quote:

Originally posted by scruffy:
The first safari, usually , is the best. Having said that, my unguided walking with porters safari in Cameroon for buffalo has to be about #1.

Go ahead and admit it, using the hammock was your favorite part of the Cameroon hunt.

What a tough call. Mine would be a top four, in this order:

Ethiopia - Three area, three week, full bag affair with good friend Rich P doing the same, 2x2, with Thierry Labat and Bruce Watson

Cameroon Forest - Bongo, buffalo, duikers with Peter Wood and the Pygmies

Cameroon Savannah - third trip there, looking for a special eland and passing a dozen shootable bulls before clapping a 50" giant, also with Thierry

Covid Buster Buffalo - snapping up an end of the year buffalo special in 2020, joining up with Thierry Labat and clapping 6 bulls in 6 days with my two pipe, then joining Rich P and Peter Wood to assist them en route to two big lions for Rich and another 8 buffalo.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeBurke:

quote:

Originally posted by scruffy:
The first safari, usually , is the best. Having said that, my unguided walking with porters safari in Cameroon for buffalo has to be about #1.

Go ahead and admit it, using the hammock was your favorite part of the Cameroon hunt.

If one looks up 'Face Plant Deux' in the better dictionaries ... I reckon there is a picture of me in Cameroon.

My 84' 46 3/8" Buff and Lion, that almost got me, with John Northcote, Hunters Africa, Botswana... and my 94' Elephant and Leopard hunts with John Sharp, Zimbabwe!!

However, Jack O'Connor style, yacht based, SE ALASKA, Brown Bear hunt, 1989, with longtime friend,charter Captain and guide, who personally guided me to the biggest bear this outfitter team took in 15 years of hunts together!! ... last half hour, last day...91/2' Brownie!!...not bad for South East Alaska...I read Jack O'Connor instead of comic books when I was a kid!! He lit my fire for hunting!! This was clearly another pinnacle!!

During my Corporate career, Jack's son Brad O'Connor worked with our Public Affairs group, where I met him and have been friends since, cruising with our wives together, and participating in the Jack O'Connor Heritage Center, Lewiston, Idaho events and fund raisers...from Grand Opening...and looking forward to June!! Come join us...

It has been a Great Journey... and hopefully more to go??

quote:

Originally posted by 470EDDY:
My 84' 46 3/8" Buff and Lion, that almost got me, with John Northcote, Hunters Africa, Botswana... and my 94' Elephant and Leopard hunts with John Sharp, Zimbabwe!!

Your lion and buffalo are the ones in Northcote's, book, correct?

YUP, that's me!!... when I was young!!

My lion is life-size mounted in a flying charge as it was when it came for us when we were following up after my first shot!! Long story... and as vivid today as that day in 1984...eyes ablazing...and my 375H&H rolled him...measuring in feet, not yards...!!

John and Enid often came to Seattle to visit their close friend and agent Renee Mills. They stayed with us at our home as well over the later years when John retired. We also visited them at their home in later years on other hunts.. and witnessed the ravages of Mugabe on private citizens.... his neighbor, a rose grower and exporter... who marched in a political parade and was arrested and jailed!! I accompanied a group to get her released... and saw the inside of a Harare jail!!.... a sight I have NEVER FORGOTTEN!! Probably young and foolish, but as an "American reference"... we got her sprung!! WOW!!

Not the subject of this forum... but an indelible memory!!... Adventure!!

CheerZ,

First safari. Everything was new and it was great.

Zimbabwe communal land plainsgame hunts are not the best. Didn’t take exceptional animals didn’t shoot a bunch of stuff, couldn’t really afford it at the time and worked hard for what we got. But it was, at the time, the most incredible hunting experience.

You can never relive your first safari.

quote:

Originally posted by Wendell Reich:
First safari. Everything was new and it was great.

Zimbabwe communal land plainsgame hunts are not the best. Didn’t take exceptional animals didn’t shoot a bunch of stuff, couldn’t really afford it at the time and worked hard for what we got. But it was, at the time, the most incredible hunting experience.

You can never relive your first safari.

That is so true, Wendell.

There's nothing like the first time.

I killed an impala, a waterbuck and a Cape buffalo on the first day of my first African safari.

We were hunting in Tanzania, in the southernmost blocks of the Selous Game Reserve.

I have never seen so much game anywhere before or since.

Plains game and dangerous game, everywhere around us.

We chased whatever we wanted, at our leisure, along the banks of the Njenje and Mbarangandu rivers.

I sometimes wish I could wipe away the years, and my memory of that safari, like wiping a hard drive, and do it fresh all over again.

Too many to name, don't recall a bad one in my lifetime, some not perfect, ONe needs to learn to live with those little setbacks or give it up..

Growing up on a ranch, Openning day of deer season, Coues and Mule deer in the Texas Big Bend Sonoran Desert, saddle up my mule/horse in the dark, stick my 25-35 in my saddle scabbard go to the highest rim rocks, ride the base of them until a buck jumps up, pile off my horse and shoot....time to quarter an hang the hams behind the saddle, the shoulders in front, the back straps in my lap, let my brother pack the rest and keep hunting or head for camp or the house some 5 or 10 miles home..Those were the days, and Ive hunted the world, but no place like home on a good horse or mule and a good rifle for this old worn out cowboy.

All hunts are good. But, if I had to pick one it would be last year in Zim watching my daughter take her first head of big game. After that it was taking a leopard at last light in Chewore South in 2013.

Yes, yes, I know this about African hunting, but this is the worlds greatest hunting adventure. Did this hunt in 1985, with some of the people in this video.
https://youtu.be/zctCvDNtRxU

That was a fantastic hunt and great video!

quote:

Originally posted by Bwana1:
Yes, yes, I know this about African hunting, but this is the worlds greatest hunting adventure. Did this hunt in 1985, with some of the people in this video.
https://youtu.be/zctCvDNtRxU

I did blue sheep in the late 90’s in China . Quite the adventure and as I recall , dirt cheap at the time .

quote:

Originally posted by Bwana1:
Yes, yes, I know this about African hunting, but this is the worlds greatest hunting adventure. Did this hunt in 1985, with some of the people in this video.
https://youtu.be/zctCvDNtRxU

Very well made Video on this Epic hunt

quote:

Originally posted by Bwana1:
Yes, yes, I know this about African hunting, but this is the worlds greatest hunting adventure. Did this hunt in 1985, with some of the people in this video.
https://youtu.be/zctCvDNtRxU

That was truly spectacular.

Off the subject a bit but there is a very good article on this type of hunt in the latest SCI magazine issue.

Also did the blue sheep hunt in China. It was a great hunt, but Nepal was exceptional.

1st Safari with the late Con Van Wyk, Zim 1989.

3 areas in 10 days...buffalo, kudu, tsessebe, ...

quote:

Originally posted by Safari2:
1st Safari with the late Con Van Wyk, Zim 1989.

3 areas in 10 days...buffalo, kudu, tsessebe, ...

With Con you must had Fun !

Right after finishing university I hunted chamois in the alps of Slovenia. Great people, primitive accomodation, incredibly beautiful landscape.

One of my best hunts ever.

quote:

Originally posted by mboga biga bwana:

quote:

Originally posted by Safari2:
1st Safari with the late Con Van Wyk, Zim 1989.

3 areas in 10 days...buffalo, kudu, tsessebe, ...

With Con you must had Fun !

No doubt Bwana!

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Robinson:

quote:

Originally posted by Wendell Reich:
First safari. Everything was new and it was great.

Zimbabwe communal land plainsgame hunts are not the best. Didn’t take exceptional animals didn’t shoot a bunch of stuff, couldn’t really afford it at the time and worked hard for what we got. But it was, at the time, the most incredible hunting experience.

You can never relive your first safari.

That is so true, Wendell.

There's nothing like the first time.

I killed an impala, a waterbuck and a Cape buffalo on the first day of my first African safari.

We were hunting in Tanzania, in the southernmost blocks of the Selous Game Reserve.

I have never seen so much game anywhere before or since.

Plains game and dangerous game, everywhere around us.

We chased whatever we wanted, at our leisure, along the banks of the Njenje and Mbarangandu rivers.

I sometimes wish I could wipe away the years, and my memory of that safari, like wiping a hard drive, and do it fresh all over again.

After 55 safaris I have never experienced anything like the huntinh arround the njenje river. The amount DG is ridiculous and full of plainsgame with no one to be seen in a 21 day safari. Last three years have gone there and going back in october.
Apart from that
Best hunt my 5 th safari to zim. First night lion and hiena. 2 day elephant ( 91 pounds left tusk 67 right) 3 day dagga boy in the thicket…
2/ any of the three trips to cameroon rainforest
3/ high altay ibex
4/ nunavut. Polar bear. Shot on my underwear ( longs) while having the camp attacked by a hungry poar bear after missing at 30 meters a monster the previous day broadside.
5/ a pigeon I hunted with my grandad. Shot it with a 410. One barreed hammer Beauty age 9 out of clean air.
6/ my first deer ever. In monteria.

Mine would have been the Leopard we went after in the woods after dark. Ran across the road in front of the cruisier on our way back to camp. Caught up to him and he was agitated enough that the PH said take him or he would come at us or bugger off.
Back at the lodge I had the pleasure of meeting Willy Pabst, one of the owners of the Save' and the German Representative, and her family, who was doing business with Willy. Dinner with them was very enlightening. They all had to see the Leopard. Even ask to touch it. Dusty was also there who was doing Leopard studies on the Save'. The PH was none other than Thierry Labat. Can't say enough about Thierry!

quote:

Originally posted by dwarf416:

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Robinson:

quote:

Originally posted by Wendell Reich:
First safari. Everything was new and it was great.

Zimbabwe communal land plainsgame hunts are not the best. Didn’t take exceptional animals didn’t shoot a bunch of stuff, couldn’t really afford it at the time and worked hard for what we got. But it was, at the time, the most incredible hunting experience.

You can never relive your first safari.

That is so true, Wendell.

There's nothing like the first time.

I killed an impala, a waterbuck and a Cape buffalo on the first day of my first African safari.

We were hunting in Tanzania, in the southernmost blocks of the Selous Game Reserve.

I have never seen so much game anywhere before or since.

Plains game and dangerous game, everywhere around us.

We chased whatever we wanted, at our leisure, along the banks of the Njenje and Mbarangandu rivers.

I sometimes wish I could wipe away the years, and my memory of that safari, like wiping a hard drive, and do it fresh all over again.

After 55 safaris I have never experienced anything like the huntinh arround the njenje river. The amount DG is ridiculous and full of plainsgame with no one to be seen in a 21 day safari. Last three years have gone there and going back in october.
Apart from that
Best hunt my 5 th safari to zim. First night lion and hiena. 2 day elephant ( 91 pounds left tusk 67 right) 3 day dagga boy in the thicket…
2/ any of the three trips to cameroon rainforest
3/ high altay ibex
4/ nunavut. Polar bear. Shot on my underwear ( longs) while having the camp attacked by a hungry poar bear after missing at 30 meters a monster the previous day broadside.
5/ a pigeon I hunted with my grandad. Shot it with a 410. One barreed hammer Beauty age 9 out of clean air.
6/ my first deer ever. In monteria.

55 safaris??

Wow, you need to write a book!