Location - Namibia, Caprivi Strip, Salambala and Kabulabula conservancies.

Date of hunt - 01 Sept 2013 thru 18 Sept 2013

PH - Kobus Honiball and Byron Hart, assisted by Radimar Karsten, Andre Bennett, and Peter Brenbman

Rifles used - Heym 88B double, chambered in 416 Rigby, no scope, iron sights, Heym Martini Express bolt gun, chambered in 375H&H, Swarovski 1.4x10, CDI reticle.

Ammo - Federal Capeshock 416, with Barnes banded solids, and Barnes Vortex with 400 grain TSX. Barnes Vortex 300 grain TSX for the 375. Handful of Norma 375 Barnes banded solids for the 375 also.

Animals hunted - Elephant, buffalo, hippo, lion, croc, waterbuck, zebra, impala, blue wildebeest, red lechwe, kudu, warthog, geese.

Well just got back, from an amazing trip, after last years hunt, wasn't sure how to improve it, but think I did so, with help and guidance from the crew at Africa Thirstland Safaris. Last year, I had brought the wife and her sister along, they were great fun to have, but being ladies, there were a few privations we subjected them to that, although I enjoyed, they did not. This year, determined as ever to have a "classic safari", we stayed in tents every night, spent more than half the nights in a lion blind hunting a problem lion, I was glad I had not taken them along, as it was very rugged hunting most of the time. Although the food was great, (Eva, Kobus's chef, was at the camp, and her talents are amazing), I still lost a few pounds, which I was needing to do anyway. I can report that Kobus can still out walk and out run me most any day, particularly when in pursuit of a trophy he has judged in need of our attention!

Travel arrangements were by Steve at Travels with Guns, he and his staff did a superb job as usual. One thing stands out in memory, I had a small rifle snafu at JBerg, on Labor Day weekend. Steve answered the phone himself, rescheduled my flight from Jberg to Windhoek, problem solved. I had a short post about the rifle problem in the travel section, the essential details are as follows:

Flew Houston-Frankfurt-Jberg, overnight at African Sky, SAA to Windhoek, kobus's Cessna to Katima Mullilo in the Caprivi. Got to Jberg, rifles did not, was worried about Jberg/Frankfurt issues, but turns out the problem was the sorry assed TSA in Houston. Rifles in Terminal D get checked by TSA at far east end, then transferred to plane. My bag made it, but rifle case sat on end of TSA belt, rather than make the 100 yard journey to the plane. It made it on the next Lufthansa flight, arriving next day(one day late) in Jberg, I had to move my flight to Windhoek back a few hours to make it work out. Only actually cost me half day hunting time, but I aged considerably in that time the rifles were unaccounted for.

Kobus met me planeside in Windhoek, as is his custom ( as a pilot, he has free access over that airport), collected the bags/rifles and spent the evening with Radimar and his family at their home outside Windhoek. Had time to shoot rifles, talk hunting and catch up since our hunt last year. Radimar was an essential element in our hunt last year and I am glad to report that he is now fulltime with Kobus, and is writing for his big game PH permit this month. The other two assistant PH's on this trip, Andre and Peter are also doing the same, so this trip was another opportunity for them to add to their resume of DG/BG hunts, necessary for the opportunity to write for the BG PH license. Having so many skilled PH's made a lot of things possible on this hunt, but also made it impossible to include everyone in every stalk/hunt. It was very exciting to have so many people wound up to do whatever we needed but also required a little more planning. This group, was VERY good about brainstorming ideas and using the best ones, regardless of whose idea it was. I have seen other situations, where egos became involved, with much less successfull conclusions. There was none of that here thankfully.

Day one - 01 Sept, flew Jberg-Windhoek spent night at Karsten household, shot rifles and got ready for early departure Windhoek Eros airport.

Day two - broke ground at daybreak in the the ATS Cessna 210, flew over the Okavango delta enroute to Katima. We overflew this route last year also, and for anyone that doubts the impact of the impact of the drought here, I offer the pictures below. Last year, the Okavango was full of water, this year, mud flats.





The range conditions on the Botswana side are awful, it is a desert, nothing for food, most of the animals are slipping over to Namibia side at night to eat and water. We over flew the Lake Liambezi area, making up the western edge of the Salambala concession, seeing only a few animals on the Botswana side.



Landed at Katima, still has the sand bagged revetments and bunkers left over from the war. We commandeered an old hanger to shelter the plane for the next couple weeks, and made for Salambala camp.





First order was to get settled in camp, quick lunch, then off for an elephant stalk.



We did not shoot any of the elephants on this stalk, one was a huge bull, but had little in the way of tusks. Salambala in the most simple terms is divided into two areas, the flood plains bordered on the south by the Chobe river, and Botswana, and the core area, mostly thick woods with a few pans of water scattered throughout the thick stuff. This stalk was one of a few in the core area, we spent more of our time on the floodplain.

Following that initial stalk, Byron indicated that we ought to "go down to the river, and shoot a zebra, it won't take long, we will need some bait for the lion". Well, this was a joke of epic proportions, zebra don't normally just stand around and let themselves be turned into lion bait now do they? Turns out, these Chobe zebra do precisely that. We drove down to the river, spotted a herd, Radimar and Mike bail out, stalk up to reasonable shooting range, and pot said zebra. We repeated this over and over the next few days, as I had two trophy zebra on license, plus a large number of permits from the concession for their use, and our bait. It got so easy using the double 416 for bait shooting, to conserve 375 ammunition.








The last picture is of the new Heym bolt rifle my wife encouraged me to get for myself last Christmas. It is going to seem as if this report was an unpaid commercial for that rifle, but I assure you, it is not so. I paid dearly for it! Seriously, the rifle performed great, and was a pleasure to shoot, as well as to look at. I remain convinced, that if limited to one rifle, a 375 H&H bolt gun would be it.

While our crack team of skinners and trackers dealt with the zebra, Bryan mentioned he had a nice waterbuck located, and that if I felt up to a long shot, we could have a go at it today, before it got dark. So all piled into the two Landcruisers, and went off to the east side of Salambala to have a look.

On arriving at the spot, Kobus got that " we must go now " look, and we took off across the wet bottom for the waterbuck herd.


"Mike, this is a very nice waterbuck, let's get as close as we can, then try for him". Famous last words, this guy didn't get big by being dumb. Finally got inside 300 yards with him, after a lengthy trek thru the mud, got a solid shot off, hit a bit high, but still made it count. Another pair of half mile muddy dashes, and he was down.





Initial measurements indicate, this guy will be #2 Namibia, 36" length, and 10.5 cm bases, green measurements. A very good start to the hunt, and a great way to end the first hunting day!!!

Mike love to read your reports and experience.

your last picture is a very very good one.

cant wait to read the rest of your adventure.

all the best.

Phil

Day two dawned with anticipation of getting lion baits up, and seeing what else we may get into. We had a group of problem lions on the eastern end of Salambala, getting a couple of cattle every few days, and generally terrifying the villages in the area. Being problem animals, we were allowed, any means, any method to pursue them. Tracking them from their kills was not successful, as they went back into Botswana every morning, rather than remain by their kill. Apparently, from reports, this group consisted of a large male, and a small male with female. Our plan was to stake out a couple baits, nearest the last activity, and get some attention. We needed more bait, than one zebra, so began the day by blowing a stalk on three buffalo hiding in the long grass behind Luchindo, Vaughn Fulton's old camp on the Chobe. They were laying low in the grass, and escaped into Bots. Kobus proved he is still agile enough to climb a tree, looking for the hidden buff.



We moved off after inspecting our lion site, to the west side of Kabulabula. Lots of animals moving thru here, we took plenty of pics of elephants, saw none worth pursuing.






I had noted that the rifle was shooting a bit high, almost costing me the waterbuck last night, so resolved to take another test shot, and it was about 2 MOA high. Given that it was sighted in at sea level, cooler temps, and now at 3500 ft, and warm, that was believeable. Made tweak to zero, then broke out the iphone ballistics app, put in current conditions, and changed come-ups for 200, 300 and 400 yards, which were significantly different for the longer ranges. As there was a hippo next up on the list, for bait and trophy, this was time well spent. No other changes to shooting setup were made the rest of the trip. Bullets were on target for the remainder of the trip.

Picked up game scout Tedious on the west side of Kabulabula. He said he knew of a big hippo we could get to, so we went and checked it out. That one was not there, but stalking around the area, located another in the river, away from the tourist road on the Bots side ( more on this later). Peter shot a short video of the stalk, and the hippo was ready for the knives.



We gained the cooperation of a couple mkorro men, and putting Peter in the, a line was secured, and the hippo returned to shore, after a 2 hour wait for him to float.


Bullet went in just perfectly:





Day three - time to hang bait, we had one tree 70 yards from blind with a whole zebra, and one tree 40 yards away with a hippo hindquarter. This site was on eastern edge of Salambala, nearest the last activity.



Our blind was a small tent, with a popup blind in front, later changed to add a different front tent and remove the popup. I spent many nights in this tent, with alternating between Kobus and Peter on one team, and Byron and Andre on the other team.

After getting the lion site secured, meeting the headman/induna of the closest village, instructing them to leave the site alone, we struck off for the core area to look for elephant and plains game. Saw a nice impala, short stalk, and 275 yard shot across a pan, and he was ours.



On this day, Andre's hat met a sad end. ATS custom dictates that any hat being blown off the head three times in a hunt, must be shot. On this occasion, he lost not only the hat, but his smokes too. Decency prevents me from posting the pictures of the acts committed on the hat prior to the shooting. The pictures of the walk of shame must suffice.



Prior to a wonderful dinner of oxtail ( made from the hippo tail), sufficient courage was reinforced for the nightly lion hunt. I must say, all this lion hunting every night, prevented a lot of my other favorite safari pastime, laying about the fire pit, drinking and telling tales. I did not go to the lion blind in any impaired condition, but rather limited consumption until the lion matter was finished. For most of the trip, I only showered in my chalet room at camp, and stored clothes there, sleeping in turns at the lion blind.

Day four - started with a need for another zebra, used the double to shoot him. Sent one of the trucks off to camp with the zebra, for the hide and carcass, the rest of us went to Kabulabula concession, looking for elephants and buffalo.


This morning, from the lion blind, noted a group of buff crossing the same place as yesterday, and one very nice bull in the group. Made plans to make his acquaintance in the morning.



Saw a promising elephant bull in this herd, made a stalk to have a closer look.


He looked pretty good from this distance, let's get closer.


We had no small bit of trouble from a couple cows on the outside of the group, kept trying to flank us and get our wind. We did have to make a couple of quick moves to keep that from happening. Finally the bull gave us a decent opening, and a side brain shot did the deed.


The elephant had evidently been shot at by native hunters, this wound was dripping on the left rear leg. We had several animals with evidence of poaching type wounds, this elephant was not the last cross we had with that on this trip. I'll try to point out the whens and wheres as I write this summary.



Watching the butchering process - in general, we did most of the slaughtering with Kobus and Byron's crew. The locals hired by the conservancies, either did not show up, showed up drunk, or without knives, generally useless individuals. A couple were OK, but in general, slowed up progress, spent more time arguing over meat, than getting it loaded for delivery to the concession.





A nice treat that night, was Coen, from Mashi camp, where we hunted last year, joining us for dinner. He does not hunt as much as he would like, due to health, but is still quite a story teller. He is also Radimars' father, and we enjoyed the fire time with him.




Day five - The buffalo!

As noted, we had spotted a bunch of buff being too predictable from the lion blind. Kobus and Byron decided we would arrange to intercept them before they made it back to Botswana this morning. This was my morning view most mornings from the blind:




We positioned ourselves on the river bank, hidden by the bank and some very sparse bush, about where the buff crossed. We were four, myself, Kobus, Andre and Peter ( with video, I'll post that later, don't have it with me now). Radimar stayed with the cruiser about 600 yards back, to the west of us, later was very important. Bryon, was up on the ridge with the rest of the crew plus Coen who had decided to join us after all.

The buff, took their own sweet time coming across to the river. The one we had picked out, was in the rear of the group, I had planned to take him about 60-80 yards out, on a slight rise. Didn't work out that way, the other bulls kept him screened, they edged closer and closer. About 35 yards out, there were some nervous people in that ditch, wondering when I would shoot. At one point about 25 yards out, I had a shot, through the front legs of one front bull to the heart of mine, but Kobus wouldn't let me take it. Finally, about 15 yards out, Radimar moved on top of the cruiser, and the lead bull stopped and swung sideways to see what that was. The whole herd stopped and milled around a bit. That gave me a good six inch window to the chest area, and I sent a 300 grain TSX straight to the boiler room and lucky for us, the heard broke up the hill, towards Byron's group. About 300 yards up the hill, they turned west, and my bull stopped, there, tried to resume walking, staggered and felled. Blood was pouring out, and he gave the bellow, and we could not run up there fast enough. Man what a bull!




Also got a very nice picture of father and son on this little adventure:


After the pictures, load the buff, send part of the team back to camp with the buff, the rest of us head to the west end of Salambala, looking for croc and more hippo ( had lots of left over quota). Lunch was by the lake, and very good.

Days six and seven - didn't shoot anything these two days, searched high and low on Salambala for hippo and croc. Saw lots of neat stuff, but not what we looked for. This was to be Radimars last day with this hunt, he had some previous obligations scheduled, and he would be missed. His skills as a hunter, are matched by his photographic skills, and it was with sadness we took him to Katima, to return to Windhoek. We did take advantage of the trip to dine at the one decent place in Katima. That night, we had the lions fairly close to the baits, near the place where the village fishermen keep their nets and mkorros, but they would not cross over to where the bait was. The village did not help in the least with this, every time the lion was heard, much shouting, shooting, and spotlights were going off. Needless to say, that is very discouraging when you are trying to shoot the lions that are giving the trouble!





Day eight - busy day today, left the blind, went to core area, chased warthogs, and got two. We thought there was a third, got involved in another Kobus workout video (!!!), I am pretty stubborn, but not in as good a shape as him. I decided I was not going to ask for a break, but would keep up until I couldn't. After a thirty minutes alternating stalking and sprinting, I gave in, along with the best part of my breakfast...... Agreed that the warthog in question was unscathed, we went on to other things. Went to harvest another zebra, this time, we used the double, but rather than me shoot it, had some of the crew take a try at it. This is Georgie, Byron's tracker, neither him nor Elvis, Kobus's tracker were successful. Had Andre, use the double to grab the zebra. Much fun was had, but to Kobus and Byron's point, it may one day come in handy, for the trackers to know how to use a double with irons to help a downed/injured PH or hunter. I liked it, because I got to tell them, I can't do your job as well as you, and my job as the "Trigger Monkey", was to do that well. Well, after that, Trigger Monkey was my new handle.



Spent the afternoon sitting out west, waiting for a hippo to come out before it got dark. He finally came, but way after legal shooting. We were at least able to confirm their existence there, and hunted that area no more for hippo/croc.

I did get a chance to look at Byron's old Mauser, a Swedish 9.2x62. Much character, and I'd like to get a couple of these to play with sometime. He has had this quite a long time, and won't trade it ever.




Tonight - the lion stuff turned into a fiasco. The lions came into the village area, following a drag we had made to the bait. The village chased them again, shooting and flashing spotlights the whole time. What a waste of the bait and sitting up we had made! I did get a good pic of the track of the big male, next to a 375 round.


Day nine - Time to catch up on plains game quota - first thing today, kudu cow. Next, a pair of warthog, after a long stalk around a dry water pan.

Went to another pan, still early in the morning, lots of smoke and fog, stalked up quietly, and see blue wildebeest.

We are out of position with the slight breeze, so stalk all the way around, get to 300 ish range, and the blue senses something is up. We are out of cover to move in, I get to the last tree, steady up, check range one last time, dial up and let fly. Satisfying WHACK to the chest, frontal shot, he's down in 50 ft, another good TSX.


Day ten - No lion at bait last night either, but heard them off to the east, off the concession. Heard a single to the west, across from Luchindo, the scouts there saw them on the Namibia side just before daybreak. Endeavoring to persevere, but it is starting to grind a bit, that the village is not being of any help.

Went east this morning to Kabulabula, looking for more hippo and croc. Found one herd of hippo, but no shooters. Tracking along the river, I saw what I thought was a croc, in a bend where we could shoot. We initiated the stalk, got interrupted by a small group of buff hiding in the long grass. Finally got to within 180 yards, can't get closer to croc. Went prone on the edge, made a back of the smile shot, and got him! On closer inspection, turned out to be a she!


Moses playing with the croc:


Got a pleasant surprise today on return to camp for dinner/shower. Concession manager shows up ( not usually a good thing, however) to ask a favor. We had seen a single female elephant earlier down on the river on Salambala. Turned out the ele had a bad leg, and was in a foul temper. He asked if we could hunt it, and send the meat to the concession afterwards. Of course we agreed to do it in the morning, had some words for him regarding the village and the lion also. Basically told him, if they didn't back off on the lion, we would. Next time I saw a muzzle flash in my direction, I was going to act accordingly. I was pretty PO'ed by that time, and was losing hope for the lion. That night was quiet, no lion sight or sound, not even the hyenas.

Speaking of hyenas, none on quota available. Seems as if the local Chinese population has been poaching a lot of predators the last year. One pair of guys was caught with eight lion skins, another group with hyena parts. As a result, no predator quota in either concession this year.

Here's a picture of the lion area from inside the hide. I swear that green bush, moves at night, keeps me very much on the toes. The first couple nights, I stayed up most of the night, listening and learning. Now, when it is my turn to sleep, I do it well, until someone wakes me to be ready on the rifle for something THEY heard. I'm a light sleeper anyway, and can fall back asleep whenever I feel like it, lucky for me.



Day eleven - this morning we chase the injured ele. She is not where we she supposed to be, we spent a couple hours poking about, until she literally walked into a couple of our guys. By the time we got over there, she was out in the river bottom, eating. There was no way to recover here there if we shot her there, so we ( Kobus, myself, Andre and Peter) got hip deep in the muck, and pressured her back onto solid ground. Solid ground was 20 feet from the thick brush, and that is where she went. We got in her face for about an hour, mostly 20-50 yards from her, trying to get a frontal shot, I don't know how she put up with that as long as she did, but when it was long enough, I shot a side brain quartering shot to end it, at about 20 feet. She had two injured legs, limping on the front left, and a snare on the rear left.




Day twelve - Back to Kabulabula, looking for hippo and red lechwe, this time bringing a boat. Patrolled almost to the east end of the concession, via river, had no small discussion with game guard about where we can shoot hippos in the river. We are totally within law to shoot any hippo in the river, not out of water on Bots side. Problem is, the tourist road runs close to the river along a goodly part of the concession, on the Bots side. They REALLY don't want us to shoot, where the tourists can see. Found one really huge hippo, that we could not shoot because of that, and it was a bit frustrating. Saw large numbers of impala and red lechwe on Bots side, not so many on our side. We had set up a fly camp on a part of the river where we could shoot, launched the boat here, and ate lunch there. Well, tried to eat lunch there. While the lunch was being fixed on the braai, one of the trackers spotted a group of Lechwe on our side, coming down to drink.

Only problem, no cover - they are half a mile from anything we can hide behind, I'd not wasting a long range Hail Mary on one of these. Kobus says no problem, we will crawl, I say no we won't, I won't make a good shot after more than 100 yards of that. OK, we will duck walk. Uh.... no, same issue. So we ended up using an umbrella, stalked to about 280 yards ( remember I have already several good shots at that range on this hunt), got on the sticks from my knees and sent it home. Bang flop, then to my hearts EXTREME dismay, got up, ran fifty yards and fell over dead. This is probably the trophy I am most proud of on this trip.


Got a picture of this monitor lizard and a bird interacting, from the boat, while looking for the hippo.

And another croc:


Sitting around the fly camp late afternoon:


We saw late that day, a sight few behold, a migration of the buff and ele from Bots to Namibia. They came out of the hills as a solid stream of black. For hours. Unceasing, they came, by the thousands. I am going to offer a few pictures here, but..... pictures cannot capture the spectacle. We took the boat down to the area they crossed in, without getting so close as to pressure them. And they just kept coming.....





It was at this point, I told Kobus and Byron, the hunt was complete, anything else, was a bonus. I saw and shot stuff, that most people never even consider. I was taking any pressure off any of us, and not apologizing for it.

Day thirteen - Back to Kabulabula, looking for hippo. We really wanted that hippo we weren't permitted to shoot, so our first action was to go see where he went overnight. He was not where we left him, as expected. We meandered down the river, and asked a fisherman if he had seen any hippo. He said sure - right here - right over there, pointed to the backwater in front of us. The far end of the backwater, was only about 600 yards from where we last saw him. Our end was considerably farther, so we were not sure it was the same guy. We had investigated this backwater yesterday, it only had one hippo rather than the two the scout was sure it contained. The one it did have yesterday, was smallish, the one we sought was huge.

We set up on the island, I sat prone or on sticks for an hour, and he only put his head up once, other than that it was just his nose. Pretty smart old boy. After an hour, we decided to pressure him a bit, got back in the boat, moved back to the mainland, and the hippo moved further back into the pool. We moved down the bank with him, and over another hour, went two thirds of the way back. And then....'t find him. We spread out over a 1000 yard section of bank, and he finally came up, all the way back, next to the small hippo. Ran down there, confirmed it was the big guy we sought, and set up the shot. Got the right view, made the shot, and we got a good mark on him. Got a leg with the hook in less than 20 minutes, he was on dry land.

The last hippo was good, this one was huge.



With this hippo, shooting was over. I still had another lechwe, and more hippo, but was ready to relax. Turned off the lion hunt, decided day 14 was a lay day. Took the day off, took some pics, withstood an ambush by a pack of baboons at the camp waterhole, while taking pictures. I really like shooting baboons, but had none to shoot today.



The second hippo is on my right, it is much bigger than the other.

Rest of hunt - Had a few days left, decided to go tiger fishing. Booked a couple days at Island View, on the Zambezi, had a fine time. I like this!






These guys are the real fisherman:



The Zambezi Classic was happening there, at the time we were there.



And a closing sunset on the river:


I'll add a followup post about other observations/ideas from this trip soon. Thanks for reading,

Mike

Very nice - excellent hunting and pictures

Outstanding report!

An awesome hunt & report.
Well done sir!

All great trophies but the waterbuck is amazing. I shot a good waterbuck in Salambala in 2009 and he's puny compared to yours. I almost couldn't get him as he spent most of his time directly across from a photo safari camp pitched on the tourist road you mention. Thankfully they packed up and left by the last day of my safari.

Congratulations on a great safari and thanks for sharing.

George

quote:

Originally posted by Jorge400:
All great trophies but the waterbuck is amazing. I shot a good waterbuck in Salambala in 2009 and he's puny compared to yours. I almost couldn't get him as he spent most of his time directly across from a photo safari camp pitched on the tourist road you mention. Thankfully they packed up and left by the last day of my safari.

Congratulations on a great safari and thanks for sharing.

George

George,

There is still one left there, that is very good. Also one more, that has a couple inches broken off.

Wow....
what an adventure thanks for sharing

Always wanted to hunt the Caprivi. Someday.

Great Report.
Thank you.

Congrats on a wonderful safari

Mike,

Helluva safari and report!! You took some GREAT trophies!!

Congratulations on a dream safari. Thanks for the wonderful report.

Mike

Congratulations on an outstanding, classic safari.

The numbers of elephant and buffalo you saw were by themselves..worth the trip.

Mike,

Excellent report, excellent photos, great trophies all documenting a superb safari...you made my day, thanks for sharing.

Great report, congratulations on what looks like an awesome hunt.

Arjun Reddy
www.huntersnetworks.com

Tremendous report. I especially love the buff and waterbuck. Great shooting. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing. what an awesome safari!!

Amazing report and trophies!

Great report/great safaris - congrats!!

Thanks for the good, detailed and well-written report, Mike, especially the fine photos.

Namibia is a great place to hunt and the Caprivi is magic.

Regards, Tim

Great pictures, nice report. Congratulations on a fine hunt.

Great adventure ,very intersting photos and report .

Brilliant report. Superb trophies and photographs. My favorite has to be the Buffalo.

The Waterbuck was also spectacular.

Nice hunt! Congrats!

Mike,

Congrats on a great adventure. Seems loosing you guns for a day had no adverse effect on the outcome of your safari.

Mark

Wonderful trip and report. Congrats!

What a great safari. Congrats. Awesome concise report and pics to support it....

Fine hunt. Great report and pictures.


.

congratulations great report

Fantastic report! Congratulations!

Congratulations on your Grand Adventure!

All of your Trophies are Great,but that Waterbuck is Outstanding.
Thanks for sharing the report

Excellent job Mr. Elliot. Congrats on a wonderful hunt.

Outstanding! Love that Waterbuck! Great report and pics!

This report is like a good film and I had to look at it twice.

That Buffalo is absolutely classic.

Super report and great pics! Congratulations to you, Mike.

Congratulations. That was a heck of a hunt and very nice hunt report too.