Hunters: Chris Peccia and Robert Peccia
Observer: Didi Peccia
Operator: Zambezi Hunters
Alistair Pole – alistairpole@gmail.com
PH: Thierry Labat
Hunt Area: Zimbabwe – Save Conservancy – Sango Concession
Accomodations: Ingwe Lodge – managed by Lindsay and Nevin Leesmay and an amazing staff.
Tracker: Mudini
Driver: Ishmael
Game Scout: Charles
Dates: Arrival in Camp June 21, 2012
Hunting June 22-July 6, 2012
Depart Camp July 7, 2012
Travel and Gun Permits: Gracy Travel – Shawn Kennedy – shawn@gracytravel.com
Airlines: Delta from HLN-SLC-ATL -JNB.
Overnight at City Lodge in JNB on trip over, straight through JNB on return.
South African Airlines from JNB-HRE
Cessna charter into Sango
Rifles: Winchester Model 70’s in .416 Remington and .375 H&H both topped with Leupold scopes
Sako A-7 .300 WSM with a Burris Big X Illuminated Scope
Ammo: Federal Swift A-Frames and Barnes Banded Solids for both .416 and .375 H&H
Winchester XP-3’s for the .300 WSM
Optics: My Father and I both used Swarovski 10x42 SLC, wife used 8x35 Leupold

Animals Hunted: buffalo, leopard, kudu, bushbuck, bushpig, waterbuck, sable, impala, zebra, warthog, eland, spotted hyena and blue wildebeest

Animals taken: buffalo, leopard, kudu, bushbuck, sable, impala (2 for me, 1 for my Dad), zebra (2), warthog (1 for me and 1 for my Dad), eland, spotted hyena, and blue wildebeest (my Dad loved hunting these and shot two great bulls).

This adventure began in 2009 shortly after returning from a plains game hunt to Namibia. I was home about 8 hours before I began researching a dangerous game hunt to Zimbabwe, Mozambique or Tanzania. As anyone knows, there are a multitude of options, operators and locations that are possibilities and it was a confusing sea of information that I was attempting to navigate.

About this time, I discovered the great resource that is AR and began using it and its members and hunt reports to the fullest. I found Safari Lawyer’s June 2009 hunt report particularly intriguing and sent him a message asking for advice on planning a trip to Zimbabwe. He highly recommended Zambezi Hunters and Thierry Labat in particular. I traveled to the Dallas Safari Club Show in January of 2010 to meet with ZH and visit with Will and his wife Betsy. As many of you know, Will is one hell of a poster-child for ZH and after hunting with them, I can see why.

After spending a few days with some fine folks in Dallas, I walked out of the show after booking a 15 day leopard-buffalo hunt for June/July of 2012 with plans to take my Father and wife along with me.

During the two years after booking the hunt, I met several other happy ZH clients and I would be remiss if I did not mention and publically thank Larry Shores who provided additional information as well as sending me DVD’s of his hunts with ZH that I found immensely informative and enjoyable.

Obviously, I am in no way an expert on Africa but I spend about 75 days afield hunting in Montana and other Western States and feel I have experience at deciding what is a quality hunting experience and what is not.

Most of my hunting is solo, hunting with my Father or “guiding” my two daughters on their hunting trips. My guided trips have been few but they include hunting Kodiak Island for brown bears (3 trips) and Dall sheep hunting in Alaska’s Wrangell Mountains as well as ibex and oryx hunting trips to New Mexico.

This was the best hunting adventure I’ve ever had and it’s not even close.

I’m not the writer that some here on AR obviously are (Safari Lawyer and Bill C are two that I really enjoy, among others) so I won’t bore you with a day by day account but thought I would summarize a couple of the hunt highlights and let the pictures do the talking.

The adventure began by having the pleasure of arriving in camp with Will Parks and his wife Betsy still in camp. We had the great pleasure of spending an evening of drinking sundowners, enjoying a fantastic dinner and hearing the first-hand account of the amazing 21 day hunt chronicled in Will’s recently filed hunting report. Will and Thierry make a deadly team and I was hoping I could maintain their impressive success rate.



Leopard Hunt

Anyone who has hunted leopard knows (I’m an expert now, I hunted one!) it can be a time consuming affair of shooting bait, hanging bait, checking baits and trail cameras and hopefully constructing a blind and the initial eight days of the safari focused on this primary goal with a little early morning and late afternoon hunting mixed in.

Safari Lawyer and Thierry already had a couple baits hanging for me when I arrived so we hit the road running the first morning looking for a nice zebra stallion for a rug and the quarters for bait. We were able to find a great zebra about 11 a.m. and we were in business with additional bait.




We checked the trail cameras and had a couple hits with some female leopards and young toms but nothing that was of shooting interest. Seeing the trail camera photos really got the heart beating and ratcheted up the intensity as I think I finally realized I was actually hunting leopard.

The next couple days found us doing brief hunts in the morning and late afternoon and checking baits and cameras during the day while securing another nice zebra stallion and a couple of impala for bait to keep the kitties fat and happy.





We had a couple nice male leopards show up on the cameras the morning of day four including three very shoot-able males. One in particular piqued my interest and we decided to build a blind and sit for him on the night of day 4.

Thierry is meticulous when it comes to picking a blind site and constructing/clearing shooting lanes and it clearly pays off with his incredibly high success rate (31 for 35 on leopards as I write this, he just killed another one in the last day or so). You could just see how focused he was and I did what I could to help he, Mudini, Charles and Ishmael expedite the process.

We got to the blind that evening about 4 pm and read a few hunting magazines until it got too dark to see and then began the wait in earnest. At about 9 pm we could hear a couple leopards grunting in the distance and they appeared to be getting closer.

At 9:30 we heard a civet's frantic chatter as it ran away from the bait through the mopane leaves and then could hear the unmistakable sound of a leopard on bait tearing flesh and cracking ribs. After less than a minute, seemingly not enough time for the cat to get relaxed, the lip-smacking stopped.

After ten minutes it resumed and shortly thereafter Thierry gave me the sign he was going to turn on the light and to be ready. My heart raced from my normal 52 beats per minute to about 150.

Light on! Damn, female. This went on for about an hour. The entire time the male kept up a constant growling around the perimeter of the bait but would not get in the tree, clearly sensing something was amiss. At one point both leopards moved toward us and circled our blind. We could hear the cats breathing mere feet away from the blind as we both tried to remain silent and barely breathe.

About this time the excitement increased as we could hear a similar purring sound but in a different spot then the two leopards location. The next thing we hear high above our heads is the branches breaking. “Oh Crap, leopards don’t eat trees last time I checked!”

During the leopard chaos a large herd of elephants had come in close proximity of our blind (a next day measured 13 yards away). Thierry calmly and silently unzipped the blind window and stuck his head out and then looked at me and mouthed “elephant, hand me my rifle”. As I frantically patted around the blind attempting to locate his .458 Lott, he clicked on the flashlight, shined it at the elephants and they thankfully moved away.

We spent a few more hours in the blind with the female once again jumping on the bait tree but no sign of the male so we called it quits about 3 a.m. figuring the gig was up.

The next day we checked the trail camera and the first cat that jumped on the tree was the big male we were targeting. He clearly didn’t feel safe and jumped off within the first minute and never returned to the bait. Smart cats those leopards are.

Thierry made the decision to move the bait site several hundred yards from where we sat in the blind with hopes that the new bait site would give the big male some comfort as it was placed in a more secure, remote area.

The next couple days were spent checking baits hoping the big male would return with no luck. We did have two other great cats hitting the other baits but my heart was set on the one we sat for so I decided to gamble and hope he showed up soon instead of sitting for one of the other cats.

Finally on the morning of Day 7 the big male showed up on the trail camera. We were back in business.

After experiencing the elephant excitement, Thierry decided to build an elevated blind using scaffolding to get us off the ground. I didn’t complain.





We constructed the blind and cleared the shooting lane to the bait tree and left the area with plans to sit that night.

Again, we were in the blind at 4 p.m. and began the long sit. The previous night the big male had shown about 9:30 so we had high hopes as the clock hit 9 p.m. About 9:30, we could see movement (the moon was almost full at this point in the hunt) at the bait and hear flesh tearing. I just knew it had to be him this time.

Get ready to shoot, turn the light on and…..what the hell, it’s a young male lion on the bait! We spent the next hour turning the light on to chase him away only to have him return within minutes. Bite by bite he was devouring our precious bait and keeping our quarry away.

Thierry then leaned over and whispered that we needed to let the lion eat his fill and hopefully he would leave enough scraps to interest a leopard and then leave. After several hours, there were no sounds at the bait and the lion appeared gone.

At this time it was about 1:30 a.m. and within 15-20 minutes we could hear something feeding on the tree again. Ok, it was to be him this time. Light on, heart pumping hard, female. Rats!

She stuck around for a few minutes only to be chased off by the returning lion. Ok, it was super cool the have a young male lion on the bait for the first few hours but now it was getting a little annoying. After about ten minutes all was quiet and remained so for about an hour.

At 3 a.m. we could hear a deep guttural leopard grunt in the distance appearing to be heading our way. At 3:25 we heard feeding on the bait. At 3:29, Thierry gave me the sign and turned on the light.

Immediately the size difference in the leopard was apparent and I could clearly see it was a male. As Thierry studied the cat to make sure it was THE cat, I stupidly whispered, “It’s him!” Thankfully he was busy feeding and didn’t hear me and Thierry gave me the shoot sign.

I was rock steady and the shot felt great. The cat leaped out of the tree and ran to our hard right with Thierry following him with the light until he ran out of sight, growling and snarling the whole time. Within seconds we could hear a gurgling sound and then silence.

We called the guys with the Cruiser and began the dicey descent (dicey for me anyway as my knees were shaking like heck) down the ladder to terra firma and the slow walk to the bait tree to search for blood. The guys arrived with the Cruiser and we spread out and began searching. After about 15 minutes (LONG minutes) Thierry announced “there he is” and we all gathered to admire the impressive leopard.









We took a ton of photos and then loaded the cat, drank a few celebratory Zambezi’s on the way to the lodge and woke up my Dad and wife to show them the leopard.



After some additional picture taking, Ishmael was dispatched with the cat to the skinning shed and we ate big breakfast and hit the hay about 6:30 a.m. with mission accomplished and a leopard in the salt.

Buffalo Hunt

With the leopard hunt complete, the focus turned to buffalo. We had hunted buffalo a few times over the preceding days and had a couple close encounters with buffalo but no shoot-able bulls in a couple big herds we’d followed. Getting up close and bow range of buffalo was a life-long dream come true as I’d been dreaming of hunting buffalo for over 30 years and I was loving every minute of it.

On the morning after the leopard hunt we’d followed a big herd and circled in front of them and had them feed right into us, along with a rhino and its youngster. The panicky look on Mudini and the game scout’s faces were unforgettable as the rhinos passed very close by.

Although no hard-bossed bulls were seen it was a grand success.

About this time Ian Rutledge, another ZH PH had radioed and mentioned he just seen a herd of buffalo leaving the safety of the Save River headed toward the savannah. Thierry asked me if I wanted to go harass some more buffalo and I answered with a “hell yeah!”

We picked up the tracks near the river and followed them for a mile or so when suddenly Mudini motioned that he could see them. Thierry and I dropped low to the ground and moved up behind a tree. As I stayed out of sight, Thierry studied the buffalo and turned with a sly grin and said, “there’s your buffalo”.

I peaked around Thierry and could see a buffalo that clearly stood out from the others as much larger in size and possessing BIG bosses and a nice drop and curl. Problem was they were still 250-300 yards away and a lot of open ground between us with minimal cover.

Thierry asked me if I was ready to crawl and I nodded affirmatively. Belly crawling is right up my alley as most of my Montana hunting is spot and stalk so I spend about three months of my year removing cactus and other thorns from various body parts so I was all for it.

We slowly closed the distance. 250…..200……150…..120. Now we were out of cover and not getting any closer.

Thierry set his shooting sticks low to the ground and had me slide around him and raise to a sitting position. Elbows rested on my knees, rifle fore-end rock steady on the sticks, life is good. Thierry asked how it felt, I replied great. We discussed the buffalo’s positioning and Thierry instructed me to shoot him just under the horn curl as he was quartered hard to us. Dialed in, let out some breath, squeeze, BOOM! Bull bucks and runs off with the rest of herd in cloud of dust. I tell Thierry shot felt great.

Walk up to where bull was standing, no blood. WTH? Walk another 15 yards and there is the bull stone dead, shot just in front of the point of the shoulder taking out top of aorta and lungs. Quick, clean, efficient kill, just like a hunter always wants it and we are all pleased and relieved.












I am in heaven as it was a dream come true and I can barely stop admiring the buffalo to take pictures.

Pressure is off, main objectives are crossed off the list on Day 9 and 6 days left to hunt. It’s all gravy now!

Eland

Seeing as how I’ve probably bored you to death by now, I’ll try to keep this short and sweet. We hunted eland hard for the next four days, chasing numerous herds that had young bulls but nothing great. This is a GREAT area for eland, but we were struggling to find one. On the afternoon of Day 3 of hunting eland, I remarked to Thierry that our hard work would be repaid. Well, on Day 4 of eland hunting it was when we tracked and shot a 41 ¾” bull, Thierry’s second biggest ever and another highlight to an already amazing hunt. Can it get any better? Yep, it can and it did.







Spotted Hyena

I knew hyenas were a tough, cagey animal to hunt but hadn’t put much thought into actually hunting them. It was during one of the early eland hunts that Thierry casually asked me if I wanted to try for a hyena as one was still available on quota. At this point, the leopard and buffalo were in the salt so I said what the heck, I wanted to do it all but figured chances of success were low. Thierry decided to sit on the night of the full moon so we could see as well as possible as hyenas won’t stand for a spotlight. We had a torso of a zebra that we had to put down so we did a couple long drags to the bait site and constructed a blind about 105 yards from the bait. We let the area calm down for several hours and then returned to the blind and began our sit at about 6 pm.

We had a civet come in about 9 or so and then all was quiet for an hour or so.

We heard a lion calling and Thierry remarked, “he found the drag”. Sure enough, about an hour later a nice young, up and coming lion strolls into the moonlight lit clearing and begins demolishing our bait. Only this time, it might help us out and hyenas often follow lions and clean up the scraps (I’m a hyena expert now too!).

After about an hour of watching the lion feed, Thierry turns and mouths “hyena” and points out to his left. Finally I locate the hyena standing in the distance but no shot opportunity. The hyena would disappear and then we’d locate him again but never presented a shot. After awhile, the hyena makes a few “howls” or whatever hyenas do and we hear answering in the distance. Hmmm….this is getting interesting now.

Within ten minutes all hell is breaking loose with hyenas calling from all sides. Thierry leans over and says, “they are going to rush the lion” and within minutes we can see five or six hyenas circling the lion and the bait. The lion is getting highly agitated, I’m trying to find a hyena to shoot as all hell is breaking loose. It was turning into a battle royale right in front of our eyes. A hyena would dart in, the lion would chase it off, and a different hyena would grab a piece of bait, the lion would rush back and chase it off and repeat. It was an unbelievable thing to watch transpire.

Finally, one of the hyenas stops and stands still and I make sure he’s not in line of fire with the lion (that would be hard to explain, right?) and I squeeze the trigger on the .300 WSM. Boom! Hyena spins in a circle for about 10 seconds and drops. Lion rushes over to dead hyena and bats it around with its paw probably thinking he scared it to death.

The lions and hyenas do not react to the shot at all. They continue their antics right in front of us. If there was more than one hyena on quota we could have easily shot three or more but we just sat back and enjoyed the spectacle. After several minutes, Thierry called in the guys and they drove up at about 1:30 a.m. and we exited the blind with the lion and hyenas making a hasty exit once the vehicle got close.

We all get to the hyena at about the same time. There are muffled laughs from the guys and Thierry as they look at the hyena.

Full disclosure here: The hyena was a young male (not a pup mind you but probably not far off) and not much for the size department. They got a great deal of enjoyment at my expense over the next few days.






In my defense, Thierry told me to shoot the first one that stood still and I did. Probably should have been slightly more selective perhaps, but you try doing it in the moonlight with the chaotic scene in front of you.

No matter the size, we were all very happy and I can proudly claim I shot the second biggest hyena ever shot on Sango. No one needs to know only TWO have ever been shot. We can’t all shoot big stuff all the time, right?

This was a great night in the blind and I had a helluva lot of fun so I’m deeming it a success! The hyena will make a neat rug and the skull was pretty cool.

Well that’s about a wrap for this hunt right? Nope…

Sable

I think the sable is one of the most beautiful of all African animals and was definitely on my bucket list of animals. I figured I’d be going to Zambia one day as I really, really wanted one. I knew ZH had a couple on quota and had been relentless bugging Alistair Pole about them but he kept telling me they were all spoken for and it wasn’t going to happen.

Fast forward to arriving in camp and chatting with Will Parks and Thierry when Will casually mentioned that there was a sable still available. Say what? My jaw about hit the floor.

Will and Thierry quickly tempered my enthusiasm and explained that finding a lone bull with no cows was unlikely, although Thierry had recently seen one on a previous hunt.

With the focus on leopard and buffalo, I didn’t give it a whole lot of thought although we did cross paths with sable twice during the first ten days or so but they were bulls with cows both times. Seeing them was incredible and it was neat to just see them. Or so I thought.

The last couple days of the hunt were nice and relaxed and I was just enjoying the hunting with no real pressure to shoot anything and just have fun spending time with my wife and Dad and Thierry and the guys and the staff at the lodge.

On the last day we took a couple nice long walks looking for a monster waterbuck but didn’t see anything that was outstanding so we passed.

At about noon, Thierry suggested we head to an area where we’d always seen fresh sable tracks but hadn’t actually seen a sable there.

We got off the truck and began a nice walk through an area that had some nice cool shady areas and spotted a nice bushbuck. We spent 45 minutes or so trying to get my Dad a shot at it when it finally had enough and took off before presenting an acceptable shot. What a fortuitous turn of luck that turned out to be…

Not five minutes after seeing the bushbuck disappear we crested a slight rise overlooking an open flat. Thierry hissed, “Sable!” and quickly glassed him to insure it was a lone bull.

The sable was about 500 yards away and no means of approach. Thierry instructed me to switch my .416 for the “long range gun”, the .300 WSM and we began a long mad dash to get in position to shoot. After jogging a half mile or so to get out of sight of the sable and in a stalk-able position, we gathered our breath and eased in to where we could see where the sable originally was.

There he was, about 150 yards away but walking directly away from us and about to walk out of my life forever. After about 50 yards Thierry began whistling, hoping to get him to turn. Just when it looked like it wasn’t going to happen he turned broadside and looked back. Ca-boom! The sable hunched up and crow-hopped about 50 yards and was down for the count.

Thierry and I looked at each other in disbelief then exchanged an adrenaline pumped high five. What a finish to an unbelievable hunt.






A sable at noon on the last day, could it get any better?

I don’t know, I chose to sit out the last afternoon of the last day of hunting and drink beer with Thierry, my wife and my Dad and enjoyed a beautiful sunset and great dinner with Thierry, the Leesmay’s and the new hunters in camp, the Shrieve’s.

As I re-read this, I have to apologize for the excessive narrative, it kind of got away from me so I hope I didn’t bore you folks to death.

We had many other amazing adventures that are too numerous to mention so I’ll attach a few pictures and leave you with some final thoughts.

Thierry Labat

All of you who have read Will Parks’ reports know how highly he thinks of him. I can’t emphasize enough how impressed I was with Thierry and how likeable a guy he is.

My wife and Dad accompanied me on almost every hunt and that is not easy for a PH. One hunter is tough enough to keep quiet, let alone three, but he never complained once and understood it was important to me to have them share the experiences with me to the fullest extent possible.

I like to think I’m an “above average” hunter. Not to toot my own horn, but I typically can spot game better than most of the people I hunt with and like to think I keep myself in decent condition. It was quite the humbling experience to be dropped to amateur status by someone 9 years my junior. Thierry is all-hunter all the time and I enjoyed the hell out of hunting with him and will hunt with him again someday soon.

As my wife remarked, Thierry was like pouring gas on my fire. I get extremely focused on my hunting and can think about little else. Thierry is the same way, only much better at it. He works extremely hard for his clients and has an uncanny ability to put you in position to succeed.

My only hesitation in bestowing too much praise on the guy is it is likely to compromise my future booking ability with him as he is going to be in high demand. If you want a leopard, Thierry is THE MAN.

I simply cannot imagine how he could improve much but then you realize he is only 33 and is only going to get better which is mind-boggling. If you get a chance to hunt with this guy, do it, you will not regret it. I would put my money on Thierry over any PH out there and feel VERY good about my chances.

Just know this: By Day 10 of my hunt, I was trying to arrange another buffalo / leopard hunt with Thierry for 2014. I was successful on the buffalo part, still waiting on the leopard end of things.

Thierry pictured with Will Parks' and my leopard skulls.



Zambezi Hunters

They run a fantastic operation. Things were planned out perfectly. I have zero complaints or recommendations about how they could improve.

Alistair was extremely responsive to me and is a great guy to deal with. I would recommend these guys without hesitation.

The Leesmay’s

We had many great evenings visiting with and getting to know Nevin and Lindsay. My wife and Lindsay formed a real connection and tears were shed from both when we departed.

I loved listening to Nevin’s stories about some of his PH’ing adventures. He is a soft-spoken gentleman but when he talks, you’re going to learn something and I really enjoyed the company of both of these fantastic people who took tremendous care of us.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped plan this adventure and provide invaluable advice (Will Parks, Larry Shores) and thanks to my lovely wife for understanding and accepting my passion for hunting and my Dad for doing so much for me. It was my pleasure to take you to Africa to attempt to repay a small bit of what you’ve done for me.

I’ll add additional pictures to this report in the next few days when I get some time.

Thanks for reading!

Slap Chops:

Let me be the first to say well done, congratulations, and welcome home. It was a pleasure sharing camp for a night with you, your lovely wife, and your father. Hope to do it again soon.

And, now that Ive read the report, let me say that this has to be one of the most successful 15 day hunts that I can recall in recent times. Very well done in all respects.

Now THAT's the kind of Eland I'd like to take.

I guess I'll be the second to say congratulations. Looks like you had a hell of a hunt. I'm Jealous!

Man alive you guys are making this last month before I go REAL hard on me!!!!!! What an amzing hunt with some geat animals. I am jelous as can be lol
Great hunt report and congrats to your success!!!
Man am I itchin to go now. Even got most of my bags packed already and it is a month away. hahaha

Great post. Well written. Would love to see more pics and hear more about each trophy.

Great hunt. Great trophies and great report. Read every word. Congratulations on all counts.

Those are some beautiful animals there! The leopard, eland and sable are fantastic and that hard headed old buff is a beaut.

Thanks for posting the report.

Awesome, awesome, awesome - congratulations!

Wow, incredible safari, congrats.

Nice!

Well, I was proud of my 2 eland till I saw yours.
Congratulations on an excellent safari & your report was 1st rate!
54 weeks & I'll be back in the Save with Tha Legend. Not that I'm keeping up with it or anything.

Not even close to boring. Great tale!
Congratulations on a very successful hunt.

wow - the eland is amazing as is the buffalo, leopard and everything else

i need to get back to the save soon

Congrats! And great report with wonderful game hunted and taken. That part of the world will take a piece out of you and requires a return.

Many Thanks

HBH

Excellent report. I enjoyed all the narrative. Looking forward to hearing about your Dad's animals.
JCHB

Fantastic hunt and report, congratulations hove ine maziso mana (Fish with 4 eyes)!

David

quote:

Originally posted by LittleJoe:
Great post. Well written. Would love to see more pics and hear more about each trophy.

Will try to add some more pics tomorrow and some additional info.

Wow, what a hunt! Congrats. Some excellent critters taken. That eland, OMG!!!!

Sango is a special place. Zambezi Hunters is a fantastic company. I can't wait for September 29 to get here.

I am incredibly happy for you and your family.

Awesome hunt & trophies. Thanks for sharing.

Very nice!! Congrats on the great hunt.

A very nice hunt. Congrats!

Awesome buddy!!!!!

Horse of an eland!! And an excellent chui. Congrats all around.

Wow- you had an absolutely wonderful safari- congrats! Beautiful trophies...

Congratulations... fantastic hunt report.
Thanks for sharing it with us.

Great looking trophies !!!

What an amazing trip.

That Eland almost looks like a small Lord Derby !

[QUOTE]Originally posted by nube:
Man alive you guys are making this last month before I go REAL hard on me!!!!!! What an amzing hunt with some geat animals. I am jelous as can be lol
Great hunt report and congrats to your success!!!

X2
Im practicly useless, 28 days and counting

Thierry is proving to be consistently brilliant in his hunting. Bloody well done all round.

Thanks for all the kinds words.

I notice a few things I omitted and I also added a few pictures to the end of the original post.

Mudini was one heck of a tracker and hard worker. He worked his butt off and always jumped in first to do the hard work and set the tone for the other guys. He was also a really nice guy and I enjoyed his smiles and firm handshakes after success.

Ishmael did a great job driving and always greeted us with a smile and helping hand when we met the vehicle.

Charles did much more than his game scout duties and worked hard doing what needed to be done and was definitely an asset to the team.

Obviously these guys respect Thierry and work very hard for him and he treats them well in return. They all made a good team that contributed a lot to our success.

One question I've been asked a lot was "Wow, you guys must have shot a lot to get all those animals!"

Not really.

Thierry does a great job of putting you in position to succeed. If you can handle and shoot your firearm reasonably well, you will succeed.

We had one shot kills on the buffalo, leopard, eland, both zebras, all three impalas, the bushbuck, one warthog, and hyena.

Two shots were required for the kudu, one of the wildebeest, one of the warthogs, and the sable (although the second shot was unnecessary).

There were no misses.

My only slight flub was on the kudu which was a close range running shot that I hit slightly high and a few inches too far back and I spined him requiring a follow up shot to the chest to anchor him completely.

My intention is not to brag about our shooting prowess because neither me nor my Dad claim to be any sort of expert marksman but to emphasize the fact that Thierry puts you in an outstanding position to make clean, efficient, close range killing shots.

I was never pressured to take any shot I felt uncomfortable with and the kudu shot was my choice to take and it was either shoot or not get a chance. It was about a 50 yard shot that I felt good about but didn't execute perfectly. It worked out fine in the end but could have been a real mess. That is part of hunting as everyone knows and fortunately I lucked out.

All of your trophies are first rate!! Congratulations.
Your report had me right there with you in the blind......Thanks

Matt

Well done and congrats on a great safari!

I'm just noticing that you can see the setting sun and the mountains reflecting in Didi's wine glass in the photo of her on the Sundowner Rock.

Spectactular!

quote:

Originally posted by safari-lawyer:
I'm just noticing that you can see the setting sun and the mountains reflecting in Didi's wine glass in the photo of her on the Sundowner Rock.

Spectactular!

Jack-of-all-trades Labat gets the credit for his photography skills, I was busy cooling down my throat with a Zambezi.

That is one of the most spectacular Eland bulls I have ever seen!! I hope you are having a special mount done for him (perhaps a pedestal)....because that is truly the trophy of a lifetime.

I am officially awe struck...

Wow! Awesome hunt - thanks for sharing.

We leave for ZH and Sango in another 14 days and i just can't wait!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Orvar:
Wow! Awesome hunt - thanks for sharing.

We leave for ZH and Sango in another 14 days and i just can't wait!!!

Good luck, look forward to reading your report!

Great report, well done on some excellent trophies

congratulations on a great safari. The post and pics being just as good.