I was hunting with Barry Styles years ago when we were heading back out from lunch for an afternoon hunt when we saw a group of 3 to 4 poacher. We all jumped out of the land cruiser to chase them down and after about 100 yards Barry yells at me to SHOOT SHOOT. I ran over to him, gave him my rifle and told him to shoot and he did. We walked up to what I assumed would be a dead poacher and found a dog. I told Barry that he needed to be more specific next time he told me to shoot. I was so focused on trying to catch a poacher that I never saw any of the dogs

Met the prior hunter on a grass strip in Tanzania when I chartered in. He was chartering out on my plane. We introduced ourselves, talked about what we did and exchanged cards. He was from New Jersey. I'm from Houston, Texas. This was right after the Cecil incident and I was hunting lion. Several of my law partners weren't real keen on the idea given all the bad press.

While I was still there, one of my New York clients was talking to one of my law partners and mentioned that he'd heard from other sources that I was in Africa. My partner's spontaneous response was, "OMG, what has David done?"

Turns out, the guy I met on the grass strip in Tanzania was the next door neighbor of my New York client, who lived in New Jersey. Not much of a safari story; more of a small world story.
What are the odds?

My younger son Steve own property down in Nicaragua that he visits every few years. For sport, he and his 10 year old son go out hunting Scorpions at night by flashlight. Evidently they give off a bluish glow when illuminated by flashlights. Their record is three Scorpions in one night.

In moz I was half way through a safari baiting a croc w an elephant leg. The beach was probably 50 meters long by 10 deep. The trackers dropped us off and boated about a mile away while we set up the blind. It was a perfect spot. We sat on a hippo trail w a thin thorny screen hiding us. This trail was about 2.5ft wide w 8ft thorns and flowers concealing us. I set the rifle on the sticks pointing to the bait just like you would a leopard. Dozens of crocs came ashore to sun and eat but none were shooting size. A male hippo popped out and smelled the bait. I was having a ball filming him at 25 meters when he decided to walk along the water towards the blind. The ph whispered this could get interesting and boy it did. As he walked to the edge of the blind, he turned to head into the jungle bumping the tip of my barrel off of the rest we made, scaring the bejesus out of all 3 of us. He couldn't smell us and couldn't tell what we were at 3ft due to the blind but he wasn't happy. He decided to bolt into the jungle directly above this well used trail we were on. The standoff was on. We couldn't see him but you could see the bamboo shaking at 10 meters and he was very vocal. He had 2 choices back to the water and we were one of them. So the ph and I stood w guns off safety waiting, pointing to the jess. He leaned on 1 side of the thorns and I onthe other both knowing we would only get 1 shot a piece. It was hot and muggy. The bees were stinging us constantly but we had to remain perfectly still. We tried the radio but the trackers but they had it off napping. This went on for over an hour. We both were shaking w fatigue from shouldering our rifles that long. The hippo decided to walk back to the water on the other side of the blind thankfully but he stopped to give us a look at 12 inches from our muzzles. It was surreal. The ph said later if he would've squared up, he would've taken the shot. That bugger stood there for 5 minutes peeking through that flimsy blind eventually slinking back into the water. We were both shot and pissed the help didn't answer. We actually had to shoot in the sand to bring the boat. Before the boat came back we just giggled and relieved each other's thoughts since we couldn't talk to each other during the standoff. We each shared a BIG chew and picked the stingers out of each other still shaking from adrenaline and fatigue. The trackers got a huge ass chewing in Afrikaans that even I could understand. One of many stories of that trip on my first trip to the dark continent. I'm still friends w that ph and we relive that story often. He says that is still the most dangerous situation by far he's ever been in for his 25 yr career.

A friend sees a bushbuck enter his garden. He gets his rifle and shoots the bushbuck. Evidently the bullet was a pass through. The bullet traveled another 100 meters and went through a bush.
"
The yard boy and the maid come running out from behind the bush naked, carrying their clothes, yelling, "Don't shoot us. Don't shoot us. We will get back to work."

AW,

That's funny.

The most afraid I ever was was when I shot a wildebeest on the plains near Ol'Donyo Lengai. He took off running and I missed with my second shot, dropped him with my third. Second shot was over his back given their bouncing run. The plain behind him was totally empty, but right after the shots, people came out of nowhere. Scared the hell out of me about that errant shot, but thankfully noone was hurt.

I smuggled illegal chickens from South Africa to Zimbabwe by way of Botswana. Only meat that one of the clients and his wife would eat were chickens. When border patrol asked me if they were frozen chickens in the cooler I responded that they were Guineafowl that I had killed.
I also love messing with the boys about Tikoloshe!

Tikoloshe

We were driving along one morning.

4 of us in the truck at the back, where only 3 can sit down.

So one always stands, and keep changing position.

Walter was trying his best to be Walter.

He hang out with his body, hands holding onto the truck.

He was facing us, with his back out of the truck, facing us.

Suddenly, there was chatter from the front, and truck came to a standstill!

It turned out the driver did not see a black mamba crossing the road.

He ran it over.

Someone else told him this after the fact.

We found the mamba badly damaged, and left it.

The front tire rode over it, and it struck the truck.

Poison was on the front tire!!

This was about a meter from Walter with his body hanging out of the truck!!?

Boaz is an African friend of many years. He is wonderful and will do anything for anyone. In his younger days he was a top athlete, on the national soccer team. He also served in the military. Boaz is also very afraid of snakes.

The two of us are driving along a dirt trail. A python is crossing the track with about 4' showing. I open the door to go grab the tail to drag him out. Boaz grabs my arm and says no. I say I will be careful and I have done this before. He holds my arm and says no. I say see the tree. I will drag him around the tree so when he strikes the trunk will halt his forward progress. Boaz holds my arm and says no. I say I will grab a tennis racket so if it strikes at me it will hit the racket. Boaz grabs me even tighter and says no. I say it will be ok. Even if the python gets me and coils around me, you will come pull the python off me or beat the snake to death. Boaz says NO. You will die!!!

We are good friends, but I think he was serious.

I jump to grab a ripe guava that is just out of reach. I find a stick on the ground and knock the guava off the branch. A boomslang is knocked loose, and comes with the guava falling down my arm and side.

Probably the only time I was glad to be short and not able to jump.

.

Sat in a ground blind for pigs in RSA one winter. Pile of dry leaves in the corner of the blind. Placed my rifle upright in the corner and a sleepy Cape cobra raised its head !

We were very quick out of the blind without the rifle ...

.

AW,

Some time ago, I did a couple of bowhunts in Namibia. Not my cup of tea, but the drill was to hunt over water in either a dug out ground blind or a tree blind. Shared a tree blind with a bunch of hissing barn owl chicks, and ground blinds with various snakes. One python, a horned adder, and a boomslang in the overhead. Don't like that style of "hunting", but got some great photos.

Glad you got some good photos.

Walking through the bush we tend to miss many things. Setting and watching, the bush becomes active around us. Snakes for the most part are fine. Give them a bit of distance and they are entertaining to watch when active.

AW,

Agree. The one thing about sitting is you get to see things you never would walking. But it's a bit too boring for me. It's why I can't sit in a deer blind.

We were on a buffalo and plains game hunt in Tanzania. The game scout was an absolute piece of shit, always looking for a bribe opportunity. My friend took a shot at a wart hog and missed. Well, the game scout couldn't pass up the chance to get more money and looked for blood. He was so happy when he spotted a drop on the ground, thereby making my friend responsible for a trophy fee. The trackers were arguing with him but the scout knew he had money in the bag, until he touched the spot of blood and the lady bug sprouted wings and flew off. I was looking right at the piece of shit and the look on his face was priceless.

quote:

Originally posted by AilsaWheels:
Glad you got some good photos.

Walking through the bush we tend to miss many things. Setting and watching, the bush becomes active around us. Snakes for the most part are fine. Give them a bit of distance and they are entertaining to watch when active.

Agreed on both counts. My father couldn’t get around well, so we sat in a ground blind. It’s amazing how burning dung works as a bug repellant.

Having giraffes casually walking right around was amazing. They are gracefully clumsy at times. After that experience, I’m not sure I would want to shoot one. Flame on…

We had one last buffalo left in Roy’s quota, and one hunting day left.

We were in Chete.

We drove to the Luzi River, hoping to find an old duggaboy there.

We got to the flood plane, and right across the River were some bulls feeding on green grass.

Trouble is, they were across the river, and there is no way in hell we could get the buffalo across.

Roy said “we could always go back to camp and bring the boat”

I said “that is miles away! We have to drive back, then come by boat!”

“Don’t worry about that. Just shoot one!”

We crawled to get closer.

I fired a shot at the one we wanted, and we heard it connect.

They took off running into the hills on the other side.

Further on - about 300 yards on - they stopped, and the one I had shot had his head down.

I fired another shot at him, and dropped.

Long drive back to camp.

Long drive in the boat to get our buffalo.

But we did get him.

Funny thing was my last shot went through his heart!

Saeed, good shooting.

The best buffalo I ever shot came out of a herd when there shouldn't have been any good bulls in a herd. We were hunting in a new concession that had a lot of poaching activity at the time. There was a joint operation with the game department and army in camp. We had fifty troops and game scouts in camp, including some high ranking officers and the head of the game department. They asked if I'd shoot a buffalo for rations, off license. Never one to turn down a buffalo hunt, I agreed.

Turns out, despite the fact that the herds were full of calves, there was one old warrior, blind in one eye, hanging out with the ladies. Put him on my license.

Best buffalo I have ever shot - 49” with a broken horn!

Was the easiest one.

Driving to a leopard blind in the afternoon in Chete, we saw two bulls running into the hills.

Off we jumped, and five minutes later we had both down.

Alan drove me and Roy to the blind, went back to collect them to camp!

One evening we were headed out to hunt waterbuck. Our travel that day took us on a dirt road through a small village.

In front of us was another vehicle. As in typical African fashion there was a bunch of kids playing along the road. Three young boys were on the edge of the road. Two decided to go right and one pulling a small wagon decided to go left.

Bad choice, he ran immediately in front of the vehicle in front of us. I would say we were traveling around 65 km/hr. The vehicle struck the boy and he went flying up in the air like something in a movie.

He landed in a heap in the road and we stopped sideways to block any traffic. We got out and I thought the boy who was probably around 9 year old was 100% dead. He was not moving, turned grey and had blood on his forehead.

The PH had some latex gloves in the truck and went to fetch a pair so he could check the boy. About that time the boy came to and was screaming. Also about that time a large group of villagers are beginning to form around the scene. Maybe 30 people mostly women. Evidently most of the men were out working somewhere.

We kept repeating we didn’t hit the boy we stopped to help. The trackers picked the boy up and loaded him in the back of the truck. Also someone who identified as his aunt and uncle came and they got into the truck.

We then took the boy to the village bush hospital. That was more scary than the accident. There was blood all over everything, people screaming like they were getting their limbs hacked off without anesthesia, etc.

We stayed long enough for them to tell us that the boy only had a broken ankle and wrist.

I told my PH if something happened to me and he took me to that place he better hope I died because I would shoot him afterwards. Just leave me under a tree in the shade with a beer and a smoke.

I will never forget what that boy looked like flying through the air and that hospital.

We were hunting PG in Namibia...I took a shot at a wildebeest facing us squarely with my .375 at some 220 meters..

Smack, he fell down as poleaxed.. So we walk up and started looking at him. There is no bullet hole to be seen. Then my PH start to giggle and point to its mouth..a little blood visible. So evidently, the moment I squeezed the trigger he changed position...bullet caught him in the mouth..bullet proceeded inwards an severed his spine.. Oh well..

I have told this story on AR before, but it was about 15 years ago. So I'll tell it again.

One day, in the Caprivi Strip, as we were driving around looking for elephant spoor, we spotted this old stud stallion zebra, just guarding his herd. My wife took this photograph with a long lens:



Now, you have to understand. Zebra were like vermin around there. More numerous than prairie dogs in Montana. Literally thousands.

So, over a week later, after I had killed my elephant, we put a stalk on a herd of zebra, and I killed one at 125 yards with my .416 Rigby.

My scope had gone belly up on the flight over, so I was using iron sights. Just as I broke the shot, as the zebra was quartering away to the right, a very powerful gust of wind slammed us hard, and moved heaven, earth and at least one bullet, from Botswana, on the right, to Zambia, on the left.

Among other things, my bullet was moved somewhere around a foot. Given the quartering angle of the zebra, it did not break his front shoulder, but instead hit him hard in his right hip.

He and all the rest of the herd broke and ran fifty yards off, away from us and the Chobe River.

We couldn't figure out what had happened. But then, we saw three stallions jump on another one and overpower him.

They all pushed him and chewed him and bit him all about the neck.

He was the one I had shot.

We got up and walked up to the herd. Nothing but well-grazed and inches high grass separated us.

They saw us coming, and all, save one, ran off.

The one that stayed was mine. He was hurt too badly to move any farther.

We walked up to within fifteen yards of him, and then I spined him.

He died instantly. Here he is:



I thought then (after we had returned home and sorted through our pictures), and I still think now, that he is the same one my wife photographed a week and a half earlier.

The more I look at the photos, the more sure I am.

I think you are right.

I am trying to look at some marks on both pictures, and they do match.

.

Mike, Great story and I would go along with him being the same one in the top picture too. Lots of identical patterns in the stripes!


.

Look at one of the last black lines on his back leg.

It has a sort of an upright black mark at right angle.

You can see this while he is standing very clearly.

And if you look at the second picture, you can see that too.

It's getting slow around here in the storytelling department. I'll tell another one.

We were hunting with Vaughan Fulton, in far northwestern Namibia, not far from Angola, in a communal conservancy called Ehi-rovipuka.

We headed out late one afternoon and drove down a winding dry river bed on the chance that we might find a good bull eland.

We saw many gemsbok and even some kudu in and along the river bed, but soon I began to think we were in the steenbok happy hunting grounds. We hadn’t seen a single male of this species yet, but here, we saw several females along the bank at the side of the river, and then our first male.

As Vaughan and I glassed him with our binoculars, he scampered off. Vaughan remarked that he was too small, that his horns didn’t extend up to the top or past his ears. He said a steenbok of three and half inches was minimum, and that four was quite good.

Before long, at the urging of Vaughan’s trackers, we stopped the truck and glassed the right bank, where they had seen still more steenbok. Vaughan and I soon saw two females and what looked to me like a big male, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. They were browsing under a large, bushy tree. After I had quickly uncased my Blaser R93 in .25-06 Rem. and loaded it, we began our stalk.

It was about 5:15 p.m. when we set out from the truck, and the mopane flies, which are actually a small kind of bee, began to cluster and swarm around our heads. Other, larger flies soon joined them. Vaughan, his tracker, Elia, and I were soon besieged by swarming hordes of these insects. They lit on our faces, including our eyelids and lips, and tried to crawl into our noses and ears. As we slowly stalked forward, in single file, toward the steenbok, I had to suppress my natural instinct to flail away at the clouds of bugs around my head.

After an agonizing stalk of about 45 minutes to an hour, we slowly inched up onto the river bank. The steenbok were aware of our presence, and the male had even been looking right at us for quite a while. But they hadn’t yet sprinted off into the distance.

After we had stood stock still behind Vaughan, so as to give the steenbok only one profile to look at, for several minutes, Vaughan dropped down into a crouching walk and signaled us to follow him. We were moving quickly across some fairly open ground, when Vaughan stood up straight again and began walking normally. Elia and I fell in behind him as before.

After about five minutes of walking, at a point where I had completely lost sight of the steenbok, Vaughan signaled for Elia to set up the sticks, which he did at the perfect height right in front of me. Then Vaughan said, “There he is! Shoot him! Quick, he sees us! He’s looking right at us!”

Having lost track of our quarry, I scanned the area ahead of us, but saw nothing. Then I looked quickly through my scope, but still I couldn’t see the steenbok. I asked, with some exasperation, “Where is he? I don’t see him.” To which Vaughan replied, in a hoarse whisper, “He’s right there, twenty yards in front of us!”

I had been looking at the field beyond the steenbok, at least seventy five yards away. No wonder I hadn’t seen him! I quickly spotted him in the low brush ahead, adjusted my aim to a point low on his shoulder, then pressed the trigger and fired. The rifle boomed and the steenbok literally flew backwards through the air and flopped to the ground, stone dead.

As we walked up on the dead steenbok, I saw him lying on the ground next to a large pool of blood, with what looked like a small piece of ground red meat in the middle of it. I rolled him over on his other side, and saw a silver dollar sized exit wound low on his off shoulder.

I picked up the piece of meat, and saw with some disbelief that it was his heart, which I had blown right out the side of his chest with a high-velocity 115 grain Nosler Partition bullet.

I looked at Vaughn, held up the steenbok’s mangled heart, and told him that now I had figured out how to prevent him from telling me, whenever I shot anything, to “Shoot him again!”





The taxidermist did a good job cleaning him up.

Just got back. Driving along, a mongoose began running parallel to the car. He was going all out.
He tripped, did a complete somersault, landed on his feet and carried on. Never saw anything quite like it.

This all started in 2005. The AR buffalo hunt.

Fellas and gals , here is the story ... Went to bed late and checked to see if anyone won the hint and not posted yet...Got up at 6am made coffee checked email erased spam and checked weather to see if any rain coming to Pennsylvania and none around poured the java and took my two lab retrievers for their morning walk...Got home and told my wife I was going to the diner to talk to my friends who is going to Dande in Oct.... finished coffee and conversation and headed to dry cleaners with my Dad'd clothewr...Cell phone rings and wife asks me did you go on the puter this am and I answered yes the weather and nothing else... She says, "there are some posts in email about winning the buf hunt, I need to come home right NOW, and I say get the he.. out of here and I say yea really and I hang up and drive a little farther I call her back is this some king of April fools joke in June... I tell her to log on to AR and there is Saeed's post winner Retreever and I was painting in our home and not a thing got done Today...

To all of you who congratulated me... I am very grateful... All who put this hunt together and their generosity thank you...My wife is the photo taker and she will get lots of pics...

Just wrote my trip story and forgot to post it and it erased damn... Will try again...

Mike,

Try writing it in WORDPAD or any text editor.

Then just copy/paste it here.

That way you can write it off line, and take as long as you wish, time wise.

Michael's story on bullet performance reminded me of this.

I made several wildcats on the 404 Jefferey case, including a 270/404.

I had that with me hunting in Chete, Zimbabwe.

I don't remember the exact details, but was using a bullet at very high speed - that was the idea anyway.

We were chasing a kudu bull one afternoon up in the hills, and jumped a very good bushbuck.

He was standing up a hillside facing away from us, looking back.

I fired a shot at him and he dropped.

When we got to him and moved him, we could hear gurgling noise coming from inside.

When we dried to gut him, all we got was liquified mess.

When we skinned him, he was totally black!

Blood shot all over.

We could not eat him, as the meat was totally ruined.

That was the first, and last, animal I sot with that rifle.

When I got home I built another wildcat, a 270/404 SHORT!

Shot a few animals with it in South Africa.

Including an eland at around 500 yards.

This is from the 2006 AR buf hunt I won...



We were off to the lion bait to see if simba came back...The three hour drive was filled with sights and sounds of Africa and we were hunting our way to the bait...Our normal driver, Hamilton came down with malaria and was out of the driver's seat...So Anneli, Pierre's wife took over the driving duties and she enjoyed getting out of camp...We were about half way to the bait and on the improved road, a dirt road with which one can go safely at 20 kilometers an hour instead of the normal 5 to 10 kilometers an our..
I am in the left side of the rear bench my wife is in the middle and Pierre' is in the right side...Two trackers, Dominic and Twiga are sitting on the spare tires behind us in the same order as the names appear...All of a sudden Dominic dives behind me almost on my wife and I turn to my left to see what caused the disturbance and at the same time I hear a thud against the side of the land cruiser..
There about six feet away from me and about 2 feet off the ground I see the snake...I have a love hate relation with snakes , but this guy is huge..
A few days before I saw my first mamba at about 20 feet when tracking buf and Dominic sees it in front of him and jumps to the side...Not black as his name but greenish grey and not fat like a big rattler...But fast, fierce, and venom that makes a rattler's look like candy...
My mind is screaming mamba and close and I get it, mamba out of my mouth mamba...We are all scrambling to see if Dominic has his life cut short by minutes...The truck screeches to a halt...I am already out of my seat unconsciously have grabbed the big 450 #2 and it is open and I am dropping those big equilizers into the breech... All minds are focused..Pierre is asking in Swahili something I do not recognize, but I figured it out as "did the snake bite you"...Dominic is shaking and answering no..Pierre' is off the truck he goes around thefront and I come off my side and Twiga grabs the shooting sticks and a panga...We are all if active hunting mode to put an end to this attack..I yell the snake is about 15 feet behing the truck and 4 feet off the road.. Twiga is on my left and the snake is really pissed off he is still looking for a fight...But to be honest I came to a knife fight with a gun a real big gun... Pierre came from my right and both of us were no more then 15 feet from the snake.. I was raising the double and sighting of him where did I aim at the g--damn snake and Pierre and I fired a and the knife fight was over...
This all happened in maybe 20 seconds from start to finish..But damn a black mamba almost nine feet long, just turned my hair from grey to white...

Mike

Damn, Mike! Can you import a mamba trophy?

I’d have wanted at least a hat band out of that one!

Mike there are no trophy fees on mambas...
It was very intense for a short time...Thought someone was going to die...

Hunting in Faro East, northern Cameroon, the trackers were all nominally Moslem, but no fussier than most Africans whether the meat was strictly Halal killed or not. Early one morning a Cane rat was waddling down the track in front of the Toyota. The trackers were all yelling "shoot, shoot!" I hesitated because I was using a .375 loaded with softs. "Il n'est pas Halal" I told them.
"Shoot, shoot!
So I poked one up the rodent's backside with predictable consequences. They retrieved what was left and danced around with glee holding up what appeared to be an empty sausage skin with a long tail. Fair enough , it's their country, but a few nights later, returning to camp, there was a White Tailed mongoose on the track.
"Shoot, shoot!"
"Why?"
My PH said, "They like to eat Mongoose".
No one would accuse me of being religious but you have to draw the line somewhere. I aimed a few inches to the right of the varmint who was sprayed with road gravel and took off with his tail in the air!

Talking of Halal.

We always have plenty of meet in our camp.

The game scout is, apparently, allowed impala every now and then.

We were driving along, and Alan said would I mind shooting an impala for the game scout, on his quota, as he wants to eat Halal meat.

Ours are not.

I shot an impala.

Then explained to our game scout that I am a Muslim too, and according to my understanding, which is infinitely more than his, if I say BISMILAH as I pull the trigger, the animal is HALAL.

Problem solved.

Funny part is he never stopped eating the meat before that!

In 2008 I was hunting in Namibia right after the rabies outbreak so kudu were few and far between. My PH (One of Karl Stumpfe's) took me to a low fence cattle ranch owned by an 80+ year old gentleman. My PH introduced me the old gentleman and told him that I was from California USA and the old guy just lit up with excitement. He was a big fan of the old California history and had numerous books on Cali in the 1800's. I told him that I grew up cowboying there and the gentleman wanted to spend the whole day talking about it.

He also told me about growing up on his ranch and that he had killed over 40 "Tigres" Leopards) himself and that his ranch hands and sons had killed as many also. He told me that if I saw a leopard that I could kill it for free!

I thought that my PH was going to choke when he heard that. We wound up shooting a big Burchell's Zebra and saw a few Kudu bulls but none big enough to shoot. My PH couldn't get me off that ranch fast enough and we didn't hunt it again on that trip.

Grand Old Dame

There was once an elephant trail that connected the greater Ruaha ecosystem to the low lands at the north end of Lake Malawi. The trail ascended the Eldon Plateau near Chimala before dropping off the Plateau and into the lowlands.

By the end of WWII, patchwork farms had plowed under much of the trail on the plateau. Old timers remember the last elephants to ascend the trail were around 1953. The elephants got lost or were driven off and returned to the Usangu Flats, part of the Ruaha ecosystem.

In the late 1950’s or early 1960’s, a road, was built connecting Chimala to Matamba on top of the plateau. The road was called Hamsini na Saba for the 57 switchbacks.

In the late 1960’s through the early 1980’s, Tanzania had the socialist policy of Ujamaa, which moved families and villages from the bush to within a few miles of major roads to be able to better “help” the people. With this influx of people and new shambas along the Great North Road, elephants were driven further out onto the Usangu.

By the early 1960’s, elephants would no longer go to the base of the plateau and stayed north of the Great North Road. By 1970, elephants were no longer raiding farms near Chimala.

Around 1985, people were surprised to wake up and find a matriarch with her family at Chimala. The herd had wondered through fields at night to reach the base of the escarpment. She looked around for a few hours but couldn’t find the old trail. She did however find the road. Vehicles coming down moved as far as they could out of the herd’s way. Vehicles going up stayed a reasonable distance behind. The matriarch and her family arrived atop the plateau to people who had never seen an elephant before, even though they lived only 30 miles from elephants. The elephants were a novelty and were encouraged to leave the gardens but not really harassed.

The Grand Old Dame wondered around searching for the trail that had been plowed under by patchwork farmers countless times. After a day or two she and her family were shooed off the Plateau and into the Ruaha River valley a few miles to the east.

What deep internal compass and sense of being made this great lady lead her family through farms and potential danger, to a trail she hadn’t been on for over thirty years? Was her time at an end and this was her last chance to pass on a lesson to her daughters and granddaughters? Why was this bit of knowledge more important than the family’s safety?

I have no answers. Only questions.

I do continue to stand in awe of these amazing creatures.

quote:

Originally posted by Bud Meadows:
My younger son Steve own property down in Nicaragua that he visits every few years. For sport, he and his 10 year old son go out hunting Scorpions at night by flashlight. Evidently they give off a bluish glow when illuminated by flashlights. Their record is three Scorpions in one night.

I usually kill 3-10 a week in the house May-October. Mostly the little brown ones native to the Chihuhaun desert.

Sometimes one of a couple varities of harmless whip scorpions or tarantulas.

Everything dies, the wife thinks if they know how to get in the house once they can figure it out again.

Stepped on a scorpion the first year here barefoot at night. You only do that once if you can help it. My foot turned black and blue, only epsom salt soaks brought it back to normal.