Congrats, Canuck, on your fine buff!

Man, do I wish I was in Tanzania! (That is true for me at any time between July 1st and the end of December when I am somewhere else!)

Great, scarred old bull hippo, too, Saeed. And a nicely tusked, and apparently Walterable warthog, to boot!

Details, please!

Great job Chris!

Canuck, great buff! 470 Mbogo?

Keith

Saeed - How did you get that croc to pose so nicely without him running off? Was he sleeping?

That is a great picture...shame you were the only one looking at the camera! Was somebody sunbathing or what?

I am eagerly awaiting the story...and thoroughly enjoying your updates.

And in case you were planning to ask....OK, I'll come along next year.

That last croc photo is fit for a magazine cover. Awesome trophies...Congratulations !!!

We arrived at our new camp in Ugala early in the morning, and had a drink and went out hunting at 10. The camp is on the Ugala River, which is not running right now, and consists of a large number of very big pools. Our camp is on one of these pools.

We drove around, and saw a very nice looking earthog. Alan said to Walter, "Jump off and come shooting that warthog".

Walter jumpes off, and trots behind Alan, who sets the shooting sticks about 50 yards from the truck, saying "shoot the one on the left"

Walter is standing there admiring the warthogs, with no rifle in hand. Alan was waiting for the shot with his fingers in his ears. Nothing happened, and the warthogs ran off.
"Where is the rifle?" Alan asked.
"My gun bearer did not bring it" came back the answer from Walter.

We all had a laugh, and Alan was shaking his head.

We went looking for a hippo to shoot to use for croc bait.
There are so many hippos here, oen is spoilt for choice. We settled on an old bull we could see with our binoculars. We got close to the river bank, and I tried lying down to get a good rest for my rifle. The bank slopes down, and there is no way I could raise the rifle barrel high enough to shoot anything in the river. After all sorts of moving and re adjusting position - Alan is taking a video and laughing at the same time while this crcus was in progress! The hippo went under water, so I ran to a tree by the water's edge. This did not prove to be any better! The trunk of the tree ends at an angle, and I could not get the rifle poingting towards the hippo if I rested it on it. The hippo was only about 30 yards away, and as he came out of the water, I put a bullet into his ear hole. He just stood still there for a second, then slowly sank.

We went back to the camp to have lunch, then back to the hippo to recover it. We brought a canoe, and a couple of the boys went over and tied a rope to the floating hippo, which we dragged to shore with one of the trucks. We cut him up for baits, the took them and hanged them by the water's edge. The idea was so that the crocs could smell the meat, but could not get to it. Our intention is to come back tomorrow, and place the baits down for the crocs.

We were going back to camp, when we saw another nice warthog. I jumped off the truck and loaded the rifle, then handed it to Walter, who made a nice shot and killed his warty.

We went back to camp, to find that Chris had shot a buffalo.

Had a great dinner, with lots of jokes and laughter, and hit the sack ready for another day.

This morning we went looking for buffalo. We found the tracks of a herd that had come to water, and followed them. We never managed to get close, as they always stayed in thick cover, and they seem toi see us before we see them.

We gave up on them, and went to set our croc baits. We set one up, and set a blind close by. We tied one hippo leg a few feet away from the water's edge, and covered the bait with leaves. The vultures descended on it, and between them and the marabou storks, nothing was left. Some smaller crocs came to feed too. But, the guy you see in the photos above kept in the water. He had a busy time chasing other crocs away. We decided to go have lunch, then bring some more meat for the crocs, and place this one in the water in the shallows.

We sat in the blind, and took lots of photos and video of the feeding frenzy in front of us. Eventually this croc came, took a bite, turned around and headed to the deep. He stopped to swallow the meat he had taken, and as his head came up, I shot him.

Nice work and more excellent pictures.

Once again some great trophies and absolutely stunning pictures.

Any chance of getting some quick details about the camera and lenses being used? I know that the camera is only a small part of making pics like these but as am I currently looking to upgrade my equipment for my first African trip in 2010 that info would be most helpful. Thanks.

That's a nice croc and the leopard was a beaut! I still want to see you with a full-maned lion...

Pete

That's a great croc. At least 14 plus feet, maybe 15 plus - hard to tell, but sure enough big! Congrats again! What a safari!

Excellent photography as well.

The African assassin is in full swing again! Congratulations! Great croc!

Jolly good show!


DRG: Kiss my grits.

That is an absolute awesome croc !

thanks again for the photos and the story

GREAT croc pics , sounds like as usual you are having more fun than should be allowed , and collecting some excellent trophies aswel

Good shooting Chris! Save a bullet or two for when ya get back home eh?

Looks like Walter can cook up a mean braai!!!

That's awfully mouthwatering!!!!! Great Bushbuck, Saeed! There's got to be some story behind the picture of Walter and the hippo. Was he checking him for cavities!?

Now I'm hungry -- that does look good.

These live reports are great...keep them coming.

I hope that Walter's Bar b que tasted as good as it looks. That might be the best 'trophy' he has from this trip.

That is one huge big old croc! How big was he, must be somewhere between 14.5 and 16 feet at least? Magnificent leopard too, just sounds like a dream safari so far! The food looks up to scratch, that fillet on the spit looks absolutely divine!

More, more, more.

Saeed, do you think it would be any problem to bring about 25 or so of us along next year?

Nice!

Why are you holding that stick/tree in the impala photo. Did you feel if Walter had a gun you at least should even the odds?

me thinks that there is a story regarding that limb -- pray tell

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have just had a fantastic BBQ by Walter as our last dinner. We leave tomorrow to Dar and then onto our final destinations of Dubai, Canada and Chile.

We have all had an incredibly great time, and since my last report I have shot a hippo, a croc, waterbuck and buffalo.

Walter shot an impala, and cooked it for us as well.

Chris also shot his second buffalo today.

I have literally thousands of great photos, and I will try to start my hunt report as soon as I can once I am home.

Hope everyone has a smooth trip home. Looking forward to more photos.

Fantastc hunt and live report`s

I have been looking forward to every update along the safari

Thanks for taking the time

A very nice pic of you and Walter. I too, was wondering about the stick.

Have a safe journey home.

Safe traveling home, for all of you. Thanks for creating this great thread, as I'm sure you know, many of us got a great deal of enjoyment out of following along vicariously.

Thank you for creating this thread and share the good things with us.I particularly liked the last photo of you and Walter.

Best-
Locksley,R

Wow, it's amazing how quickly three weeks can fly past...

Have a safe journey home.

K

All travel safely.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We made it safely home - at least me and Walter did, while our friends Nelson - who is on his way to Chile and Chris to Canada, are still in transit.

An extra step has been added at Dar airport for hunters travelling with firearms, due, it seems, to a nitwit who had a chambered round in his rifle at the customs office!!?

I am not sure if the rifle was actually fired or not.

Normally we go straight to the customs office, and once they check the serial number of our rifles, we are on our way.

Now one is required to go to the police first, who check that the rifles are unloaded.

Appart from that extra step, we have encountered no problems travelling to and from Dar. Everything worked like charm, Donald, the man who meets us at Dar, had everything ironed out, and we were out of the airport in just a few minutes.

Ugalla is quite far from Dar - over 800 Kms, so we had to take a fast plane. Which added to Chris's enjoyment of Walter's crazy behavior.

We were cruising at 25,000 feet, when Walter rummaged through his backpack and got a GPS out.

A few minutes later, he announced "we are travelling at 430 kilometers an hour, at 2100 meters"

I said "You are wrong about the altitude. The plane is showing we are travelling at 25,000 feet, which is about 8,000 meters"

Walter "So you now know the altitude better than a GPS ha?"

"I am looking at the gage in front of the pilot, which shows 25,000 feet"

That wasn't good enough for our Walter. Who gets another GPS from his backpack, and switches it on.

This one shows about 2100 meters.

Walter "Look, TWO GPS cannot be wrong!"
We still did not believe him - Chris and Wayne are laughing their heads off.

Walter gets a THIRD GPS - I know, some of you will find this very hard to believe, but I can assure you - and I hope Chris will corroborate this - it is all true.

Walter then starts to take some photos and video of us in the plane - using 4 seperate cameras!!?

After that he and Nelson took a nap.

When he woke up, he had a trick up his sleeve for Chris - who was sitting across from him.

He blew his cheeks, with his mouth closed, looking very red in the face, pretending that he was going to throw up, at the same time miming to Chris to get him a sick bag!

Chris starts looking in the seat back, and Walter is trying his best pretending that he could not hold on any longer!

Suddenly, he opens his mouth as he leant towards Chris, the look of horror of Chris's face was priceless!!

I have been asked to include more photos in my hunt report, so I hope not many of you will get bored with what I will post.

I am going to go through the photos in the next day or two, and start my hunt reports.

Camera's used this year were Panasonic TZ7, Sony HL1, Canon G10, Nikon D300 and Nikon D300s.

That airsick bag trick is, well, sick!

Sounds like you had a successful end to another successful trip.