some 3 kilometers away. A rough estimate put the herd at around 100 beasts and I could see in the waning light of the day, several bulls within it. While we much prefer to go after the lone dagga boys or small groups of bachelor bulls, the large herds could also Cape Buffalo hold superb bulls. The obvious problem is getting to them with the many eyes and ears of the herd providing early warning of anything predatory. I hopped off the truck and left my companions to take photos and eased quietly across the airfield and began to glass the buffalo as they moved. As any experienced buffalo hunter will tell you, dusk is the best time to approach buffalo, as it’s the only time of the day when they seem to get ‘stupid’ and pay much less attention to those things that they should. I moved to within 150 yards of the line of buffalo and looked for a candidate. I saw about a dozen bulls and identified at least two that appeared to be hard bossed, but at that distance and with the lack of light, I was ‘best guessing.’ My Austrian glass was doing all it could and as the light faded to near darkness, I returned to the truck and headed back to camp. Little did I know that the superb optics of my daughter’s camera and the vantage point from which she was shooting would reveal a buffalo that I could not see from where I was glassing. A real buffalo. A once-in-a-lifetime beast that would make even the most seasoned buffalo hunter sit up and take notice.

Back in camp, Jannie and Richard told of finding spoor and tracking a group of buffalo, but fickle wind and alert noses proved too much to overcome. Yet another of many stalks stymied by mother nature. I relayed to all the encounter we’d just had less than an hour before and as my daughter powered up her laptop and began to download the photos, we all sat around the fire, sipping good bourbon, and waited on the results. In about fifteen minutes, the downloaded pics found their way to me and, after a bit of scrolling, I stopped and stared at the image now appearing on the screen.

There it was. A pic of a tremendous Cape Buffalo bull, pushing a hard bossed set of horns some 48” tip to tip. We had previously shot a few 45” bulls and one superb 44 incher a few months before on other safaris, but this one was bigger. I called Jannie over and we stared at the pic, both of us quite pleased. The only problem now was a plan. Finding that specific bull in such a large herd would be problematic, and then actually getting to him  would be another feat. Killing this buffalo would require a lot of luck. Jannie and I discussed a plan for the next day and given that this big bull was traveling with a herd of around 100, I thought the best option would be for Jannie and Richard to continue with the spoor of the small bachelor herd they’d found the day before while I went out and tried to sort out the big herd I’d found and see if I could determine where they might be. The odds of stalking into such a large herd and bagging that bull were slim. The only hope was to find the bull either in front or along the fringes of the herd so that a stalk from the flanks or ambush from the front might be executed. Jannie concurred and preferred to take his chances with the small group of bulls rather than risk another day of frustration pursuing the big herd. There were good bulls amongst those bachelors and Richard also liked his odds much better with them than with the prospect of pushing a huge herd around all day.

Around half an hour before daylight, we were off. I returned to the airfield and followed it to the end, walking out into the bush east of the field and going in the direction the buffalo would have likely crossed if they were heading towards the large, natural water pan a few kilometers away. There, I found the tracks of the herd, which had indeed crossed the dry riverbed and turned west a bit towards the water. Returning to my bakkie, I drove to the waterhole and found where they had entered the area, through a gap in the bush that led across the dam wall and out into the refreshment they sought. The entire perimeter of the little lake was saturated with buffalo spoor and unfortunately, it appeared that it was here the herd split up and broke down into smaller groups as they finished drinking and disappeared into the bush. The big bull could be anywhere now.

I sat in the truck and thought about what to do next. I knew that the herd had likely originated the night before from a terribly thick, inhospitable area we called ‘The Chad’ and that many would likely move back into it during the day. It was a huge block of bush that the buffalo loved, as it provided them great security during the bedding times of midday. This bull was fully mature and hadn’t grown to his size by accident. He would likely be one of the beasts that would seek out the Chad for rest. I started the truck with hope and a plan.

I drove to the northern end of the airfield and while I was searching for tracks to indicate that some buffalo had indeed headed back towards the safety of Chad, I spotted a glimpse of an approaching buffalo. As I crouched behind a small clump of grass, the young bull stepped out into the open and then back into the bush, heading away from me. With my binos, I could see that there was another bull with him but couldn’t determine anything more than that. Could this be the big bull?

I crawled back to my hidden truck and tried repeatedly to reach Jannie or his tracker on the radio. After minutes of calling, the base station at camp picked up my call and tried to relay my message, ‘Buffalo spotted, come to airfield.’ Jannie’s tracker responded and in about half an hour or so, the group burst onto the scene, a plumage of dust in their wake. I quickly apprised Jannie and Richard of the situation and told them that I could only verify that two buffalo bulls were slowly moving from the fringes of the airfield east of our position, staying in the bush along the side of the dirt road that ran perpendicular to the field.

Jannie got his team organized and, with his tracker to the front, led Richard slowly down the bush line, glassing the edges as he went. In less than a minute, a young bull appeared from the bush and walked out into the open. Shortly, another bull emerged from the thicket, it too a youngster. Jannie and the team froze and crouched behind some grass. I stayed back about 50 yards, not wanting to add to the noise and scent of those in front of me. Suddenly, the two bulls moved back into the bush and disappeared. They hadn’t been spooked, they had just moved into cover.

I watched as Jannie and the group moved further down towards the location that had once held the bulls and as they were moving, the monster bull from the night before appeared and walked directly out in front of the group, crossed the dirt road, and vanished into the bush on the far side.

No hesitation at all in his gait, just straight across and gone. A nervous pit began to grow inside my gut. Had we just blown our chance at this magnificent buffalo? Jannie and Richard lay prone in the grass while I held my breath and hoped.

Moments passed and then, as if summoned by the gods of luck, the big bull reappeared and crossed back towards the two youngsters. When he reached the perfect position, Jannie eased Richard into position and let out a grunt. I peered through my binos, manifesting success. BOOM barked Richard’s rifle and a feeling of peace entered my body. The bull was ours.

Kenny Jarrett built this .257 Weatherby Magnum on a post-’93 pre-’64 Winchester Model 70 action.  It has a 26-inch barrel — critical for achieving magnum ballistics from a cartridge like the .257.

By Terry Wieland

Forty years ago, give or take an eon, basking in a reawakened passion for rifles after a long sojourn pursuing journalism to the ends of the earth, I was leafing through Cartridges of the World and came upon the .257 Weatherby.

When I was a teenager, the very name ‘Weatherby’ was magical, denoting sexy cartridges with double-radiused shoulders, and rifles out of the Arabian Nights, carried by princes hunting Marco Polo sheep.  At least, that was the image, and something of that pixie dust lingered as my eye rested on the .257.

Five years later, I found myself in Montana with a safari-grade Weatherby Mark V — a lovely custom thing that, out of the box, grouped its first five shots of factory 100-grain into six-tenths of an inch.  Its first shot at big game accounted for the prettiest pronghorn I’ve ever seen, before or since, and it began a short but memorable career as my primary rifle for everything up to zebra.

Along about that time, the first practical chronographs for everyday shooters came along, and I quickly learned to differentiate between the stuff I’d read in the past and what I could now see with my own eyes.  Not that never the ‘twain did meet — there was some overlap — but considerable eye-opening did occur.

First, I learned that to get the most out of a cartridge like the .257 Weatherby, burning significant amounts of such as Norma’s MRP or, later, Reloder-22, you had to be using a 26-inch barrel.  At that time, Mark Vs were still available with 24-inch barrels, but using one of those with a .257 Weatherby essentially gave you an extremely loud .25-06.

The other thing was that, marvellous as the cartridge was with 100-grain bullets, launching them at around 3,500 feet per second (fps), it was even better with something heavier.

Heading for Tanzania and Botswana in 1990, I prevailed upon my good friend, Jack Carter, to make some of his early Trophy Bonded Bear Claws in .257.  These weighed 115 grains, I developed a gilt-edged load at an average of 3,387 fps, and the rifle acquitted itself in Africa like a pro.

The only problem was that, deadly as it might be on plains game like zebra and wildebeeste, it was too long, too heavy, and vastly too powerful for creeping around in the brush looking for duikers and such.

A divorce — no need to ask why — and a few other developments led to my parting with my beloved Mark V.  For the next ten years or so, most of my hunting was done with a Dakota 76 .30-06 with a 23-inch barrel.  This included hunting in, among other places, Botswana, South Africa, Texas, Colorado, Quebec, and Ontario, wherein I took everything from duikers to elk.  Given the virtues of the Dakota, which were many, I didn’t miss the .257 Weatherby all that much, but I never got rid of a hankering for another.  When Kenny Jarrett approached me with an offer to make one of his “beanfield” rifles, how could I refuse?

Thing was, Kenny liked to build rifles on Remington 700 actions, chambered for his own .300 Jarrett.  Promotional puffery aside, the .300 Jarrett is a .300 Weatherby with sharp shoulders.  No, said I, I want a .257 Weatherby.  I also wanted it built on one of the then-new post-’93, pre-’64 Winchester Model 70 actions.  Kenny was dismayed but cooperative.

The result was nothing like my beautiful custom Weatherby from years before, having an early Bell & Carlson fiberglass stock, circa 1996 and astonishingly homely, and an almost-Parkerized dull finish on the steel.  But could it shoot?  Man!  It was, and is, a shootin’ machine.  Long?  Yes.  Heavy?  Yes.  Does it demand a big, heavy, powerful scope?  Yes.  But with the right handloads it fulfills Kenny’s guarantee of three shots into a half inch, time after time.

Now, approaching 30 years later, that Jarrett — which was made to down whitetails at 400 yards plus, across a vast field of soybeans, hence the “beanfield” name — can still go shot for shot with any of the hotshot “long range” rifles I get sent to test, and usually beats them.  But then, we’re talking a custom rifle with handloads versus factory (albeit expensive) rifles with factory (albeit premium) ammunition.

As for all the other cartridges available, new and old, magnum, non-magnum, and magnum in name only, I would still take the .257 Weatherby for animals at a distance.  There’s not much it won’t do — with a 26-inch barrel, that is.  That’s the caveat.  It’s what makes a magnum a magnum.

By Terry Wieland

Across the Kalahari

Almost all of the really great hunting books are less about hunting than they are about journeys.  Sir Samuel Baker’s Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, Theodore Roosevelt’s African Game Trails, even Ruark’s Horn of the Hunter — are less about being there than getting there.

This element has been largely removed from both modern hunting, and modern hunting writing.  Encounters with the TSA, late flights, cramped airline seats, and delays at Customs are hardly material for great literature.  Even within a country of any size, such as Tanzania, most movement between hunting areas is now done by small plane.  Gone are the long, hot, bumpy, dusty, interminable treks by Land Rover that see you pull out in the pre-dawn and only reach your new camp long after dark.

This may be more convenient, and it certainly saves money when a safari is costing you a few grand a day, but it also takes away that moment of sheer elation that only occurs when you round yet another bend in the dusty track and see the gleam of a campfire through the trees.  All of today’s finely furnished camp huts and elaborate fire pits can never replace the welcoming magic of a small campfire in the bush.

In 2001, my pal Clint Gielink and I finally undertook a trip we’d been talking about for five years:  We left Maun to traverse the Kalahari, with the ultimate goal of spending a night or two at Gemsbok National Park, near the South African border.  This all came about because of my curiosity about a dot on the map of Botswana called “Lone Tree.”  A map of Botswana is mostly blank space, but there was a line that connected Ghanzi to this dot, and this dot to the border post.  What exactly, I wondered, was at that dot?  Was there really a solitary tree standing in the middle of the Kalahari?  We decided to find out.

Clint is South African by birth, but was transplanted to Botswana where he now runs a photo-safari outfit.  This gave us access to a fully equipped Toyota Land Cruiser and such essentials of life as good sleeping bags for icy nights in the Kalahari.  It may be desert, but you can see your breath in the morning chill.  We didn’t bother with such amenities as a tent which, after sleeping under the stars, seems as confining as the 19th floor of the Hilton.

Aside from seeing Lone Tree, I also had a personal ambition to be the first person, at least as far as I knew, to grind my own coffee and make espresso to sip by the aforementioned tiny gleaming campfire.  This may seem a tad esoteric, but coffee fanatics will understand.  I’ll report on the results, and move on, very quickly:  The electrical inverter in Clint’s Land Cruiser handled the grinder with no problem, but blew a gasket the second I turned on the coffee maker.  Less than a day into the trip we were without electricity.  Ah, well.  Fortunately, I had my emergency supply of pre-ground coffee and a little drip device that could work with water heated in a pail over the fire, which we did henceforth.  Clint, not much of a coffee drinker, was somewhat bemused by all this.

We left Maun on the fine paved road to Ghanzi, where we stocked up on the one absolute nutritional necessity:  A goodly supply of mutton chops.  We also filled every water container, topped up the petrol, checked the tires (four on the truck and four spares) and bought what vegetables were available, which wasn’t much.  Some biltong and dry sausage rounded out the commissary.

Botswana halted sport hunting in the Kalahari in the late 1980s.  Up until that time, safari outfits like Safari South maintained camps there for hunting desert game, and transported their clients from the Okavango to the Kalahari and back.  There being little or no enforcement of the game laws, and none really being possible short of assigning a game scout to every safari, all kinds of abuse took place.  It finally got so bad they shut it down, or at least that was the reason given.  Aside from limiting the taking of such desert trophies as gemsbok, springbok, and various hartebeest, this ruling eliminated one of the most interesting side trips a hunter could make.

Although the Kalahari evokes images of sand dunes and salt pans, much of it has trees and rolling waves of grass.  It would be going too far to call it scenic, since it’s so flat you can never see very far anyway, but it’s a place of great beauty in its own way.  Scenery aside, you will never experience silence the way you will there.  Lying in your sleeping bag, looking up at the night sky, is a dark-velvety panorama of the Milky Way that is possible these days in very few places on earth.  With no air pollution, and no city lights to intrude, the vast Kalahari sky embraces you.

Each night, Clint would pull off the winding track through the sand, park under a convenient acacia, and set up camp.  This consisted of laying out our bedrolls next to the Toyota, dragging some dead logs into place, and starting a small fire.  The kettle would boil, we’d spread a little metal grill over the flames, and lay out some of our mutton chops and sausages.  The smell of sizzling meat and acacia smoke was intoxicating.  Later, I awakened during the night and listened, gazing up at the stars.  All was….silence.

Then it was crawl out before dawn, stir last night’s coals into flame, and huddle by the fire in the winter chill, waiting for coffee.  When the sun came up “like thunder…” we packed up, scattered the coals, and pulled back onto the track that wound — endlessly, it seemed, sometimes — through the Kalahari.

The trip was not without incident.  At one point, we pulled into a tiny village and all the inhabitants turned out to see us.  We stopped, conversed, with Clint doing the talking in his fluent Setswana.  We politely partook of the precious water they offered before continuing on.  Another time, we came upon a truck, broken down, with its three Tswana passengers wondering what to do.  This was before cell phones.  The three were all government officials on some sort of assignment in the interior.  Clint, being a professional hunter, was also a very competent mechanic.  It took him about an hour to get the vehicle running again, at which point we shook hands all around with big grins and protestations of undying gratitude and friendship.  They headed north and we continued south.

When we reached the park gates, Clint submitted to the checking of permits, paying of fees, and such like, while I read the long list of park regulations posted on the wall.  There was, I learned, a $10,000 fine for bringing firewood into the park, or for cutting your own firewood inside the park instead of using that which was provided, carefully cut to length and stacked.  There was a fine for straying more than a few yards from the marked tracks and paths, or for pitching a tent anywhere except on the concrete pads provided in each (marked) campsite.  We were assigned a campsite number, a map showing how to get there, and various other bits of paper essential to the modern experiencing of the great outdoors.  All the time, running through my head, was the Five Man Electrical Band:  “Sign, sign, everywhere a sign…”

After the wild Kalahari, prowling the park was like walking into the lobby of the Dorchester.  Our campsite was on a slope overlooking a salt pan with a herd of resident gemsbok, standing around the piped-in water, chatting.  We laid out lunch on the picnic table provided — sardines, crackers, smoked oysters, cheese, pickles — and munched in silence while we watched the gemsbok.  It was all very nice, all very civilized, all very organized.

I looked at Clint.  Clint looked at me.  “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

In a matter of minutes, we were packed and driving out.  The guard at the gate was puzzled as Clint handed in our paperwork and we churned through the sand back out into the uncivilized, unorganized, and thoroughly wonderful Kalahari.  A troop of meercats, whose burrows opened out into the sides of the deep ruts, welcomed us back and watched us go.  A lone hartebeest stared from under an acacia.

Clint and I suddenly broke into song:  “Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?”  It was one of those great moments.

Chapter Eleven

The Bennachie Cattle Killer

In June 2002 our agent, John Barth of Adventures Unlimited, sent us a hunter from Miles City, Pennsylvania. His name was Dan Greene and over the course of his safari we became firm friends. Dan had taken two grand slams of wild sheep so he was no stranger to hard hunting. Dan’s hunt was focused on a large male leopard, a kudu of 55 inches plus, then whatever plainsgame time allowed. As usual we had pre-baited and scouted hard during the week prior to Dan’s arrival, and when he got to camp we had two big males on bait. One of these was the notorious Chavakadze male, and the other was a big male down on one of AJ’s ranches. This particular ranch is called Bennachie – apparently a Scottish word pronounced Ben-na-hee. This leopard had been killing about a dozen calves a year over the last three years and AJ was desperate to be rid of him. Both males had front foot tracks which squared over ten inches, and we decided to try the Bennachie male first. The Chavakadze male was much closer to our base camp at Mangwe Pass, but the pool where we had him on bait was surrounded by small koppies and a jumbled rocky outcrop of balancing boulders. These formations played havoc with the wind in the late evening, gusting it this way and that, and we had already spooked him once. As it turned out we were going to educate him a few more times in this horrible spot over the next two seasons.

Down on Bennachie, which is about an hour’s drive south-west of base camp, the cattle-killer would stroll every few days along a cattle trail which snaked along the base of, and parallel to, a continuous ridge of koppies which ran south east to north west. This ridge is about two miles long and at the south eastern end, about 400 yards distant, three small koppies formed a sort of bottleneck, or pass, where the trail ran through. The main ridge itself is over 200 feet high.

George and one of the staff had originally scouted this cat and set the bait which lured him in to feed. The bait had been hung in a Mbondo tree near the three koppies slightly east of the bottleneck. I had indicated my chosen blind area to George and he had cleared a shooting lane on the same day that he had set the bait. The blind area was closer than I like it to be, about 75 yards. We could not move any further back as there was a dip in the ground that would have hidden the whole bait area from our view.

Dan, Peter, George, Bee and I arrived with all our kit at about 4pm and Peter and I walked over to the bait to see what had transpired during the night. George and Bee quietly unloaded the equipment. One problem that often arises from pre-baiting before a client arrives, is that the leopard would feed heavily two nights in a row and thereafter feed sporadically. When he does that, he will often lay down near the bait guarding it. So the hunters will be lying quietly in the blind unaware that the leopard has arrived and is lying silently nearby. If the hunters move, sniff, or muffle a cough, it will be all over. The best night to sit for the leopard is the night immediately following the first hit. Unless a treacherous breeze or a noise in the blind compromises us, we will generally get a look at him on the second night.

When Peter and I reached the bait I was dismayed to see that it was hanging too low – well within hyena range. Bee had refreshed the bait during the pre-baiting week and, either through laziness, negligence, or both, had not pulled the meat up high enough. The big cat had fed though, and his tracks and scrapes where he had urinated and lain down, were clear. The place reeked of leopard. When we attach a warning line to the bait we try hard to avoid touching the meat so I was reluctant to raise the meat up out of hyena range. We decided to leave it. We attached the line, swept away our tracks with a leafy branch and unrolled the line back to the blind site.

We finished the blind, laid out all the equipment, the trackers left, and we were settled in by 5pm. Not long after we heard the Cruiser drive off, the birds began their business again, chattering in the bushes nearby whilst numerous doves cooed all round us. As sundown approached, the Natal francolin, who lived in the koppies, began to cluck and scratch and call out their last calls of the day as they fluttered and settled noisily into their roosts for the night. Far to our right, towards the northern end of the ridge, we could hear a troop of baboons barking noisily as they, too, went up the rocks and settled into their sleeping positions.

By 6.15pm dark had blanketed the koppies. A light fitful breeze gusted gently from the south east, our left, as we faced the bait and the ridge beyond. We were well within “dassie range” of the smaller koppies to our left, and also from the main ridge, so if and when they commenced their warning calls,we would hear them. Dassies whine out a chirping, grating call of alarm when a leopard is around. I do not believe they call for other predators, but they do call at the approach of humans.

The night cooled very quickly. The sky was crystal clear with the thin sliver of the new moon bathing us and the hills in weak silvery light. I lay on my back and I could see the whole smoky swathe of the Milky Way spreading upward on my left, and the whole sky was twinkling continuously with millions of bright stars. To our front left, just above the big ridge beyond the bait, we could see the Southern Cross and its two bright pointers. As the night drew on, we would be able to watch the cross turn on its side and drop away to our right. It was a typical crisp clear African winter’s night and I lay there certain that we had done everything we could to settle accounts with this killer. Far off a jackal howled mournfully. A few seconds later, even further away, his mate howled back.

Dan was quiet and had hardly moved once we had settled in. He knew that from sundown to about 9pm were the crucial hours. As if on cue, just past 7pm, the dassies in the small hills to our left began to chatter. Perfect. The cat must be approaching down the cattle track from the east, with the wind at his back.

Dan and I sat up letting the blankets fall away without a sound. My heart picked up the pace, my ears straining for any clue. Both of us stared up at the curved warning stick willing it to move. Ten minutes crawled by with us sitting like that. Another ten. Still the stick remained motionless. It was puzzling. The dassies were silent. I had felt so sure that he would come right in and tear into the bait. Another ten minutes. Another ten. I motioned Dan back down under the warm blankets, and we lay there staring up at the stars trying to swallow without sound. Maybe he had carried on down the path to drink. Maybe he would be back later. Maybe it hadn’t even been him. A girlfriend perhaps moving about her business.

At eight o’clock the warning stick lunged forward. This was it! My heart was hammering as I sat up and motioned Dan up into position behind his rifle. As soon as he was seated comfortably, he nodded and I stood up and turned on the light. As the white beam struck I saw a brown hyena drop down off the bait back onto all fours, spin around and gallop off noisily into the bushes. I turned off the light and motioned to Dan to get back into his blankets. I was furious. If the bait had been hung correctly we would never have had this false alarm. We hadn’t been back down in our beds for more than a minute when the dassies started again up to our left. A leopard was on the move. Damn it. God damn it! About five minutes later, downwind behind the blind, we heard a low rumbling growl, then silence.

We remained in the blind for the rest of the night but nothing happened. I knew we had been compromised. Because of that low-slung bait we had furthered the education of an already smart cattle killer.

When the staff arrived with the daylight, I vent my spleen on the unsuspecting Bee. But my heart was not in it. I was partly to blame. I should have raised the meat when I had seen it banging too low. I was damned irritated at the whole escapade but it was water under the bridge and we were using up Dan’s days. Whilst Bee and George took down the blind and folded up the bedding, Peter and I went forward to cut the warning string and see if we could find any sign of our leopard.

Sure enough, just as we had surmised, he had come down the cattle trail past the three small koppies to the bait. This leopard had already fed on our bait three times and was probably not that hungry. We found the patch of sand where he had lain down guarding the meat. The hyena had sneaked in for a quick snack, and before the leopard could take action we had entered the scene with the light. The hyena took off and the leopard slunk around the back of the blind to see who his visitors were, and voila! Another hide-educated cattle killer. We continued to check the bait during the remainder of Dan’s hunt but the Bennachie male never fed again at that spot.

Dan shot a beautiful male a couple of miles north of Graham’s house. Graham’s stockmen had noticed fresh leopard activity in the Damula streambed and reported back to him. Graham went down to investigate and it seemed that the Damula Hill female was in season. Two large male tracks, both between nine and ten inches square, as well as the female tracks, were evident in the streambed and on two bush roads nearby. Graham bad hung a beef bait just off one of the roads, and the larger of the two males had fed. Dan shot the cat perfectly at about 7pm. This was an unusually long leopard with spectacular contrasting bright markings. His belly was a clean white colour and he was in beautiful condition. The average length of a mature male’s tail is about 36 inches, but this ones tail was 42 inches long. I think Marcus Zimmerman mounted this cat. I have seen it mounted, lying languidly on a log high up in Dan’s house and it is a beautiful mount. Dan took a spectacularly wide 54-inch kudu bull on this hunt, and he too looks very good up on the wall.

Meanwhile the Bennachie male prowled on, taking another four of AJ’s cattle in quick succession. Following Dan’s hunt, a hunter from Reno arrived. His name was Mike Boyce and he owned a large Taxidermy business. Mike badly wanted a “supercat”. He had taken an average male previously but he was really keen to try for one of the “Tyson head” giants that frequent these areas. Mike and his staff had mounted the big males we had taken with other American leopard hunters, Ron McKim, John Peck and Joe Crawley. Mike and his staff handle many leopard skins from Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia and South Africa every year, so they are no strangers to big cat skins; and the Matobo cats had impressed them. Mike wanted one badly.

He had hunted with us – in 2001, but due to pressure at work had had to cut his trip short and never took the supercat he was looking for. I arranged this return trip for him at no daily rate and we were both keen to get to grips with a giant this time. When Mike arrived we only had a few females on bait. Early in the hunt, we passed the spot where Dan Greene and I had furthered the education of the Bennachie male. I pointed it out to Mike and after some deliberations between Peter, Mike, George and myself, decided to try for the rogue once more.

We knew that if he did find our bait he would circle downwind looking for us before feeding. We had found that out the hard way. Therefore we decided to hang the bait a little further south, closer to the ridge – a move of some 300 yards. This would enable us to sit up on top of the ridge itself. It would entail a long shot of about 115 yards but I felt it very unlikely that the cat would clamber up the koppie looking for us. Also, our wind would be a lot higher than the bait area should any swirls spring up during the night.

Some days later he found that bait and ripped out about ten pounds from it. But he had turned into what we dreaded most. A one-time feeder. He would never, from that day on, to my knowledge, return to a feed until his demise two years later. Mike and I slept on unhit baits in the hope that we would catch him on that first feed, but in the big game of leopard chess, our moves did not bring us to a checkmate.

In August of that same year I was hunting with Kirk Clinkingbeard from Missouri when the Bennachie male hit a beef bait we had hung 200 yards from the junction of Bennachie, Tebele’s Farm and my wife’s uncle, Ernest Rosenfels’s Home Farm. This particular spot was used every couple of weeks by the Bennachie male when he returned to his favourite stamping grounds after patrolling his eastern boundary, the Ingwezi river. It was a very thick,  leopardy area with numerous koppies clogged with Malalangwe (Barlariaalbostilata) bushes. Malalangwe, in Sindebele means “where the leopard sleeps”. It is a low thick springy bush covered with small silvery light greenleaves. These leaves, in the dry winter season, are covered in billions of fine powdery hairs which make you itch like hell. Around the bases of most of the koppies these bushes grow in profusion, packed tightly against one another.  From the corner junction gate ran the dirt road which went south and eastinto AJ’s farms. From here it is less than a mile to where Dan Greene’s and my efforts had come to naught previously. The cat used the road so our bait was placed 50 yards off the road to the east. We had cleared an unobstructed view through the Malalangwe and Mbondo bush back to a small koppie 20 yards west of the road. From where we cleared a spot for the blind, we would fire east, across the road should we get a feed. Once again I was much closer than I like to be, but Kirk was a quiet man in the blind. Besides, it was theonly place from which we could shoot. We got a hit and the pugs were clearly those of our old adversary, the Bennachie male. Kirk and I sat for two nights in a row at that spot but he never came back.

I returned to the Bennachie male’s area in April 2003 with Gene Giscombe from New York. Our good friend, taxidermist Frank Zitz from Rhinebeck New York, had organised the safari for Gene. Gene had taken several leopard already in the average class and was obviously no stranger to a 24-bour hunting day as he had taken some of Africa’s really tough gems like the Bongo and Giant Eland. Gene was a real gentleman and a pleasure to be with. He said straight out that he would be game to do everything it took to nail one of our supercats.

With this in mind we decided to formulate a plan to use Tristan and his hounds should our conventional baiting hunt produce no success. As mentioned previously, we had been less than impressed with Tristan’s dogs operating in the granite, but your line has got to be in the water if you’re going to catch a fish, so we decided to give it a try.

When we hit the halfway mark of our safari, we decided to send for the dogs. Our plan was to split our effort into three vehicles. Our resident manager at that time, Gary Whitehead-Wilson, went in his jeep, Gene and I and Peter in another, and Bee and one of the skinners in the short-wheel-base diesel. With us at the time was a friend from Philadelphia, John Strobel, who was spending the season with us helping where he could. We would split up in the early morning and check all the known roads, rivers and tracks where supercats moved.

We constantly updated our map in the main camp on big cat movement, so we had a good idea of where we would probably find fresh sign. We would all call in on the HF radio on the hour, every hour. If anybody had come up with a large fresh track, my wife would be on the air too, and she would alert Tristan at Figtree by telephone. We guessed that he would be able to reach us within an hour and a half at the outside.

It was imperative that we get the dogs onto the spoor before 9am. After that the granite would heat up rapidly and the cat scent would burn off. Gene and I were handling the very western sector which encompassed Bennachie. We had a bait on a thickly vegetated island in the dry riverbed of the Ingwezi river on Tebele’s farm. This was only a couple of miles upstream from where we had educated the Bennachie stock killer with Dan Greene. Now, two years later, he had to be even bigger and he had to be smarter too.

We reached our bait on the island at about 7am and we could see clearly the monster pug marks in the damp sand of the Ingwezi. The tracks had left the island, crossing to the eastern side, on Tebele’s farm. Peter and I reached the bait. The cat had only torn off a perfunctory bite of about two pounds, then he had lain down a few feet away from the bait. Who knows how long the old rogue lay there, what he was thinking about, as he contemplated that meat. I was very excited. There was no doubt in my mind that these were the tracks of the Bennachie cattle killer, and that I would be able to settle accounts with him this time. We put the trackers onto the spoor and quickly set up the radio to get things moving with Tristan. With that done, we decided to kill time by trying to see how far we could follow the tracks and possibly save time for the dogs. The tracks ambled up out of the riverbed and into a koppie about 200 yards away from the river. I thought that he was probably laying up there somewhere, thinking about returning to the fresh beef bait tonight, but I was wrong. Peter followed him through the koppie then back down into the Ingwezi about a half mile downstream from the island, heading west onto Bennachie back onto AJ’s property. Bee had joined us by this time and I sent him up to the nearest large road to guide Tristan to us without delay.

As we waited for Tristan and the dogs, I measured a clear print of the cat’s front foot which Peter had found on a dusty cattle path. A hair over a square ten and a quarter inches! It was him all right.

I was anxious to close the book with this wiley old giant that had led us such a merry dance and I was impatient for Tristan to arrive. Gene had hunted leopard enough to know that this was a special cat and he too was excited. Maybe this was the world record cat that I felt so sure would come out of our area.

About an hour after our radio call, Tristan’s white Land Cruiser came barrelling down the bed of the Ingwezi, the dogs all clambering over each other straining at their leashes. These hounds were a colourful mixture of Blueticks and Walkers, some bred here in Zimbabwe and others imported from the USA. As they got closer I recognised Jessica and Whip who had done such a good job for us on Fred Herbst’s wounded monster in 2001. From this point on things changed gear and took off. To me it looked like  the proverbial Chinese fire drill, but then we were quite unfamiliar with doghunting, but the mêlée was damned disconcerting to say the least. Before I could even brief Tristan the hounds took off downstream where they could see our trackers waiting. There were about a dozen hounds snuffling, cutting back and forth and galloping down the riverbed. As soon as they hit the track by the island they began baying and howling like mad things, heading off first onto Tebele’s, then crossing the riverbed again up into Bennachie. Tristan began to take control of his staff and his main dog handler, a very fit individual, took off after the howling dogs with various radios, leashes and other equipment in hand. We quickly introduced everybody – Tristan had his father-in-law, Terry Fenn (also a professional hunter), with him. I briefed Tristan on the situation and we all took off at a fast walk after the dogs with one of Tristan’s men following behind carrying 20 litres of water for the hounds.

Suddenly the note and pitch of the baying dogs changed, becoming more urgent and higher pitched, then the sound seemed to angle off a bit to the left straight towards a huge ridge of koppies a mile away to the south. The ridge was a big one and I had been up it before, following four kudu bulls which we had spooked on a nearby road. It was horrible country.

The ridge ran basically east west and was about a mile long and half as wide. Its eastern edge overlooked the Ingwezi river below. The top was about 800 feet high, and the whole thing was riddled with caves and crevices and choked with Malalangwe bushes. You could easily have hidden a battalion of well-equipped soldiers up in the high valleys and dips in its centre. Looking at it now, I realised that this was probably where our old friend had been headquartering all these years that we had been after him.

Gene Giscombe is a big man of about 6’ 2″ and weighing in at about 240 pounds, and he was game, but battling. The pace was devastating and we hadn’t even begun to climb yet. We reached the spot where the dogs had gone berserk to find Peter standing next to a dead cow. Peter is no longer spry and had decided to follow with us rather than try to stay with the dogs. This was no small calf at our feet. The leopard had killed a healthy heifer during the night. More bad news for my friend AJ. The typical dried black throttle marks were prominent on the neck and about 20 pounds of meat had been devoured out of the shredded crotch. This was about a 450-pound animal dispatched easily by the giant cat. I turned and told Gene that now we were going to get the Bennachie killer. He had a bellyful of meat and we were certain he was nearby, up in the ridge. Gene nodded and said, “Let’s go.” We could now hear the hounds baying going up the koppies, fading away then loud again as they disappeared around and into the jumbled outcrops, Tristan’s man right along with them, shouting and whistling encouragement as they climbed.

As John Strobel and I reached the bottom of the ridge we were into the damned Malalangwe bushes. I could now hear the dogs in battle as they barked and howled in the caves at the top. Tristan and I decided to push on as quickly as possible up to the dogs in case they started to take a hammering from the enraged cat. Gene was to follow with the others as best he could. Tristan and I caught up with the handler who reported that he had seen the leopard when the dogs first flushed it from a cave. We questioned him about the size and he answered that it was enormous. This man had seen a lot of leopard at close range and we were sure he was not exaggerating. The commotion had quietened down a lot and moved east down the ridge to the end near the Ingwezi. Here huge boulders were jammed against each other, some of them more than twice the size of a Land Cruiser. Underneath and amongst them, yawned deep black crevices and caves.

Gene and the trackers caught up with us. The dogs were still busy climbing and looking around all over the place, most of them panting heavily. In and out of the cracks they went. Suddenly, back towards the centre of the ridge, Whip gave full cry and the other dogs all took off in that direction howling again themselves. We clambered back west as fast as we could go. I could not figure out why the hounds had not bayed the cat in a cave by now. He had obviously been there very recently with a full stomach and we couldn’t imagine him risking a couple of hundred yards of open ground by leaving the cover of the ridge. Why could the dogs not pin him down?

The baying quietened down a bit again and Tristan urged the hounds all the time. It was now hot on top of the ridge and it was about ten o’clock. We were all sweating rivers. One of Tristan’s older, more experienced dogs, Titus, came out of a cave then staggered slightly, sort of slipped sideways a bit like someone who had had too much to drink. One of the other, younger dogs also stopped, his head hanging.

“I don’t know much about hound hunting but these dogs are suffering from dehydration or something, where’s your water-man?” I said to Tristan.

Tristan was frowning and answered, “No ways – we hunt down in the lowveld in much hotter, drier climate than this”.

He shouted for the worker with the water to come up to us. Tristan could not figure out why some dogs appeared so tired.

The whole hunt had kind of petered out and lost momentum and I was becoming disillusioned with this dog business. It looked like another failure in the making. Little did I know how hard those dogs were trying. We all came together in a shady thicket and watered the dogs. I noticed that some of them lacked the interest or energy to really get stuck into the water dishes which was puzzling, to say the least. They simply lay down next to us. Two dogs, Ginger and Sadie, were still missing along with the handler. Suddenly we heard baying again, this time way down on the western edge of the ridge. But it was only the lonely baying of two dogs. Five were with us and another four were missing. Tristan, Terry, the water man, Gene and Bee decided to try and find where the missing dogs were, and then to move up to the western edge and help Whip and Jessica, who seemed to be with the leopard still. Peter and I walked back to the starting point to collect my jeep and we then followed asmall dry stream which came around under the western edge of the ridge. The plan was to all meet there and try and ascertain where the big cat had gone into hiding, regroup all the dogs, water them and try to revive the hunt.

Before we arrived at the pre-agreed rendezvous point in the streambed, Peter and I saw two of the missing hounds, Ginger and Sadie, laying in the sand. Ginger was staggering, trying to get up whilst Sadie lay flat on her side. As we stopped the vehicle I could see that the dog was not breathing. We went up to look at it, and it transpired that the dog had died some time before as it was already stiff. Ginger was salivating badly with strings of slobber hanging from her jaws. I was concerned at that time that the dogs had been driven into dehydration complications, but in retrospect, I see that would have been highly unlikely at ten o’clock on an April morning. I grabbed a water bottle and tried to force it into the dog’s mouth, but she fought back and bit me by mistake. I poured the water over her and tried to cool her down. Meanwhile Peter was whistling and shouting for Tristan, who answered from halfway down the ridge. Suddenly Ginger lifted her muzzle and gave a plaintive owoooooh, lay down, stiffened her legs and died.

I knew that something had poisoned the dogs and was just about to ask Peter about it when he said “Ginyambila” – black mamba! Tristan arrived and I could see the anguish and confusion on his face. Gabe was laying just behind some bushes in the streambed. He too was on his last legs. Tristan promptly shot him with his revolver, putting him out of his misery.

This was catastrophic. There is a deep, personal relationship that a houndsman has with his dogs. This was also the beginning of the season and it would turn out that four of the dogs, not just the three we had seen, had succumbed to the mamba. Tristan was left with a badly depleted pack. Peter pointed out the massive black bruising which manifested itself on the dogs’ underparts. He seemed to have no doubt as to what had killed the dogs, as he had lost two of his own dogs to a black mamba back in his home village, and he recognised the symptoms. Tristan was devastated. We all were. The hunt had wound down and we could not hear any baying at all. It seemed wrong to even enquire about the leopard in the face of what had happened, so I didn’t. Everybody finally came down out of the koppies. Tristan got his staff together and they made a careful sweep for all the missing dogs. Sadie, Titus, Gabe and Ginger were all dead. Biggun, a large male, was suffering but would pull through. Evidently he had taken a very small dose of venom and was fortunate to make it. My heart ached for Tristan as he sat there in the shade near his Cruiser fondling Jessica’s ears, staring at the sand. A few yards away Biggun lay in the shade licking his balls.

It was a tired, bedraggled group that crawled onto the back of my Land Cruiser. We drove slowly back to the starting point in the Ingwezi, unloaded  Tristan and his five remaining hounds and made our way back to camp. Geneand I returned later in the day and sat up over the dead cow that night in desperate hope but it came to naught. The Bennachie marauder, somewhere up in the labyrinth of caves on the ridge, lived through another attempt on his life.

Looking back, I am actually surprised that more hounds are not lost this way in the Matobo range. The mamba is a very fast nervous snake, and he will normally take off at the slightest noisy interference anywhere near him.

However, if he is cornered in any way, he will attack with ferocity. I can clearly picture the excited clumsy hounds pouring into a cave where they can smell leopard scent, the ones at the rear pushing on the tails of those in front. A mamba, already on edge due to the leopard having been in the cave, finds himself in the midst of a dozen howling leaping dogs with nowhere to escape. He must attack, and attack he did.

Talking to Tristan later, he shrugged it off as part of the risks of his job but I know that that incident must have hurt him badly. At the end of the season though he told me that he had been pleasantly surprised at how all the younger inexperienced dogs had come through for him, and he had managed to put together a workable season after all.

The final chapter on the Bennachie leopard unfolded in April 2004. I had been scheduled to guide a hunter from the States in November of 2003. But 2003 had been an unusually dry year and to make matters worse, in late October a strange cold spell hit the country for about 10 days. Temperatures dropped from 90° down to 40° F overnight. It was just too much for a lot of the plainsgame and cattle who were at their lowest ebb of the year. Our rainy season usually starts in November, so October, at the end of the long dry spell, is end of the tether for a lot of the game animals which are just hanging on by a thread, waiting for the new browse to sprout. The cold spell laid them down all over the veld. We would see zebra, kudu, duiker and cattle laying dead, just riding by in the car. Who knows how much game actually died out there off the beaten track.

The end result of all this was, of course, an early Christmas for predators and scavengers. Leopard would not even look at a bait with so many weak, dying and dead animals out in the bush. Vultures circled lazily for days, gliding down to earth constantly.

Our last client of the 2003 season – I will call him Harry – had already paid his hunt deposit. I called him and explained the situation. Financially we needed the safari, but the chances of him taking a cat were not good at all, so I advised him to postpone to an early hunt for 2004, which he did. Interestingly, his agent tried to book him with another operator, but Harry decided to stick with us. When Harry arrived in April I was finishing up a hunt in which we took a nice average sized Tom of about 130 pounds with a hunter from Tennessee. About three quarters of the way through Harry’s hunt we got a hit on Ernest Rosenfels’s home farm some eight miles east of the Bennachie male’s territory on the Ingwezi river. A mature female had been visiting this bait for about four days and we kept feeding her in the hope that the boyfriend would do his rounds, which he finally did. His track was not as big as the Bennachie male, but not far off. He was definitely a mature male and we decided to sit for him.

We carefully set up the hide and went through step by step what would probably happen. Harry was shooting from a sitting position at about 80 yards. In front of us, about 20 yards behind the bait, rose a huge koppie which dominated the whole area. It was about 500 yards across its base and some 500 feet high. It stood out prominently in that section of bush as it was the only koppie around for a couple of miles in any direction. We often climbed it when glassing for kudu and wildebeest. I had taken a magnificently coloured 160-pound leopard out of this exact tree with Tom Shimak from Illinois, in  2001. I had faith in this setup. One problem we did have here, was that thiskoppie was a sleeping position for a large troop of baboons.

When they arrived in the late evening to start moving into their sleeping positions up on the cliff face, they would either see or smell us, and bark and carry on for about an hour. I was always worried that this would possibly warn the leopard off.

Shortly after 5pm that evening, Harry and I were settled in. The francolin started their evening cackling before they retired and the baboons barked, squealed and echoed high up in the rocks.

By six it was quiet and the Scops owls started their clear monotonous “prrrrp.” Harry was quiet in the blind which was a relief. We ate our unwrapped sandwich and quietly sipped at our water. The temperature dropped quickly and we silently eased under the grey blankets fighting itchy throats and runny noses. Harry’s rifle, a .375, was cocked, off safe, and resting securely on fore and rear sandbag rests, ready to go. Shortly after eight, the dassies began to chatter. Our cat was on the move. We sat up, mouths dry, waiting. This is the hardest throat-drying, heart-hammering part of the whole deal before you move into action.

My warning stick curved forward, relaxed, curved forward, stayed bent. The cat was up in the marula tree and had snagged the bait towards himself and had it up on the branch. I urged Harry into shooting position, watched him whilst he snuggled in to the rifle butt. I kneeled up and switched the light on. There sat the leopard in all his regal nonchalant beauty. He looked at us, then away.

“Take him, shoot Harry,” I said. Nothing happened.

“Harry shoot,” I urged.

“Can’t see him, can’t see anything,” said Harry.

The leopard rose up on all fours, jumped back into the main crook of the marula tree and went down the other side like poured oil. I turned off the light. I was furious. Hours and hours of work to get the right cat in the right position. It was too much. That leopard could have been shot with a scoped pistol. Nothing in the way, sitting in one position for a good eight seconds. I couldn’t believe it.

“What’s the problem Harry, he was sitting perfectly,” I whispered. Harry was also upset, mad with himself. “I don’t know, I just couldn’t see him, I’m sorry.”

I could not figure out why not. A million-candle power Q beam is brighter than daylight, the rifle was on a double rest aimed at the bait. I could only think that a mechanical fault had developed with the scope. Mad as a snake, I gestured for Harry to sit quietly. Who knows, sometimes, if a cat does not decide to come and investigate the light, or any noise we have made, he will go back to the bait.

Sure enough, about 15 minutes later the stick curved slowly – we waited.

The warning stick began to jerk like I had a fish on it. He was feeding. Once more I urged Harry up to the rifle. Once more I kneeled, put the light on.

“There he is, shoot, Harry.’’ I urged.

“I don’t see him, I don’t see anything.”

Now I wasn’t so much angry as resigned. A hunter who couldn’t see a leopard at 80 yards with a four-power scope on a dead rest, with no interfering grass or foliage, should not be hunting leopard I thought.

“I don’t know what to tell you Harry – the leopard is completely in the clear, on the bait; I can’t guide you in any better, the bait tree is the only big tree there!” I said to Harry.

The leopard now left the bait alone and was sitting in the crook of the tree staring at us like a big dog.

Suddenly, BOOM! Harry fired. The leopard didn’t appear to be knocked back by the bullet at all. He appeared to jump down, under control and away into the thick stuff.

Harry worked out what happened. When he moved up to his shooting position the first time the cat hit, for some reason known only to Harry, he had pulled the rifle out of the bedding grooves in the sandbags where he had bedded it aiming at the bait earlier in the evening, and snuggled the butt into his shoulder.

The rifle, as it turned out, was now aiming left of the cat into the bush halfway down the left-hand side of the shooting lane. When the cat came the second time, the rifle was still aimed left, but Harry had caught some movement to the right, realised what he had done, moved the rifle back to its correct bedding, and fired. But I could see he was not happy with his shot and he felt he had rushed it. We waited for the jeep to arrive. When the staff arrived and parked the jeep a couple of hundred yards behind us, I shouted for them not to approach the hide down the normal route from the right. That was the direction in which the cat had taken off. They arrived at the hide a few minutes later with my follow-up gear. My .460, my pistol and belt, and spare flashlight.

The bush was very thick and no one was happy. I looked at Peter. Maybe we should wait until daylight. We decided to take a preliminary look and call it off if the situation looked bad. I belted my cocked pistol on and I also cocked the .460. Into the thorns we went. Again. When we got to the bait tree we could find no blood or fat spatter on the tree at all. However we did find a bullet-cut in the edge of the tree with a tuft of belly fur or inner leg fur jammed into the white frayed edges of the cut. Remembering where the leopard had been sitting, the shot looked too low to have hit any vitals. We turned to where the cat bad leaped out of the tree and made off into the thick stuff at the base of the koppie. Peter crouched down with the spotlight in hand, I stood over him, rifle at the ready. Kloppers, the skinner, carried the battery behind me. Everyone else waited at the bait. Peter found blood about ten yards away where the cat had stopped. There was not much of it though, and it wasn’t from an organ or an artery. We spent another two hours that night looking for the cat or signs of blood, but we only found a few more small drops. When the tracks went up into heavy cover we called it off.

The next day we gave it everything we could. We covered every square inch of that koppie and went into every single cave and crevice. My belief was that the bullet had gone low, through the meat of a thigh and the cat was not mortally struck. We gave it the whole day on that wounded leopard and I sent Bee and two other workers back the next day as well.

Harry was really feeling down. He had taken all the plainsgame he wanted, so he really had nothing to do for the last four days of his hunt. I cannot fathom what got into me but I offered Harry another male if one came to bait. Maybe because he was a nice easy-going man, and we really felt sorry for his predicament. I do not know. What I do know is that it is stupid practice if your business is leopard hunting. Big male leopard are most certainly not an infinite resource, and to offer one for trophy fee alone when it could have brought us over US$9000 in a new hunt, is a self-inflicted wound. Anyway, Harry appreciated the offer but turned it down. He said he was really feeling low and was done with leopard hunting.

I decided to let Harry hunt with a young PH who was working for us at the time, a fellow named Bruce Cronje. They were going to potter around for bushpig and maybe small cats for the few remaining days of the hunt. I took the opportunity to go down to South Africa with my wife and have some X-Rays done on my back. The next day Bruce called us in South Africa and said that Harry had thought about my offer, realized it would save him quite a lot of money by not having to buy another safari later, and decided to try again for a cat. I told them to go ahead, not really believing he had much chance in the four days remaining.

Bruce and Harry took another cow at Graham’s and put out four new baits and continued to check the ones we had up already. On Bruce’s second day, evening was approaching and he found himself at the Tebele, Bennachie junction gate, with a fresh cow shoulder still to hang. This spot is only a couple of miles north of the ridge where we had lost the dogs to the mamba. As Bruce had only joined us that season, he was unfamiliar with the Bennachie male and all the drama and mishaps that had gone before. Bee was with him that day and showed him the spot where I had sat with Kirk Clinkingbeard, about 300 yards away from the gate. Rather than let the meat sit in camp for the  night doing nothing, they strung it up on the off chance. When they checkedthe meat the next day on their rounds, they found the bait had been hit! Not only had it been hit, it had been hit by a monster leopard with a ten and a quarter inch track! The Bennachie male. Bruce set up in the same spot I had sat with Kirk across the road. At 9pm that night the warning stick curved slowly down, then up, down again, then it began to jerk erratically. The monster was feeding.

When Harry was ready, Bruce switched on the light. Nothing. The bait was still swinging but the leopard was not there. The light was turned off and they quietly eased down. What the hell had gone wrong? Had the seasoned old marauder slipped out of trouble again? A few minutes later the jerking warning stick bent heavily. Harry eased back behind the rifle. When Bruce hit the light the second time, the leopard which had run circles around us for so many years, was standing up on his hind legs ravaging the meat. He was huge. Bruce said he looked like a lioness. As he fed he never even looked up at the light. At the blast of the rifle the cat went down, growled, and then took off leaving the bait swinging.

After much backslapping and armchair quarterbacking, the happy duo moved out of the hill and onto the road which passed just a few metres away. When the vehicle arrived Bruce manoeuvred the car right up to the bait. As it turned out, when the leopard had hit the bait the first time, a huge piece of it had come away in its jaws, and he had moved a few feet away to eat it. This was why the hunters had not seen him. It was strange that the light never bothered such an old experienced cat, but this was probably the first time he had actually been under the light.

Bruce and Harry found a promising pool of blood under the bait tree where the cat had fallen at the shot. It looked good. But things that look good in the African bush can look very bad in a very short space of time. Bruce and his team went as slowly and as carefully as they could until the rapidly diminishing blood spoor went up into the koppies.

They were not too despondent as they drove back to camp because Bruce felt that the chances of finding him dead in the morning were good. But Harry had met Murphy the week before, and Murphy was waiting for them in the morning.

The team searched high and low for the wounded cat, but the cat had licked the wound clean and the droplets had dried up. It seemed that he was not fatally wounded. By late morning they had not found him and Bruce got a message through for Tristan to come down with his dogs. Unfortunately, Tristan’s partner was away on a hunt with the main pack, and all that remained were two dogs, a male and a female, who proved to be worthless as the female  was in heat and not even leopard blood could entice them into going to work.Tristan’s blood must have run cold when he arrived on the scene, because from this spot, can be seen clearly, to the right, what we had named mamba ridge from the year before.

The end result was a failed follow up. Bruce and his staff combed the hills for the rest of that day but found nothing. It is hard to believe, but an otherwise good hunter had wounded, and lost, his second big male leopard in ten days! Shooting off sandbags at under 80 yards! But the most disheartening thing of all, was the fact that this failed opportunity was the last chance we would have to close accounts with the Bennachie stock killer. Tristan’s handler had seen him. Bruce and Harry had seen him. And he was a giant in an area where big leopards are common. Whether he died from his injury or whether he died in a territorial dispute, no one will ever know, but he was certainly the cat with nine lives as far as my efforts were concerned.

Bee said he returned the next day and saw the killer’s tracks made during the night walking along the road heading straight for the thick rugged fortresses in mamba ridge. But he said there was no blood and the tracks were evenly spaced. When I heard the story I was not too sure if it was even the same cat, and now, a whole season later, we have seen no sign of the giant calf killer. But seven miles south, on the edge of Dombolefu Mountain, AJ says a giant leopard is starting to take cattle.