01 January 2011, 21:30
Vince Hazen34 Days in Tanzania
Locations: Selous and Masailand, TanzaniaOutfitter: Luke Samaras Safaris
Dates Hunted: Oct. 24 - November 20 Selous; November 21-26 Masailand
PH: Leon Kachelhoffer – Selous; Paddy Curtis – Masailand
Rifles: CZ Safari Magnum in .416 Rigby, Remington XCR in .375 H&H mag
Bullets – Federal Premium Cape Shok with TSX and Sledgehammers, 400 gr for .416 and 300 gr for .375
Animals hunted – just about everything but rhino.
Animals taken – just about everything but croc (more on that later)
I took Wendell Reich’s discounted hunt this year with Luke Samaras in Tanzania. If you only get what you pay for, I guess I owe somebody some money. It was amazing. I was given a full bag 21 day safari for landing a huge contract for my company. I was going to book for 2011, but browsing around on AR came across Wendell and he offered me the discounted hunt for this year. With the discount, I was able to book 6 additional days in the Selous, add a week in Masailand, and bring my wife over for the week in Masailand – all for the same cost as the fully priced 21 day hunt my company paid for. It was fantastic. Hot as hell in the Selous, but fantastic. Thank you to all the great folks on AR who were so generous with their time and advice in helping me plan the hunt. What a tremendous resource you all are for us relative newbies to Africa. Thank you Saeed for hosting this great site.
I booked myself and went Delta/KLM thru Amsterdam to Dar. I had to get my own permits, but it was not that difficult. The only thing I would do different is get my visa ahead of time and avoid the long wait at the airport. Luke arranged the overnight at the fabulous Hotel Sea Cliff in Dar and early the next morning caught the 45 minute charter into the Selous and was hunting that day.
My PH in the Selous was Leon Kachelhoffer.
Leon is a real hunter and he works his butt off to try to get you the hunt you want. I told him this was my one shot for a full bag in Africa and I wanted to hunt hard, get as close as I could to the animals, and take as many mature, representative species we could in 26 days of hunting. That is exactly what we did. We got up early, hunted hard, and got very close. Leon also drives like a bat out of hell. Depending on your perspective, this is good or bad. Good, because you waste no time checking baits. Bad, if you scare easily. Leon drives a Land Rover Defender which is the most amazing hunting vehicle of all time. It went places and did things that I never would have believed. The only thing it needed was a Texas Longhorn emblem with some blood on it, which I was happy to provide. Hook 'Em.
The staff at the main camp (Namkongo) were great. The manager was Patrick, who apparently had multiple wives and tons of kids, most of whom seemed to be working for Luke. Patrick also made my wife and I very cool bracelets out of the hair from my elephant. He also dressed up at night like this. He is the one my right. Great guy.
I spent the first six days chasing elephant. It was extremely hot and dry, but that meant the elephant came into water more frequently. There was lots of movement and lots of elephant to chase. I trained pretty hard for the trip – about an hour of cardio 4-5 times a week for several months. I did not overtrain for hunting elephants in the Selous in October and November. I probably lost about 5 pounds in those 6 days. Did I mention it was hot and humid? We got very close in thick brush several times. On day six, we chased a group of three bulls hard and long (more than 15km) and finally decided to take one of them. We were very close, less than 20 yards from our bull, but could not get any closer because of another elephant off to our right at about 5 yards. Thick brush and trees obscured most of the elephant, but we waited for almost 20 minutes and he finally exposed enough of his forehead for me to attempt a frontal brain shot. I was off center a couple of inches and just stunned him for a second with the 400 gr Sledgehammer. What followed was a new definition of all hell breaking loose. Lots of trumpteting, elephants running everywhere, and lots of shooting and yelling. Big fun. After the initial shot, Leon shot him three times and he didn’t slow down. I shot him 2 more times in the front and he turned away to our right. Leon then got a side brain shot and he went down. Not the biggest elephant, but exactly the hunt I came to Africa for. I have done a lot of things in my life, but nothing compares to the thrill of a close face-to-face with an elephant. I am hooked. My focus in life now is how do I get back for another elephant hunt.
I had brought Leon a pair of I-Kam video sunglasses to try and video some of the hunt. Mixed reviews on the I-Kams, but I think they were worth it. A poor man’s alternative to hiring a videographer. Leon was a good sport to try to make them work. Although it is not the best quality and the sound track is off a few seconds on this clip, you can get the flavor of the elephant hunt. This video is from Leon's perspective. I have tried to edit the 22 minute final stalk into this 2 minute video. Clicking on it should link you to it:
While we were hunting the elephant, we came across a lone old buffalo walking along a road and we were able to get pretty close. Here is a clip of the buffalo taken at about 10-12 yards.
Nice old bull.
After the elephant we focused on the cats. Because of the drought, the water holes had almost all dried up, really concentrating the game. Also, the babies had just dropped and the heat spoiled the baits pretty quick. All of this added up to pretty difficult cat hunting. They were hunting mainly at night when the game animals were moving. However, Leon did an exceptional job selecting locations to hang baits and building a great leopard blind, 2 lion blinds and a tree blind. Here we are building the tree blind:
We had good luck with the leopard and had 3 different leopards on camera hitting one bait. Also, the cameras let us know the big cat was coming in the morning and told us he sometimes stayed past sunrise. Here is our boy coming in late one morning.
These awesome shots show the big cat chasing a smaller cat out of the tree.
He made the mistake of hanging around a little too long one morning.
After we got the leopard, we moved from the main camp to a fly camp along the Rufiji River. It was magnificent. Hippos everywhere, lots of crocs, and tons of waterbuck (which I already had and did not hunt).
Although we were focused primarily on lion, while hunting baits we got lucky and got a tremendous warthog. I must admit, this is one of my favorite trophies from the hunt:
We also got a really old eland. His teeth were worn completely down. There are tremendous eland here. We did not really hunt them hard because we were focusing on the lion, but saw numerous really big bulls.
Other than the big 4, I really wanted a sable. We saw just one the whole trip, but that was all we needed. A nice Roosevelt:
We did look for bushbuck, and also saw only one. Very late, almost dark and a pretty long shot. Just lucky:
We had a problem with flats on the Land Rover because the rims were eating the tubes and I had to carry the bushbuck out, but it was worth it.
For bait we shot a couple of zebra, a couple of wildebeests, and a hartebeest (not a bad one).
We got pretty desperate for bait, having shot pretty much everything on quota, and had to shoot a really old rat of a buff. It was not much of a buff, but it was a really fun run and gun hunt. We shot, it ran, we ran. We shot again, it ran, we ran. We finally put it down after 8 shots. Big fun. Unfortunately we had to spend 3 hours cutting a path for the truck so we could recover him.
A testament to the toughness of the Sledgehammer - this shot went through the buff and then through this tree:
I have a 16 year old daughter and thought it would be nice for her to have a purse made out of the buff. It might also help to intimidate potential dates when they find out where the purse came from:
We also did a lot of fishing and ate a lot of fish. It was awesome. I had never had fish like this before, but man it was good.
There were also several packs of wild african dogs. They were very aggressive and had just killed a waterbuck:
We wanted to shoot a hippo for croc bait and had seen a nice bull in shallow water and went after him, but he moved back into the bush. We had a tracker try to drive him back in the water, but he got pretty aggressive with the tracker so we decided to go after him on land. That turned pretty exciting. I never saw him until this brown blur came racing at us through the brush. I shot him the first time at about 8 yards in the face with the 400 gr TSX. That turned him and Leon shot him in the head with his 450 Dakota and then I shot him again and he was down. Pretty close call. I must admit, I had no idea how ill tempered and how fast a hippo could be.
Now we had to get the hippo to the water. That was a feat.
We finally got him there and Leon used the Land Rover’s winch to drag him to a sand bar where we staked him for the crocs.
4 days later we had quite a feeding frenzy going. We had about 20 crocs on him, one looked like it was about 14 feet. I took a shot, but went for the spine instead of the brain to avoid destroying the skull. I must have been a little far back because the croc rolled several times and was gone. We looked pretty hard along the banks in the shallow water for him, but no dice. I truly wish I could have that shot back. This is all that was left. Nothing but the skin and the skull. Not even any bones.
There were some poachers in the Selous. Luke maintains a pretty active anti-poaching patrol, but we did find some elephant carcasses. The patrol came across some poachers using this dugout. The poachers were dealt with (enough said) and the dugout was rendered useless and left as a warning to others.
The lion continued to elude us. They were hunting late at night and simply were not hungry. We had game camera of lions passing up fresh eland and found lots of fresh, really big prints.
We would also try to track lions and got really close a couple of times. To me, that was the best hunting. There is nothing like stalking up on a lion and seeing and hearing them up close. We spent a lot of time in blinds and I would be happy never to see another blind again. We set up a bait and a blind for one of the lions that twice we tracked and got really close. Both times, females we had not seen warned him as we closed in on him. He was a good lion, but the cameras showed cubs and a pregnant female with him. We decided the ethical thing to do was to pass. I was thrilled just for the chance to get that close to him twice.
Spent a lot of time at this water hole. You can see our ground blind at the far end on the right.
Finally, on day 24, early in the morning we heard a lion roaring not too far away. We got out of the stand and went looking for tracks and caught a glimpse of a shootable lion running away. It was still early so Leon had us go back to camp, have breakfast and come back to track him when it was really hot and hopefully find him laid up, which we did. The trackers were amazing with all the animals, but the lion was truly remarkable. They led us right to him and I was able to get close enough for a shot. Very intense. I would have been happy to take him from the blind, but was thrilled to be able to take him in the open. Watching him react to the initial shot was amazing. There is nothing like the roar of a pissed off lion to remind you where you fall in the food chain. Two quick follow up shots ended it. Not the prettiest pretty lion, but a spectacular hunt. Again, just what I wanted.
After the lion was down, we could relax a little and Leon had a well deserved single malt:
We packed up the fly camp and headed back to the main camp. The next couple of days got a nice hyena and a couple of baboons. Leon thought it was degrading to shoot baboons after taking a lion, but what can I say. Once a redneck, always a redneck.
Early the next day I took the charter back to Dar and then caught a Precision Air flight into Arusha. The Arusha airport is something else. There is not much to it. Arusha itself is also an experience. Quite a lot of humanity. I checked into the Hotel Arusha (very nice hotel) and then made the hour drive to the Kilimanjaro airport to meet my wife for her first trip to Africa. She had been hunting with me before, but nothing like this. After 28 days, I was more than a little happy to see her. Luke did a great job coordinating the mid-hunt transition and picking up my wife. The next morning we met Paddy Curtis, our PH, and were off for the 3 hour drive to Masailand.
Paddy was the perfect PH to introduce my wife to Africa. He was calm, patient, and lots of fun. One of the highlights of the trip was having Paddy introduce us to the Masai and getting to know some of them. What wonderful, happy people. Luke Samaras has drilled a well for the Masai and they were happy to talk with us. We were able to go to a Masai market, visit a couple of Masai bomas and make some trades for spears and swords (they love sports watches).
The well:
The market:
Goat meat for sale at the market:
Buying blankets at the market:
Meeting with Mabula and his 10 wives and 70 children:
Inside Oni's home with his wife and new baby:
Trading for a sword:
Oni and his (now my) spear. Notice he is wearing my watch:
Interacting with Masai was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. I believe Luke's drilling the well and Paddy's excellent relationship with the Masai people made our close interaction possible. They are really fascinating people.
The Masailand camp was great and the staff very accomodating. Here is the Mrs. enjoying the fire. It was much cooler in Masailand than in the Selous.
Another treat in Masailand was meeting with Gerard Miller and his family, especially his mother Elsie, who is 80 years old. One of the camp staff had a baby and wanted to buy a sheep to celebrate. We visited the Miller farm to buy the sheep and had a wonderful visit with the Millers. Gerard wrote a book about his family called "Lives of a Professional Hunting Family" that I have since been able to get a copy of. Quite an amazing family. Elsie and her late husband Frank were both PHs and took remarkable trophies. Here is Elsie and her just born baby goats:
Me, Paddy, Gerard and his family:
We were able to get a decent Grant’s gazelle right off the bat. It was the easiest hunt of the trip. We drove around till we spotted a herd, glassed a decent one, stalked up to within range and shot him.
Next up was the lesser kudu. Much more demanding hunt. Reminded me of elk hunting. We climbed some pretty good hills and glassed. If we spotted something, we would try to make a stalk. After several attempts and lots of climbing, we connected with a great lesser kudu.
Then we went after the Thompson’s gazelle. We had to drive awhile to find the herds, but finally found a decent group and glassed a nice buck. The stalk was a little difficult because every time we got close enough for a shot, he would bolt. This went on for quite awhile. There were lots of Masai around with their herds and our tracker called one over. Since the Tommy were used to the Masai walking around, we talked him into walking towards the Tommy while we walked behind him so the Tommy could not see us. It worked like a charm. Here is my Masai camouflage and our Tommy:
After we had the antelope species we wanted, we had one more day of hunting left. Fortunately for us, the last hunt of the season for Luke had cancelled the day before leaving 2 buffalo on quota. Paddy called Luke and got a green light for another buffalo in Masailand. Because the rains had not yet started, the buffalo had not yet come out of the park and we had not seen any buffalo. We knew there were a few around coming into the water hole at night, so we were going to set up the cameras to see who came in and try to track any good ones in the morning. As we were pulling into the water hole, my wife calmly points and says “theres one” and there he was. He gave us just enough of a look before moving out to decide to go for him. The light was fading, so we hopped out and quickly went after him. We hadn’t gone far and he just stepped out in front of us at about 30 yards and posed for a perfect broadside. He jumped and went less than 50 yards before laying down and giving a nice long bellow and the hunt was over. I was thrilled my wife spotted the buff and got to watch the hunt from the truck.
The next day, since we had a free day, we visited a little more with the Masai and did a little sight seeing. Here is a huge boabab tree:
On day 34, we made the 3 hour drive back to Arusha. Paddy took us to a fantastic Indian restaurant before the flight inside the Impala Hotel that I highly recommend. No problems making the transfers in Amsterdam and Minneapolis and then home to God's country in Austin, Texas. It was the hunt of a lifetime and I was thrilled my wife got to experience part of it as well.
Lessons learned – 1) book Wendell’s discount hunts; 2) Luke Samaras is a very gracious host and runs first class camps in great areas; 3) Leon Kachelhoffer is a great PH who works his butt off for you(I am trying to figure out how to go back to Botswana to hunt for a really big bull elephant with Leon now); 4) Masailand is amazing; and 5) Paddy Curtis deserves his top notch reputation and is a complete pleasure to hunt with.
The only downside (besides the taxidermy cost) is I don't think I can ever possibly top this hunt.
wery nice history and nice trophies too well done!
. Great detailed report too. Thanks.
