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We eat what we shoot and fish!





I enjoy cooking and always have, especially when hunting. Cooking and eating what you hunt and fish is an important part of the experience as far as I am concerned.

I am sure that both Thor and Nicky were a bit irritated when I first invaded the Munyamadzi camp kitchen, but they are far too polite and gracious hosts to say anything and let me have my fun joined by Anja, Andrew and Frank.

I always enjoy seeing how camp cooks can create great meals in/on oil drum ovens and old 1950s stoves or just simple open coals.





Anja's impala provided a wonderful liver and kidneys and I had fun working with Nelson and Peter in the camp kitchen cooking up fresh fried liver and onions and brandy kidneys on toast as additions to the lunch fare.





That evening, before the DIY pizza party, we braaied / BBQ'd up a whole impala filet with simple seasoning of oil, salt and pepper and served it up as bite sized finger food. It was superb! As indeed were the pizzas.

The following day Frank's younger impala ram offered up liver, heart and kidneys, and with a two foot long piece of the lower intestines as a sausage casing, rinsed, salted and rinsed again, we conjured up a 'puff adder' being the intestine, knotted and stuffed with offal, onions and spices and very slowly grilled over hot coals. We had more fried liver and onions with that too!

The puff adder !





The other forays into the kitchen were at The Kingfisher Lodge, where we enjoyed Tiger fish cakes with 'rosti' and on the second to last day a haunch of impala as a potjie with two bottles of wine in the sauce and simmered for around 6-7 hours. Whilst the taste was good, sadly the impala was tough and no end of simmering in a cast iron pot would have made that one tender. But hey ho, we had fun cooking it and the guys in the kitchen had fun too!

The fishing camp kitchen





On the last day, Jytte caught a great 6 lb plus Cornish Jack, and the guys filleted it out and pan fried it in a simple batter that evening. An excellent eating fish with large flakey white meat! Thank you Jytte! Another great meal!

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Ahhhh the impala haunch potjie! Had that going for about 7 hours! Next time we'll get a young one !!


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Nothing amiss with the one you created Charles. I find the older meat has more flavour !

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Tiger fish cakes!

1/ Catch a table sized Tiger fish
2/ Scale, gut, clean and wash the fish
3/ Chop it into manageable pieces and poach it in milk for 20 minutes and set aside
4/ Prepare some mashed potatoe and fried onions and mix both in a bowl
5/ When the fish has cooled to the touch, flake the meat into the mash onion mix being careful to remove all bones
6/ Mix the fish and mash and onions, season with salt, pepper and lemon juice and then form fish patties / cakes
7/ Fry the cakes until crisp on both sides and serve with lemon wedges and rosti and a salad.









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The cooking pics are spot on. Love to see what comes out of a bush kitchen!

Sounds like a great trip in great company. Thanks for the report

quote:

Originally posted by Ridgeman:
Nothing amiss with the one you created Charles. I find the older meat has more flavour !

Did you go back for seconds on the liver and onions?

quote:

Originally posted by GBE:
Sounds like a great trip in great company. Thanks for the report

quote:

Originally posted by Ridgeman:
Nothing amiss with the one you created Charles. I find the older meat has more flavour !

Did you go back for seconds on the liver and onions?

Hell, I even missed the firsts !
Offal not my thing.

Munyamadzi

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Group hunt funnies - The Honeymoon Suite & the Fire Ants





On arrival at Munya, Thor allocated rooms. Anja and I got the Honeymoon Suite, a stilted tent chalet at the end of the path with an en suite shower and toilet. The only thing separating us from the wilds of Zambia was a flight of 5 wooden steps and a mosquito net!
Anja reckoned the resident hippo and ele would not be able to manage the steps so we would be ok.

The fun part was that every evening we had fire ants crossing the long path to the honeymoon suite, which was fine if you are sober and have a torch but on the night that you have had a drop too much to be able to drive home and you cannot find the torch you are going to battle with the fire ants!




And that's exactly what happened to the both of us! We ended up hoping on the stairs in the dark, swatting and brushing at our legs and ankles and other parts as the nasty little ants sank their pincers into us!! Thank heavens for the adult beverage as we laughed it off and had a great nights sleep despite the ant bites !! I am not certain what everyone else thought when the heard shouts and screams and laughter coming from the honeymoon suite that evening but nobody said anything the next morning!


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Fly fishing, quick sand and bee eaters!

In the afternoon following the 'driven bushbuck hunt', Anja and I decided to walk up the river bed, myself carrying an Orvis 1 weight fly rod with a Hardy Featherlite reel, fishing the creases and margins as we walked up river.

The fishing came to an abrupt halt when we both suddenly sank up to our knees in very soft quick sand!! After a few moments we managed to extract ourselves but I lost both my canvas Crocs in the process and despite digging for them, I could not get them back! The sand was so soft that every time I scooped two handfuls out the wet sand just flowed back in the hole!







Anja laughed and laughed until she realised that she herself had lost a flip flop in the quick sand and was standing on a dry bit of the river bed with one flip flop on! She decided that one flip flop was pretty pointless and hung her one flip flop on a drift wood tree trunk in the river bed! We laughed some more.



Barefoot and without fishing any more, we walked up the river bed until we came across a bank full of Carmine bee-eater nests! Hundreds and hundreds of them. It is an amazing spectacle to see bee-eaters flying in and out of their dry hole nests, insects in the beaks, feeding their chicks. We watched them for half an hour or so and tried to get some good photographs before heading back to camp, barefoot and happy!








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Morten

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More Funnies - Holding hands !






I suspect that Andrew posted the picture of Anja and I holding hands as a prelude to a tale! Anja and I hold hands a lot. It stops her spending money if I am holding her hands! Joking aside, we are unashamed hand holders!

Now after one of our group shot a very fine baboon with an excellently placed shot off the sticks and away from the vehicle, Anja and I climbed down from the Toyota where we had been sitting and watching and I started walking in the direction of Andrew, the dead baboon and the happy hunter.

I held out my hand to the right and slightly behind for Anja to catch up and take and holding her hand, I rubbed my thumb against her's and told her in German that her hands were a bit dry and that she should cream them that evening. Zambia is a rough climate on your hands! She did not reply and as we walked on towards the others, I turned around towards her to say something else, and was staring into the happy face of Eliam, the elderly tracker, whose hand I was holding and who was smiling at me with a broad wide smile of perfect white teeth!!!

I stifled my laughter, smiled my biggest smile back at him and letting go of his (dry) hand, I looked around for Anja. She was standing by the Toyota getting a drink out of the cool box with Vincent some twenty meters back!

That evening I recounted the tale at the campfire and everyone shared in my laughter, with Thor commenting that was likely the first time any big white hunter had held Eliam's hand on safari! Priceless!

I cannot imagine the stories that Eliam was telling around his camp fire that evening of the 'white bwana' who wanted to hold hands with him ! Precious moments!


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Wish I was there


Morten

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Baboons.






To my surprise, Anja decided she wanted to try for a baboon. Surprise, as she had on previous safaris and hunts said that she did not want to shoot one. A lady may however change her mind and so plans were made - Andrew led the group which consisted of Anja hunting, Frank and I spotting, Joe the scout and Vincent and Eliam, tracking and spotting. Seven of us on the Cruiser set off on a baboon hunt!

I think baboons are underrated as trophies and there is often a lot of sentiment around them looking like humans and their eyes!? I don't buy that - they are wild, carnivorous and do quite a bit of damage. I once saw a troop of baboons catch and tear apart and eat two warthog piglets at a water pan in RSA! They will hang around impala herds especially around lambing time, easy prey! An old dog baboon is a worthy trophy and thats what we were after.

Andrew decided that we would try a new area which no of us had hunted so far and so we set off in high spirits on the baboon adventure. The trouble was it had rained heavily in the night and we ended up bogged down in the Cruiser in a remote part of the 20.000 h concession. The guys collected rocks, cut branches and in no time we were off again, until Bwana Andrew put us in the mud again ten minutes later and the expedition came to another squishy halt. The guys again collected rocks and cut branches - whilst Anja, Frank and I admired the red velvet ticks that had come out after the rains - and then we were off again, but this time we were off in the direction from whence we came and we headed back to know baboon locations near the river.

It was not long before we came across a large troop of baboons and Andrew set off guiding Anja on their baboon hunt! From the vehicle we assisted in glassing the troop and spotting large dog baboons for Anja and Andrew. But they didn't need our help and the end result was a lengthy .30-06 shot resulting in a great dog baboon who dropped on the spot!

The troop became most agitated when we recovered the baboon for pictures and shouted and barked at us from the tree line! Very vocal and quite erie.

They did however get their revenge, as after I had finished taking pictures of the baboon and rifle - which entailed sitting on a fallen tree that we used to lay the baboon on for the photos - and I was walking back to the vehicle, Eliam told me that I had baboon shit all over my shorts! There was a pile on the tree that I did not see and had sat in! Not to worry, off came the shorts and I wiped them clean and put them on again, cleaned my hands on a wipe and off we drove, Anja having successfully and cleanly taken a solid old long toothed dog baboon.






As a ps. one of the camp staff eats baboon and was happy to take and dry the meat from the baboons that were hunted. Very little protein goes to waste in Africa!

Jaeger Frank, I almost didn't recognize you. It's been a long time, my friend. By the way, that's a hell of a bushbuck, congratulations!

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An on-land hippo! My animal of choice.





Sir Samuel Baker, Victorian explorer, wrote "there is no animal that I dislike more than a hippo." Whilst Capstick wrote "To be caught by a hippo is a singularly nasty way to receive your overdose of Africa."

That about sets the scene. I have hunted hippo before and will hunt them again but will only target them on land. Hippo on land counts as DG in my book, it presents a challenge to PH and hunter and if you get it right it's a great hunt.

Thor knew that I very much wanted to try and take a hippo on dry land and, after my hand-loaded .450/400 ammunition rendered my Beesley double unusable on this trip for DG hunting (I'll write a note on that later), Thor was quick and kind to offer his .500 NE as a suitable alternative for hippo medicine. He then went on to suggest that we go out the following day at 04.00 and try and catch a first light hippo heading back to the Luangwa River from feeding in the night not far from where Jytte shot her hippo. And with that the dice were cast!

We were up at 03.30 the next morning and after a quick coffee and a rusk, Thor (with his .458), Anja (with her .30-06), Vincent the tracker, Georgina, the scout (with her AK 47) and myself (with Thor's VC .500 NE) headed out in the darkness after a hippo! A .500 has a nice feel to it when you are after hippo up close!

After a short drive, we stopped the hunting vehicle a ways away from the river and began a very very slow and very deliberate walk towards the water. With sunrise still half an hour away it was inky dark and we were just able to make out the moonlight reflection of the worn paths and game tracks in the sand of the river basin. Slowly and silently we made our way towards the river in the darkness.

It is amazing how when you lose one sense ie sight that your other sense become more alert and heightened ie hearing and it is even more amazing how loud a hippo snorting at 20 odd meters in the pitch darkness sounds!! We all froze and slowly turned in the direction of the snort.

Frank, Jytte, Julia, Andrew and the others were probably not even awake yet!

Where would you rather be??

We all stood frozen, not moving and totally silent.

With a deep snort, the hippo shuffled off to the right and we all let out a long slow sigh of relief! We waited a few moments for the dust to settle.

By now, however, we could just about see by that first hazy light of the pre dawn and we slowly walked forwards towards the river, still on senses full alert! We reached the river bank, standing a couple of meters above the water, we could hear returning hippo splashing into the water whilst the main pod grunted and snorted in the middle of the river.

As we crept forward along the high bank, Thor and I both spotted a hippo standing at the waters edge just 4 - 5 meters below us, quartering slightly away, head in our direction and not moving. We crouched down out of sight of the hippo - Thor, myself, Anja, Georgina and Vincent to Thor's right.

"He's big," in a silent whisper.

"Not sure if he's a bull," in a whisper back.

"He's big."

"OK, take him if you want to."

And at that we stood up and sliding onto fire, I put both barrels from Thor's .500 into the hippos head / neck, Thor followed up with his one .458 round and reloaded the double for me to put two more rounds into the hippo as it now raced, splashing into the river. I swapped the double for Anja's .30-06 and resting it on the sticks that Vincent now had up, I sighted at the ripples where the hippo had been. Other than agitated, annoyed grunts and snorts from the rest of the pod everything was still. 5 shots in about 20 seconds had disturbed the peace of the sunrise bush but the morning silence returned quickly and we waited and watched.

After some minutes of waiting and watching, we descended the short steep hippo path to the waters edge and waited again. An elderly fisherman, the same one who had helped in the recovery of Jytte's hippo the day before, slowly paddled his mokoro over the river tempted by the prospect of more meat!

We waited. Thor sent back to camp for egg and bacon rolls and coffee (and .458 ammo) and we waited some more. And then, to Thor's relief, up floated the dead hippo - shot on land to be recovered from the water and the by now assembled fleet of fisherman confirmed it was a big bull hippo! It was then that Thor shook my hand and congratulated me on the hunt and our hippo!

I'll post on the recovery later as I think that its important to describe the recovery, how the fishermen were involved, standing waist deep in crocodile waters to pull out the hippo, laughing and calling to each other, in return for a portion of meat and how the meat was distributed throughout the community and concession. Thor did a quick frame video of the whole process - maybe its possible to post that here too.

It was a truly awesome hunt! A first light, dry land hippo, shot from above at about 5 m without him knowing we were there. Sure Diana had a hand in it but then again a bit of luck is always a good thing. The walk / stalk to the river bank in the near dark had us all on high alert and the 20 m stand off with a hippo in the dark focused the mind and other senses! The one we then took was a good hippo to take - big, old, scared and battled. The meat fed a lot of mouths.

Thank you Thor for a most exciting and memorable hippo hunt and thank you for letting me use your double and trusting me to hunt hippo with you in the darkness!

















Ps. As a post script, the whole safari was very 'hippoish' - we had hippo in camp at Munya at night feeding on the lawns, we had hippo around the chalets at Kingfisher - with Anja and I walking around the corner to our chalet one evening and meeting the resident hippo cow at 3 meters! Julia actually opened her chalet door and invited us in to be safe! We waited a moment and the cow moved on. We also had a large cow come drifting into the jetty whilst Andrew and I were casting flies. She hung around for a while, blew some bubbles, and then moved on.

For me an imvubu trip through and through!


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Thanks Charles.
I’m just having a little of him for supper.

What an absolutely wonderful trip . Well done! It is number one on my bucket list but a serious illness in my family a short time before our departure in Calgary had to prevent my lady and I from being on this trip, too.


They always say go hunting while you are physically able. Certainly true, but sometimes life gets in the way.


It is what it is and I certainly hope that I can experience such a hunt in Zambia in the near future ..

All the best …

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I thought I would post some pictures of how the hippo carcass was butchered and then distributed. Sort of educational and it goes to show that the only thing that is left - like on an ele recovery - is literally the half digested stomach contents, In the case of this hippo the two schools in the concession area each received a leg / haunch, the scouts the same and the local community also a haunch. The neck went to the fishermen that helped and the two filets went to the camp. The head went to the skinning shed and was buried for a few days whereupon the teeth were extracted as the trophy for me.

Here we go -





















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Worldly possessions of a fisherman!



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More hipponess






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Been trying to upload the video of the butchering of the hippo. But it seems Imgur will not take it. Not sure if there is any other platform I can use?

The two gentlemen standing behind Charles and myself are the ones who made this group hunt possible.

Meet Andrew Baldry and Thor Kirchner.

January 2018

Thor and his girlfriend Nicky, Julia and I met up in a Danish restuarant a cold evening in this first month of January 2018.

And this is where the idea of the group hunt started. Backed up by Andrew, the search for other participants started.

A fine group came together, Charles has posted entertaining and great narrative along with the finest pictures. You are one great cook Charlie.

Julia

Julia is my youngest daughter and she has joined me on every DG hunt I have undertaken since 2012. She is en exceptional photographer and a good companion.

I hope to post more of her pictures later on. She uses old cameras, where film still needs to be developed and then cleaned. It takes time.



Taking a break in a hammock. We'd laid out bait for a croc in the mountain pools and retired way back for lunch and a nap.

Unfortunately, no one took a picture when one of the trees supporting my hammock started falling over me. I managed to hold it off my body before any ribs were broken.

Hippo

The very first morning of the hunt, after sighting in the rifles, we went looking for a hippo. Julia and Charlie joined me on this hunt.

A large pod was spotted on the river. Thor wanted a "let's look, practice with the sticks " time and asked Julia and Charlie to stay behnd on the brink. Meanwhile we walked down to the river and shortly thereafter the sticks came up and Thor just said ..."shoot"...

You can se why here.



and here



The hippo had enormous teeth, shortly displayed while he was attemtping to keep his status in the pod. He was an old fellow, not to have lived another year and therefore a perfect choice to hunt.

It took some bullets.

On the first, his head dropped and we were all jubilant. Put another couple of bullets into his body I was told. So I did. With his head still under water, we were confident. Suddenly his monster head appeared again, rearing up with an open mouth, teeth bared, and I attempted a retake of the first shot. Not so, I was hitting water and told Thor to take the last shot, with the last bullet, and so bingo, he was anchored. A cannonade, possibly not necessary, and then help came from everywhere as the shooting stopped.

Local fishermen took the time to give a hand and he was dragged and rolled onto the shore.








[img]https://i.ibb.co/PWm7GBK/IMG-

2883.jpg[/img]

As I recall some 37 inches.



Crocodile

A wish for a number of years. Not just any crocodile, but a smaller one enabling me to use the skin for a purpose.

I realised "we" wanted to hunt large crocs, and I did in fact agree to hunt a large one if it appeared and was possible. One morning we drove to a village where a six year old boy had been taken by a croc. Knowing the croc must have been large, we would attempt to find that specific one and kill him.

We did not and then we attempted to find another large one up in the mountains, where game scouts had seen a big one in a deep pool. That did not work out for us either.

At Mopane Station, the rangers advised Thor that there were several crocs lying in the sand across the river. So off we went.
This was day seven.

Julia and John was along, John stayed behind as we made our way along the shore in thorn infested bushes. Julia was carrying the three pod shooting sticks and never made a noise.

Slowly we made our way to the water, hidden behind rocks. As we approached and attempted the set up, the large croc slid into water.

Thor was not happy, but there was another croc still lying there and I told Thor we will shoot this one. With the finest skin for my purpose and still a challenge.







To be continued...

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Jytte, Looking at those tusks again - they are some of the thickest hippo ivory that I have seen. Truly large tusks and a hunt to remember - especially viewed from my grandstand position higher up on the river bank! Superb!


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Jytte,

Some really good action photos there and keep them coming.

A few of Julias pictures from the previous part of the report.





My hammock, now tied to a sturdier tree that could actually hold my several kg´s.





Fighting off mopane flies.



Looks like we are making a plan.


Crocodile



Taken with a single shot, a half second after me Thor shot, I wanted it anchored. It had not been necessary for Thor to shoot, but sometimes I am too unsure. I am still deaf on my right ear and I think Thor must also have some hearing difficulties on his left one.

And the rains came

Forty degrees in the shade, we badly needed some relief. One afternoon the clouds came together in all grey and black colours. Rumbling, lighting in the distance, we were all praying for it to come our way. It did, for a whole evening and night it rained and the next morning the temperature had fallen some ten degrees.

It gave us a few challenges on our way to the village where a little boy had been taken by a croc. One we would pursue without luck.



Thor wading into the riverbed to see whether we can cross.



We managed. On our way we saw giraffe and buffallo. Have a look.





Julia and I were lucky to be part of Franks hyena hunt. The day after the rains we also went uphill, into the mountainous area, a beautiful area. Julia and Frank were on the back of the cruiser and suddenly Julia said ..."hyena"...

Thor and Frank leapt off the cruiser quickly, and shortly thereafter we heard a shot. What a morning, Frank had his daylight hyena.



Julias next picture is from the skinning shed where she watched and filmed the hyena skinning.




Andrew and I shared some candlelights one evening, look at the bird that eavedropped.





Kingfisher Camp

What an absolutely wonderful experience. What a camp, when I opened my eyes in the morning, I looked right out and saw the Zambezi River.

Hippo left and right, this is the camp where Charlie cooked us some fine meals.



Alan Shearing taught Julia and I how to fish, he was a good teacher because Julia landed a tiger, I pulled in two and a great cornish jack.







Thank you for making this group hunt such a fine one.

Anja, Charlie, Frank, Andrew, Thor and John.

Julia and I thank you.

Great report and photos!

Jytte- awesome hunt and report and pictures ( I certainly can see Julia talent coming out here!!!!) well done on some fine trophies!

Neat hunt and stories plus superb photos, Zambia is a place I would really like to see and experience one day.

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Fishing!





There were two parts to the fishing on this trip for me - casual fly fishing at Munya, fishing the creases and pools of the Luangwa River with an Orvis 1 weight Superfine Touch and a Hardy reel and catching and releasing tiny fish (when not loosing footwear in the quicksand) and then the 'big boy' fishing for tigers on the Zambezi for the last three days of the trip. Interestingly I find the 1 wt tiny fish to be a greater challenge prompting quick reactions and timing when you see the fly line twitch. Casting lures for tigers is fantastic fun and a great rush when one hits but it's a 'rougher' type of fishing often accompanied by a bottle of beer as early as 07.00 !!

The Luangwa was simple fun. I did suggest going down river to fish near one of the fishing camps but the general opinion was that it was likely over crowded and fished out so I was left to fish the creases, pools and riffles and caught a few small fish. There was one special moment when I was occupied tying on a new tiny fly and, looking up, there was a young bushbuck ram not 15 meters from me at the waters edge drinking. I remained silent and watched him drink, relaxed. It was only after some 3-4 minutes when I spoke to him that he spooked and bolted away across the stony dry river bed and up the bank, puffs of dust bursting around his hooves!

The tiger fishing on the last three days was another highlight of the many highlights of this safari. Kingfisher Lodge was wonderfully simply and perfectly set, direct on the banks of the mighty Zambezi. The chalets were great with wonderfully hot showers, roomy and ceiling fans, which were a blessing in the heat. There was a super bar area and viewing deck and a dining area under the shade of an old mahogany tree. The staff were great and looked after us well. I had fun in the kitchen, working with the guys preparing some fun meals with fish that we caught. One of the cooks has been there 27 years!

The tiger fishing was simply superb. The early birds were out at 5.00 a.m. and we caught fish! We then returned for breakfast and then went out again until lunch. After a siesta we fished until dusk, finishing up with sundowners on the river! Life is good!

It was wonderful seeing Frank catch his first ever tiger and he was clearly bitten by the bug from that moment on! Anja, not usually an angler, was last to reel in on day three, fishing up until the last moment with Andrew and I and she caught the last fish of the trip! We caught on spinners and baits but mainly spinning, casting along the ledges and near structure and reeling in fast hoping for a tiger to strike and then reeling reeling reeling! On one of the outings we had about 20 hits between us with 4 or 5 fish boated. It was awesome! Andrews 'pink rod' worked wonders with Julia and Jytte catching all their fish on the 'pink rod'! Frank purchased a rod and reel for the trip and Anja and I borrowed what and where we could.

Tiger fish are truly an amazing game fish, aggressive, hard in the take and hard to hook, great aerial acrobats and when boated a set of dentals to be wary of ! If you enjoy fishing and have not fished for tiger in Africa then you must! Bucket list stuff.

Between us we all caught and we caught some seriously big fish and I am especially pleased to report that it was me that caught the biggest tiger!! I think Anja caught the smallest fish of the trip on fly as you can see in the pictures - first Munya then the Zambezi. Jytte caught the biggest and only Jack and Anja caught quite a few tigers too.

Fun was had by all!

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Munya fly fishing









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Kingfisher Tigers Zambezi






















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