Judge,

How about you and I do a Spock mind meld when I get back 11/2.
I want you to write what I see!!!!

Ernest III is sitting on the tuffpack ready to go!

Dulcinea

Thanks for the report, Judge.

Well told, as you a;ways do.

Keith

Judge,
excellent report,congratulations on a hunt gone so well!!

The way you improvise on Safari is a lesson to all of us.

Judge,

It's good to be there with you.

Regards,
Tim

Enjoyed the pics and the write up.

Excellent report, Ernest.

Great report JudgeG, again!
Lookin' like you could fit in that F-4 cockpit again too!

Great description of hunting and the area. A Leopard would be little more than a bonus.

Conclusion....

We continued to travel by boat back to the Chete border and check our baits. Dirk, the camp manager of Sijarira donated an eland ham (simply a huge piece of meat) for replishment, but to no avail. I'm sure that three or four female leopards are now on Weight Watchers, but we just couldn't attract "baby daddy".

Dirk and Lou returning from an afternoon of catching tigers. God is good!



Leopards or not, we had a great time seeing game and catching fish. Like I said, elephants were everywhere and, btw, I've seen worse bulls.




Early one day, I hadn't yet had my morning "constitutional" and really needed to go. Every time we'd pull up to a beach, an elephant would poke his or her head from the bush and foil my plot to fertilize a bit of Zim. Lou got really tickled about it, but as my distress grew, I didn't think if funny worth a s---, so to speak. Finally, I just got out of the boat with my rifle and did my duty within 50 yards of a couple of cows that were eating some kind of green stuff at the water line. I'm just glad my obituary (at least for now) won't read, "Killed by an elephant while taking a crap on the beach".

Before I left for the safari, I had decided that I didn't want to kill a hippo unless it was out of the water. I'd been in parts of Africa, particularly right in front of Pierr'e van Tonder's camp on the Greater Ruaha River in the Selous where there are a zillion hippos, and I had a preconception that one could just shoot one in the water any time you wanted.

I was wrong.

First, you have to get pretty close to hit a baseball-sized brain. Secondly, you have to make sure that you are shooting a male, and finally, at least at Sijarira, every dang bird in the world will whistle a warning if you try to slip up on a pod.

During my safari, more times than I have fingers, we saw hippos on the beach and when we tried a sneak on them to try to pick out a bull, some damn shore bird would squawk and off the whole bunch would go. It really got frustrating, but was good fun being beat by multi-ton beasts that I thought were stupid and easy to hunt.

Finally, on the next to last day of the hunt, while we were fishing (of course), we saw a mama and three babies on the shore about a mile away. As we watched, five or six more hippos came out of the water. More were begining to emerge. All were in a cove which would facilitate and out-of sight motoring around the backside of one of the two peninsulas that formed it and hopefully we could glass for a bubba from close range.

We reached our selected beach, out of sight of the pod, only to discover that the "peninsula" was really an island. Still, it would get us within 30 yards or so of the closest hippos on the opposite bank if we crept up and over the hill that was in the center.

Keeping low and quiet, we snuck in and among some boulders and began to glass. The mama and three little ones (if any hippo is little?) were to our far left. Five or six hippos were now grazing with her (all cows) but a half dozen others were still in the water, blowing, occasionally, beating the heck out of each other and generally doing what hippos do.

After about an hour of rubbing my knees raw as hell as I tried to put humps on the top jaws of what looked like a bunch of fuel trucks playing bumper cars in a dirty swimming pool, Lou announced that the second one from the right was a male if I wanted to shoot him in the water.

I decided that I wanted to wait and see if he'd go "feet dry", as we Naval Aviators used to say. After another thiry minutes, and noticing that I was now kneeling in a pool of blood, I decided that it was time to poop or get off the pot.

Thankfully my honor was saved since, by the time I situated to shoot, the dang bull started climbing out of the water. Go figure or all good things come to those who wait and watch, I reckon... or so I thought.

Some dad-gum kind of snipe saw me move and began to screech that the "British were coming," or "Watch out for the fat boy behind the rocks!", I guess. Quicker than Paris Hilton can take off her grundies (or does she wear any?), a whole bunch of chubby bodies splashed into the wet.

I looked at Lou. Until then I'd never seen anyone try to wing shoot a shore bird with a Wilkes .470 double, but he came pretty close to doing it.

We waited a bit and watched as the pod began to surface about 200 yards to our right, near the end of the island we were on. After another hour, several cows began to cruise toward the bank as if they wanted to go eat some supper.

We squatted down and duck-walked back to the boat and paddled a few hundred yards to the mainland, trying be as quiet as possible and stay out of sight of the hippos.

When we reached a spot to beach the boat, this time we went inland to get behind the hippos so we would be on the beach when they climbed out of the water, or that was the plan, anyway.

By that time, it was about 3:00 p.m. and this thing had begun about ten in the morning. We were getting cooked somewhere between medium and medium well. It had become personal.

The last cover was only ten steps from the water line. The little cove was only about 30 yards across, so if the hippos cooperated, I'd get my wish and at close range, too.

I guess that the snipe got the message that Woodleigh solids hurt 'cause we never got a peep from him. Finally, we reached the tree line without an alarm. This time Lou had brought my jacket and placed it under my knees (Now that's a great P.H.).

Ten or twelve hippos were within 50 yards, still farting and fighting. Females and little ones began to exit the water, albeit on the far bank, but still plenty close.

Lou started to get excited. The bull began to "yawn" over and over and headed towards the females. When he got about knee deep in the water he yawned his last. With his mouth wide open, he was facing directly away from me. I quickly calculated where his brain was and squeezed. The 350 grain TSX hit about 4" behind his eyes and exploded his brain cavity.

As the picture shows, he certainly isn't the biggest hippo ever, but I hunted him hard, killed him on land (sort of ) and made a good shot. I was more than a little bit happy.



We pulled our butts off like the Volga boat men of old to complete the hippo's intent to get ashore. Once the rope broke and all of us were dumped in the mud.... wish I had a video of that!

After some "hero" pictures, I was told by the game scout that I had to cut off the hippo's tail and throw it in the water or the river god, Yami Yami (or however you spell it) would stop the November rains and no crops would grow. Happily, I complied.

Cutting the tail



Sacrifice to the river god



And a big smile on this South Georgia boy's face



If you look closely at the following photo, you will see three holes in the hippo's head. The entry hole is the small one at the top (just above a white spot) and the two lower ones are exits of bone. I've included a picture of the skull of the hippo, too. You can see that the top of the brain cavity was just blown off. The bullet wasn't recovered since it exited the bottom jaw.





We loaded up the hippo in the boat and started back towards the lodge. The wind was blowing about 20 knots, maybe more, and was directly on the bow. With a fetch of about 25 miles to Chete Gorge, the waves were pretty darn high but very short coupled. We buried the bow at least twice on the way back. And I thought hunting elephants could be dangerous. At least we were soaked in the spray and no one could tell when I peed my britches a few times.

We tried to wish a male leopard on the baits for the last two days to no avail, but being the high man in the boat (six good tigers on the last morning) almost made up for the failure to connect.

I made my farewells to Sijarira the last night with a Scotch and a cigar by the fire. A bittersweet evening, for sure.

I had three nights left in Zimbabwe before my flight to JNB, ATL and then to JAX. I returned to the Ultimate Lodge and took the Booze Cruise. We saw elephants, hippo, crocks, a bushbuck and one of the greatest sunsets ever. I didn't drink the whole bottle of Scotch, though. Just half.

Booze Cruise pictures





The next morning I moved my stuff to Gorges Lodge so that I could awake, seemingly in space, over the Zambezi and enjoy the fine food and folks there. Boy, is that place wonderful, the price is right and you just can't find a more beautiful respite from the 9 to 5 world.

My last day in Zimbabwe, I went river rafting (the whole day trip). I am a complete idiot as I'd done it before and I knew what I was in for. I'm not talking about the class 5 rapids or the 22 kilometers of paddling, but the damn descent to the river and back out again. I guess I'm kind of like Mark Sullivan. I wanted to choose my way to die, and die, I about did. Trust me, if you want to have a near death experience, go to Victoria Falls and climb down and back up that stinking verticle part of hell.

My trip back was as good as can be expected on a full plane. It sucks, but I guess I'd swim to Africa and back if required.

What did I learn on my twenty-somethingth safari?

It's good. It's all good!

Here's a few more pictures with explanations:

Vic Falls... the pool in the first picture is where the river rafting begins (you paddle a bit upstream to this point. The view, looking up at the falls is simply breathtaking







Two views from the bar at Gorges Lodge and two sunrise pictures from my room









Sleepwalking at Gorges Lodge isn't recommended. You may wake up dead.




Last year I stayed a bit at Gorges Lodge and really enjoyed meeting the bartender, Beza. He and his wife added a baby boy to their family while I was there. For a baby present I bought him a female goat and he named it Judge. He had no idea that I'd ever return and it was a real treat to surprise him by just walking up and asking about Judge's health. I guess I'm a grandpa cause Judge has had two kids.

Beza's smile when I surprised him



Like I said. It's good. It's all good.

I sure enjoyed the heck out of that. Thanks for sharing Judge, and congrats on another fine adventure!

Cheers
Chris

Ernest, good shooting and you should have come to the Selous with me lots of cooperating chuis...

Welcome home,

Mike

Very good report, Judge, you must have stayed up half of every night writing your journal to have all those details.

Sounds like you had a great safari.

quote:

BColyer (good guy and AR poster) who was also a guest.

Brennan was in camp with me in Zim in 2005, and yes he IS a good guy.

Nice report and pics! And yes, it's all good!

I must say, you got style Judge. I really love your writing and your attitude. Congrats.

I'd swim the Atlantic to get there too (if I had to).

Welcome home and well done.

First class.

Ernest: Welcome home.....and thanks for the great report. I got home just a couple of days ago, and the trip really busted my chops this time. The trip was easy enough, but my sleeping pattern DOES NOT seem to be changing one bit yet. SO, if any of you boys need to call me at 2-3 a.m. let her rip!!! Staying long periods of time truly resets your clock.

Man, I have got to get off my butt and write the trip report. The fishing and buff hunts were A#1.

Hey guys.....here is one for you. IF YOU GO FISHING AND MANAGE TO CATCH THAT BIG TIGER, somehow manage to stop by Steve Colletts taxidermy (in Bulawayo).....See Martin....He rounded me up a pound and length and width perfect match for the biggest Tiger I caught in 15 minutes....and cost me all of $150.00 They build a box, and I hauled it home as luggage. NOT A SCRATCH. ABSOLUTELY PERFECT ON THE WALL. NO HASSELS.....NO NOTHING........ Just a great fish on the wall to match my pictures. HOW IS THAT FOR QUICK TAXIDERMY. 15 minutes, no wait, no shipping charge, no hassels with PH's, skinners, ship & dip, taxidermy, customs. BOOM.....my duplicate fish is home....with pictures to prove it. Not a damn single thing from my original fish......except the spinner I used. But MAN it looks fine!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow I'll go to work before the sun rises and leave my office after it is dark... but I'll never forget a sunset on Lake Kariba



Or the rainbow at the Falls

Welcome back Ernest and as always we can count on a great story. I'm sure you'll be busy at work catching up but let's get together soon and you can brief me in person! jorge

Wonderful report! A week's worth of travelogue between hunter's! Thanks and best wishes on your next adventure.

JudgeG, you never fail to produce the best, most entertaining hunt reports on the internet.
Thanks for another great read.

John

Well done sir! Both hunting & writing!!!

quote:

I took a sip of the hot liquid, turned on my little Grundig radio to the BBC to see if or Obama had sold the Gulf of Mexico to Hugo Chavez, took a hot shower and went to breakfast.

Texas would seceed before letting that happen and kick both ole Hugi's & Obamasses' tails.

Welcome home judge, and thanks for letting us live vicariously through you.

Well written Judge...Lou is a hell of a lot of fun to hunt with and I bet you are too...keep the stories coming.

Well done Judge!..Thanks

Judge, well, even at my age I know the difference between being there and not but you have certainly drawn the two about as close together as possible. Excellent as always and the pics outstanding.

I do wish you could go more often, then I could just save my money and wait for your next report. Thanks for sharing.

Great read, Judge.. Congrats on another grand adventure.

Ernest,

Very nice! Beautiful poke on the hippo.

Mark

Judge,
Great report, after having been to Zim and the Sij in June it is really neat to be able to put people, places and experience in place. Dirk is a great guy, and the Sij camp is so well run. Lots of cheeky ele and hippos. Very nervy of you to dump on the beach so close to the ele, but as they say when you gotta go, you gotta go. Great shot on the hippo btw

Congratulations, Ernest! Another great hunt and a wonderful report!
I think I'll let you write my Obit one of these years!

Thanks for bringing back found memories of our honeymoon. My wife recogniced all the places just by showing her the photos. I missed a sod of a leopard on september 2006 in sijarira. the water was much much lower. Tiger fishing, Excellent

Judge

Great safari, great times, congrats on your wonderful trip,

I have too agree that rafting climb is a bitch, and I am half your age, ok 3/4 , next time I am taking the damn chopper

That was a great report with great photos as expected!! You made my morning..........

Bob

Great report Judge - I love your attitude.

Very nice as usual, thanks for the great report and wonderful photos!

Welcome back, Judge - and thanks for sharing your stories!

quote:

I'm just glad my obituary (at least for now) won't read, "Killed by an elephant while taking a crap on the beach".

I suppose I have seen worse obits...

Well written as usual Judge.

Welcome home Judge, great report. I especially liked that your going leopard hunting again!

Welcome home and thanks for sharing your adventure with all of us.