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Allow me to put this up as an 'early bird' until I have the time to finish up and put pictures to the full hunt report of what was an amazing hunt on The Kafue Flats with Andrew Baldry.

I'll also explain the title in full when I do!




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This was to be our second hunt this year and we headed to Zambia.


'Time for a Lechwe' is a somewhat ambiguous statement in that I have sorely wanted for a long time to hunt a Kafue Lechwe on The Kafue Flats in Zambia. But in realising this hunting trip it had to be squashed into a very tight time window. I have tried to avoid concentrating hunting and safari trips into minutes, hours and half days but had to make an exception here. So the time had finally arrived to hunt "The Flats" for a Kafue Lechwe, but the allotted time for this hunt was very short.

'Don't piss of the PH' - well this came direct from our very own Andrew Baldry, PH, in one of his emails to me when he wrote "Note the Kafue Flats is a Government controlled area and permits for lechwe are purchased in advance and are not refundable. Basically when we start hunting you cannot chop and change or piss me about."

"OK Mr Baldry, very clear. No pissing the PH about!"

Andrew and I first exchanged mails on hunting lechwe on The Flats about 3 and a bit years ago and his forecast was bleak.

"No quota, no permits, no hope, no lechwe mate."

Hat off to Andrew, he suggested at the time that if we really wanted to hunt lechwe we could hunt with a friend of his who had red lechwe on his property. But I wanted to hunt Kafue lechwe on The Kafue Flats, so I passed up his offer. Also, after seeing and reading past posts from Andrew about The Flats and also his photographs of lechwe hunts past, I wanted to hunt them with him, but I was not going to flatter him and tell him that directly at the time.

We stayed in touch on and off and when exchanging 'Christmas 2014' wishes, I again asked about lechwe on The Flats in 2015. Ever hopeful me, glass half full and all that. Andrew dashed the hopes of lechwe in 2015, but did reciprocate on the 'Christmas wishes'.

Then out of the blue in late February 2015, Andrew mailed with the good news that there was quota and an early season 2015 hunt was a possibility. Were we up for it and would it be one or two lechwe? Yes we were and two - both my wife, Anja, and I would try for one each.

"Anja, we are going to Zambia to hunt Kafue Lechwe on The Kafue Flats!"

Now, I would have loved to have gone to Zambia for 7 or 8 days to hunt with Andrew - lechwe, puku, roan and other species - but I / we just did not have the days and were forced to look at a 4 day trip or to postpone to next year and hope for quota in 2016. Having waited 3 plus years for this opportunity there was no way we were going to postpone, so 4 days it would have to be.

We would travel light from Lagos to Joburg, a day / overnight in Joburg to pick up and pack our gear, have a good meal and a bottle of great RSA red wine and then off to Lusaka on SAA on Saturday June 6th. We opted to use one of Andrew's rifles to save time at the airports and have more room for champagnes and wine in our luggage.

[Coming in to Joburg from Lagos]




The plan would be to arrive, drive straight to The Flats, overnight, hunt two days on The Flats and back to Lusaka with an overnight in Lusaka before flying out to Joburg and then back to Lagos.

Oh and somewhere along the line Andrew mentioned to bring one or two pairs of lightweight, waterproof boots or takkies that it would be easy to wash the mud off at the end of the hunting day. The Flats would likely be wet. I passed on this bit of advice / news to Anja - she raised an eyebrow and asked whether she should pack a bikini too?

"No, no, sweetheart, it all looks pretty green on Google Earth, I don't think we are looking at real wet wet."

In fact Andrew was great at keeping us informed and filling us in all along the way before the hunt from permits to telling us that he had made up the fly camp bush toilet out of half an oil drum! This 'news flash' did not get passed on to Anja. She was on a 'need to know' for certain news items like that one.

The Kafue Flats - a 250 km long and 50 km wide swampland that floods in the rainy season to a depth of under 1 meter and then drains away and dries out to dark clay soil. The rains would be over in June, but most likely The Flats would yet to have drained.





Two other bits of trivia for those that are interested - The Kafue Flats are now on the official "Ramsar List" of "Wetlands of International Importance" (I did not know there was such a list until I started researching) and secondly that there is tremendous birdlife in The Flats and that the area has been designated an "Important Bird & Biodiversity Area" by Bird International (did not know that gem either). I also read that there are hundreds if not thousands of species of butterflies in The Flats! Perhaps we could get Mr Baldry excited about a days birding and butterflying if we managed to put the two lechwe in the salt on day one! Or perhaps we would just relax, enjoy the scenery, chew the fat and have a beer or a glass of wine or champagne or coffee or whatever. We'll see.

Our SAA flight touched down in Lusaka at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport exactly on time at 12.35 pm but had to wait over an hour to get a Zambia entry visa and pay the USD 50,- per person visa fee. African time.








Mike Borman, PH and taxidermist, who would be helping on the hunt met us at arrivals and we set off on the 5 hour drive to The Kafue Flats, with a great picnic lunch in the car whilst driving, thanks to Mike's wife who did the car catering.

We arrived at the Blue Lagoon National Park gate (part of The Flats) on the north bank around 5.30 pm and picked up the ZAWA (Zambian Wildlife Authority) game scout, Nasiloeloe, who Andrew has named 'Bob' - easier to remember - and we drove the last hour to the flats. Before last light we stopped briefly and test fired Mike's Remington .243 at 100 m. Both our shots - at a single square of white toilet paper stuck on a tall tree with Orbit gum (my target set up!) - were good. So we would have the choice of Mike's Remington .243 or Andrew's Cogswell & Harrison .375.














Arriving at camp at 7.00 pm, Andrew Baldry met and welcomed us with a warm camp fire and cold beers / G&Ts. Andrew had been on the flats for the past three to four days setting up a good tented camp and scouting the lechwe.

Then followed a hot meal, drinks and hunting talk around the fire - particularly about a very large herd of lechwe rams that were coming out of the park every morning onto The Flats with some serious rams amongst them. The day ended with us retiring to a comfortable tent with high expectations for the next days hunting.

Somewhere someone mentioned that ours was to be the first legal licensed hunt (ie non poaching) for lechwe on The Flats for some 4 years, this being the first year since 2011 that ZAWA has granted licences for Kafue Lechwe.

We awoke around 05.30 to a light drizzle and heavy mist with low visibility of around 50 m. The camp fire was kicked back to life and an old billy kettle boiled up for teas and coffees whilst we watched the sun slowly come up thru the mist. It was an amazing sight to see.

















We loaded up the hunting vehicle - two PHs, our scout, one of Andrew's trackers, Anja and myself and we set off into the mist in search of lechwe. Andrew left two of his staff in camp to keep an eye on things and keep away any unwanted visitors from the informal fishing villages that have sprung up on The Flats over the years.

The sun climbed and slowly dispersed the mist increasing our vision and it was not very long before we saw our very first Kafue Lechwe - a mixed herd of a hundred plus animals. A fantastic sight to see!








We drove The Flats glassing the herds one after the other searching for the large group of rams that Andrew had seen every day for the past three days. And after a couple of hours of driving and glassing we found them - a group of 200 plus rams, young males through to mature, older rams. An amazing sight to witness and exactly what we had come for. We started glassing the heard.









"There's a corker of a ram!"

"Which one?"

"In the middle, at the back, the group of five, scratching his ear, oh wait he's moved to the left."

"Oh hang on, there's a better one. Six, eight, ten, twelve yes twelve from the third group in from the left and he's at the front."

These conversations went on throughout the whole day and it was a credit to us all that we managed to get onto the same animal time and time again in herds of 200 to 250 animals!

Two rams stood out of the bachelor herd - one with heavy, long horns with the right horn slightly offset and the second one with a classic sweeping set of horns and a 'bot fly' boil back on his left flank.





The herd was comfortable with the hunting vehicle approaching to about 150 m and Mike and Anja dismounted and sat down on the short grass. But with no cover at all some 400 plus eyes were on them straight away. We drove off leaving Mike and Anja and hoping the herd would settle down and give Anja a shot at the offset ram, but the herd became skittish and, with noses down as lechwe do, they ran.

















Anja and Mike put in a number of stalks during the morning and at one point the herd split into two and we managed to find "our ram" again. They were heading off the short grazing towards reedbeds and deeper water. Anja and Mike followed as far as they could but called off the stalk rather than getting wet, wet, wet. The rams would be back on The Flats later in the day.

We found an old dug out canoe and took advantage of the photo opportunity!





And then it was back to camp for a camp fire brunch and coffee before setting out again to continue our hunt for two Kafue lechwe.

The Flats is an amazing sight to see. It is just, well, so 'flat', literally out to the horizon as far as you can see. Any other name for the place would just be so wrong. The rains were not so heavy this year so a large area that we were hunting was more or less dry with scattered water pools and wetlands further towards the Kafue river. There is next to no cover other than the very occasional reed / papyrus bank making stalking using cover almost an impossibility hence long shots are the order of the day. It is an amazing place to be, to see and to hunt. The name for the area - "The Flats" - sums it up to perfection.









We set off after brunch to another area of The Flats where Andrew had sighted some good rams a few days before and plotted them on his GPS.

After some 30 mins - with some fast driving through some very wet patches, mud and water spraying up from the tyres - we spotted a mixed herd of 150 odd lechwe with some good rams amongst them.











Mike and I got off the Toyota and walked / stalked in closer to the herd. We glassed and then glassed some more and eventually picked out a good ram. Up went the sticks and as soon as the ram was open I put in the shot at about 180 m. We heard the telling 'thwack' of a hit. The ram staggered, took five very distinct steps backwards, but stayed on his legs. We willed him to go down. He was hit but not fatally. The herd had not moved far at the shot with the now sick ram moving amongst them. We walked closer with the difficult task of spotting the hit ram amongst the some 150 plus animals before us. After glassing for some 20 minutes we picked him out, head down but not grazing, tail not moving and a slight smear of blood in front of his right shoulder. I had no clear shot as the ram was covered / surrounded by other lechwe. We waited. Slowly, painfully slowly, one after the other lechwe started bedding down. My ram was now only covered by three animals after four others bedded down around him. One after the other the three bedded down and as soon as the ram was open and broadside, I took the shot and dropped him.

A solid, mature Kafue Lechwe ram, with a great curled horn and 'two' .243 holes in him. It was a big relief that we had got back onto the right animal out of the large herd and put him down. The first shot had been slightly quartering and low, hitting just one lung and not enough to drop him. The second shot was through both lungs to the opposite shoulder.

A stunning antelope with a thick reddish coat, chocolate markings down his front legs and amazing, solid, sweeping ridged horns. I was thrilled!

We took our time taking photographs - the hunter and the trophy, the hunter and wife and the trophy, the hunter and scout and trophy, the hunter and PH and the trophy and the trophy on its own.










And then it was back to camp, meeting and greeting the local Chief on the way, who was out on The Flats in his Nissan Jeep with his boys.

We dropped the lechwe at camp where Duke, one of Michael's taxidermy staff, began washing and skinning / caping the ram on a large tarpaulin spread out on the ground.

After a short break, we set out again, driving from herd to herd glassing for a big(ger) ram for Anja. We must have seen thousands of lechwe during the day. And then with about half an hour of shooting light left, we spotted the bachelor herd from the morning - 200 plus rams, all males - slowly walking across The Flats diagonally towards us. We waited and glassed with four sets of binoculars glued on the herd.

"At the back, far right, ten in. He's good."

"The middle of the herd, walking left on his own. See him? He has a deep curl."

"What about the fourth from the far left. Wait, it's him! The one with the fleck on his flank from this morning. Yes, it's him. It's our ram!"

Wasting no time Anja and Andrew ( our gallant PH having now decided he would guide Anja !) were out of the truck and stalked / walked into the herd with the sun dropping behind the group of lechwe. Anja was on the sticks, Andrew to her right, Andrew whistled , the ram, now leading the herd from the left, stood broadside and Anja put in the shot. The ram staggered, well hit as the rest of the herd ran on some 25 - 30 meters and stopped. Anja's ram, staggering, walked slowly away. At about 260 m Anja put in another shot but undershot the ram, then at 300 m holding on the lechwe's spine she fired again and the .243 bullet fell 8 inches hitting the shoulder and dropping the lechwe. Anja had her ram and it was indeed the same ram that we had tracked and stalked some 8 - 10 hours earlier. Simply superb!










[Note the hunting vehicle in the background]


Again we took our time taking some great pictures of the ram and all involved before loading the lechwe and returning to camp - which as it turned out was maybe less than 750 m from where Anja shot the lechwe.

We were both thrilled. We had taken two great Kafue Lechwe on The Flats with Andrew and Michael, exactly as we had hoped we would.

The champagne was uncorked in celebration and whilst Mike and Duke worked the trophies and meat, I taught Mr Baldry how to make German 'Bratkartoffeln' with fried onions on the camp fire, which we later enjoyed with great beef steaks grilled over the coals and washed down with a superb 'Fat Bastard' shiraz that Anja and I brought up from RSA.











Andrew 'held court' entertaining us with hunting and safari stories by the fire well into the stary night.





(Somehow - as can be seen clearly in the photograph - Mr Baldry managed to get two glasses of wine, both of which he kept on the go until our limited camping supply of quality shiraz was exhausted!)

Oh and in a team effort we also 'knocked over' the best part of a bottle of Dalmore single malt scotch before ending what had been a wonderful day of hunting Kafue Lechwe on The Kafue Flats!

The second and final day, we were up after the sun and enjoyed fresh coffee and bacon, eggs and lechwe back straps for breakfast. Great tasting venison by the way.








We then made a short game drive to photograph the Wattled Cranes that populate the flats in good numbers and to look at some more lechwe. So we did in fact get a bit of birding into the programme as well!





Back at camp we had one more photo session before the staff broke camp and loaded up the vehicles for the drive back to Lusaka.








We had an overnight in Lusaka flying back to Joburg and then on to Lagos the following day.





Everything about this trip was exactly what we had hoped for. Great and yet not overly easy hunting on The Flats, two good trophy Kafue Lechwe, a simple and comfortable tented / fly camp in a remote part of Africa and great company around a warm safari camp fire under the Southern Cross!

A very big thanks to Andrew for putting this together and to Mike for his sterling all round help, plus all the Royal Kafue staff that were involved. And thanks to all AR readers for coming along too.

It was simply a fantastic hunt!





Post Script - One thing I did differently before this trip was that I spent quite a bit of time up front thinking about the taxidermy work. Clearly there was never any doubt that we would not get our two rams. In RSA, we have used the same taxidermist for the last 7 years and think his work is wonderful - especially pigs. In Namibia we have tried a few and now settled with one that we like. Same in Bots. On this hunt after sounding out options, we decided to have the trophies Dipped & Shipped to RSA and we thrashed some ideas out with the taxidermist we use. We came up with a double pedestal mount and worked out some sketches. A double pedestal mount, both Lechwe facing in on an iron wood base with a lockable cupboard and 3 inlay hide panels left, middle and right. With or without vegetation - that is the only open question?! Here a couple of the early sketches. It will be interesting to see how this taxidermy work turns out.








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Betting it's going to be a good story!

Ski+3

Don't know much about Lechwes, but those look massive?? Well done.

This story will be interesting!!

GREAT TROPHIES! I need to get Andrew to take me on that one before I get too old to do it. I have a good Kafue lechwe but not that good.

Mark

Well done, Charlie!

Hope you left at least one good one out there...the She-Wolf and I join Andrew in just over a month's time. First stop: the Flats!

Mark

Wonderful Lechwe...
The one one the right looks what? 32" or so?
I was fortunate to have one chance (thus far) to experience these flats and herds...Its a cool experience

Two damn good lechwe!

wow, truly.

Glad to hear your hunt went so well with Mike and Andrew, having fulfilled this special dream hunt of yours!

While remembering my visit to Mikes Bangweulu taxidermy studio, I thought the Letchwe above his office desk was beautiful and no question you and the mrs. will have two very special mounts in the days to come.


Great report!

Thanks

Obviously you didn't piss the PH about.
Looks like you had a great hunt and collected some fine trophies.

BUT - could you stop feeding Andrew such expensive booze - raises the bar for those of us hunting with him later in the year and I'll never
get away with my litre of cleanskin bore scrub !


Thanks for a nice report and accompanying photo's.

Really neat hunt and great report with some outstanding pictures.

Congrats to you folks and another great hunt from Mr. Baldry.

I enjoyed the report. Thanks for sharing

Thank you for the report, and congratulations!

Hope to do the same some day.

Two very good lechwe indeed!

Thanks for the report.

Wonderful pictures and follow up. Thank you for sharing.
Brings back wonderful memories of a unique place and experience.
Two magnificent trophies who will proudly be displayed in that pedestal mount

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Here are some more photos that we took -

[Lechwe at airport departures]




















































































[Probably as light as we have ever packed for a hunting trip]






[Informal fishing village church]





[And back in Lusaka]











.

Very nice!

I have fond memories of hunting the Kafue Flats as well. Looks like you guys took a good pair.

The herds of almost limitless Lechwe are a sight to behold. As you said, getting a Lechwe is not the issue, but getting a good one can be a challenge! I shot mine with a .375 and had to hold up at the top of his horns. It can be a looong shot!

I flew in and out the same day, it would have been neat to camp out there. Back in 2008 there were temporary fishing villages all over also. Looks like that has not changed.

Congrats and thanks for bringing back the memories!

What a great hunt you all had. Well done to the whole team. Kafue flats is a special place!

The delightful Anja.

Great Story, and pictures, congratulations! Seems Andrew always does a wonderful job!


Butch

What a great photo of Lechwe and sunset... Well done.

great report and pictures.

Very nice.

Don

Looks like a great pair of Lechwe. Congrats. Love that last photo of your wife with the Lechwe. That was set up very nicely. So what bullet and weight were used in the .243? Thanks for posting Bruce

Nice report and pictures. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers
Jim

Love the pics! That was awesome.

Awesome trophies. Congratulations.

great hunt and a very interesting report. Really uncommon to see here and in the other hunting resources

Your reports reveal a great education and culture ,thank you again Charlie.

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Thank you all for the positive comments on the photography and the report.

The sunset pictures are Andrew's work!

It was a unique hunt and one that we will play over in our minds and memories time and time again!

Looking forward to the taxidermy project on this hunt!

Cheers

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Great report and congratulations.

I saw that lechwe sculpture in the Lusaka airport and knew I wanted one badly someday. 'Still planning.

Nice report, great pictures and congratulations on a well done hunt!

quote:

Originally posted by Charlie64:
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Thank you all for the positive comments on the photography and the report.

The sunset pictures are Andrew's work!

It was a unique hunt and one that we will play over in our minds and memories time and time again!

Looking forward to the taxidermy project on this hunt!

Cheers

.

Looking forward to seeing you and Anja back in Zambia mate. Good luck with your up and coming hunt with CMS.

Excellent!

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Bruce / Gillette,

100 grain Sierra Game Kings out to about 150 m and the 100 grain Nosler Partitions for the distance shots - recommended by Mike Borman who'se rifle we used. Worked well and Mike was exactly right on the drop at 300m for Anja's last shot!

Cheers

.

Congrats to all! The pics are great....the food made my mouth water! Your trophies are beautiful! Well done to all!

Best regards, D. Nelson

Thanks for sharing. I have always enjoyed the lechwe hunts on the flats reports - something very refreshing about these hunts - perhaps a bit of old Africa mystique to them.

Again, thanks for sharing and congrats on some great trophies.

Grt report and good trophies. Have hunted the flats back in 2010 with John Duplooy. Was a fantastic experience