I have been wanting for some time to go back to Botswana and at the last moment contacted Dries Visser Safaris at website:

http://www.dvisser-safaris.co.za/Modules_FE/Layout1/default.htm.

They and some partners own a property that borders the Central Kalahari Game Reserve for approximately 43 miles.

The name of the property is Kalahari Wilderness Safaries. It is about 55,000 hectares.

The place is literally crawling with lions and leopards. My wife Irene went along and greatly enjoyed the trip. Our PH was the expert cat PH Dries Visser sr.



Although we were not hunting lions we did chase them a bit with the help of the two bushman trackers Lucky and My Lucky. We came upon one pride with a big black maned male and 3 females - one of which was very pregnant.

Lions traveled from the park through the property we were hunting to a cattle ranch behind. In 10 days they killed 21 cattle.

Here is a typical view in the hunting area



I took the two "ugly sisters" in 375 and 300 WM - both by John Ricks - the ugly was my fault, but accurate and reliable was Johns contribution. In the 375 I used 300 grain Swift A frames. In the 300 wm I used 180 grain Northforks.



On five baits we had five leopards. Here is the bait in the Purple Pod Terminilia tree that we finally set up on.



With the help of the Cuddeback trail camera we selected a leopard. This is a picture of the evening he discovered the bait.



The next day he literally lay around the tree guarding his meat - something Dries thought was unusual. He said they usually hide up in the bush nearby but not directly under the tree.



He moved several times during the day to stay in the shadow of the tree. This is one of a series of pictures the Cuddeback No Flash took.



Dries said he was as big as they come. We did not weigh or measure him. This is the picture as we were unloading him at camp.



This is the shooting rest that was in the blind. The blind has been removed in this picture. The forked pole was for the front rest and the back pole was for my elbow. This was a surprisingly solid rest. The distance to the bait was 55 yds.
The shot hit the heart and a shoulder. The cat went about 4 yards which was the distance from the limb to the ground.



The Puff Adders were in a breeding mode while we were there. I suppose these two died happy. You can see how hard they would be to see when under the grass - something I had in mind as Dries and I did our 100 yard low crawl thru the grass for a Gemsbok.



I also had a narrow brush with a cape cobra due to a slow witted move on my part. I thought I was looking at a little frog in the grass and reached down with a 10 inch stick to make it hop. I was actually looking at the nose and eyes of a cobra which was about half out of a rodent hole and under some grass. Half way bent down it dawned on me that there may not be any frogs in the desert. That was the time the cobra spread its hood and I made my quickest ever retreat.

The lodge was just great. This is the waterhole about 30 yards in front of our brick chalet. I set up the trail camera and captured these young Kudu just at sunset.



I saw a lot of very big Kudu on this property. They move freely between the Game Reserve and the hunting area. I did shoot a male Gemsbok to go with the female I have.



Many thanks to Dries and all the staff. Irene and I had a great time. Also thanks to Irene who loves Africa even more than I.

Allen,
Sounds like a great trip! Congratulations on an excelent leopard. How about a little more information on the trail camera, like model, if if you could view the images in the filed, ease of use etc? Wanna sell it?

Thank you for posting your excellent pictures. I especially enjoyed your cuddleback pictures of the Leopard guarding his dinner. Beautiful Leopard! Congratulations!

Good show. Thanks for the report and photos.

Kyler

Beautiful!

Way to go Allen! What a Gemsbok and super nice Leopard. Glad you two had such a nice trip. Those cameras appear to be the ticket for very useful information gathering.

John

Great report and great pictures, thanks a lot for sharing them with us.
L

Thanks everyone.

The camera I used was the Cuddeback No Flash which uses an infrared light that the animal cannot detect instead of a flashing white light. I purchased it through Bass Pro Shops. I think it was about $455 plus shipping.

Sorry SBT, I don't want to sell it because my son programed it for me with password protection etc.

I like the No Flash function because it does not seem to make the animal aware of the picture being taken.

The Cuddeback uses a compact flash card that will hold up to three or four hundred pictures -depending upon the card you buy.

I set the camera to only take a picture once every 5 minutes. If you do not set it for about that time you get dozens of pictures of birds, porcupines and hyena that you have to page through.

I also bought a Leaf River card viewer since the Cuddeback does not have a built in viewer. Thus I took the card viewer to the field and checked the cards in the cameras with it, deleted any pictures I did not want and left the camera in position.

You could also carry a laptop to the field to do the same thing and not buy the card viewer. If I had it to do over that is probably what I would do because the card viewer is about $150.

We used two cameras on this hunt (only one card viewer) but I could easily make the case for another one just to use for fun pictures. It could be set up at a waterhole or along a road just to see what it catches.

Obviously on a leopard hunt you want to know not only what size and sex of leopard is hitting the bait but also what time the leopard is coming in. The camera has a time and date function that gives you that information.

Dries used to use a string attached to the battery in a watch so if the string is moved it pulls the battery out of the watch and stops the time when the leopard is in the tree (this only works once). Then he would estimate the size of the animal by tracks and scratches in the bark. He now likes the camera better because it gives more information.

Congratulations on a successful hunt. Thanks for the report.

Thanks for the report and pictures -- looks like a great trip.

That Cobra remark gave me the heebie jeebies!

Very, very nice. I enjoyed reading your report.

Wow

You had a great hunt! Did Dries have an lion on quota?

Spent a nice week in his camp a few months back-

Watch out for those snakes!

How many days did yo sit in the blind before you got your nice Tom?

404WJJeffery,

Dries did not have a lion on quota while I was there but was expecting one or more for next year.

Someone is going to kill a fantastic black mane wild lion on this property. There were many, many big male tracks on this property and as I mentioned, we seen one big black mane while chasing them for the fun of it.

Although I have paid my dues on other leopard hunts with many unsuccessful sittings, I shot the leopard the first time we went into the blind on this trip.

Dries pretty well had him figured. That man lives and breathes cat hunting.

Nice trophies Palmer!

Thanks for the report. don't care for the snakes tho' have had enough of them this last year!
SFC E7

quote:

I set the camera to only take a picture once every 5 minutes. If you do not set it for about that time you get dozens of pictures of birds, porcupines and hyena that you have to page through.

I set my camera for a 30 second delay. A lot can happen in 5 minutes that you don't want to miss!

If you are using a digital camera, pictures are essentially free (Except for the marginal cost of battery power to take the picture). If $10 worth of battery will take 3000 photos your cost is $0.003 per picture. Less than 1/3 of one cent!

My camera will get about this number of photos per battery change. (I am working on a rechargable battery with solar panel to minimize cost. I have one that runs this way, still converting the others ... )

Say a porcupine, Hyena, Honey Badger ... whatever ... comes by and trips the camera. One or two minutes later a Leopard or Lion comes in .... it will not take the picture for another 3 minutes. In that amount of time a Honey Badger or Hyena or different Lion/Leopard can come in and scare this one away? What if the first Lion does not eat? What if Something spooks the Lion and he runs away? You will not get the photo of that Lion.

In a half hour feeding, (on a 5 minute delay)you would get 6 photos of whatever was feeding. They will not all be good photos. With a 30 second delay, you would get 60 pictures. I would rather have 60 photos to sort through to better determine trophy quality? I certainly would.

There are tons of "what if's".

Buy a huge flash card (128 MB) Set your camera for 30 second delay, you will not regret it! You may have to sort through a ton of photos, but I guarantee, you will not regret it in the end.

Good thought Wendell. I am going to change mine to a 30 sec. delay.

Allen,

Great report on the trip and excellent idea with the game camera!!

Thanks for posting.

Phil

Wonderful, just wonderful... thank you for sharing your great success. Beautiful leopard, and the pictures... Oh my.

Puffadder's are one of the few species that phyiscally compete between males, depending on time of year you were there, these were likey 2 males competeing. Although one seems smaller (typical of males) and one larger (typical of females), so perhaps mating....

Males will wind around each other and 'wrestle' and 'neck' while puffing....as a form of sexual competition...

Cheers

That's really nice leopard! Congratulations!

Pete

Nice trophy tom! I love the pictures of the old boy guarding his bait... the Cuddeback seemed to do a great job on this hunt. Dries is a nice guy... some of my hunting buddies hunted Zambia with him before the closure a few years back and took excellent lions and leopards with him! No doubt he knows his cats!
Congratulations again.

Palmer,

Great pics and a toad of a leopard. Congrats! You wife looks like she's having a great time also.

Mark

Palmer,
Great story and beautiful cat! Looks like the one I took in Zim this year. About 130lbs, you think?

Mark,
Thanks, yes Irene had a fabulous time and can't wait to go back.

Wolfgar,
Thank you also. I did not weigh the cat. I just know I would not have wanted him on me if he was alive.