I have had a number of outstanding trackers over the 15 African Safaris that I have been on. Although I could provide more than these two, these are a couple that stand out. The first one is Ben Nyati. He is an Zimbabwean tracker out of the Gwanda area and has been PH John Hunt's main tracker for years. His tracking abilities and advice on my leopard hunt was nothing short of miraculous.

The second tracker is Zito, who now works for York Mare of HHK Safaris. However, when I hunted this wild Sable in the Zambezi Valley with PH Lance Nesbitt, he was a 'pick up' from the local village. Suffice it to say, he out tracked all of the veteran and regular trackers. Once York, who was finishing his apprenticeship with HHK, saw his innate and native tracking abilities, he was quick to offer him employment, and he has been with York for the last 8 years.

I'm sure all of you have your favorites and the stories behind them. Pics or no pics, please share them with us. These men all deserve our sincere gratitude, appreciation and thanks. They are often the "unsung heros" of our hunts and success.

Great photos and memories. I remember Rashidi in Tanz and Tonde in Zim who is with Richie Schultz. More warm-hearted individuals you will never find.
Their tracking abilities are other-worldly.

Too many to mention here.

But, one that sticks to mind is Philip, who worked for Roy Vincent, and now stick works for Alan in Zimbabwe.

I shot an impala in one of those horrible areas by Lake Kariba, in Chete.

This area is so bad one can hide a dozen elephants and a pod of hippos, and one passes feet away from them and you cannot see them!

We saw the impala run after being shot, and then he disappeared.

We went to find him.

We looked, and looked and looked.

Spreading over an area of may be a couple of hundred yards!

We saw no signs at all.

Philip decided that we went too far, and he went back to where the impala was.

Quite a while later, we were all giving up, but Philip insisted the impala was dead somewhere close.

Sure enough, he found it.

Everyone was passing very close to it, but never saw it.

Same thing happened to a lion I shot close to the lake too.

Luckily the lion was stone dead!

My tracker Michael is the best I have come across in recent years and can tell the age of the track within an hour or so. All good trackers seemingly have extraordinary eyesight.

Talking of trackers.

We shot a leopard ealynone morning.

He dropped stone dead straight down the tree.

There was lots of dry leaves there, so Alan and me decided to play a trick!

We hid the leopard under the leaves, took some blood and put it on leaves and put them as if he ran up the bank!

The truck arrived with our trackers, and we were already up the bank.

We told them we thought the leopard is well hit, and ran up the bank!

Surprising how slowly they started walking on the tracks

Each one was trying to get behind the other.

The blood trail ended, and we suggested we start from under the tree again.

One of them stepped on the hidden leopard, and slipped!

He saw what it was, and went ballistic!

Both of Buzz’s trackers, Criton and Nyati are stellar. Watching them work as a team, though, is just over the top. I swear they can read each other’s minds.

Nkululecko - PH Lin Stanton

BH63

I had a Masai tracker whose eyes and ears were unnatural. I'm pretty sure he could sex a fly and hear it fart, in flight of course.

He was pretty knowledgeable in the use of firearms and was not skittish to be on my left when following a serious balls up that the client refused to be participant (had quite a few of that class).

This fellow was a tracker during the 6 month hunting season and a self-proclaimed "man of the cloth" for the other 6 months.

Between sermons to a mainly female congregation he was known for some serious womanizing which he believed as "cleansing their bodies of evil spirits". Unfortunately for him the spirits took revenge and he died of AIDS at a rather young age. RIP Kimeni.

My first tracker, a young man by the Christian name of Justin, was like Kimeni. He too, unfortunately, was a womanizer and was nicknamed by the girls: "the black mamba". He died at the age of 26 from Aids.

quote:

Originally posted by fulvio:
I had a Masai tracker whose eyes and ears were unnatural. I'm pretty sure he could sex a fly and hear it fart, in flight of course.

He was pretty knowledgeable in the use of firearms and was not skittish to be on my left when following a serious balls up that the client refused to be participant (had quite a few of that class).

This fellow was a tracker during the 6 month hunting season and a self-proclaimed "man of the cloth" for the other 6 months.

Between sermons to a mainly female congregation he was known for some serious womanizing which he believed as "cleansing their bodies of evil spirits". Unfortunately for him the spirits took revenge and he died of AIDS at a rather young age. RIP Kimeni.

Fulvio:

I don't know how good Parakat (SP?) is relative to Kimeni but one thing I remember about him was you used him like a "consultant" to figure out what we were going to do...like the time you said, "Parakat says if we head to the river you will have your lion in three days. Three hours was more like it. Still my best all time hunt!

Saeed

Imagine what is in store for you in the after life!

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Talking of trackers.

We shot a leopard ealynone morning.

He dropped stone dead straight down the tree.

There was lots of dry leaves there, so Alan and me decided to play a trick!

We hid the leopard under the leaves, took some blood and put it on leaves and put them as if he ran up the bank!

The truck arrived with our trackers, and we were already up the bank.

We told them we thought the leopard is well hit, and ran up the bank!

Surprising how slowly they started walking on the tracks

Each one was trying to get behind the other.

The blood trail ended, and we suggested we start from under the tree again.

One of them stepped on the hidden leopard, and slipped!

He saw what it was, and went ballistic!

quote:

Originally posted by Marty:
Both of Buzz’s trackers, Criton and Nyati are stellar. Watching them work as a team, though, is just over the top. I swear they can read each other’s minds.

I've hunted with Nyati as well. Rich Tabor borrowed him from Buzz's crew. Rich's regular tracker, Norest is a good one as well. Also Blake's trackers, Shumani and Benani are very good.

All of them!

Can't say I have ever seen a bad tracker.

Teddy "Tedious" and Norest.I've done four hunts with them and hope to do another sometime.

Thierry's trackers Mudini and Ishmael deserve mention here. And just as importantly to me, they are fine companions.

I also mention 2 gents from the now defunct Kanana.....Xhase and Martin.

I have been very fortunate during my very short safari career.

Among the best were the Maasai in Tanzania. Kayai, Ngorossoro, Lengaisi, Moise, Tipiliti.

And in Moz, the old reformed poacher, Manuel.

And in Namibia, Martin, and the ancient reformed poacher, Jimmy. And the San game ranger, Piet.

And last and perhaps least, the polyester-shirted and English-challenged young Patrick, who once pointed to a bull elephant track we found at the side of a sandy road in the Caprivi, and solemnly intoned, “This track was made tomorrow.“

They don’t come any fresher that that!

This here is Sammy: tracker, skinner, plumber, electrician, general handyman and friend. And judging by the picture Anton took several years ago he might even make it as a model as well...

Sammy has been my loyal companion for several years now and one of the best trackers I've ever seen in action. I can count on one hand the number of wounded animals that was not recovered since we've been working together.

I can also count on Sammy to always be on my side... He was even on my side during a buffalo charge I'd written about previously... Well the tree he ended up in was right next to me and that counts also...

quote:

And last and perhaps least, the polyester-shirted and English-challenged young Patrick, who once pointed to a bull elephant track we found at the side of a sandy road in the Caprivi, and solemnly intoned, “This track was made tomorrow.“

Classic and I had a game scout that claimed we were tracking less than two Buffalo.

On my first four hunts in Namibia with Sebra Hunting Safaris I’ve only used a native Himba tracker once. In 2015, we hunted the ranch of Danie Jansen van Vuueren and used his tracker named Kamadi. Kamadi lives on Danie’s ranch and since we were hunting one specific species (Blue Wildebeest) we relied on Kamadi for his local knowledge. After 3 or 4 successful stalks, Kamadi finally got us to within 80-90 yards of a trophy Blue Wildebeest and I dropped him with a single shot. Kamadi is also a skilled skinner, and he did a great job for my European Mount which is hanging on the wall at my younger son’s house. I see it every time I babysit there.

One of the very best is my friend Roy Vincent.

Very often he had picked some signs others have missed.

One time we decided to annoy him - such a rare occasion in our very serious hunts

We are always prepared, for the right occasion to occur to do what we wish to.

My wife gave me some theater blood - the sort used by actors.

She said "I found this in the shop and I thought you might find some use for it on safari"

Now you know why I married her!

We had a friend from Germany with us, and walked to a water hole to find an impala for him to shoot.

The waterhole was down in a valley. Overlooked from above by a sort of a cliff with a very large fig tree on it.

We got to the fig tree, and could see a large herd of impala down below.

Kraut fired several shots, trying to kill an impala ram.

Eventually the ram got killed, and down we went to retrieve it.

Alan got the stage blood, and gave me a big smile, saying "good opportunity to get one on dad!"

Roy, being a good professional hunter, started looking for any signs of any other animal being wounded.

Alan started dripping blood on the impala tracks, got to the dead one, and continued on the tracks of the rest of the herd.

The rest of the herd was all females!

They stopped to admire the dead impala, and I was a bit further on the tracks of the herd.

I said "I think there is another one wounded too. There is blood here!"

Roy comes along, looks at the blood, and says "that is all we need now! A wounded female, and we have non left on license! What a bloody headache!"

we continued following the blood trail, with Roy getting madder and madder with each step!

"we continued following the blood trail, with Roy getting madder and madder with each step!"

And, the rest of the story. . . . . . .?

Chapstick mentioned he had a tracker who could not track a hippo walking up a snow bank!

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
"we continued following the blood trail, with Roy getting madder and madder with each step!"

And, the rest of the story. . . . . . .?

We laughed!

And got him out of his misery!

Mudini gets my vote!

Here's a couple more. Lucas, who works with PH Brad Rolston.

And, Sollie, who works with PH Charl van Rooyen:

And, of course, Bheki Ndlovu with PH Shaun Buffee on the BVC:

How about this story about the worst trackers that became the best trackers?

I once shot a Lichtenstein’s hartebeest facing me that bolted right just as I broke the shot. Everyone, including the PH and the trackers, all of them, insisted that I had missed. The shot was at 100 yards, and I was sure that my bullet had raked the hartebeest on the left side of its ribcage, front to back.

They all said no way. They all insisted that we should just move on. I said no. I said that I had hit that hartebeest, and we would follow him.

We did. The Maasai were magnificent, once motivated.

Blood was found. The herd, and the wounded bull among them, was followed.

Finally, after perhaps two hours, we caught up with him. He was crippled and moving slowly. I fired a shot through his shoulder and killed him.

For me, that was one of the best stalks. Best results, anyway.

It’s not so much that I was right, but that I had to fight for it. And that we ended up doing the right thing, and successfully.

I was in Namibia hunting a few years back and both the PH and the tracker insisted that I shoot a certain gemsbok for the camp. It was out at 250 yards. I had shot some for the camp earlier, and I said that the gemsbok that they now wanted me to shoot was a trophy and shouldn't be shot for camp meat. They said: 'no way, it's not that big'. I said that it looked to me like it had over 42 inch horns. They said: 'No, more like 36 inch horns-shoot it now'. So, I did. When we got up on it, it measured 42 inches. Made me wonder about the tracker and the PH both, who were understandingly embarrassed.