I was hunting bighorn long ago with about the best sheep hunter in Alberta at the time ... I had told him that my dream was to some day hunt in Africa ... He was not the least impressed. Much too easy shooting stuff over there was his reasoning ...

I knew only what I had read back then ... but I did know that I wanted to hunt dangerous game and Africa was where I wanted to go ..

Although I was poor as a church mouse, a second job, teaching night classes at a college came my way .. Ten weeks later I had $800 which I sent on to a well known booking agent .. I told him that I wanted to shoot a cape buffalo ... and that I didn't mind sharing a guide ... back then (1977) none of my friends or acquaintances wanted to travel long distances with me to hunt big game ... or probably any other reason ... so I requested that he find me a partner ..

No problem at all .. The 15 day buffalo/plainsgame hunt near Nanyuki, Kenya was set to go ....starting late June. The daily rates were $150 each ...

So I got a left handed Remington 7 Mag, had the barrel removed and a 375 H&H installed and I was ready to go ..

After school one Friday afternoon I walked into the local waterhole and a fellow teacher told me that Kenya had shut down all hunting ... I was not impressed with his bad joke ..

Bah !

Anyways, I contacted the booking agent who assured me that my $800 was safe (man of honor) ... I still wanted to go hunting in Africa ..

He offered me a ten day hunt in South Africa that included lion and leopard .. $200 a day (2x1).. trophy fee was $650 for the leopard, $1,500 for the male lion,,, PH was a chap recently moved there from Rhodesia ... and this was a PH of huge experience .. one time game ranger ... and he could even find a hunter to hunt with me ..

This was before the country was high fenced, apartheid was in full force, riots were happening ... I booked the hunt! In late June I landed in a small airport in the Northern Transvaal ...

Waiting at the airport was a man .. maybe 40ish ... with a little girl .. I knew that couldn't be the guide ... why would he have a child ??? (I certainly flunked logic in University) He looked at me and knew that I couldn't be the client as I wasn't an old guy ...

After everyone else left we got together ... He took me to a hotel for the night and it was there that I met my partner for the safari ...

He walked up to me, shook my hand, and said, ' Nice to meet you. I don't want to hunt with you.'

And so the first time I ever met the professor he cost me $500 .. my 1x1 hunt was now $250 a day ..

We hunted plainsgame on some huge chunk of land that except for a hundred impala culled each year - there had been no hunting on it at all ... The wealthy land owner from Joburg stated that the lions and leopards had to be left alone .. there was so much game on the property that he wanted the predators left alive to eat some of them up ...

My PH had a second property about a 45 minute drive away where we could hunt the cats ... So every morning my PH and I would start out on one property .. shoot a wildebeest ($100) or zebra ($100) ... load it up, encase the guns ( could not travel on a road with an uncased gun !!!) and drive to the other property and set up baits, build blinds etc ...

The other client had only hunted big game once before (Wyoming) and told me that I had no chance on getting a cat ... so he would just be hunting plainsgame .. but if a cat started hitting a bait we would toss a coin as his money was as good as mine.

One morning he wanted to gun a warthog but his PH said that it was too small ... he was so mad that he wouldn't talk to the PH for the rest of the day ...

The hunting was great ... actually there were so many animals around that we were mostly in sight of something all of the time .. 7,000 impalas on the first place I was told ... I reckon that if my old sheep hunting partner had been on a plainsgame hunt he would not have changed his mind at all ...

The cats were a different story, of course ..

Eventually we moved camp to the area where we could hunt cats ... In the middle of the days we would drive back to camp for lunch in the heat of the day .. I would always hare it over to the client and take photos of whatever he had shot ... I made sure to take a roll of slides each day (36) .. of everything .. that was good advice someone gave me.

There were no photos taken of me by the gentleman. ' I take different photos,' he mentioned one day ...

About day five we left camp early in the morning ... and shortly after sunrise we came upon an entire pride of lions .. maybe a dozen or so ... I jumped out of the ancient land rover and prepared for a shot ... which was not to come as there wasn't a male in the entire pride ... Nuts !! Looking back I am glad .. but at the time I was very disappointed ... I wanted a lion so bad ...

Later on we checked out a wildebeest bait and found that a leopard had chewed a big chunk of it .. Ha! We built a blind and then continued on with checking baits and moseying around the country ..

Around four in the afternoon we were driving above a dried river when the PH stopped the landrover and everyone got out to look at all of the lion tracks !!!

Someone peered over the cutbank and soon we were looking at a dead giraffe that the pride had killed ... At one time it had been caught in a snare and had busted the wire ... but its foot was almost cut in half ... it had backed up against the cutbank to fight .. but the PH told me that when they are cornered that way - the lions would kill it .. and so they had...

The tracker looked at the sand and eventually said that there were two 3/4 grown lions, eight lionesses, and two big males ... also two leopards ...

The kill was a few days old and the PH said that the pride had left .. but if they were in the area they would walk over for a look ... plus now there were two leopards ..

Our plans were instantly changed ...

Very quickly a crude blind was built in the river bottom ... maybe 25 yards from the giraffe .. the vehicle was parked elsewhere as the tracker, the guide,and I sat down to wait for dark ..

The tracker was just sitting there playing with his skinning knife, the PH went to sleep ... and the young Canadian sat there .. big eyes ...thinking ... a dozen lions .. twenty five yards .. I kill one ... the guide shoots one .. I shoot a second .. he shoots a second ... that leaves eight !!! Aiiieeee !!! What a fricken' drama queen - on safari !!!

I doubt if we had been in the blind more than about twenty minutes when I heard a sawing noise up river ..

A dozen lions !!!! ??? The PH woke up and whispered, ' Leopard !'

Ha! Much better odds was my first thought ...

The cats were coming down the river bed together ... and it sounded as if they were constantly telling each other off !!!

The PH was on my left and he got them visual first as they approached from my right ... I could not see them at all ... he then told me to move over to where he was ... but suddenly the pair of leopards swung by in front of me ... He told me to shoot the 'big' one ... I paused as they were walking side by side ... and I did not want to wound a leopard ... no .. no ,,, no ...

The big male stopped right in front of me .. maybe 15 or 20 yards away ... broadside .. and I shot him through the shoulders .. in about two jumps he was over the bank and gone .. I never did see what happened to the leopardess .. she was just gone ..

I promptly jammed my 8 Mag ... my guide grabbed his Brno SxS shotgun, I got my rifle ready, and we ran over the little hill .. the leopard was dead just over the crest ..

I shouted like a wildman ... I explained that I didn't care if I scared the lions !!! The young Albertan had just shot a leopard !!!!

Pictures were taken and after the leopard was placed in the landrover .. we went back to the blind just in case ..... sometime after sunset we started the lovely drive back to camp .. near dark we stopped and they pointed out a cheetah to me ... (although the Afrikaner landowner hated any of the predators and wanted them all shot ... my guide had told him in no uncertain terms that he would not allow cheetahs to be shot)

So that day, July 2, 1977 I saw all three of the cats ..

The guide's mama was our cook (she was lovely indeed and would always make me french toast !!) and she came out when we arrived, her always present cigarette in her hand, and exclaimed, ' Look, Richard got a leopard !'

To his credit .. the other client came over and shook my hand ... later he went out and shot 3 hyenas that night until they stopped him ...

I had bought a bottle of champagne, a bottle of Scotch,and twenty four beers for my safari ... it seemed that everyone in the area came by to see my cat ... and they drank up all of the booze ... And why not !!!

I suppose that it would have been the right thing to take the client to the wildebeest the next night to try and take the other leopard that had hit it ... they moved the bait twenty miles ...

On about day 9 and 10 the PH offered the client an opportunity to shoot some game in a high fenced area somewhere else quite far away ... The chap shot four animals in part of a day and had the skinner save all the capes, hides and legs ... the skinner spent all night skinning out the hoofs .. 16 of them, I reckon ... the PH insisted that the skinner be tipped ... so the client gave him a British shilling ...

When the 10th day was over I was invited to spend the night with the other PH's family ... at their lovely home in White River ...

The other chap was taken to a hotel ....

About a month later he sent me a letter .. asking if I minded sending him copies of photos that I had taken of him ....

I very much enjoyed what you wrote and how you wrote it. Thanks

Enjoyed this very much.

Good read.

Enjoyed it very much. Thanks

Good read - enjoyed your writing style.

Mike

What a great story. And says a lot!

Good read.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, Sir. Thank you for sharing.

Good old story

Morten

Great story - thanks !

Love these older stories! Congrats!

That's a great story.
Can you post some pictures from that Safari? That would be awesome.

I pray I never have to share camp with someone like that.

Not sure how to post photos .. but I can certainly e mail them to someone who can ...

Epilogue:

Several months later my leopard skin and skull were seized by Canadian customs .. I contacted them and asked why they had done such a thing ??? The agent then told me that leopards were endangered so now they were going to destroy the skin and skull .. For most of my adult life I have had a full mount of a leopard in my house.

One of the best stories I have read on AR!

If it were me, the other "hunter" would still be waiting to find out if you were going to send copies of the photos.

But, I am a vindictive bastard.

Wow that brings back some memories - 1977 and the Northern Transvaal. My grandfather had two farms in the Area, one near Tshipise. (NE of Louis Trichard) and the other near Gravalotte.

Hunting around there in 70's and early 80's was really as you described it in your post.

Thanks for the great post

Top story mate

quote:

Originally posted by scruffy:
Not sure how to post photos .. but I can certainly e mail them to someone who can ...

Scruffy, email the photos to me and I will be happy to post them. PM sent.

what a great story and pictures.
the attitude is always everything.

quote:

what a great story and pictures.the attitude is always everything.

YES !!!
:-)

quote:

Originally posted by Bockhunter:

quote:

what a great story and pictures.the attitude is always everything.

YES !!!
:-)

Needless to say, Scruffy's - the other guy was a dick.

Thanks amigo for posting the photos ...

The jeep was owned by the landowner dude. He was very much afraid of lions so had a cage built on it so he would be safe ..

The wonderful warthog was the only animal spotted on that trip where the PH went nuts .. 'Shoot ! Shoot! Shoot !'

Joual was the tracker's name. He had come down with my PH from Rhodesia ... His monthly wage was only $20 U.S. I was told that if I gave a $100 tip (as an example) the chap would go back home for two or three years ..

Thanks for allowing us to view Safari life of yester years!

You got that classic seventies look scruffy
Great story and pics
Thanks

Great story!

A good read - thanks.

I kind of miss those days when you basically just showed up and whatever happened was part of the adventure.

A fun read.

Very nicely written and I sure enjoyed reading it. Thank you Sir.


.

quote:

Originally posted by medved:
what a great story and pictures.
the attitude is always everything .

I agree. In fact, in my 5th grade classroom I have a large sign on the wall that reads, "Attitude is EVERYTHING".

I have found this to be the key to happiness and success in 99% of situations. Instilling this in my students is one of the things that I am most proud of.

Proper.

Thanks for a very enjoyable read !

Loved it! Thanks for sharing!

Best regards, D. Nelson

I'd just have said "sorry, those rolls of film did not come out..."

You. Sir. Have Balls. I wish you were my friend.

That was a great story, enjoyed it very much. Thanks for sharing.

Great story. Thanks for sharing

Scruffy,

I hope you told him to go get stuffed.

Great story.
Did you get lion?
What else besides the great wart hog did you take?

Yo, Abbispa,

On that long ago safari I also shot a wartie for meat, three impalas, a wildebeest, a zebra, two kudu, a hyena, assorted guineas and francolin ... I was allowed two wildebeest and zebra (@$100 each) but took a second kudu for the extra $250 ...

There were two old guys that had a place nearby ... they went there to spend the South African winter every year. Although they had shot the place over pretty thoroughly they told me that if I saw any game on it - I could whack it for free as long as I gave them the meat .. Plus I was welcome to shoot a lion as long as they got the $1,500 U.S.

I did shoot the third impala there ... one night we spotted a hyena crossing the road and I managed to gun it ... from there we went back to camp, had a drink and went to bed. It was probably about 11:00 p.m.

The camp that we stayed at consisted of a bunch of rondavels ... Mine was very large and had 8 (!) beds arranged in a big circle .. the only other person in it was the other hunter. He slept as far away in the room from me as he could .. and still complained that when I slept I made as least as much noise as the hyenas ...

The landowner and his lady had their very own rondavel ..

Sometime after I had gone to bed, the two old guys roared into camp, stormed over to the rondavel where the land owner was sleeping, and rushed in ... angry as hell that we had killed a lion and hadn't told them - and it was obvious that we were trying to stiff them on the $1,500 !!!!

It seemed to me to be a rude behaviour !!!

Of course the Afrikaner had no idea what had happened and sent the aggrieved old guys to talk to us ..

They then charged into our rondavel where, to their sorrow,they found out that the shots had taken out a hyena .. and they had no payday beckoning ...

I probably wouldn't recommend folks try that technique anymore in that part of Africa .. just saying ...
The lion ? I shall have to tell that saga sometime ... I thought that story to be most interesting ...