Humani Plainsgame Hunt 2011
Hunter: Mike Taylor
Observer: Nicky Banks
Outfitter: Roger Whittall Safaris
PH: Lymon Chitimela
Trackers: John Shortie and Ringisai
Skinner: Kiringa
Cook: Ledmore
Country And Area hunted: Zimbabwe, Humani, Save Conservancy
Camp: Turgwe Camp on the Turgwe River.
Dates hunted: 2nd July to the 8th July.
Flight: Gatwick to Harare on Air Zimbabwe.
Rifle used: 30-06 with softs which was rented from Roger Whittall.
Game seen: Elephant, Buffalo, Rhino, Hippo, Crocodile, Eland, Klipspringer, Duiker, Zebra, Giraffe, Wild Dog, Jackal and Nyala, Baboon
Game heard: Lion and Leopard.
Game Hunted and taken: Waterbuck, Kudu, Wildebeest, Bushbuck, Bushpig, Warthog and Impala.

Our trip started on the 30th June when we headed to Gatwick airport. We arrived within plenty of time to have some food and a couple of beers, even though check in took forever. We flew with Air Zimbabwe direct to Harare, a ten hour flight with a one hour time difference. We landed on time in Harare at 6:00am local time. Waiting for us in arrivals was Charlie who was our chauffeur to the Save Conservancy. We hit the road at 10:00am and we were aiming to get to camp for about 4:00pm. The drive down is mainly on Tar roads but the last hour is dirt and let me tell you the dirt road was not great. With the usual pit stops we arrived in camp at 4:30pm and we were greeted by Lymon who was to be our PH and Ledmore (not sure on the spelling) the cook. We settled into our chalet and then went for a beer and some dinner (Impala roast). After dinner we arranged to meet for breakfast at 5:30am.






Day 1 - We were woken at 5:00am by a Leopard calling down in the river in front of our chalet. It turned out that Leopard was to be our alarm clock every morning. We had some breakfast and headed to collect a rifle and some ammo. I was given a 30-06 with twenty rounds and we headed for the range to make sure the rifle was shooting straight, which is was.



From there we went for our first bush walk down towards the river looking for Kudu, Bushbuck and Bushpig. We saw a Bushbuck but he needed another year to make a good trophy so we left him alone. We also bumped into a fresh Lioness kill, she had eaten one of the front legs and one of the back too.




We found a herd of Eland at some water and in the herd was a huge Blue bull however Eland was not my target. After that we headed back to the Cruiser and to camp for lunch. We were back at camp for 12:00 had lunch then went for a rest during the hottest part of the day. We were back on the road for 2:30pm looking for anything that crossed our path. Whilst in the thick stuff we bumped into Dugga boy sleeping under a bush - well he was sleeping until he decided to jump to his feet and step forward a couple of feet, as he did this he must have put his back foot in a hole which made it look like he was injured which raised the alarm bells for us. He was within 10 yards of us and there was a standoff for about 30 seconds however he decided to turn and run which was a relief to all especially my girlfriend who was more than I little worried. After that encounter we made our way back to the Cruiser but we hadn’t gone 50 yards when we heard John Shortie our driver revving the engine. We knew straight away that he had Elephant all around him so we waited for about 10 minutes then carried on towards the Cruiser. When we got there the Elephants were still quite close so we got to some high ground to take video of them. After all that excitement we headed back to camp for dinner then some sleep.

Day 2 – Out of camp by 6:00am. The previous night Nicky and I had a chat and the decision was made to hunt a Waterbuck which was not originally on my list. After getting the ok we headed north to Bedford which is north of Turgwe camp to look for them. At the Bedford crossing which crosses the river we saw two bulls at the top of the far bank. We jumped out of the moving Cruiser and let it carry on town the track. There was not much cover form our side of the dry river bed to were the two bull were standing. We waited behind a bush for them to come down into the river bed to drink. It seemed to take forever but they both did after about twenty minutes. At this point Ringisai the tracker, Lymon PH, myself and Nicky proceeded to crawl in the sand towards them. Lymon stopped and asked me if a could take the shoot from where we were but I preferred to get a little closer. The wind was good we had some reeds for cover. We continued to crawl towards them then I tapped Lymon on the shoulder and said I can take the shot form here. At this point the Waterbuck were looking directly at us so we could not put the sticks up so I got in a sitting position and put the rifle on Lymons shoulder. He did ok this!! The chosen Waterbuck was facing. All I had was a frontal chest shot. I took the shot and he went straight down. Lymon shouted run. He was a little worried it might get up again and run off while we were doing all the handshakes. We ran towards the downed Waterbuck but we had to cross the river which Lymon found was a little deeper than expected. I was more careful and found a spot that was not as deep and turned around to find Ringisai carrying Nicky across. The shot went a little high but clipped the top of one of the lungs and a fragment of the bullet had deflected off a bone and was lodged in the windpipe. John Shortie said that he had never seen a Waterbuck go straight down from a shot before. We took pictures, loaded him and headed back to camp where Kiringa the skinner was waiting. The shot was at 11:15am.





After lunch we went out looking for Bushpig and Bushbuck. We were about an hour into a walk when we came across and Warthog feeding in an open area. He was broadside, leftside facing us and we could see this tusk had been broken off however he turned and when he did he had a HUGE right tusk so I took him. He ran maybe 15 yards and dropped in some thick stuff so it was a bit of a mission to get him out. I shot him at 4:30pm. That night Roger Whittall and his wife Anne came to camp for a drink. It was great to see Roger and Anne again after 5 years.




Day 3 - Off to the hills for a Klipspringer. We found a Male and Female on a rocky outcrop but they gave us the run around so we gave up and headed back in the direction of camp. On our way back we spotted a large group of Impala so we jumped off the Cruiser and tried to make a stalk on them. It was hard going as they had a troop of Baboons with them keep a sharp eye on us. After about half an hour we got into shooting position with the Impala looking straight at us so I took a frontal chest shot. He moved left as I took it but knew I had hit him as we could see blood on his side. We followed the trail and found him about 100 yards away. The bullet had entered down the side of his body excited and then entered into the back leg where it was found under the skin. The bullet had smashed his rib cage and must have punctured a lung so I was quite lucky. I shot him at 12:00. That was it for the morning we then headed back to camp for lunch.


After lunch we went out looking for Bushbuck and Bushpig again. They were proving quite hard to find. We went for a long walk in the afternoon and saw plenty of Bushbuck females and young males but no mature ones. We also were seeing lots and lots of Kudu cows and young males but no big males. That evening driving back to camp we bumped into four Kudu bulls, we jumped out and tried to make a stalk but we were loosing light rapidly so we gave up at went back to camp.

Day 4 - We were up and out of camp by 6:00am to go back to the same spot we had seen the Kudu bulls the night before. When we got to the general area we spotted another group of Kudu. There were about 4 females and one nice bull. As soon as they had seen the Cruiser they had run off so we jumped of the back and went after them, after about twenty minutes we found the bull alone in an open area it could not have been any better. The only problem was that he was walking directly away from us so I had no shot. Lymon whistled him and he stopped and turned very slightly with his body and then turned his neck so he was looking at us but I still had no shot because of the angle. I did not want to risk taking that shot so he ran off again and we were on his tracks, another fifteen minutes passed and he had re-joined the cows and they were in some thicker bush but he eventually presented me with a broadside shot. I could not see his neck or head or his back legs but I could see the engine room so I took the shot. He ran no more than 20 yards and he was down. I shot him at about 7:15am. After skinning him we found that the bullet had gone straight through his heart. Out of all the animal I wanted to hunt the Kudu was at the top of the list. They are such a majestic animal. I am having a shoulder mount done on him




We were back at camp by 8:30am so we had a brunch and headed back out to look for Bushpig. We brought along some fermenting Corn as we decided to try and bait the pigs and put a tree blind up ready for that night. We got up into the blind at 4:30pm and waited until 8:00pm nothing came in apart from a mongoose. We headed back to camp for a late dinner then bed.

Day 5- We headed for Bedford camp because on the other side there is a huge pan which you can usually see lots of Zebra and Wildebeest. Those of you who have stayed at Bedford camp will know which pan I am talking about. We found two Wildebeest fighting at the far end of the pan so we made a plan. We jumped out of the Cruiser, made sure the wind was right and we moved in. There were a herd of Zebra with them and they saw us and ran off but because the Wildebeest were so busy scrapping they did not notice. I took a broadside shot at the bigger one of the two, he ran off and we lost sight of him. We found the blood and followed and we found him about 70 yards away dead shot through both lungs. I shot him at about 11:20am. We then headed to Bedford camp to have a look around. It had changed a lot since 2005 it was a lot more basic back then. After looking round we head to our camp for lunch and as usual a rest




The plan for the afternoon was to go and look for Bushbuck and Bushpig. So we headed for the thick stuff this time Nicky did not come with us as we has just seen some Elephant and she was a little worried.

Instead she went with Ringisai to check another Bishpig bait. Not ten minutes after leaving the Cruiser we spotted two Bushbuck and they spotted us Lymon quickly put the stick up and told me to shoot the one on the right which I did. He was quartering away so I adjusted and took the shot he ran maybe 20 yards and went down. I took the shot at around 4:20pm. The Cruiser had gone to a different area so we had carry the Bushbuck back to the road where we hid it under a fallen tree. We then carried on hunting for Bushpig. We were very close to getting one but he was just a bit smarter than we were. So we headed to where we told the Cruiser to meet us. On the way back to collect the Bushbuck we played a little trick on Nicky. I told everyone not to tell her that we got the bushbuck. So what we did is drive close to where we left it and we told one of the trackers to tap the roof and say that he saw a kill under a tree which he did. So we all got out of the car including Nicky and walked towards the Bushbuck. Lymon then told Nicky that it was a very very fresh Leopard kill and that we should put up a blind to see if we could get some footage of it. Nicky couldn’t believe that we had found such a fresh kill and she was very excited to see the Leopard!!! We thought we had better tell her that it was me who shot it and not the Leopard killing it. At that point we all burst out laughing. After that we loaded him into the back and went back to camp.



Day 6 - We only had one more animal to get and two days to do it in but because we had not seen a Bushpig in five days we were all getting a bit worried. I had been on the sticks three different time in Chewore South and not pulled the trigger so after Kudu, Bushpig was the one I wanted the most. We decided to head to the boundary of Humani and Mokore which happens to be the Mokore River and do a walk to where the Mokore flows into the Turgwe. We were about half an hour into our walk when we saw what we think was Gary Duckworth’s Cruiser driving on the other side of the river on the Mokore side then about 10 minutes later we heard a shot then another one and another and another . We thought they might be shooting a Buffalo. Anyway we carried on and about fifteen minutes later Lymon spotted one Bushpig in the river, we waited a while and another two came into view. I knew straight away which one I wanted to take and that was the MADALA(old) one at the back. His whole face was completely white. He was not the biggest but what character he was old old!!! I waited for the one behind him to move then he moved and presented me with a broadside shot and as we were quite a bit above him I aimed a little bit higher because the bullet was going down and took the shot. At the shot he started to run towards the bank on the Mokore side, he made it half way up and then fell back down but didn’t reach the bottom. After that we sent John Shortie back to the Cruiser to radio Mokore camp to tell them that the pig had gone down on their land which is standard procedure. We went to collect the pig and Ringisai carried all the way up the bank on the Humani side and into the back of the Cruiser. These guys are strong it is amazing what they will carry and how far they will carry it. I took the shot at 7:45am.







When we got to the Cruiser we found out that the four shots we heard earlier were at a Waterbuck and it has also crossed but in the other direction from Mokore to Humani. As we were not far from Mokore camp we crossed the river and went to the big tree by their camp to take some pictures. The pictures don’t do it justice. The tree is out of the world it is huge.



We then headed back to Humani and camp for brunch. We had now hunted everything I wanted so we could relax. So in the afternoon we went to see the Hippo lady Karen Paolillo of the Turgwe Hippo Trust. The hippos were not there but elephants were. We took phbotos and decided to go back the following morning which was our last day.




Day 7 (Last day) - We were up and out of camp by 7:00am. We went to see the Hippos and this time they were there . Karen got us very close to the Hippos too close for my liking though. We got some great pictures and some video.







After going to see Karen we made a plan to go and see if we could track on of the Rhino on Humani. We found some fresh tracks of a White Rhino male on the road so we left Nicky in the car while Lymon and me went to see if he was close. We tracked him for about five minutes and as we came around a termite mound there he was fast asleep under a bush so we ran back to the Cruiser and got Nicky and the trackers who had been look for other tracks. We then went back to the same spot where we had left him and he was still there asleep. So we snuck up to within about 10 yards with the video camera rolling. Lymon the whistled and the bull got up at that point Lymon said if he comes just go behind the tree over there and he will run by. He didn’t come he just stood there looking at us for the best part of twenty minutes. We got some great pictures and video. After our encounter with the Rhino we went back to camp and packed most of our stuff ready for the morning.






Nicky was not feeling to well so she did not have anything to eat and went to bed so Lymon and I had dinner and a couple more drinks then everyone went to bed.

Day 8 (travel day)- We got up and packed everything and then went and had some breakfast. By this time Charlie had come to camp to have breakfast with us then he would drive us back to Harare. We said all our goodbyes to everyone and left camp at 8:00am. After about half an hour on the dirt road Lymon came on the radio asking us to check under the car as he had followed us for some distance and seen a lot of oil on the road. Sure enough a stone had put a hole in the back diff so we had to turn around and head to the workshop on Humani to get it fixed. We eventually got back on the road at 10:00am and arrived in Harare at around 5:00pm due to a couple of stops for fuel and food. We had some dinner with Sarah Whittall then we went to bed. We were up and off to the airport early as our flight was at 9:00am. We were back in the UK at 7:00pm and home by 10:30pm.


Conclusion - Humani is still full of game and I would not hesitate in recommending it to anyone who wants to hunt Plainsgame or Big game. We found the Kudu and Bushbuck difficult to find but they are there you just need to hunt on foot more which I love to do anyway. Turgwe camp was great and the food was amazing thank you to Ledmore for preparing such great food . His puddings were also out of the world. Ringisai and John Shortie were great trackers and would love to hunt with them again and also Kiringa is an amazing skinner. Lymon Chitimela is a great PH and if you like walking he is your man. Last but not least a big thank you to Adrienne, Charlie, Rae, Sarah and of course Roger and Anne for a great safari. We will be back.

Great trip! Thanks for sharing report & photos!

Great trip and good shooting. You should have banged that blue bull. Super animals.

Mike

Thank's for shareing! Nice trophy's!

Nils-Ole

Outstand time you had!

That is a great Waterbuck and a dang nice Kudu as well. YOu were not kiddign about character on your bushpid either.

Congrats.

great quality plains game. Was this one of the hunts Humani offered on here?

excellent trophys and sounds like you had a great time.

Thanks for sharing.

good stuff...congrats...love your kudu and bushpig...

Great Report Mike and Nicky! These reports are what get all of us through between hunts. We were at Mokore a year ago - Great Area to hunt.
Thanks!

Congratulations on great trophies. Thanks for the pictures and the excellent report.

Thats a great waterbuck, looks like a real nice safari and the good old 30-06 did it all without any fuss.

Arjun Reddy
www.huntersnetworks.com
New York

Beautiful area and great trophies!

Well done!

Thanks for sharing a great hunt. I particularly like that awesome kudu.

retreever
Eland is on my list for 2013.

505 gibbs
I booked this hunt with Adrienne who works for Roger Whittall.

I will be posting some more photos during the next few days.

Thank you everyone for your great comments.

Mike

Congratulations Mike

Very nice Trophies!

Lots of really nice quality trophies, that waterbuck is a toad!

quote:

Originally posted by Aspen Hill Adventures:
Lots of really nice quality trophies, that waterbuck is a toad!

??I thought toads were toads??

Well done Mike

Cheers Rob

The Waterbuck is a TOAD. Impala is not bad at all. I would kill for a Bushpig.

Jeff

Mike,

Great trophies and great post.

Did you really fly Air Zimbabwe???

Great waterbuck!
And the rest are really fine trophies as well.
Stalking bushbuck is something special, crafty little fellas.
Thanks for sharing pictures and report.

Hi Adrian

We did fly Air Zim. There were no problems at all. The food was great and both flights were on time. I will fly with them again next time we go.

Mike

First class and some great trophies. The Waterbuck is a horse. Well done RWS.

What a Waterbuck! Great bushpig, bushbuck, kudu, etc. etc. as well! Congrats!

Great report Mike! That waterbuck is huge and I love your choice on the bushpig.

That is one hell of a waterbuck.

Very nice hunt and report. You got some great trophies specially the Waterbuck & Kudu, congratulations.

Humani and RWS deliver yet again! Well done Mike, some great trophies and sounds like a good time was had by all. Looks like John Shortie is packing on a few extra pounds these days...Too much laid back hunting time and not enough anti-poaching!

I love the bushpig

Great report and very nice trophies indeed. Nice to see a pic of the chalet, stayed in that very one in the late 80's while bowhunting with Roger.

Larry Sellers
SCI Life Member

That is a HUGE Waterbuck!! Beautiful....