Originally posted by Daniel Meng:
Thank you all for the kind welcome!
I must apologize for the terrible introduction on my part, I've been a member for close to a year now and have really enjoyed reading all your posts, I actually didn't realize before that this was my first post.
Anyway, my name is Daniel Meng, I was born in Lachen, Switzerland and grew up in a non-hunting family. I guess you could say I've always been the black sheep, lol My twin sister and I were only a few years old when my parents decided to move to the US. And we traveled back and forth for most of my childhood visiting friends and family. For this reason my mother chose to homeschool us and that in turn allowed me a lot of freedom to do what I loved most... being in the great outdoors! My childhood was filled with exploring the woods and rivers of North Eastern Ohio for mile after mile.
At age 7 I found my first raccoon skull under a fallen tree and soon started quite a collection. By the time I was eight I discovered an interest in taxidermy while volunteering at the local nature center in Ohio and from Christian Schnieder, a great Swiss taxidermist that I loved to visit. His work inspired me in such a way that my passion for it is still second only to hunting. By 12 I had become good friends with the staff Taxidermist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and started doing work for them by the time I was a freshman in Highschool. (at this point I began attending public school) My work at the museum was published and that opened the doors for me in so many incredible ways. Since that time has passed I have worked with many other talented artists in about 27 shops in 5 countries. And by working hard have been able to travel and hunt in quite a few great places around the country as well as 2 trips to Africa.
Before Highschool I learned to work hard to support my expensive hobby. I worked as a landscaper for 3 summers for a man who is now a good friend. In the winter he was a part time taxidermist and I paid him to do my first buck. He was a great teacher and I learned a great deal about trapping and hunting with him as well as filling in some of the missing pieces with what I did not yet understand about taxidermy. I also helped my Father and Uncle with all sorts of construction work. But what helped me the most was when I discovered a Private zoo 7 miles from my home. I begged the owner to let me work there and diligently rode my bicycle there as often as I could to help take care of all the incredible animals. He had over a hundred species of chickens alone! And everything you could possible imagine, from domestic horses and donkeys to four horn sheep, fallow deer, ostrich, emu and rhea, peacocks and every type of ornamental pheasant. But what really got my attention were the serval cats, coatimundi, lions, leopards, bears, cougars, tigers, wolves, foxes and the real exotics like Patagonian cavies, red rumpped agouti, lemurs, primates, kinkajou, and degu, as well as a greenhouse filled with foreign plants and colorful parrots of all shapes and sizes! Needless to say I was literally a kid in a candy shop! I worked hard to gain his trust and respect and soon he called everytime he lost an animal to old age. This wide range of work is what I attribute my success to today.
Those first few leopards I mounted while working at the museum all those years ago is what sparked my dream to someday hunt them. And I'm so thankful that I have been able to do that. I have spent a total of five weeks hunting leopards, with 9 nights in the blind where I was so certain I would at least see one of the elusive cats, and I have personally shot 32 impala and 5 zebra as bait.
And although I still have yet to see a wild leopard with my own eyes not just on trail cameras, I don't regret one minute of each day I got to experience! And I'm not giving up yet, lol
Now for more of my story.
The second trophy I wanted to share is my Common Reedbuck. It is possibly my favorite simply because of the difficulty that involved this hunt. Shortly after my arrival, my Zimbabwean PH Sean Grant had told my other PH Ernest Dyason and I of a large reedbuck that the head rancher kept seeing on a far side of the property.
Let me take a moment to explain a few things. I met Ernest of Spear Safaris at the previous 2013 SCI show in Reno. I was booked with him but he was unable to secure any aditional tags for his place in South Africa so he invited me to hunt with him and his childhood friend Sean Grant of Sangani River Safaris in Zimbabwe. I had instantly recognized the name from reading the book titled "Into The Thorns" writen by his older brother Wane Grant. In the book he explains the story of how Sean was badly mauled by a wounded leopard. Sean's area we were hunting was originally just over 1.5 million acres, although it had gradually been reduced a little over the years by spreading farmland. It was a privately owned cattle ranch, but they practiced "holistic" farming, which meant there were no fences anywhere and very little of the natural landscape was altered. The herders simply stayed with the cattle 24/7 and penned them up at night with a portable electric fence. One more detail worth mentioning, this cattle ranch was divided. The northern ranch was where Sean's actaul hunting camp was as he rarely ever hunted the Southern ranch. This side was larger, but more open with less game and more cattle. But with recent reports of calf killing problem cats on the south side and the fact that he had consistently been taking several nice toms out each year for the past 3 seasons on the north side, he wanted to switch things up in the hopes of killing some bigger males to the south and reducing the hunting pressure in the North. The two ranches are about an hour and a half apart with the main highway from Bulawayo to Harrare running directly between them. So in a way this would be a new experience for all 3 of us and I was thrilled at the idea of being the only hunter with two Top Notch PHs for the price of one. And it was a great deal of fun to hunt with the two old friends who hadn't seen each other in a few years.
This is the Farm House we stayed in.
So, Sean explained to us how the Reedbucks had not been doing too well on the ranch in the past as they kept dying off. But now they had started to make a comeback and he was given a single reedbuck tag for that years quota. And being one of the first hunters of the season, he offered it to me. I gladly accepted and he and Ernest were both very excited about trying to get me the particular ram that was beginning to sound like a famous old legend.
So all through the first week whenever we had some free time after checking, collecting, and replenishing baits we would pack a lunch and head over to the far south side of the ranch. The terrain here was more rolly with tighter patches of trees and open glasslands. It was much more difficult to navigate off road through this kind environment with the land cruiser, often having to go almost a km to the left or to the right when we needed to go straight, but were blocked by a sharp and sudden trench that cut through the open glassy plains like one of the many green cobras we spotted. And although occasionally we did see some female reedbuck with smaller rams, we couldn't find "him". But that all changed on the 27th.
We woke early as usually and had another filling breakfast of hot coffee, cereal, eggs, bacon, toast and orange juice. Simple, but almost fancy considering the extreme remoteness of our makeshift camp which was in an old farmhouse that stood at the end of a small gathering of typical African farm buildings and a few small fenced off houses including Jamie's house (the head rancher) as well as the little ranch office. Together they all stood like a tiny village surrounded by nothing but vast untouched wilderness.
A view from the old Farm House looking out to the East
One thing that never failed to amaze me was how fast those two guys could eat! I always thought I was fast and yet every morning I was the last to finish breakfast. Sean and Ernest were already outside as I grabbed my light jacket and camera from my room. I passed the kitchen on the way out and thanked Aron, the cook and Davey, who did a great job cleaning up after us and making sure I always had clean clothes and a beer in my hand as we sat around the fire he would prepare each night.
When I reached the land cruiser with the rifle in my hand, Sean had already decided to take Lovemore, the second tracker and scout a new section for a good place to hang amother fresh bait. And Ernest suggested we spend the day hunting Reedbuck, so that's what we headed out to do, along with Nicholas, the head tracker and Jon, one of Ernest's trackers that he brought up from SA with him.
We spent the morning doing the same as before, just aimlessly driving around trying to spot the ram. After a few hours we came to a large rock that was sloped enough on one side to drive up, though it was a scary drive up! From here we spent some time glassing as it was quite a nice vantage point.
No sign of life was spotted so we continued on our way. We headed out much further than before and began to find marshy areas with less grass in the lower place and more reeds. And guess what flushed out of the third patch of reeds we drove past? You guessed it! A very nice looking ram reedbuck with a pair of girlfriends! We were so happy to have finally found him, although it was short lived. In just a fewomemts they were well over 500 yds away and then soon out of sight behind the next clump of bushes. Not a big deal I thought to myself, I had seen Ernest in action before and he had an uncanny ability to find animals once they had disappeared from sight. It was hard to follow them with all the mud and rocks we needed to avoid, but we managed to find them again. This time they also flushed ahead of us and took off once again before we could get a shot at the ram. Over the next couple hours we found them again and again, each time they were constantly running until they were out of sight. It was frustrating and thrilling at the same time. Every time we lost them I would silently try to figure out where they were, and each time Ernest would go a different way, leaving me convinced we should turn more to the West or to the East, but being wise enough not to voice these opinions and really show how little I knew. Eventually they headed over a thick ridge where we could not follow with the land cruiser. We pursued on foot and spent another hour searching the far side of this ridge and surrounding areas.
Continuously searching, Ernest as determined as ever using a termite mound as another vantage point, though it pales ever so slightly in comparison to the rock we used earlier!
It was soon getting late in the day and we all grew silent, there was some tension in the air, we would have to find our way back to camp before too long and it had been quite some time since we had last spotted the trio. I had read stories of how elusive the reedbuck ram can be with hunters finding them to behave most like our whitetail deer. They are rather similar in color and tend to be in smaller groups unlike the large herds of many other plains game antelope. They also seem to be more intelligent, doubling back at times like an old wt buck. Soon I was again deep in thought as I pondered the ways in which a reedbuck is similar to and yet so very different from the deer I was used to hunting. And suddenly I saw them, we all saw them flush out of a low river bottom hidden by very high grass. They angled up the the far side about 300yds out and I was praying the ram would stop this time. I was used to getting my scope on him quickly by now, but never wanted to risk a running shot. He stopped for just a moment to glance back and that was his fatal mistake. I was so excited as I heard the loud heavy thud that always sounds slightly different to me when shooting across a low gap. I think Ernest was more excited than I was, I nearly dropped my rifle when he slapped me on the back and went to shake my hand! I was lucky on the shot, he didn't run very far, just made it to the top edge of the next open plain.
He's not a monster, but for the area, he was pretty nice and I'm glad I saved him for a full body mount, maybe I'll use him with my leopard if/when I get one!
He scored 25 4/8"
And on the way back to camp, I was able to make a successful stalk on a little steinbok ram! He was happily eating and quartering towards me in 3 feet of grass and never saw me get within 60yds of him, the old two-two, as they liked to call it worked very well.
It was a long day filled with many surprises that I won't easily forget. I was blessed and the sky reflected my emotions as we made our way back for fresh steaks on another open fire.
