Ok first I would like to apologize for those of you who opened up the thread and expected to see leopard photos or a dead hunted trophy leopard.

But here is the Story Glen and Helena and their 7 year old son Ian from Denmark came for a very short hunt before flying off to Cape Town to compete in an international clay shooting competition next week. With limited time and very green and thick bush we hunted hard when we did hunt and relaxed hard when we were in camp as this was part holiday and hunt to relax before the upcoming competition as well as a well deserved break for them.

Charl arrived a day earlier before they arrived from his month long marketing campaign and was exhausted and decided to rather get over jetlag and catch up on some sleep. So day one saw us drive to a specific spot I love checked the wind and myself and Glen took a very slow walk down the road to bump into an ancient gemsbuck 12 meters from us. Grazing I looked her over and she didn’t look to be in very good condition and gave Glen the go ahead to take her as a management animal. With a perfect high heart shot she stumbled 5 meters and it was over.

Glen was ecstatic with his first ever African animal and her horns had very good character and will be making a great Euro mount. I told Glen that the chances of walking into a gemsbuck at that range grazing and oblivious to us was a lot of luck and he shouldn’t expect something like this happening again I was wrong !!!!


Glen and the ancient gemsbuck cow.

The afternoon I decided to head out to another part of the property in search of warties and whatever came up. Saw some pigs and took off after them the grass was very long and we didn’t connect I told Glen that there is a waterhole close by and the wind was in our favour so we headed in that direction with the wind blowing strongly in our faces. Ahead of us 150 meters more warthogs or the same we saw earlier was spotted and we sneaked in closer the wind was strong grass is green and soft and long so we could get very close. Suddenly Glen with his height advantage tells me the warthogs ran off at high speed with us still being 100 meters away it baffled me. They could not smell hear or see us anyway off we went to the water close to the water hole we sneaked up on 5 kudu cows right of the waterhole and we stood and watched them for a couple of minutes before they moved off.

We went 20 meters further to get a view of the waterhole and suddenly Glen tells me “Leopard top of tree”. The waterhole is ahead 30 meters to my left with no high tress and just right of it some trees so I’m trying to spot this leopard on top of one of the branches. Glen actually meant to look at the scrub in front of us as a leopard suddenly appears on top of it walking into the road and casually lies down with no worry in the world. We are about 45-50 meters away right in the open looking at this very big tom leopard gazing into the other direction. I have no camera with me neither has Glen I also didn’t have my phone with me which has a built in camera so we are unable to capture this moment my truck is too far away to take a risk run back and fetch the camera and I don’t want to miss a moment of this is only the 3rd time in my life I have seen a leopard in full daylight just after 5 pm outside any park. We look the tom over he is big in body very dark with a monster of a neck and a wrinkled face from age snow white whiskers. After about 5 minutes the wind swirls and I tell Glen he will take whiff of us now he turned his head and looked straight at us for about 5 seconds piercing us with his gaze gets up and trots off down the road to vanish into the bush. This was Glen’s first proper African day in the bush last year they came over to compete in Clays as well without a side trip what luck did the man have ?

Back at camp and there was a buzz Charl almost didn’t believe us but he saw the tracks the next day and what a day it was. I also then realized that the warthogs that ran off at high speed was only 50 meters away from the leopard and obviously smelled him.

Helena shot a jackal and a brute of a zebra stallion while Glen was more than satisfied with his first taste of Africa. Seems like they will be back in July for more.


Helena and her Jackal.


The Hanssen family.

I am "estatic" of never having booked with you!

This is what dreams and memories are made of. What a wonderful story, a breath of fresh air.

Mike

Very nice!

Nice Hunt Story...

Great story Frederik

Thanks guys I couldnt have asked for a better start to the year hunting.