First trip to Tanzania

I remember as a kid reading about Tanganyika but I never dreamed I would hunt there. When UTS offered a package for 2 buffalo that I thought was reasonable, I had to go. I wanted to hunt for old, worn down horn bulls, the age is the trophy to me, so Koos talked about that and I was glad to learn he only hunts dugga boys. He showed me a bull from a camera, nice mature bull but I wanted to hunt for something older, so I asked him if we would hunt for a bull like that and when he said, " No, we'll go after something older," I thought, YES, we were thinking alike. There were also a few PG that I wanted to hunt just as animals of opportunity as we were hunting buffalo.

First morning out, not far from camp, the trackers spotted a nice Bushbuck in the river. Koos said "You want to go after him?" My reply was "Let's go". We baled off the truck, sneaky creeping to the river bank, one shot and he dropped in his tracks. We're off to a good start.

We had been riding for a while looking for tracks when they spotted a warthog. Koos said it was an old hog with worn down tusks, "You want to go after him?" Off we go, sneaky creeping . The pig went down in the river bed, so we eased up to the bank and the hog was right under us. He runs across the river, up the bank and stops on top. One shot and he drops, we are on a role.

As we were riding, we were seeing tracks of herds but not of dugga boys when we spotted a Lichtenstein Hartebeest. "You want him?" "Let's go." one shot and we had our third animal in about 3 hours. Everybody on the truck couldn't believe our luck, a lot of hand shakes, back slapping and most of all, smiles. We joked about we had now shot most of the PG I wanted on the first morning.
The next day things were slow, not a lot of sign until late in the afternoon when we walked a small stream that still held some pools of water. There was a lot of coming and going so the plan for the next day was to come back early and try to catch them moving away from the water. As we are heading back to camp, dusk just beginning to fall, one of the trackers spotted a bull. I don't speak their language but understood what was going on. Koos took one look through his binos and he said, " Let's go". The excitement level went through the roof. We used every tree and bush to close the distance but he sees us and is facing straight on to us. Koos puts up the sticks and says, "Right in the chest". I shoot, the bull buckles and starts running. I could tell he was hit hard and I shoot again, he goes maybe 60 yards and goes down. A couple of insurance shots and the hand shakes, backslapping and hugs began. What a bull, his horns were polished smooth, tips worn down, a dream bull, exactly the kind I wanted. We all took time to admire him. It was special.

The next morning we head back to the stream where we saw the sign, still riding high from the bull the day before when everybody saw them at the same time, two bulls standing in the grass. We are a great team working together now, my job is to get out of the truck as fast as possible, as soon as I have both feet on the ground, I'm handed my rifle, Koos has the sticks and the tracker has Koos rifle. We're off in seconds. The bulls didn't run far and were standing facing us with their heads held high. Koos said, " The one on the right, in the chest." I shoot, hear a loud whack, the bull bows his head and says thanks, then runs off. The shot felt good, sounded good and looked good though I thought the shot might have been a touch high. We wait for the bellow but only hear silence. Followed the tracks for a short distance and found good blood, a little further and he is spewing blood so we know he won't go far but after about 75 yards he goes into some high grass which is over our heads. We see the trail going in the grass and the blood. Stopping to take a deep breath, one of the trackers climbs a small tree to try and look down in the grass hoping to see the bull. He motioned the bull is down but I don't know if he is down dead or down waiting for us. Entering the grass with our rifles at ready we found the bull dead just a short distance away. You talk about some serious hugs and smiles, what an experience to share with the team. I slipped off to the side by myself, kneeled down and said a short prayer. Koos saw me and asked if I was OK, I laughed and said, "Just thanking the Lord."

After only 3 days we had taken all the animals I wanted except Bush Pig, so with 7 days left to hunt what do we do. I thought why don't we try for a Hyena. We hung a buffalo hide and threw out some bones but really needed an animal for bait. The bush Pig would do nicely but they were proving to be difficult. Twice I had a hog in my sights waiting for them to take two or three steps to move into an opening but they just happened to walk the other way. Close but no bacon. We had hyena chewing on the hides but at night so I shot an impala to hang hoping this would get them to stay till shooting light.

The next morning, slipped into the blind at first light but there wasn't anything on the bait so we spent the rest of the morning walking down the riverbank. As we were easing along we bumped into a lion at about 25 yards. He wasn't very happy and fortunately ran the other way growling. There wasn't any activity on the bait the next morning but we got a surprise when we checked the camera, a leopard feeding. The next morning was some of the same until we left the blind. There was a hyena in the river bed which we could not see and to add insult to injury, he had a mouthful of the bait. Koos and I just looked at each other and laughed.
I never got a bush pig or a hyena but there is no way I could be disappointed. I had taken 2 great buffalo, 4 PG and shared countless laughs. Plus, I never saw any other people but our crew and that was nice.

The Zebra were the most beautiful I have ever seen, no shadow strip at all.

The camp looked out over a river that had a few deep pools where tiger fish stayed. You would get 2 or 3 bites then they would stop biting and you go to the next pool. Koos caught one on a fly rod and Peter, the camp manager, caught a couple. I hung a couple but lost them when they jumped.

Koos had a butterfly collection and whenever we would come up to a water hole, he would jump out with his net a catch butterflies. Not every PH does that. His daddy studies insects so he got it naturally.

It's always fun to burn stuff so we burned some leopard blinds

Koos would always stop mid morning and have coffee and tea so it was not all hard hunting.

Posts: 1182 | Registered: 14 June 2010

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