Dates:18-31 July
Area.Dande Safari area
Rifles:300 Win Mag;458 lott open sights
Ammo:180gr TSX;550gr Woodleigh RNSP,FMJ
Video:Ray Buchanan
PH:Blake Wilhelmi
Animals Taken:leopard,buff,buff cow,two impala,honey badger,hyena


Two long years since my buff hunt in Makuti.The flight to Lusaka was not that much fun.Arrived in Lusaka and stayed at the Protea.The room was nice and the breakfast was the best I ever had in a hotel.Next morning,I was greeted by my charter pilot at the airport and we were [URL= ]hotel[/URL] off to Luangwa Fiera. [URL=[L= ]Zambezi[/URL] [URL= ]welcome [/URL] [URL= ]candies[/URL] [URL= ]Carel[/URL] Carel,took me to Zim. [URL= ]tiger fish[/URL] [URL= ]zim[/URL] I meet with Blake and were off to camp. [URL= ]pick up[/URL] [URL= ] my home for the hunt[/URL] [URL= ]inside[/URL] [URL= ]inside 2[/URL] [URL= ]inside 3[/URL]Off to the range to check rifles.Offhand at 60 is a little high,but offhand two offhand shots at 80 are near bullseye.Scoped 300 off the bench is also good. [URL= ]target[/URL]The hunt starts and we are after plainsgame and leopard bait. /URL]
[URL= ]bait[/URL] [URL= ]Bonani[/URL] [URL= ]bait[/URL] [URL= ]bait[/URL] [URL= ]scenary[/URL] [URL= ]scenary[/URL] [URL= ]scenary[/URL] [URL= ]scenary[/URL] [URL= ]hyena bait at base of tree[/URL]After 4 days of baiting and visiting baits,a male leopard hit one of 4 zebra legs and the hyena bait at the base of the same tree.We get him on trail cam and we st up a blind. [URL= ]our leopard as he sleeps by the hyena bait[/URL] [URL= ]our leopard[/URL]Another bait is hit by a female and her young one.She kills a Civet cat and leaves it on a rock next to the bait tree.we get both cats on the tree with a trail cam. [URL= ]civet cat[/URL] [URL=
[URL= ]porcupine quil[/URL]
]the bait on which on leopard is shot[/URL] [URL= ]view of the bait from the blind sight[/URL] [URL= ]the blind[/URL] [URL=
[URL= ]blind[/URL]
]shooting rest set-up[/URL] [URL= ]2[/URL]We were lucky to get really great footage of the leopard kill.The leopard came in at around 6 p.m. and everything was caught on camera including the communication going on in the blind.Light conditions were such that the whole scene was captured wonderfully. [URL= ]Ray and Blake [URL= ]camera hole[/URL] camera hole[/URL]Blake is confident the leopard will come to the bait the first evening at the blind.We take our positions,burn a little ele dung to hide our scent and wait.The bird sounds all around us plays out like a symphony of music.I don't expect the leopard to come in tonight and looking at Ray,neither does he.Blake,however can't stop peeking out of the small spot hole.The bird song fades away and it is very quiet in the blind.I try to be alert but I am missing out on some sleep.There is an occasional bird sound.The moment I have day dreamed about for years is about to come true.As I open my eyes from dozing off,I see Blake turn towards Ray,who is a few feet behind him,and taps him on the leg.There is a momentary pause as Blake peeks out again through the spot hole.I think to myself that there might be something here.Blake then turns to Ray again and motions for him to get up.My heart starts beating fast.Blake very slowly opens the flap that covers the peek hole for Rays camera.I say to myself stay cool and breath easy.Blake again peeks through his hole.This time he turns to me and says"get ready".I look through my scope.The blind sight is on the side of a dry river bed on a small cliff slightly across from the bait sight.The bait is hung on a large tree,very high up.There are only a couple of trees around it with very few leaves and there are no shadows around the bait.So,the bait and blind are opposite to one another at about the same height both looking across a dry river bed with light colored sand.The sight through the Zeiss scope was one of the most beautiful ones I have seen in my life.It was enough to put me in a sort of a trance.There lay a big leopard on a large branch pulling the zebra leg towards it with one paw as it fed with it's mouth slightly slanted to the side.The leopard lay slightly quartering away and I thought to myself that I had a shot.Blake whispers,"do you have a shot"? I can barely speak and confirm.I here Blake whisper"behind the shoulder".The scope hairs on moving up and down the height of the leopard.The rest is not the steadiest and my breathing is not helping.I try very hard to steady the cross hairs but it is not easy.The cross hairs never come to a rest.I try to steady again and slow down the shaking enough to break the trigger.There is a slight uneasy delay as the trigger pull weight is a little heavier that I am used to.The shot goes off and I see the leopard drop.I then look at Blake he he seems as scared as I am."Good shot" he says.He asks me about the shot and I mention the little shake just before the shot.We both saw the leopard drop and we here no sounds.Blake lights a smoke as we prepare for the follow up.The next few minutes were very tense.We both moved slowly towards the tree as I was instructed to stay by his side.I had the open-sighted Lott in my hands.There is no sign of the leopard and things are getting very uneasy.We arrive at the base of the tree and blake sees the spots hidden beneath some branches and foliage.The leopard was dead before he hit the ground. [URL= ]leopard[/URL] [URL= ]leopard[/URL] [URL= ]two missing canines[/URL]
[URL= ]leopard[/URL]
[URL= ]bullet path[/URL]
[URL= ]exit hole[/URL]
[URL= ]skin[/URL]

My leopard was missing two canines.
After a pleasant nights sleep,and I do mean that for sleeping in a room with open windows,in the cool fresh air,under the African starlit sky was very special,I got up had a coffee and waited for breakfast.Blake joined me and had some news.
[URL= ]map[/URL]
He had just received word that a woman had been killed during the night, by an elephant in a village only a mile away.He was asked to go and kill the elephant.Blake asked me if I wanted to participate in the hunt, warning me that there would probably be a charge.I could not believe my ears.These are things that I thought I would only read about and that occurred many years ago.I told Blake that I would come along.He said that I could shoot it.All kinds of thoughts instantly went through my mind some not very pleasant.We got our guns and were joined by another rifle-the guy in camp who played the drums the night I shot my leopard.We got on the truck a drove to the village.Half way there,along the road,we were wave down by the son of the woman who was just killed.He joined us as we approached the village.We heard crying from the villagers as we approached and they got louder and louder.All the woman were gathered around a small hut and more poured into the village as we entered.There was a donkey cart a few feet to the right with what appeared to be someone wrapped in a red cloth lying in it.Ray got some of this on video but it was difficult without showing disrespect to the family.We were then joined by a couple of villagers who took us to the ele spoor and tracking begun.We were after a tusked ele as the woman was stomped and gored through the leg,chest and stomach.We were to shoot the ele with blood on his tusks or the one that charged us.The woman was guarding her crops at night from a small herd of about 5 eles when she chased them off.As the eles fled one departed from the herd alone and then came back from about a couple of hundred yards away to kill her.This is the story the witnesses gave.

After about an hours tracking we heard four gunshots from a short distance away followed by some trumpeting.There was another team of parks people that set out just before us.After about another half hour of tracking we came upon the group of men and they explained the gunshots.While following up the small herd,they were charged by a tuskless cow and shot her in self defence.The trumpeting came from another tuskless that was near her.Blake told the group that we would take over and then another man was added to our group.We then continued following the spore for some time and finally found the small herd.There were four elephant-a tusked cow with her calf,a young bull,and a tuskless.The tuskless was behind the three.The cow,calf and young bull were side by side about ten yards in front of us.We were standing on a ele path and the ele were feeding behind a bush.Blake is three yards in front of me and slightly to the left of the path.I am in the center.Ray is just behind me and the trackers and two gun men are about ten yds behind.The two gun men are not in a position to fire.The young bull is feeding and seems unaware of our presence.The cow and calf have seen us.The cow comes out of the bush and is directly in front of the path looking straight at us.I raise my rifle and Blake says``don`t shoot.``The cow does not seem aggressive even though she is with her young one.I ask Blake if he sees any blood.The cow and calf move off in the dense bush and the young bull follows.We continue to track for miles but the herd makes it into Mozambique and we are forced to stop.We arrive at the conclusion that the young bull was the culprit.The team who shot the tuskless told us that the herd had a drink at the river after they left the crop field and that the blood was probably washed off in the process.I had the ele that killed the woman in view just a few yards in front of me but it was too late.The end was frustrating and I asked myself if things could have been done better.
[URL= ]part of our team[/URL] [URL= ]Pedzza village where the incident took place[/URL] [URL=[ ]lunch[/URL] [URL= ]painting I bought at camp by Richard Tabor`s mom[/URL]
[URL= ]wild orange[/URL]
[URL= ]dinner with Alan shearing[/URL]
[URL= ]Jas and company[/URL] [URL= ]campfire[/URL]
[URL= ]lunch[/URL]
[URL= ]dinner[/URL]
[URL= ]dinner-buffalo[/URL]
[URL= ]kabob-buffalo[/URL]
[URL= ]dinner[/URL]
We started the buff hunt.Blake knew the whereabouts of a great dagga boy-near baboon springs.This buff had a very large track with a scar down the middle of a hoof print.There was no mistaking its track.Tracking in this area was really difficult.The bush was dense and the ground was covered with dry leaves mixed with grass or straw.We tracked this buff for five days and only once did one of us get to see him.Bonani,our head tracker, said he carried some pretty big horns.Tracking this bull tested everyones patience including mine.We tracked for a short while and then the trackers would lose the spoor and sometimes a half hour would go by before we would find his spore again.One day we walked from morning until dawn after him covering miles and he just did not stop.We had to give up chase or else I would go nuts.We then found tracks along the road where a herd had crossed and decided to track.
It was difficult to come near the herd without being detected.We found and then lost the heard a couple of times.We came to an open field with bush on an all sides and Blake predicted there whereabouts and made a plan.In a short while we located the herd again and our position was such that the wind was in our favor.We then got to within fifty yards of a bull laying next to a cow.The only thing that I could make out with the binocs was a horn and a large black mass next to it.I rested the rifle on Blakes shoulder and fired a 550gr Woodleigh RNSP at what appeared to be the neck.The shot was good and the buff lay dead.An insurance shot was placed on the spine between the shoulders but the solid deflected off the spine and out to the side.
[URL= ]buff[/URL]
[URL= ]recovery[/URL]
[URL= ]bullet hole[/URL]
[URL= ]big buff[/URL]
[URL= ]Blake searching for the bullet.He found it in the jaw on the opposite side [/URL]
[URL= ]550gr Woodleigh RNSP[/URL]
[URL= ]Woodleigh 550gr FMJ frontal brain on buff cow recovered in stomach[/URL]
[URL= ]sunset[/URL]
[URL= ]beer[/URL]
[URL= ]Ray[/URL]
[URL= ]Richard[/URL]
[URL= ]truck[/URL]
[URL= ]hyena bait[/URL]

I wanted to take a hyena during my first two hunts but was not successful.They seem to be everywhere in DSA.We chose a dry riverbed where we had also seen lioness tracks,dug a hole of about a three feet deep and buried a zebra leg remaining from the leopard bait.The hyenas dug up the hole and ate the entire thing the following day.We decide to replenish the bait.The hyenas came in again but dug just next to the bait.We knew they would return.We returned to the bait in the dark the following morning.As we where walking to the blind we heard one of the hyenas calling.It was that loud ah-ooh-ah call I hear when I am in my bed at night and I hear them calling.It was the same call I heard in makuti.We knew they were at the bait.As we got into the blind we could hear one feeding.We waited a couple of minutes but the hyena left the bait and was gone.As we were driving back to camp we spoted him by the road looking at us as we drove by.He then dissapeared.
[URL= ] hyena bait in hole[/URL]
[URL= ]zebra leg[/URL]
We had only one last day left and returned during the evening.There were no sounds at the bait.After waiting a while we heard a noise from the bush to the side of the bait.I did not think nothing of it but it got Blake`s attention and he said that it was the hyena coming.It was dark by now but we were lucky to have a full moon just over our heads.Blake motions to Ray to get ready and slowly puts my rifle through the firing hole.I get up and take position.I quickly look through the scope and see some spots but I am not sure it is the hyena.Quickly Blake tells me that he point his torch at it and turn it on then off.As I kept the scope hairs on the spots I see it`s dark head turn towards the light and I squeeze the trigger.The 180gr TSX does the job again as it enters it`s backside and passes through the top of the heart and through the lungs-exactly as it did on the leopard.The hyena drops in the bait hole and Ray gets in on footage.

[URL= ]Blake points to the blind
[URL= ]camp[/URL]
[URL= ]camp[/URL]
[URL= ]baobob[/URL]
I put on my jeans to sooth the itching and inflamation from the mosquito bites I got at the hyena blind.
Off to Carel`s.
[URL= ]boat[/URL]
[URL= ]shop[/URL]There were croc everywhere and I am told that a number of the villager`s get eaten every year.I saw this very large one that must have been around 14 feet.
[URL= ]croc[/URL]
[URL= ]Carel`s place[/URL]
[URL= ]dining room[/URL]
[URL= ]Carel`s[/URL]
Hippo only a short distance from where we were fishing.A female and her young one came close to the boat and were shouted off.
[URL= ]hippo[/URL]
[URL= ]fishing[/URL]
[URL= ]Zambezi sunset[/URL]
[URL= ]The Zambezi ladies[/URL]
[URL= ]washing[/URL]
[URL= ]looks like corn[/URL]
Carel and his lovely wife live at this camp for most of the year.There was a group of guys from South Africa fishing.Carel is from the southern part of SA.He is a very kind fellow and if anyone is thinking about hunting croc,hippo,etc.. or fishing you will not go wrong with Chawalo Safaris.I heard that every croc they got this year was over 14ft.

Great start. Looking forward to the rest.

Nice cat! Makorokoto

Nice going Shoots! Congrats to both you and Blake on Mr. Spots. Blake was in the blind with me last June when I took my leopard. I'll be hunting with him again in Dande this October. It's good to see him out on his own and building his reputation.

Looking forward to the remainder of the report.

Beautiful kitty.

Love all the pictures and congrats on the cat.

Nice leopard. waiting for the next episodes.

Congrats on a very nice Cat. Look forward to reading the rest of your report, especially the result of the elephant. Found myself in the same situation last year with a rogue Ele Bull that has killed a lady on the Zambezi and it is something that I will never forget.

Congrats on a great hunt. We're you staying at Pasa Pedza? That is one of my favorite camps, but my understanding was it had been decommissioned.

A very nice report, and I look forward to the next installment. You have piqued my interest regarding your travel arrangements. Am I correct that you flew into Lusaka, then took a charter to Luangwa, from which you crossed into Zim via boat? How did you arrange visa entry into Zim? In terms of flight time and travel timing, Lusaka was a much easier trip from NYC than NYC-Jo'burg-Harare-charter to the Zambezi, so I'm interested in how complicated your border crossing arrangements were. Thanks in advance.

Congrats George. Nice looking leopard.

Nice! Very nice. Great report.

Great report and hunt. Thanks for sharing.

Congratulation!! Very nice cat and report.
I will be back in Zim in a month for another leopard hunt.

Beautiful leopard. Can't wait for the rest of the report!

D. Nelson

That's a nice old tom, perfect trophy!

Thanks for your report and photos. Stoking me for DSA! Looking forward to the rest.

Wow, what fantastic safari. A super leopard. 458 Lott slams a buf, crunch time.

Mike

That is a big head cat,nice bag of other critters, thanks for posting

Congrats Shootaway!

Pretty cat!

Nice report, really enjoyed the pics. I was in Pedza Pasi in May with Richard and Ray. Hated to see Ray back smoking, while I was there he didn't smoke. Hope Rich didn't start back. Your report brought back a lot of memories.

Great report George. It was great meeting you at Pedza Passi.

Randy, I hunted with Rich. No he is not smoking now. Although I am not sure whether he will take it up again after hunting with me!!

Great pics and report. Congrats. Thanks for sharing

Very good report. All killer no filler. Thanks for the 'slice of life' pics.

quote:

Originally posted by sjb:
Congrats on a very nice Cat. Look forward to reading the rest of your report, especially the result of the elephant. Found myself in the same situation last year with a rogue Ele Bull that has killed a lady on the Zambezi and it is something that I will never forget.

That was an experience that I will never forget.The ele we were after is suspected of killing another person that same year.I would love to read your story.

quote:

Originally posted by Bwanna:
Congrats on a great hunt. We're you staying at Pasa Pedza? That is one of my favorite camps, but my understanding was it had been decommissioned.

I don`t know the exact name of our cam.I think it was the Pedza camp.I agree that it was a nice camp.It was the best camp I stayed in so far in terms of comfort.I really enjoyed my room.I don`t like sleeping in a tent.

quote:

Originally posted by Randy W Martin:
Nice report, really enjoyed the pics. I was in Pedza Pasi in May with Richard and Ray. Hated to see Ray back smoking, while I was there he didn't smoke. Hope Rich didn't start back. Your report brought back a lot of memories.

I remember Ray talking about your hunt and the joy you had after finding the ele.

quote:

Originally posted by Jas Madhavan:
Great report George. It was great meeting you at Pedza Passi.

Randy, I hunted with Rich. No he is not smoking now. Although I am not sure whether he will take it up again after hunting with me!!

Thanks Jas.It was nice having your company at camp.I will be keeping my ears out for your next hunt.

quote:

Originally posted by Todd Williams:
Nice going Shoots! Congrats to both you and Blake on Mr. Spots. Blake was in the blind with me last June when I took my leopard. I'll be hunting with him again in Dande this October. It's good to see him out on his own and building his reputation.

Looking forward to the remainder of the report.

Yes, good to see Blake on his own.I hope I wasn`t too hard on him.

As for my next hunt,I don`t know when or where it will be.I hope business is good so I can return soon.I really enjoyed the buff hunting in Makuti.This time,I will not set a date and commit myself to a hunt from now but will let the flame light up on its own and guide me to another adventure.IMO,the most important thing about a hunt is the spirit in which one finds himself.

quote:

Originally posted by LeonKomkov:
A very nice report, and I look forward to the next installment. You have piqued my interest regarding your travel arrangements. Am I correct that you flew into Lusaka, then took a charter to Luangwa, from which you crossed into Zim via boat? How did you arrange visa entry into Zim? In terms of flight time and travel timing, Lusaka was a much easier trip from NYC than NYC-Jo'burg-Harare-charter to the Zambezi, so I'm interested in how complicated your border crossing arrangements were. Thanks in advance.

This was a complicated procedure and energy requiring thing.You are correct on the procedure.There is Zim customs on the side of the river.I missed Harare.Next time I will fly into Harare instead.

Great hunt.....and it looks like that woman in your pic got herself a darn nice tigerfish too!

Great Hunt George- always a pleasure to have you in camp with us! Cheers Buzz

Enjoyed your photo's. Congrats on a great hunt.

George,

Great hunt! Thanks for sharing your Safari and success...The report and pictures were fantasic!

Nice!

Very nice leopard, good shooting! Your buff looks like a nice old Valley bull. Congrats George!

So......what's next?

quote:

Originally posted by Bill C:
Very nice leopard, good shooting! Your buff looks like a nice old Valley bull. Congrats George!

So......what's next?

Thanks,Bill.I can`t decide on what or where or when I would like to hunt next time around.I really enjoy hunting with an open sight rifle.I can`t see myself going and not hunting buffalo,unless I was after a bull ele.A lioness,buff,sable or tuskless combo would be interesting.A bull ele in March or April would be nice.A tuskless and buff combo or a double buff and sable.I am going to give it some time and see what gets my interest most in the mean time practicing shooting with my rifles.

Congrats on some fine trophies. Thanks for the report!

George, it was nice to meet you in camp. Well done on your hunt, especially the leopard.