was once offered some hunts in the Kalahari (I think). With this system were the Bushmen who followed the traces of the leopard.
I think it was a hunting very sporty and interesting. Unfortunately recently I have not heard any outfitter specializing in this hunt. Any infos?

Mario with this method you sit in a car when the trackers do their job and it ends with dogs trying to bay the cat and you shoot it. If you don't are exceptional fit I think it would be hard to keep up with the bushmen running in the sand, but I agree with you it sounds like a grand adventure.

Graeme Pollock of Safaris Botswana Bound use to offer these hunts. The bushman would run on the track in the Kalahari and you would follow in the back of the Land Cruiser until the leopard bayed or charged. Many were shot with a shot gun while trying to attack the hunter in theback of the truck.

They are no longer available as Botswana stopped leopard hunting.

I did one in the Bots Kalahari and it was very exciting. I believe Zimbabwe is the only place left you can still hunt leopard with dogs. It is closed in Namibia and Botswana for the time being and maybe permanently. I also managed to do a Rhino darting hunt in RSA before they were closed. The trends don't look good. If you get the chance, don't hesitate to go. The world is changing rapidly. It reminds me of a line from The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. A main character is asked how he went bankrupt. "First gradually and then suddenly," was his response.

quote:

Originally posted by SBT:
Graeme Pollock of Safaris Botswana Bound use to offer these hunts. The bushman would run on the track in the Kalahari and you would follow in the back of the Land Cruiser until the leopard bayed or charged. Many were shot with a shot gun while trying to attack the hunter in theback of the truck

They are no longer available as Botswana stopped leopard hunting.

i did this exact hunt with Greg Butler in Bots. 6 years ago. we arrived in the Cruiser where the leopard was bayed,climbed down, the leopard made eye contact with me( have no idea why he picked me instead of the PH or the Bushmen trackers) and immediately charged. dropped 6-7 feet off the end of the gun barrel with a 12 gauge load of SSG to the neck/chest. and no, there was NO way i could have done it on foot for the entire chase. try keep up with a running Bushman in the Kalahari and see what i mean. it's a shame that Botswana stopped leopard hunts as this was far and away the most exciting hunt i ever had- a close range charge on a unwounded leopard is almost guaranteed and they are unbelievably fast!!!

I think there is still leopard hunting on private Land or did they shut that down recently?

interesting question...

I believe they have shut down all cat hunting, but you can still hunt plains game on private land. The place I hunted leopard in Bots (Grassland Safaris) knew the ban was coming so they were preparing to switch to photo only. They had 25,000 acres next to the buffer zone of the Kalahari and got leopard, lion, cheetah and wild dogs coming through on a regular basis. They had lots of plains game on their property, but understood that it wouldn't be enough of a draw without the cats to keep a viable hunting operation going. There is just too much plains game private ranch competition from RSA and Namibia, so they went Green. They preferred hunters, but they had to go where the money was.

Leopard hunting with dogs is still available in Botswana however the quota is small. There are a number of open areas/concessions as well asprivate land where you can hunt with dogs. Clive Eaton/Tholo Safaris is the best man to talk to.

if it is indeed still available, it will no doubt be expensive- AND WORTH EVERY PENNY!!! where i hunted was a large private game ranch bordering the Central Kalahari Game Reserve( Haineveld -sp???). the border fence was mostly intact but we still had lions come through camp every night to drink at a borehole 50 meters away. fresh tracks around the tent every morning. lots of leopard.

quote:

Originally posted by SBT:
Many were shot with a shot gun...

Is a shotgun preferable to using a rifle?

if i had been using a rifle, i would likely be dead or badly injured. when an unwounded leopard launches a charge from 20 or so yards away, swinging a shotgun and pointing in its general direction, knowing you have a pattern and not a single bullet, is a GREAT help. also in my case i have been shooting quail my whole life and swinging/shooting is second nature. essentially no experience with a rifle in the same scenario

quote:

Originally posted by kukhama:
Clive Eaton/Tholo Safaris is the best man to talk to.

Yep, even when it was available on communal lands, Clive did the majority of the available permits in the Ghanzi region.

Clive still does some on private land. Yes, it's expensive and yes, jdollar is correct, shotgun, is the absolute preferred weapon as it More often than not ends in a charge.

Someone else posted that it it is a ride in the cruiser because very very few white hunters can keep up with a Bushman. That's true as well. If you can climb out and shoot the cat, most everyone will, however, it doesn't always end that way.

I'll see if I can find one of Clives videos where the hunter wasn't able to get out of the cruiser.

On another note, I have tracked Leopard on foot, unsuccessively, with another member here. He was the shooter, we never caught up to the cat, but it was an interesting day. We didn't set out to track Leopard, but all the conditions lined up. Sandy land, fresh spoor, no dogs, no cruiser, just ph and trackers. Cat went into the rocky hills and we lost him, but it was interesting.

quote:

Originally posted by Wendell Reich:

quote:

Originally posted by kukhama:
Clive Eaton/Tholo Safaris is the best man to talk to.

Yep, even when it was available on communal lands, Clive did the majority of the available permits in the Ghanzi region.

Clive still does some on private land. Yes, it's expensive and yes, jdollar is correct, shotgun, is the absolute preferred weapon as it More often than not ends in a charge.

Someone else posted that it it is a ride in the cruiser because very very few white hunters can keep up with a Bushman. That's true as well. If you can climb out and shoot the cat, most everyone will, however, it doesn't always end that way.

I'll see if I can find one of Clives videos where the hunter wasn't able to get out of the cruiser.

On another note, I have tracked Leopard on foot, unsuccessively, with another member here. He was the shooter, we never caught up to the cat, but it was an interesting day. We didn't set out to track Leopard, but all the conditions lined up. Sandy land, fresh spoor, no dogs, no cruiser, just ph and trackers. Cat went into the rocky hills and we lost him, but it was interesting.

in my case, my feet hadn't been on the ground for 10 seconds when the cat was dead just off the muzzle. on the hunt prior to mine, the hunter( who insisted on using his rifle) and the PH had just alighted from the back of the cruiser when the leopard charged, ran right by both of them and jumped on the dog handler in the back. the client wheeled around, pointed and fired- missing the cat and shooting the dog handler( luckily in the arm). PH wheeled around from the other side of the truck, placed his shotgun muzzle low against the cat( who was on top of the handler) and fired- blowing the cat up and off the poor guy. 2 weeks later when i left, i met the guy when he came by the outfitters house in Maun to see when he could go back to work. it had been only his second leopard hunt with the dogs and he was game to go again. he had just gotten out of the hospital that day, was covered in bandages and his arm was in a cast. one thing for sure- this type of leopard hunting can get really hairy really fast.

I did one of these hunts back in 1989 in the southern Kalahari of Botswana with Cecil Riggs. It was a very interesting and exciting hunt, though perhaps not the most sporting in the end. The first 8 days of my 24 day safari were in the desert, with the remainder up north. A few hours into our first morning, after already tracking three lions only a mile or so from camp and determining none of them were what we were seeking, we cut a large leopard track. Cecil asked me "Would you like to shoot your leopard on the first day?" My thought was that he was pulling my leg, but he assured me that if I wanted the cat who made the tracks, that he'd be in the back of the truck before dark. So, I said let's go get him.

We had 4 bushman trackers on the truck, and 2 jumped off and started trotting on the tracks. Anytime one of them would tire, he'd whistle and another would jump down to take his place. There was no way any white guy was gonna keep up with those bushmen, and they kept rotating back and forth as they followed the tracks, usually following them at a steady trot as the tracks were easy to follow in the sandy soil and the grass wasn't that thick. We followed the tracks for perhaps 5 hours, when one of the bushmen whistled and we all looked to a sand dune out ahead of us and saw the leopard going over the top of the dune. The trackers sprinted back to the truck and Cecil yelled to "HANG ON!" He drove that landcruiser as fast as possible and caught up to the tom, at one point he was running literally right next to the truck and I could nearly reach his tail. We pushed him to a nearby brush patch, where he bayed up. I shot him at about 20 yards with my .338 and that was that. He was a splendid cat, 7'4" between the pegs, though very lean and probably didn't weigh more than about 140 or so.

Was the hunt exciting and interesting? Absolultely! Sporting? Not really, though I'm quite sure that if we'd climbed down off the truck that cat would have been on us in an instant. He was growling and snarling at us, and his defiance was obvious. It would have been more proper to get down off the truck, but I'm sure that would have been bad for business as the rate of mauled clients would be on the high side, I think.

I'm glad I did it, once.

At the other end of the safari, on the 22nd day, I shot a fairly young lion (don't crucify me, it was back in 1989 and my PH said he was 'good enough' and to shoot him, so I did) after tracking him for about 4 miles on foot. That hunt was tense and tedious as we crossed many small brushy islands and visibily was often limited. We finally caught up to him with a few girlfriends out in some short grass and concluded what had been 37 days over two safaris in my pursuit of a lion. All in all, it was a grand safari!

In Namibia Leopard hunt with dogs is not allowed.
As it is extremely dangerous we usually bait a Leopard. Tracks are and can be identified by the San and at a place which is frequented by the Leopard bait will be used to attract them.

I understand can be dangerous but should be very interesting make the hunt like DLS made in Bot.