'He is hunting !', my tracker mention as he points to the granite island on the edge of the dry riverbed.
I place a Winston pack into the width of the track and I can not help to think, where and what went wrong with us, that we should want to pursue such an animal with a bow and arrow.
The 'test dog' confirms that the track is fresh and leans forward with all his weight.The other dogs also sensed what is happening and the howling makes you realise that the hunt is on.
With the sun and temperatures already high, we follow the track in the riverbed without the dogs, wanting to spare them for when they are needed.
Out of the big riverbed, the smaller river comes to a sudden end and the hounds are set free.
Two PH's,a bowhunter and a tracker loaded with arrows,cameras and water, all in single file after a howling pack.
One by one the dogs are found resting in the shade with only a few still working on what I am starting to believe might be a lost cat.
The low thick bush offers plenty of shade and all are silent, listening to that one dog in the distance, still reporting now and again, hoping that he might start howling like crazy.
'You hear that dog !', the other PH turns his head to that direction and with that, four dogs dash out of cover.
The hunt is on again, all the dogs joined in on the chase and now we have to run hard to keep up.Within half a mile, my tracker stops suddenly and shows us a freshly caught, partely eaten Steenbuck, 'I told you he is hunting!'
Now we are having difficulty keeping track with the direction of chase,it is changing constantly.The howling goes over in almost barking and the man infront suddenly stops,'They're coming back ! Hear that dog ? They have got him !'
We approach carefully through the thick bush,a side by side in the front, then the brave man with the bow,the tracker with extra arrows and a over and under in the back.
I can see the dogs twenty yards away. We are looking up at the trees, but nothing there.We can hear him, you can almost feel it under your feet. ' He is on the ground in that grey bush !'
Now to get a glimpse, pick a spot and take a shot without him seeing us.
The bush shakes as dogs and Leopard explode from it and with thunder in my ears I see the man infront give one step back while swinging the side by side into his shoulder.Looking along the over and under I can see the Leopard dashing back into the bush with dogs all over him. Not a shot was fired and we all got a good glimpse of him, he will put you in a bodybag before you know it.
Side by side infront, archer ready to draw, over and under slightly to the left and tracker with arrows slightly to the right.All moving inch by inch, 'I can see his shoulder !'the 70 pound 'Hoyt' comes to full draw and the arrow is out.
I hear the impact and all hell brakes loose.Instinctively we all go down and I can see through the undergrowth how Tom explodes from that bush and only find dogs to take his anger out on. Now he is realy pissed off to say the least.His growling and swearing never stops and even the dogs are keeping their distance.
The distance shortance to 15 yards and another arrow finds it's spot. Another two arrows are given to end three minutes which felt like an eternity.

The first arrow passed straight through both shoulders and would have been enough, but on that distance we could not sit and wait to see if he dies.
With only the small amount of meat from the Steenbuck in his stomack, it weight 62 kg.

We took a brave bowhunter out hunting that day !

Awsome hunt! Man after my own heart!

Sounds like a real rush. How long did the chase last in all?

We picked up the track at 11:30 am, but only put the dogs in at 13:00 pm. The Leopard was killed at about 15:15, so the actual chase lasted just over two hours.

Being far more interested in dogs than bowhunting, what kind of dogs do you use on leopard? It must have been very warm to drive the dogs into the shade with a hot track on the ground.

Please post some photos.juan

I watched the video of that hunt in Helgaard's house near Okahandja last year. A couple of times the leopard charged the hunters, Helgaard would drop the video camera and raise his shotgun .. the dogs would stop it .. and he would continue filming .. lots of great sounds...I would think that a person has a great chance of being bit doing it that way ...