Cameroon Rain Forest - June 2017

Rather than do a traditional hunt report. I have put the hunt in story form which I hope will make it more interesting for the reader~!

RETURN FROM ANOTHER PLACE

Someone once said that every journey has three parts to it the beginning the middle and the end. The beginning of this journey started more than 40 years ago. My grandmother was very fond of hunting and amongst her prized possessions was a collection of hunting books. She introduced me to them as soon as I could read and comprehend. I read these books from cover to cover again and again. As a small boy I followed word by word in the footsteps of many great hunters but my greatest Hero was J.A. Hunter (I was thrilled to meet his grandson many years later in NY). As I followed his wanderings through the Aberdare forests in British East Africa, I first encountered words that I had never come across before “Bongo” and “Pygmy”! Nana our grandmother as my brother and I fondly called her explained what these words meant.

Fast forward some 45+ years on the 9th of June 2017 I board an Air France flight out of JFK, my final destination a small forest camp in southern Cameroon 42.4 miles by the GPS from the Congo border. Unlike many other hunts I am not filled with great excitement about the hunting of this animal. To ensure a good outcome I know it must be done this way, but I have never been thrilled hunting any animal with dogs. The images of a magnificent beast cornered by a pack of dogs and a half a dozen men while it meets its final end doesn’t fit well with me. The killing of a bongo is not difficult if you can hit a big stationary target at 15 paces. For me the rest is the important part.

Many hunters return from their bongo hunt with real or exaggerated stories of corrupt officials, missing planes, bad hotels, bad roads, bad guides, even worse booking agents and a trophy bongo measuring so many inches, for them that was their experience and what they took from it. This is my story:

Despite departing an hour late of out of JFK we made good time and land in Paris more or less on time, as I have done many times before I checked to ensure my gun and bags were loaded on to the connecting flight to Yaounde and we leave on time. It is not too hot when we land in Yaounde. I clear immigration and look for familiar faces, no sign of the French man or anyone with my name on a board. I later find out the the hotel people were supposed to meet me but someone had cocked it up! I decide to grab the bull by the horns I collect my luggage and march over to Customs. They speak good English and politely and efficiently check my serial number and number of bullets against my permit, enter it in the register and then take me over to the police office. There we go through the same process, they are chatty and make small talk. They tell me it is customary to leave something behind in the office. I am prepared and part with 40 euros. They are now fast friends and one even goes to get me a good cab to ensure I am taken safely to my hotel. He is gone for 15 minutes and returns with a driver called General in a beat up old cab. Fortunately, General speaks some English and we cram everything in to the cab and set off. Traffic is still heavy even at that time of the night and we pass through many shanty towns. Then all traffic comes to a stop! General decides a shortcut is the way to go, we now driving on very small roads, no street lights and we are passing through areas that look pretty damn tough. The phone rings and a man talks to the general I wonder if it is cahoots confirming he is on his way with me as the prize to be delivered to them with all my worldly belongings! I figure that I can at least give the General a run for his money. The General hangs up and tells me it was the policeman from the airport checking on our progress. Who says people in Africa are not caring. No matter it took a few bucks to buy his friendship, we are best buddies now. I am to meet him again at the airport when leaving and this time we go through the five-minute African handshake.

They are expecting me at the hotel Merina and a beer and a dry cheese sandwich later all is well.

The next day my Ami the Frenchman arrives, he has just dropped off his last clients at the airport. His land cruiser is not well so we have no choice but to spend another day in Yaounde while it's ailments are sorted out. We hit a couple of restaurants, the food is good and I reacquaint myself with some Nile Perch, a lovely fish to eat. One can easily see Cameroon is a place of new money for the few and they are proud to show it. The next day we leave Yaounde. As we progress the traffic gets thinner we are in the lush green country side. It is cloudy and looks like imminent rain. We pass through small plantations of pineapple, banana and palm oil. We stop and buy fresh fruit and other odds and ends as and when something catches our eye.

The tar road finally runs out and we are now navigating on red clay roads. Fortunately, it has not rained recently so the roads are relatively dry but deeply rutted with the weight of big trucks. We pass many logging trucks, heavily loaded, some in a convoy like a funeral procession each one carrying massive forest giants on their final journey out of the forest to Yaounde, Douala, Peking, Shanghai who knows! One thing is certain they are gone forever. Other trucks pass us their empty trailers loaded on to their backs headed to the forest to repeat this systematic plunder. The enormity doesn’t yet strike me I witness that later.









As the hours go by we pass smaller and smaller villages I start to see almost every man carrying a machete no different to seeing business men in NY city carrying a briefcase. We cross rivers on small wooden bridges how they bear the heavily loaded trucks I really wonder.



For the first time I see a small man walking along the road dressed in tattered rags, swinging his machete, the sight of a person who I had read about as a child 40+ years ago. A real pygmy.



Eight hours from Yaounde we pass through Messock the last pygmy village. Another hour and we are in camp.



Built quickly in two months, Patrick shows me around it is very comfortable and everything is new. The guest chalets are spacious and have attached bathrooms. Patrick is excited to show me his new ventilators!! French for fan. These are cool gadgets. They have battery’s and charge when the generator is running and after that run on their own batteries all night long which makes for great comfort.

As customary on any hunt time to check the rifle. I fire off a couple of shots with the .375 H&H at 25 yards and all is well in that area. After a good dinner sleep comes easy. We arise the next morning and set off. I am excited to see these magnificent forests. Huge palm trees, wild bananas, massive forest trees. We drive along main arteries of forest roads built by the logging companies that then branch off on to smaller road systems. The new concessions that Patrick has acquired has been opened up for hunting thanks to the area being opened by the logging companies. It is simple the jungle is impenetrable by everyone accept ivory poachers who will go where they need to, to kill elephants. They don’t need the trappings and comforts of white men to roam those forests in search of white gold that makes it worthwhile. The local village bush meat poachers probably limit themselves to a day’s march if they have to. Their target is mainly the small duikers, fish in the streams, honey and anything else they can lay their hand on.

We check out many roads and find old tracks of bongo and forest buffalo. In one area, next to a small marsh we find fresh sitatunga tracks. As we come around a bend 40 yards in front of us on an overgrown path I see a black human like figure standing up looking at us. My eyes recognize it but the brain doesn’t engage for a moment. The sight of it brings many emotions. The next closest relative to us after the chimp and the bonobos. There stands before us a female gorilla or BO BO as the pygmies call them. I think of the camera but it is day one and I am not ready with it. I enjoy the brief sighting and can say it was one of the highlights of the trip. We see a small troop another day as they cross the truck 20 feet in front of us. A youngster and his big round head is what remains in my mind from that encounter. The jungle envelops them but they scold us loudly from a few feet away in the forest as we drive past. We hear them scold us on a few different occasions as well but they were higher up in the trees. The pygmies show me a tree the bo bos like to eat and we often see where they have eaten them along the road and thrown the long stalks down on to the road. Even these great apes are not left in peace, their meat is desired by local chiefs and tough city guys who believe the eating of a strong ape is beneficial for their own good!!!






Later that afternoon I am introduced to wah wah hunting. Wah wah being the distress call imitated by the pygmies that cause the little duikers to come in to investigate. I am given a rusty O/U shotgun loaded with some Italian high brass ammo and off I go following Magellan the pygmy. He is a wise old man, a known elephant poacher who has confessed his part in the killing of 50+ forest eles. His hire in the camp is the first time he has ever spoken to or been in the company of white man. He is very flat and expressionless. His only two words to me is Ahaa Ahaa no matter what my question or event we shared! Probably 50+ years old, in his life he has witnessed a time before the intrusion of outsiders to his world. For sure a very different place 50 years ago. We get out of the truck and immediately start hacking our way in to the jungle. The first 30 yards is always very thick, and one is often climbing over big trees and rotting logs. I later figure out why, when the roads are cut in to the forests by huge machinery the bulldozers and other big earth moving equipment push everything to the side thus creating a sort of wall. Once you cross this barrier you are in the forest. There seems to be a lot of animal paths, some for sure made by elephant. I follow Magellan, ducking and diving getting snared by vines and grabbed by thorny trees. Everything is damp and wet and muddy and bites. We push through, I am now dripping with sweat the jungle envelops you. It is like stepping in to a steam room. The heat and moisture is stifling. We go about a 100 yards and he motions me to stop. I take off my leather gloves load the shotgun. He goes through a small ritual of stamping his foot on the ground a few times and begins to call, the silence is broken by wah wah wah this goes on for a minute or two. I am skeptical that an animal will show up. Suddenly there is a flash a Bates pygmy antelope’s rear end. He is so small that we didn’t see him coming in, he saw us at a few feet and took off. A couple of minutes later another brown animal shows up I can make out the shape and wait for Magellan’s Oui (YES) the signal to shoot but it doesn’t come so I hold my fire. The duiker turns and vanishes. This hunt is over we return to the truck. I drink a copious amount of water and realize this place is totally different, unlike anywhere I have been before. A few miles down the road I reenact the hunt, this time with another pygmy called Baby. Baby is a little younger and more progressive than Magellan, he has hunted with clients before and knows the game and the ways of the white man. He takes greater care to cut more vines at a higher head height than Magellan did. In doing so he makes more noise. We set up and the wah wah starts, his tone is different to Magellan’s. It’s amazing we have made quite a bit of noise getting here but as soon as the calling starts there appears in front of us a small brown duiker I don’t know what it is but Baby’s eyes catch mine, he is still calling, for a fraction of a second he mouths the word Oui. At 20 paces the animal has no chance and the shot pattern perforates the little fellow. Baby is happy and smiling. He tells me it is a Peters duiker and a very good one at that. It is a light brown colored animal with very short to no hair, my first forest animal. We return to camp and I begin to realize this is not a drive around shooting affair of many African safaris. Every animal has to be earned and the forest fights you every bit of the way.

PETERS DUIKER



Magellan on the left and a rare smile





We repeat this hunt most days when we are not seeing bongo signs or tracking bongo and in the course of the next 8 days I shoot a Bates pygmy antelope the smallest of the duikers.

BATES PYGMY ANTELOPE



It is legal to shoot a male or female duiker as it is very difficult to tell them apart, the difference in horn length being very small. The pygmies have been warned that there will be a penalty levied on them if the client shoots a female. It is a small measure to avoid shooting of females, and puts some level of owness on them to try and ensure that the client shoots a male. Magellan doesn’t totally get the difference between one species and another, a duiker is a duiker to him. We see another duiker one day which came in nicely and although he gives me the nod, I don’t shoot as I am pretty sure it is not a black backed duiker but a Peters duiker, all I could see was its face peering from a bush and he is gone quickly. We see many black backed duiker but they are not in my fate. The place has a lot of duikers and this is the sign of a good area, as the wah wahs are the first to go when the poaching starts.

Day 2 we run in to fresh bongo tracks that we decide are worth following. We load up and set off with 5 eager dogs 5 pygmies and 1 bantu called Maro. Magellan is in front tracking silently, Patrick behind him with the lead male dog Mooki. Over the years I am told PHs have tried different dogs including the much loved terriers from South Africa, but this environment is not suitable for their wellbeing and the best dogs remain the local pygmy dogs. Small in stature they remind me of Indian village dogs we called pie dogs. In camp all they seemed to want was some loving and food. We lose the bongo tracks and find them again, this goes on for hours. Bongo seem to love the thickest of cover and thickets and many times we are bent over double, covered in sweat pushing our way through. Sometimes on hands and knees. Suddenly the dogs start jumping and whining and the pygmies grab them and carry them and start scrambling to get out of there fast. The next moment we are being bitten as well and I hear the dreaded word “fume”. Lord knows how many types of fume (ants) there are and which ones like to bite, but I saw quite a few. They surround you in a moment and the only option is to run quick and get out of the way, it’s almost always too late and a few have got you and they bite horribly. I learnt to look down every time we stopped to make sure I wasn’t standing close to a fume nest. They seem to smell you and come out of the ground from nowhere. I observed this first hand one day when we were eating lunch.

THE DREADED FUME (ANTS)



We didn’t run in to any snakes but I understand there are many present in those parts that will cause your life insurance policy to quickly kick in if you have a close and unpleasant encounter.

We carry on the sweat now streaming off my face and soaking my cap completely. It remained wet for the entire period I was there. I resigned myself to wearing it like that but by day 6 it developed a nasty pong and I put it under the tap and got stink out of it. The bongo was somewhere ahead and 4 hours later we gave up the chase. Fortunately, on the way back we cut a road after about an hour and I flopped down with the pygmies while Patrick went for the truck. He is passionate about hunting Giant Eland and at the age of 60 he says he is still good for 20kms so I didn’t feel too bad! That afternoon we follow another set of Bongo tracks, we start at 2pm. At 4pm we decide to call it off, it is already getting dark in the forest.

TRACKING BONGO








The days proceed in this fashion, the lack of rain is bothering as I am told it is crucial for hunting in the forest. I also understand that the timing of the rain is important because if it rains all night then many of the smaller roads in this area are too wet to drive the next day. Day 4 it finally rains heavily late evening. The next morning we find two Bongo tracks together. One is clearly a big track, we begin to follow. The bongo head for very thick cover. An hour later at one point we are down on our hands and knees. Suddenly Patrick calls off the chase. While crawling he clearly saw that there was a tiny track on one of the adult bongo tracks, clearly a baby, he reckoned only a few days old. There is no point the dogs will catch the baby if we carry on.

Day 5 we find another good track and began to follow, the tracking seems to be going well. We find a fresh bed which has just been vacated. Fresh droppings confirm the bongo is not too far ahead. The dogs are now straining on their leashes and starting to whine, one can feel the tension rising. We hear the sound of a large animal crashing ahead of us. The timing to release the dogs was not perfect. Magellan says to release them anyway. The dogs take off. We stand in silence. I am reminded of movies of a German submarine Captain firing his torpedo. There is a certain run time before the torpedo finds its mark, in this case the dog catching up with the bongo. There is no periscope visual here. We wait for the sound of the dogs barking a sure sign that they have caught up with the bongo. The moments turns in to minutes, the bongo has long gone. The pygmies go forward now trying to catch their dogs. The dogs have vanished, it's over an hour before they all return. We flop on the ground, ever watchful for the dreaded fume. I break open a packet of gator aid and mix it with some water and drink it. Losing so much fluid so quickly cannot be good and I have felt the ill effects of being dehydrated before so don’t take any chances. We also carry some coke with us and the warm coke brings energy.

Day 6 we decide to go and sit up in a mirador (machan) over looking a large marsh. We leave camp after lunch drive 3 hours, park the truck and walk. It is 2 hours plus before we finally get there, after having forded a couple of small streams. The game plan is to sit till dark, spend the night (as it is too far to return in the dark) and hope for an early morning shot opportunity. The pygmies don’t like this plan too much, as they will be left in the dark without a fire in the forest about 400 yards away.

A high elevated box blind is our abode for the next 14 hours.



Nothing shows up that evening and as the day turns to night the sounds of insects and night birds start off. There is one night bird that screams ever so loudly and eerily it sounds like a person being murdered. Distant flashes of lightning and thunder can be seen and heard. I hope that it will remain in the distance and settle in for an uncomfortable night. The purpose of this exercise was also exploratory and to see what game movement there is and Patrick has brought with him a night vison scope. It is a pitch-black night which renders it useless. A heavy fog lifts off the marsh and now we can’t see anything now. About 830pm Patrick declares this is not a great plan and decides to call it a night. He curls up on a narrow wooden plank and begins to snore immediately. Fortunately, I have the wider plank and spread out on it with my day sack and rain coat as a pillow. I decide that since we have made all this effort I am going to use my torch every half hour to see if I can observe some animals. The fog comes and goes. Finally it lifts about 230am, in my light I see the reflection of two sets of eyes. I nudge patrick to wake up and hold the torch while I try and identify the animal through the rifle scope. 50 yards from us grazing peacefully was a female sitatunga. We watch it for a bit then it disappears in to the tall reeds. Nothing to do but go back to sleep. I awake again some time during the night and see another small set of eyes, maybe the female sitatunga has returned or it’s a wah wah of some kind, for sure it is a small animal. Not what we were hoping to see. The previous hunter had seen forest elephant and buffalo from this mirador. Maybe the morning will bring luck. At 5am it starts to get light and the forest begins to stir a magical place. Surely the herd of forest buffalo that left recent tracks will appear at any moment. Alas it is not to be and we descend from our uncomfortable perch after the sun comes up.





On the way back we stop to check a saline and one of the pygmy's shoots a Plumed guinea fowl




Day 9, we decide to check out a new concession which Patrick may acquire shortly. It takes us 3 hours to drive the 85 miles. Along the way we stop in a couple of villages to ask directions. Finally we arrive at the entrance to the hunting area. There is an urgent banging on the roof and we ask what the problem is. Maro the Bantu tracker announces that Gabon one of his dogs is missing! One would think if you were sitting at the back you would notice that a dog is missing but they don’t! Patrick is pretty furious with them, there is nothing we can do as we have no clue where the dog jumped out. We carry on and within a few miles find recent tracks of bongo. A small herd from the night before. We are optimistic this is indeed a great area. Logging operations have stopped here for the last three years so the place has quieted down. The local guide informs us that one can often see bongo walking the roads early in the morning. We see lots of fresh tracks from the night before.

Further down the road we see a pygmy darting in to the forest. We knew he was up to no good and stop to see what’s going on. Suddenly out steps another pygmy. We stop him and discover in his wicker basket a freshly killed Bates antelope and the smoked meat of at least 4 other duikers that he had killed. He also has a bottle of honey. Our guides immediately take his bottle of honey and drink it while he looks on helplessly. Patrick threatens to have him locked up for poaching and we put him and his bush meat in the truck. He is scared. Our pygmies light up a cigarette (they smoke insistently) and hand him one. Patrick shouts at them and makes the poacher throw away the cigarette. In that moment, you realize that you are the outsider. The pygmies look out for each other and will come to each other’s aid in times of hardship. Their close bond that has enabled them to survive in a tough place. The poacher is not rich, he is dressed in tattered clothes and his machete and wicker basket are his few worldly possessions. This is his world, a pygmy hunting in the forest, which he and his tribe have been doing from the beginning of time. Civilization is destroying his world and outsiders now tell him he is bad that he is foraging for food. The outsiders bring with them greed, money, temptations. Civilization is not their friend.



We stop for lunch, Patrick has told the pygmy he can go but the meat will be confiscated and dropped off at the local wildlife check post. By the time we finish eating our lunch he has slipped off the truck and disappeared in to the forest. When we notice his absence and ask our guys where he went, they quietly say that he has departed! We are the outsiders!!

On the way back we stop at the villages hoping to spot the dog, but in vain. Patrick says this was Gabon’s last safari! The villagers will probably try to catch him and if he puts up any resistance they will kill him and eat him. I hope he is wrong, he was a small friendly dog, a couple of days later Maro (his owner) went in search of Gabon and came back to say a villager had caught him and was now holding him for ransom, $15 would buy his release!!! I just heard that after 15 days of hard negotiations the release of Gabon just went through!



Maro and Gabon on the right.....

Day 10, it has rained early in the night so we should have fresh tracks to follow today. We depart camp, the plan is to hit it hard today. We are hopeful that we can get on a set of fresh Bongo tracks fairly quickly. I settle in for the hours ride. As usual we don't expect to see any tracks or game until we get to the hunting area!! A moment later as we come around a small bend on the road, there stands before us in broad daylight the Prince of darkness! A mythical creature a magnificent Bongo. All hell breaks loose the pygmies are trying to get the gun into my hands where it is at the back of the cruiser. The bongo pauses for a brief moment and is gone. Patrick is out grabbing Muki the lead dog and running, the vision of baby one of the pygmies holding two dogs one under each arm and running is forever burned in to my brain. I stumble out and run to catch up with them. As they reach the spot the bongo had stood, the dogs are released. We stand for a long moment and then the barking begins. We push our way through the forest, in the haste machetes have been forgotten, so we do our best. I am snagged hopelessly by a vine but somehow free myself. Within 60 yards I hear the barking from less than 20 feet I don’t see anything. Patrick to my left grabs me, all I see is its hind quarters and then its front shoulder. The gun goes off automatically and the pygmies start to scream and shout. For a moment, I am in my own thoughts, there lies before me one of the most beautiful animals I have ever seen. A treasure from another world.

THE PRINCE OF DARKENESS WHERE IT FELL






As we were so close to camp we decided to carry it out whole. So they cut a path in and vined it up and carried it out!










Day 11, Magellan and me set up and he starts his calling wha wha wha. Nothing for a while but he carries on. I see coming towards us a large animal. I immediately know by the size it has to be a yellow backed duiker. This is the second one I have seen, the one before darted across the truck a few days earlier. It comes in like on a string I wait and at 20 paces shoot it with the shotgun at the base of the neck. I am ready with the second barrel as I am not sure how effective the #1s are on such a large animal. It drops to the shot and is done. Magellan breaks in to a smile. A big stocky animal it takes three pygmies to carry it out. The forest has been good to me, a special animal, the largest of the Duiker family.







The last day we go out in an attempt to shoot another duiker. Where a duiker would come in on every calling session, we draw a total blank. The forest is a mysterious place with a lot of factors that can make or break your hunt. In closing, to me this whole adventure is less about a hunt and more about the journey. A journey to a special place that is going fast. When those forests are gone, with them will go all those special animals that live there. These are not areas that can be restocked with game like the Save or Bubye valley.

Shooting a bongo under 20 yards with dogs is not a big deal. Tracking one without dogs in these forests would be a whole different story. Putting a tape on one or talking about the size of Bongo horn is almost sacrilegious to my way of thinking. To me it is a special trophy like a moon rock not so much because of what it is but where it has come from.

The concession has a good number of elephant and also forest buffalo. I would say a client would have a very high probability of taking either species. But it needs the right hunter not just someone who can write a check! After I left a Spanish lady hunter shot a bongo and a well-known American hunter and client of mine has just taken a dwarf forest buffalo in the last week. I understand it is only the second one ever to be taken with a handgun. He also reported seeing Yellow back duiker 3 times, so it is safe to say there are quite a few in this area. We get 3 on quota each year, not many concessions in Cameroon have YB duiker on permit. Earlier this year a european client shot a giant forest hog. We saw some tracks, what we did see a lot of was bush pig tracks but never saw one.

Next season will bring new opportunities to hunt this area. There are plans to access a very remote area - a big river system and flood plains where there are reportedly lots of elephant as well as sitatunga. It is a nine-hour march through the forest over a mountain range so some fly camps are being planned to make this possible for those hunters who want to go!

Thanks for coming on the journey and bearing with me while I added this report in bits and pieces!



Fresh sitatunga tracks















42 Miles North of the Congo border!



A tree blocks our path. Fortunately not a real forest giant!



Magellans dinner. We saw a huge hawk fly out of a bush along the road. The pygmies went in to see what it had caught and returned with this! Another day the same thing happened this time it was a full baby duiker.



A new day dawns. This could be Jurrasic park!



No words to be said!



Does anyone know what animal made that track!



Pygmy house construction. As time goes by they just add more leaves until it resembles a big bush. The entrance is small, I believe that it is so to defend themselves as an enemy would have trouble entering and when bent over double the pygmy could knock an aggressor over the head!

Arjun Reddy
www.huntersnetworks.com
30 Ivy Hill Road
Brewster, NY 10509
Tel: +1 845 259 3628
DSC booth # 236
SCI booth # 1148

I am anxiously waiting for the report. Headed there in May. What unit is this? A three toed sloth, just a wild guess.

quote:

Originally posted by Bama15:
I am anxiously waiting for the report. Headed there in May. What unit is this? A three toed sloth, just a wild guess.

Gorilla track. The knuckles, I believe.

+1

Arjun looking forward to your report

quote:

Originally posted by safari-lawyer:

quote:

Originally posted by Bama15:
I am anxiously waiting for the report. Headed there in May. What unit is this? A three toed sloth, just a wild guess.

Gorilla track. The knuckles, I believe.

Now that's exciting to me. That is my main reason for going to Cameroon, to see the gorillas. The second is hopefully to hunt the forest elephant.

quote:

Originally posted by Bama15:

quote:

Originally posted by safari-lawyer:

quote:

Originally posted by Bama15:
I am anxiously waiting for the report. Headed there in May. What unit is this? A three toed sloth, just a wild guess.

Gorilla track. The knuckles, I believe.

Now that's exciting to me. That is my main reason for going to Cameroon, to see the gorillas. The second is hopefully to hunt the forest elephant.

Seeing the gorillas was pretty cool. That said, the forest is amazing. I went into it somewhat dreading it and discovered that it's about like Alabama in the summer. Hot, wet, and bugs.

Looking forward to report!

Arjun,

That bongo has a hole in it's hide.

Hey ready375. Im trying to do a report and my pictures keep coming up with some 3rd party hosting error thing....do i have to pay the 399$ to upgrade to the 3rd party hosting? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

quote:

Originally posted by Andy Buchanan. Film Africa:
Hey ready375. Im trying to do a report and my pictures keep coming up with some 3rd party hosting error thing....do i have to pay the 399$ to upgrade to the 3rd party hosting? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

As on your other post, use IMGUR. Fairgame taught me how, if I can do it ANYBOBY can. It's faster and easy once I got the size right.

quote:

Originally posted by safari-lawyer:

quote:

Originally posted by Bama15:
I am anxiously waiting for the report. Headed there in May. What unit is this? A three toed sloth, just a wild guess.

Gorilla track. The knuckles, I believe.

Will you were not supposed to give the game away. But yes that is a Gorilla track! They walk on their knuckles........!!!

Thanks for the 1/2 report. I was mesmerized. Can't wait for "the rest of the story".

quote:

Originally posted by Bama15:
Thanks for the 1/2 report. I was mesmerized. Can't wait for "the rest of the story".

+1 Randy! Feels like I'm hearing Paul Harvey all over again.

quote:

Originally posted by Heeler75:

quote:

Originally posted by Bama15:
Thanks for the 1/2 report. I was mesmerized. Can't wait for "the rest of the story".

+1 Randy! Feels like I'm hearing Paul Harvey all over again.

Yea, I was wondering who would pick up on that.

Awesome! Thanks for posting!

Arjun,

Great report and adventure. Love the "Moon Rock" analogy and I completely get it.

Mark

Arjun,congratulations my friend. That was an outstanding hunt and report.

Regards
Aziz

Wow Arjun you are the man what a great report great hunt

Fantastic hunt, Arjun!

Excellent report Arjun.

I don't know if I'm ready to hunt the jungle like that.

Nicely written report and photos. Looks like you were well rewarded on an interesting adventure.

Did you see any other gorillas or elephant sign? The pigmies eating what the hawk caught reminded me about the hunt I just came back from. Three days after I shot the elephant, we went back to the carcass just to see what was feeding on it and there were 6 guys from the village scrapping meat off the bones. The vultures had eating on the carcass for a day and a half, hyenas had eaten on it for one night and it had been in the hot sun for three days but these guys were happy to get some meat. Thoroughly enjoyed your report.

Great Report !!!
We should do an second article.
:-)

Best wishes.

Thanks for your report, Arjun. Fantastic.

Well done! Thanks for posting.

.

Big congrats Arjun ! Great bongo and super report! Great stuff.

Cheers, Charlie

.

Congrats Arjun and thanks for a stellar hunt report!

congratulations on a fantastic safari Arjun. Great report and photos. When can we expect to read the rest of it?

Awesome report, Arjun. As beautiful as your bongo is, I couldn't handle the heat and the bugs to pursue one.

Great report. What an adventure

Well done! What an amazing experience and successful hunt. Great trophies and report! Thanks for sharing!

Best regards, D. Nelson

Great report. Planning for bongo as my next hunt.

Fantastic report.

Thank you for sharing.

Great report. Beautiful Bongo!!! Congrats

great and wonderful report.

all is here except the smell of the forest.

well done.

Congratulations on a fantastic report! I enjoyed it from beginning to end!

JCHB

A great report. What an adventure! Thank you for taking the time to share it with the rest of us.

Sam

Well done. Your Yellow Backed Duiker is a dandy!

Well done Arjun!!