Saeed,

Congrats on the lion.

You have Walter where you want him now. Very humbled andlooking for forgiveness.

Mike

Great lion! Great pictures

Congratulations on a fantastic beginningsafari. What a great simba! It sounds like this may be shaping up as one of the better hunts you've done with Roy and Alan

Thank you once again for sharing you annual trip with us. I hope you will be able to share your videos with AR members again this year.

Walters anticipation of what may be coming is worse than anything you possibly do to "get even"

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

It appears there are actually 3 hippo with the recessive white gene. The main hippo in the center. A second hippo to the upper right and a third hippo center left. Look at the bottoms of their front legs. I guess you'd call them piebald.

This is an exciting report to follow,congrats on the Lion,I almost feel sorry for Walter

Don't tell the SA breeders about the "white hippo" gene....

Congratulations on a fine lion and on your ten year quest for it! jorge

quote:

Originally posted by Bwanamich:
Don't tell the SA breeders about the "white hippo" gene....

Too soon you will see some bastard advertising " RARE WHITE, NEARLY EXTINCT HIPPOS" at a hell of a price and some tosser rushing over, paying too much and thinking how lucky he was to shoot an aberration.

Saeed:

Many thanks for allowing all of us to once again live vicariously through your annual safari.

It's marvelous the way you fuse the details of your hunts with delightful commentary on the local flora and fauna - and of course the shenanigans of Walther (who probably falls under the category of 'fauna'). You're fortunate to have such a stalwart and entertaining - if idiosyncratic - companion. I think we all secretly wish we had a 'Walther' in our lives.

Is there a chance that elephant might be materialize on the menu during this safari? It's a quarry I have often hoped to see in your hunting videos.

Saeed,

Thank you so much. This is "almost" like being there. Wonderful pictures and a great hunt.

Warm regards

Saeed

Well, it has been quite an exciting day. It is almost 10:30, and we all had a long day, so I will give you some updates, and hopefully put up some pictures tomorrow if I get time.

Nelson shot and wounded a buffalo yesterday very late in the afternoon. It got dark before they could locate it. So they left this morning as we returned from our leopard blind - which did not come.

They found the buffalo, and Dean tried to shoot it twice as it ran off with his 416 Rigby, using A-Square factory ammo.

Both cartridges misfired!!

They returned and got some Federal ammo instead, and went after the buffalo again.

Apparently it lead them on a sort of merry go round trip. They kept seeing it, but not clear enough for a shot.

Late in the afternoon, they managed to get close to it in some thick bush.

The bull charged them, and was dropped 3 yards from them.

One can imagine what might have happened if he did not find out that the A-Square ammo was bad earlier in the day.

We went to the leoprad blind very early, and sat until sun up. No one came for breakfast.

We went back to camp and had breakfast, and headed out looking for buffalo or may be a hippo for croc bait.

We drove to the other end of trhe concession, where there are some deep pools in the river that have lots of hippos in them.

Shortly before we got there, we saw a poacher carrying water from a waterhole into the bush. He was about 500 yards away, and had no idea we saw him.

Alan, the game scout and our trackers jumped out and went after him.

Roy and me waited in the truck.

We could see Alan and his party approach the area where the poacher disappeared, then we heard some shots.

We drove over, and found Alan and his party at a fishermen's camp. They surprise two fish poachers, who ran off. They fired a few shots in the air to make sure they did not stop until they got to their village.

The fishing nets and other paraphernalia was burnt, an axe, a spear and some mealy meal was recovered and taken to camp.

We left the truck to drive to an area close to the river, and we walked the rest of the way to the hippos.

We saw so many hippos out in the forest, it was amazing. I have never seen as many hippos roaming the thicket by the river.

We found an old bull and shot him about 50 yards from the river bank. Then it was a major operation to drag him to the river so that we can use him as croc bait.

After that was done, we had a late lunch - by this time it was 4 in the afternoon.

We walked alongside the river in the thicket, and came across so many hippos SLEEPING!

I think anyone contemplating hunting a hippo out of the water has to come here.

A while later we saw a young eland feeding in the riverbed. We stoped to take photos of it. We then saw 3 lions - a lioness and two younger ones - stalking the eland.

We stopped to see what might happen. The eland saw that he was being stalked, and took off into the forest.

We continued on, until we met with our truck, and had a ride back to camp.

Buffalo are our main aim tomorrow.

And what is Walter doing all of this time?! How is the wound healing? Has Walter tried any further dirty little tricks, or has he learned his lesson? We're all looking forward to the pictures!

Sheikh Saeed,
Thank you for the update, and good luck on the buffalo hunt tomorrow.

Aziz

quote:

I guess you'd call them piebald.

exactly

Man, 3 yards is hairy. Hard to believe the A-Square ammo problem, but at least it was discovered in time.

quote:

Originally posted by Don_G:
Man, 3 yards is hairy. Hard to believe the A-Square ammo problem, but at least it was discovered in time.

What ammo was used to check zero?

Walter was in charge of checking zero :-)

Great stuff again Saeed. What an interesting day. Quite something to see hippos all over the place like that. Hope you got photos.

A few kilometer out of the camp, we came across the tracks of 3 duggaboys heading up the hills.

We followed them for about 40 minutes, and were probably no more than a few hundred yards from them, when we saw 2 other duggaboys about half a mile away on another hill.

We decided to go after the one we could see. We then saw a herd - as you can see in the photo taken after we had shot our bulls. The herd was feeding down in the valley.

We stalked the two bulls as they fed, got to about 100 yards from them, and shot both.

Roy and Alan spent quite some time surveying the area, trying to see how we can get the truck up to them.

They discovered that this might not be possible.

So we left Philip - one of our trackers - to start the skinning, headed back to camp, to send tghe skinners to finish the job and bring the meat back.

Had lunch at camp - wildebeest kebab with salad.

We are going to stay in camp for the rest of the day, just enjoying watching the animals and birds that come to the river in front of our camp.

I like Walter's watch! I bet it plays video games and music.

Great stuff!!!! Photos and adventure. It's exciting to check this out first thing in the morning!! Makes my day!

Best regards, D. Nelson

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
We then saw a herd - as you can see in the photo taken after we had shot our bulls.

like a box of chocolate - plenty good bulls still there - nice going - congrats.

Saeed: wow! wow! Those pictures are really beautiful. And what a buff!

I agree with Mouse, can see at least 2 bulls I would definitely take a shot @

Sheikh Saeed,

Thank you so much for sharing.

The photography is superb. Although I must say that I do feel a little sorry for Walter...stress is not good! Especially for a person who needs to take a few nitro tablets now n again

Warm regards

Saeed

Congratulations on a great Lion and thanks for sharing all these lovely pics.

quote:

Originally posted by Bwanamich:
I like Walter's watch! I bet it plays video games and music.

It appears to be roughly the same size as my Galileo Sol dive computer.

Wonderful Trophies!!!

Quite an exciting day. We left camp early, and went to look at out croc bait.

As we got to about 50 yards from the river, we saw a lion sound asleep! He was lying on his right side, facing away from us. We stood there 30 yards away from him, and I managed to take a few photos with my pocket camera. A few minutes later, we saw another one just wake up - this one was about 20 yards from us. Again, I got a couple of photos of him too.

We stood there taking some video, when the second one looked at us, did nott like what he saw, jumped with a roar and ran off. His frien followed him!

There were a few small crocs feeding on thee bait, but nothing shootable.

We decided to walk by the river side, and see what we could come across.

We followed a herd of eland into some thick bush, for about 3 hours, covering about 10 kilometers.

We gave up and went back tp the river. We saw some impala, and as Walter wanted one for a BBQ, I shot one.

We had our lunch, and went walking around the river side. And as it was getting late in the afternoon, we headed back to trhe truck. On the way we saw a nice impala, and shot him.

Loaded everything into the truck and headed for camp.

Alan saw an animal by a lone tree. First we thought it was a buffalo, then we realized it was an eland bull.

We jumped out of the truck, got to about 200 yards, and shot him.

We were very happy to get this eland, but this meant we will not get back tp camp until after 10.

We gutted him and cut him in half, and headed home.

Had dinner, and now getting ready for bed, for an early start again tomorrow.

I will post photos tomorrow.

Saeed, good shooting as always. Looking forward to new photos.

Mike

Great pictures.

I particularly liked the picture of everyone taking a nap..... including an impala????



I'm hoping your trip continues to be so great and thanks for the updates!

Great pictures again and congrats on the great hunt so far.What meat was it in the pot?


Best-
Locksley,R.

Wow! Those really capture the imagination

I wanna go back bad !

As usual great fun to follow you guys on safari! Thanks Saeed!

Congrats on the lion and other fine trophies! Enjoy every minute of the safari, as I think you guys are good at

Saeed, that is a very fine eland. That buffalo also is very impressive! How wide was he? I see the shot above the right eye. Is there a story that goes with this?

Good stuff