What sort of unexpected things have happened while hunting
Spots? I had a hunt last April in Bostwana and first a snake
fell out the tree above me into my lap and then it started to rain. I keep quiet and still even though I was freezing.
The next morning his tracks were in the blind, so we set up next to it. I kept wanting to look behind us, but I didn't move. I kept my eyes forward on the bait, and every little sound behind me sounded like him. You know that there isn't
much room for combat inside of a 3x5 made of sticks and grass. I thought for the first time "what in the hell are
we doing?". I heard the wind blowing through the bait tree
and glanced at the bait and thats when I saw him. It wasn't
wind. It was him pulling the limbs that we used to hide the bait from the birds. All of the air in my body left in one
quick blow. I blurted out " he's here". The cat stared at us or the blind next to us for a short time and then got back to business. My PH signaled me to get on the gun and I
strained to lean forward with all of my might. My butt was sucking the paint off the chair. I got him in the crosshairs. He was 35 yards out. And then he moved back on the limb. My PH had his binos on him and was waiting for me to shoot, but I made him wait until he nearly suffocated.
When the cat moved forward I could see the PH bring down his binos to look at me and gasp for air. That's when I
shot. I saw the him turn and run back on limb, and then
heard bark flying, a big thud, and the sounds of hell as he
screamed for several seconds. We couldn't see him for the grass in front and when he silenced that was the most frightening. Waiting for the trackers just knowing that he
was on his way any second.
That was fun.
Edward

I've twice had snakes in the blind, but never anythung bigger...........fortunately

I've also had a blind destroyed by Mr Bigears, but not whilst it was occupied.

This wasn't really in the blind, but on the way to baiting one of our blinds. We took in a nice warthog and tied it off to the tree to top off another hog from a few days before. The bait was active, so we just tied off and went. On the way out, we heard a low growl. Close. Looking up, we saw a pissed off tom in a tree about three feet above one of the guys. The cat reached down and took a nice swipe, taking the guy's hat off. We ran like hell while the cat was trying to shake off the hat that had gotten snared on his claw. None of us were armed. We weren't hunting, the client wasn't even due for three more days!

Lucky,

A good story about your leopard.

I hunted lepard for three years before getting one, so I did have some time in the blind waiting. The usual experiences with the small critters too. The biggest upset was when a bush baby dropped from a tree into the front wall of the blind. There were some hearts going pitter pat after that.

jim dodd