Thanks for the great photos, including this one:




EXPEDITION TANZANIA 2012: SELOUS LU5, TANGANYIKA GAME SAFARIS

A-Team: Saeed, Alan, Roy
B-Team: Chris, Dean, Gary
F-Team: Walter (Reserve force, to be activated for second half of expedition.)

WEEK NUMBER ONE

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Day 1: 9-29-2012
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A-Team:
Buffalo No. 1-A
Wildebeeste No. 1-A

B-Team:
Spontaneous explosion of spare tire,
and close encounter with hungry hippo at lunchtime.

F-Team:
Survived B-Team adventures and the heat.
Walter was along for another explosion, eh?
Very suspicious!

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Day 2: 9-30-2012
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A-Team:
Impala No. 1-A
Kongoni (Coke's Hartebeest) No. 1-A

B-Team:
Kongoni No. 1-B

F-Team:
Survived another day, thinking about doing ceremonial BBQ tomorrow ... yum!

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Day 3: 10-1-2012
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A-Team:
Looked for crocs and found eland which escaped into riverine forest after 3 hours of rough tracking.
Mopane beehive honey-tree harvest was a bust at lunchtime, no serious injury to sweet-toothed trackers.
Spotted some crocs in hippo pools after lunch, no suitable specimens found.
Shot zebra No. 1-A on the meander back to camp, anticipating BBQ nearing perfection there.

B-Team:
Released cow wildebeeste from poacher's snare, witnessed her revival from near-death experience.
Dismantled about 25 poachers' snares and 500 meters of snare line.
7 hours of tramping the hills spotting buffalo before late lunch was served.
More buffalo spotted after lunch, no suitable specimens found, anticipating BBQ on return to camp.

F-Team:
Fresh meat, not leopard bait, was BBQ-ed! BBQ successful. No further explosions.

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Day 4: 10-2-2012
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A-Team:
Played hide-and-seek with hippo and observed a buffalo herd on the way back to "first-day" buffalo spot.
Two daggaboys were waiting for A-Team, daring them to follow into the thorns.
Buffalo No. 2-A was bagged, and a night adder was observed (SNAKE SIGHTING) while loading the buffalo.
Klipspringer No. 1-A was bagged with a neck shot, for BBQ tomorrow.
Lunch at 3 PM, followed by lion baiting and return to camp.

B-Team:
Ran the ridges and glassed the valleys for buffalo, spotted and stalked a wildebeeste, by Luwega River,
flushed a lone daggaboy while stalking, buffalo evaded, but "waterbuck" wildebeeste No. 1-B did not.
Lunched in hippo hangout, but no hippo came for lunch this time.
Returned to track of spooked buffalo, but he continued to evade.
Planned return to track tomorrow.
Fine quisine and entertainment for supper, as usual.

F-Team:
Hunted for chocolate.
Lounged in camp, planning and preparing for next BBQ tomorrow.
Thought about which gags to use in comedy routine at supper tonight.
Napped and listened to music.
Took second shower of day before supper.

http://tanganyikagame.com/index.htm

RIP,

Just asking, was all that (including pics) not posted by the okes on the ground?

Thanks for the recap anyway!

quote:

Originally posted by dyker:
RIP,

Just asking, was all that (including pics) not posted by the okes on the ground?

Thanks for the recap anyway!

dyker,
Not exactly.
Walter certainly was not one of the "okes" posting as you say.
Walter needs to add to the posting by the "okes on the ground" to enrich this experience for all.
Otherwise we are left to imagination regarding the F-Team.

Just amusing myself as a means to easily keep track of the bag, daily updates, weekly chapters.
Three safaris, always at least two going at it simultaneously, is complicated.

BTW, I really like pictures of dead buffalo and 375/404 rifles.

Tried to leave early this morning, and had a short morning shower.

We walked about 2 kilometers to a waterhole which we were hoping to find eland on.

Nobody was there.

We called our truck, and got in and started off. A 100 yards further, we saw a good size warthog, and I shot him.

Loaded him up and went into the hills. Left the truck and walked up. Saw plenty of dugga boys signs, but no buffalo.

Back to the truck, and drove off.

Suddenly one of uor vtracker started making all sorts of noise, pointing ahead.

We saw a young eland cow, and behind her a few more cows.

Out of the truck.

We looked them over for quite a while, and could only see cows and young bulls.

Eventually a very large bull appeared on the far side.

They were walking to our right, going away.

We moved position for better visibility.

Again, all we could see were the cows and young bulls.

Then we saw the old bull we wanted. But he was further away - they were about 150 yards. He was also walking, and only the top of his body was visible.

I aimed for his neck. He dropped at the shot, and we ere very happy for getting him.

We cut him up into two, and headed back to camp for lunch.

Fantistic eland bull! He's got it all.

Enjoying the pictures and posts guys, keep them coming!

What a great narrative and pics. Keep having fun and good hunting boys.

What a grand old eland bull!!! Congrats!!!!

Absolutely marvelous pictures. Living the safari vicariously. Thank you so much Saeed

Thanks so much for sharing! The pics are great and congrats on a fantastic eland. Is the snake a Snouted Night Adder (Causus Defilippii)?

Saeed - The pics and reports are great. I just gotta ask... Hows the food and what are they feeding you guys. I have always been curious as the type of foods on a Tanzanian safari. I always thought that if the PH was say German it would be mainly German food,or if he was Italian it would be Italian food.

Saeed, these safari threads remind me what a gifted photographer you are.

Saeed,

Please tell Dean kendall that myself Greg Allyn and Jaco Marais say hello and we hope that he is still getting good use from his .458 Lott.

Looks as though you guys are having a wonderful hunt.

quote:

Originally posted by Paul C:
Saeed - The pics and reports are great. I just gotta ask... Hows the food and what are they feeding you guys. I have always been curious as the type of foods on a Tanzanian safari. I always thought that if the PH was say German it would be mainly German food,or if he was Italian it would be Italian food.

Food is absolutely great.

Breakfast is your choice of different cereals, eggs anyway you like, sausages, porridge, toast, yogurt and fruit.

We take a packed lunch with us, as we never know if we will return to the camp for lunch. Yesterday we had buffalo burgers for lunch.

We also take what we call "elevenses" which are sandwitches made to order, which we try toeat at eleven - hence the name.

It does not always work out that way. A couple of day ago we had our sandwiches at 3 in the afternoon, as we were chasing buffalos up in the hills.

Dinner is a 3 course meal. Soup, main dish and dessert.

Beats any 5-star hotel I have been in.

Just finished a fantastic Klipspringer BBQ by Walter and Rene. Haute quisine in the Selous! Mmmmm! I was wearing a t-shirt that says "I eat elk." and Walter suggested that I should change it it "I eat Klipspringer, cooked by a Chilean gunsmith living in Dubai by way of Germany."....would definitely be one of a kind!

We continued to have a lot of luck with buffalo...unfortunately all bad. On the good side, we saw about 150 head in two separate herds, but no bulls that were sufficiently old.

In the morning we walked a big circle around where we left the duggaboy we tracked yesterday, hoping to cut some tracks. Unfortunately we could not find any. So we went for a drive up on to the ridges nearby looking for buffalo. We spotted a herd feeding on the far side of the Luwegu, not far from where we got the wildebeeste. We watched for a couple hours while they fed in the grassy flats by the river. When they finally went to the river for a drink, we thought they might cross and made a 2.5 km dash for it to try to intercept them. Unfortunately, when we got to the river they had disappeared into thin air. Apparently they went back the way they came, into the adjacent concession.

After a hot sweaty hike back up onto the big ridge where the truck was parked, we went trolling the roads for new buffalo, or at least recent buffalo sign.

Anyone that has been to LU5 will know the spot...a rock ledge that over looks a sandy river valley, that is a common lunch spot. Well, we got there today and went to survey the little valley and found 92 buffalo bedded down below, oblivious to our presence, relaxed and chewing their cud. We surveyed the whole lot and came up without a hard-bossed bull unfortunately. But it was a great time just watching them.

Later, while slowly making our way back to camp, we found a small herd of impalla with a few rams jousting for breeding rights. Two of them had pretty decent horns for the Selous, so we decided to take chase. They were chasing each other over hill and dale, so our stalk lasted quite a little while, trying to keep up with them and manouver for a shot at a decent range. Just before last light Dean set up the sticks, about 150 yards from a decent ram that was quarting toward us, and looking at us hard (thankfully, because it was the only thing that could stop him from chasing the other big ram around!). I made a good shot with Saeed's 375/404 and we took a few very quick pics before heading back to camp for the BBQ.

Hopefully Saeed will post pics of the 92 buffalo that we surveyed from above, and the impalla.

That's all for today!
Cheers,
Chris

That looks like one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Would love to see it one day.

Super eland!

Thanks for the great photos and updates, Good Luck!

Well done on a fantastic eland!

Deformed warthog hoof?

Keep up the good work, you "okes on the ground."

Great photos all, especially the great eland and impala trophies, posed with happy hunters and versatile .375/404 rifles.
Chris has hunted so much with Saeed that he is starting to look like Saeed, and shoot like Saeed.
That is a lot better than starting to resemble Walter and carry a Blaser.

On September 29 of 2012 The Hunting Started
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Week 1, Day 5: 10-3-2012
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A-Team:
Warthog
Eland

B-Team:
Impala

F-Team:
Klipspringer BBQ by a Chilean gunsmith living in Dubai by way of Germany.

http://tanganyikagame.com/index.htm

quote:

That is a lot better than starting to resemble Walter and carry a Blaser.

So true, so true.

Keith

Anyone wants to know what a mature eland looks like well here it is. Saeed what a slammer.

Mike

This is getting me quite antsy for my hunt just a ways south of there in 1 week.

Looks like Saeed is once again showing all of us how it is done in style!

I love that Eland!

Keep on with the outstanding report!

Saeed what a Eland bull that is...I want a copy of the photo please

Ugly is beautiful!!

What character! I love all those scars and wrinkes on the old squire!

To put it in PH language,
Bloody hell thats a proper Eland!!!

The best thing about these threads is the beuatiful photos keepem coming boys.

Had a bit of rain last night.

Left early as usual, looking for some dugga boys that were seen close e spent the early part of the morning looking for them, without any success.

Then we drove into the hills to see what we could fins.

Saw a hippo lying in a muddy pool. He seemed to be hurt.

We saw a nice impala with some young kongoni.

Each time we tried to shoot the impala, there always was a kongoni behind him.

Alan was laughing saying "that impala does not know how lucky he is. Those kongoni kept saving his life"

Saw a herd of buffalo, but they wwere down wind of us. We made a long detour to get down wind of them.

We scared some elphants on the way, and found that the herd had no mature bulls in them.

Headed back to camp to have lunch.

We are hreading out again at 3.

Saeed, love the photos. Regards, AIU

That Eland was a monster!What an animal!

Best-
Locksley,R.

Fantastic photos and report, as we always get to enjoy.

I think Saeed may have found the only LDE to ever inhabit Tanzania! That is one very beautiful eland!!!

We did not find any buffalo this afternoon, but managed to shoot an Outer Circle impala.

This is great luck.

Yesterday I shot an out circle warthog, and today an outer circle impala.

We hunted buffalo all day. We are having trouble finding duggaboys in the usual locations, so the plan was to walk through a few drainages that have no roads in them and see if we could find a track or two to follow. We started out with an approx 14 km round trip and found no tracks fresh enough to follow. We did have a couple close encounters with hippos though!

So we looked around a little and checked from a likely vantage point or two and found neither hide nor hair of buffalo.

At lunch we set up under a shade tree with a view of a long narrow waterhole. Had fun watching the warthogs come and go, and were quite thrilled to see another really good eland bull come in for a drink and a wallow. Hopefully Saeed will post a picture or two that I took of it.

Then we headed to another area with some water that we had checked out earlier, hoping that there might be some recent evidence of buffalo use...on the way we got sidetracked by a likely looking korongo and decided to walk up it instead. A couple kms up the river bed, we found a duggaboy track from earlier in the morning and decided to give it a try. He did not go too far, but due to a tail wind and some extraordinarily crunch leaves (picture Pringles sprinkled liberally over the land, 6 imches deep!), we had no chance of getting close. We pushed him a few times without getting a look, and finally had to bail about a half hour before dark so we could find our way back to the truck. On that note, on the way back we bumped into a tuskless cow ele in a little stream bed and had to put on the brakes and back peddle a little to avoid a confrontation. Then we noticed another ele on the other side of us, and figure we'd better slide out of there quickly. Added a little adrenaline boost for the long walk back. lol

We had Klipspringer soup and Kuku Curry (chicken) for dinner. Was absolutely deelish.

Cheers!
Chris

I would question the qualification of the warthog to "Outer Circle Award" status based merely on a deformed toenail.
The broken-horned impala ram, however, is a grand specimen for the award.
More "grand" photos today too, thanks.


On September 29 of 2012 The Hunting Started
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Week 1, Day 6: 10-4-2012
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A-Team:
Outter Circle Award-Winning Impala


B-Team:


F-Team:


http://tanganyikagame.com/index.htm

Saaed, I'm curious about the temperature right now. Photos are deceptive but it doesn't look that hot. Can you tell me what the average daily and nightly temperatures are?

I'll be hunting with Alan for 16 days in this very block starting end of July 2013

A very interesting day today.

We were supposed to go to the end of the concession and shoot a hippo as bait for a croc.

Part way there there was a change of plans,and we decided to walk down some dongas which we thought might house a few dugga boys.

After a hike of about 8 kilometers, and going rouund in circles to avoid sheer cliffs, we got close to the river.

We saw a large herd of buffalo about 200 yards away, and looked at them hoping to see a shootable bull.

We looked for quite while, and could not see anything we wanted to shoot.

Then we saw one mature bulllooking straight at us from about 160 yards.

Alan put the shooting sticks up, saying "if you are comfortable from here shoot that bull"

I fired at him and he dropped stone dead, with a broken neck.

We ran up to him, and surprise surprise! Who do we see walking towards us 100 yards away but Chris, Dean, Garry and their trackers!

Apparently they were in the middle of this herd for quite some time, but the bull we shot seems to have evaded them!

We sent our trackers to try and see if we could get our truck to where we were, and asked Chris tracker to skin our bull.

We sat by, had some snacks and drinks. Our truck came, and we loaded our bull and wished our friends the best of luck for the afternoon.

We were hreading back to camp.

We saw anotrher herd, and decided to go after them, as there was a good bull amongst the.

It was one in the afternoon,and the sun very hot.

We chased them for about 2 kilometers, and as they seem to be heading towards Chris and co, we left them, and radioed to tell themabout the buffalo.

Back on track tto the camp.

We saw 6 hartebeast bulls, and decided to shoot one.

They gave us a bit of a run wround, eventually I managed to shoot one.

We loaded him up and headed to camp, arriving there at 5.

No lunch and no sandwiches at 11.

Walter and me decided to have a swim in the river, and had a refreshing dip in front of the camp.

We are waiting for Chris and Dean to arrive.

Rene is preparing eland steaks for dinner.

Life is good.

Absolutely wonderful pictures!

I was wondering if you ever ran out of ammo but it seems to be 1 shot 1 kill...

Thank you so very much

Great pictures, some nice animals taken. Makes me sorry that my next hunt is a full 8 months away.