Country Hunted: Mozambique
Area Hunted: Lake Cahora Bassa
Safari Operator: Kwan Safaris (booked from AR Outfitters discounted hunts)
PH: Hennie
Game Scout/ Tracker: Arosh (sp?)
Dates Hunted: Sept. 16 - Sept. 22
Species Hunted/Taken: Hippo, Nile Crocodile, Chobe Bushbuck
Species seen: Sable, Kudu, Elephant, Sharpes Grysbok, Bush Dyker, Warthog, Impala, Leopard, Bushpig
Guns Taken: .375 H&H Kimber Caprivi w/ 300 grain Barnes Tripple Shocks & .505 Gibbs CZ 550 Magnum w. 600 grain Woodleigh Solids
9/13: Left Houston IAH on Delta to Atlanta, caught connecting flight on Delta 777 to Jo-Burg
9/14: Arrived Jo-Burg in evening, cleared immigration and customs without issue, Gracey Travel was waiting for us outside customs with SA gun permits, walked us through with no issues and across the street to Intercontinental hotel. Hotel was very nice and wife and I had good dinner with wine then onto bed.
9/15: Gracey Rep met us on time in hotel lobby, walked us across to airport, re-checked guns and baggage and walked us all the way to security. My opinion, when traveling to Africa, Gracey travel is the only way to go. Many people off of our plane in SA gun permit office alone or with outfitters and no idea about gun permits. Boarded plane and on to Harare, Zimbabwe, cleared Zim immigration and customs with guns no problem. Sydney with Central African Transport was waiting for us outside customs and walked us over to the domestic terminal and through security with guns, then went back for JDollar (arriving on later flight). Within a couple of hours Sydney was back with JDollar and loaded us on the Cessna 206 for Mukamburra (The Charter flight was all arranged by Walter Enslin @ Kwan and went through without flaw). One hour flight to Mukamburra, Walter and Hennie at Kwan were waiting for us with the truck when we landed, loaded the bags and drove us out of Zim and into Mozambique (Moz visas also acquired by Gracey Travel, Moz gun permits acquired by Walter @ Kwan), went through both borders without issues.



Drove 3-4 hours once in Mozambique to camp, met the whole Kwan crew and got settled in. I did not take many pics of acommodations (hopefully Jerry did better and will post on his report). However, the camp was immaculate, wall tents on slabs with electric lights and attached full baths with full time hot and cold running water, front porches overlooking the most amazing view of Lake Cahora Bassa. The entire camp is built on top of a hill which takes advantage of the cool breeze coming off of the lake. There are stone lined walkways between the tents and common dining area. Dining area includes porch with fire pit, drink refrigerator and ice maker.

settled in for a Steak dinner and ice cold 2M beer after a long 2 days of travel.
9/16: Woke up to hot coffee/tea and hot breakfast of toast, sausage, eggs, sliced tomato and oatmeal. Loaded truck and went to shoot guns, everything checked out with guns and then it was on to hunting. Headed to West side of concession to a river that runs into Cahora Bassa named Siradza (sp?). Almost immediately found a few crocs basking in the sun and put the sneak on them, Walter and I got within shooting range undetected. Two females and one big male, this was my first encounter with a big croc and I was shocked at the size of it. The male would not come completely out of the water where we could get a good look at it, Walter made the call that it was the first day and we could afford to blow this stalk by pushing our luck and trying to get a better look, we did and Walter immediately decided this was not a first day croc, 13.5'-14' as it slid silently back into the water, What a way to start the hunt. We went further back into the slews and found another big croc, just got a brief look at him before the snap of a twig sent him silently back under the grass mat. Man, these things are sensitive, Walter said he looked big and dark but couldn't say for sure. We went down to the mud flat he was sitting on and found a rear foot track that blew my mind. If any of you are from Texas and have ever been to Fredericksburg and the Pedernales river to see the dinosaurs footbrints in the stone riverbed, that is what this monsters rear track looked like. I swear, that thing was 20" long, 10" wide and perfectly pressed 4-6" into the mud bank. The first morning I had found the croc I wanted to hunt, this monster would literally haunt my dreams for the rest of the hunt. We headed back to camp for lunch, ran into a group of natives that had vacated their village saying that elephants had chased them out, went back to the village with one of them to try and find the elephants. Walter found the tracks and assessed that the villagers had not truly been chased and had overreacted, back in the truck towards camp, just to run into the herd of elephants a mile or so down the road. A herd of a few young bulls and several females, let us get a good look at them as they wandered into the bush. Halfway back to the camp I see a pair of bushbuck off the left hand side of the truck, one quick glimpse thru the binocs and I am reaching for the .375. The buck steps behind a group of trees and the female turns and runs, I struggle trying to make the buck out through the brush and he finaaly takes a step to the left where I can make his sillohuette out through the brush. I think he is facing to the left broadside and his shoulder just barely clears the trees. I put the crosshairs on his shoulder and squeeze the trigger, I am suprised by the shot (in the good way) and the buck disapears with a downward motion. The trackers begin clapping and we jump out of the truck and begin making our way towards the buck. We get around the brush/trees just to see him struggle to his feet, my scope was already turned down to 2.5x with a fresh 300 grain triple shock in the pipe and I immediately put another one in his shoulder, he goes down immediately but tries to get up again and I inmmediately put another one in his shoulder and he goes down on his side for the final time. I absolutely could not believe this little animal just took 900 grains of Triple Shock before he died. We approach him and start trying to put together what happened, we first see where he first fell on the first shot and there is a huge amount of blood that at first sight you would assume was lethal. We then start inspecting the bushbuck and realize that the first shot was not broadside, he was apparently facing away from us and turned his head looking back at us. What I thought was his shoulder next to the tree was his ass and my first shot went in less than an inch to the right of his asshole, traveled the whole length of his body and exited dead center his brisket (when they cleaned him they said everything from his ass to his backstraps and on through his chest was jelly). The second and third shots were exactly where I had put them entering one shoulder and exiting the other, damn that little SOB was tough.

That evening we travel to the East of camp to scope out a pod of hippos, hoping we will see them climb out of the water when it gets cool and we can make a move on them with the 505 Gibbs. No such luck, we find the hippos and pick out the bull but they aren't even thinking about coming out of the water. Oh well, a beautiful sunset on the lake and we are off to a delicious dinner with plenty of ice cold 2M and some good red wine.
9/17: Up early for another good hot breakfast and coffee and off to Siradza to try to find that dinosaur I dreamed about the night before. We searched the sloughs as we made our way to where we had seen the big croc the day before, Hennie and Arosh are with us now and Walter is hunting with Jerry. We see a couple of females basking on the sides of the grass mats and one big male but he will not come out of the water and all we can see is his head. We are getting close to the "horse shoe" where we saw the big boy so we go down on our knees and start to crawl in as quietly as possible. We silently approach the edge of the drop off that overlooks the grass mats, Hennie and Arosh are in front of me and are looking out straight ahead, I am looking off to the left as I know where he was the day before and I immediately see his huge black back in the same place he was yesterday. I reach up to tug on Hennies shirt and miss it because I am keeping my eye on the croc, I shift my gaze to Hennie to grab his shirt and get his attention pointing back to the croc and the old man is gone, no noise, no splash, just disapears like a ghost. We put together a plan where we can set up in some cover on an island overlooking the grass mat where the wind will be in our favour (as we think this is what busted us). We talk a couple of the locals into taking us across the grass mat in their makuro, I make it a cross without problem but my wife sees hoe shakey it is, thinks about all of the crocs in the water and says she will walk around (approx. 1 mile), Arosh comes across and we make our way to the island while Hennie and my wife make the treck around.


Arosh and I set up in the trees on the island overlooking the grass mat and wait, within 30 minutes a giant black monster comes crawling out of the grass up onto the mud bank. I am shocked at the size of this creature but am unsure about judging it's size as I am new at looking at these creatures. I go throught the checklist that Walter gave me the day before, his teeth look big, the distance between his nostrils and eye look like 13-15 inches (supposedly a decent translation to feet), he shows very little color or pattern and appears mostly black, the vertical scales on his tail are tall and starting to lay over, the only thing that I cannot see (due mostly to the direction he is laying) is I do not see the large jowels that Walter described. I whisper to Arosh to silently back out and go catch Hennie and my wife before they come walking up not knowing that he is already back out. Hennie comes crawling up 15-20 minutes later, he snaps a few twigs on his way in and the croc turns his head towards our direction, we freeze, a few minutes later Hennie eases closer and another twig snaps, the croc spins and lays his head in the hole in the grass mat threatening to disapear into the grass. We freeze again and sit still until he lifts his head out of the grass and eases back up on the mud bank. Hennie gets situated and begins going over him with the binoculars, after 15-20 minutes of examination he makes the call that he is positively a big mature croc somewhere between 13 and 14 feet. We keep looking and the only thing that is throwing me off is that I have gotten a better look from different angles and he just does not have the big jowels that Walter described. We agree that it is only the second day, these creatures are territorial and we know where he is and will probably come back to bask so we will pass and keep looking. I want my wife to see him so I signal to her to quietly inch up on her seat to get a look, she slowly and silently starts inching up, inevitably she snaps a twig and with no visable motion or sound he is gone back under the grass, these creatures are absolutely amazing....

Guys, I am tired and will get back on this report tommorow with more pics and success.
Jerry, glad to hear you had a good time in RSA, Hope you have made it home safe.

9/18: Left early and headed east out of camp, Hennie said he wanted to go check some bays on the other side of camp for crocs and hippos. First bay we pulled into had a small village with quite a bit of agriculture at the back. We glassed the bay out towards the main body of the lake and quickly spotted a single hippo next to an island up at the mouth of the bay. No way to get there in the truck so we set out on foot through the bush trying to get closer. After a 30-45 minute hike we arrived at the island to discover that due to the water receding we could access it from the backside. We crawled to a growth of trees high center on the island and began crawling around trying to locate the hippo, no such luck, the bastard was no where to be found. About halfway around the island we encountered what appeared to be a large croc in the water swimming towards the lake side of the island. We snuck through the bush following him and got to see some interesting behavior, he began raising his head out of the water and slapping the surface with his chin. Hennie said this was the territorial behavior of a male. Once we made it around the lake side of the island, the single hippo appeared just on the other side of the croc. We worked our way to a tree so we could stand up and try to get a look at the hippo. We quickly saw that the hippo was nothing special and small if it was a bull, but in our efforts to get a look at the hippo, the croc had busted us and was quickly making his way offshore into the main part of the lake. We decided to move back to the truck and try the next bay. About halfway back to the truck Hennie stated that we could cut across through the bush and probably get to the next bay just as quickly by walking. It was still early and cool so we decided that was fine, hoping to see something interesting along the way. After 20 or 30 minutes of walking we arrived at the back of the next bay and began glassing, without much effort we spotted a pod of hippos sleeping up at the mouth of the bay, we slowly stalked through the bush up close to the hippos and began trying to pick out the bull. Hennie asked me what I thought, did I want to snipe one or keep trying to find one on land. I stated that I preferred to shoot one on land and use my 505 Gibbs with open sights but asked what the pros and cons of both were. He sated that he had no problem continuing trying to find one on land but as I had seen, it was so hot we had yet to see one come out of the cool water, they were even sleeping in the water. He said we could keep trying to find one on land and probably could before the hunt was over, the downside was if we found one we would have to take what we were given and couldn’t be picky about size or bull vs. cow. I thought about it and decided that I would rather look at a lot of hippos and be picky about the size and definitely shoot a big old bull than hunt the whole week and take what I was given. I also informed Hennie that hippo was my second trophy and would much rather spend all of that time looking for a big OLD croc, as that was what I primarily come for. We decided to go ahead and wade out to an island where we could get a better look at this pod of hippos so off came the socks and shoes and Hennie and I waded through the mud and water to the island then belly crawled across the top to get a better look. We were both lying in the prone position, Hennie looking through his glasses and I with the Kimber laid across the backpack looking through the scope. Hennie picked out what he thought was the bull and said it was mature and asked what I thought. I stated that if it gave us a good shot let’s take it. Hennie told me where to shoot and I began settling in to make the shot, about the time I was ready the hippos must have realized something was coming and began shifting around, raising and lowering in the water. The hippo would move and Hennie would call the new shot angle, then it would move again and Hennie would call another shot angle. After three or four times of this Hennie said that after looking at this bull from all the different angles, he thought we could do better and should go look at another bay. I agreed so we got up and headed back to where we left Arosh and Karalynn. We walked back to the truck and headed to the next bay. Arriving at the next bay I discovered there was a larger village than at the last one and it didn’t take long to find a pod of hippos laying halfway up on a sand bar sunning themselves. We decided that the best way to get at them was to come around the backside of an island that was now a peninsula with a single tree up on the high point. We snuck around the backside of the island and crawled up behind the trees just to find 4 donkeys standing and grazing blocking our view. We settled in behind the tree and waited to for the donkeys to move. When we finally got a look at them we quickly saw that there were a dozen or so hippos laying halfway on the sandbar and half a dozen more swimming around it. There was one hippo right in the middle, fast asleep that was at least 20%-30% bigger than all of the others, this thing looked like a giant compared to all of the other hippos. We watched the entire pod for probably 30 minutes just discussing them and their behavior trying to make sure we had a good handle on all of the animals and knew the one we were killing (as if there were any doubt). We belly crawled up to the front of the island and laid prone with the Kimber across the backpack. Hennie asked if I could see the black spot about and inch below and an inch to the right of the bull’s right eye, I said I could and he said that was the place to put it. I settled in and relaxed and gently squeezed the trigger, the gun went off and the Hippos scattered into the water, except the big old bull. His head threw back and over about an inch to his right from the force of the bullet and laid still. Hennie quickly said to put an insurance shot in so I quickly put another one right next to the first hole, the bull was dead. I turned around to see my wife with the camcorder in her hand filming, I asked her if she got it, and she replied in an unsure way “I think so”.

It didn’t take long for a whole herd of villagers to show up with their knives and fleet of mokuros to be launched to go pull the bull back to shore.

When they finally got the bull to shore and the land cruiser pulled it out of the water I was once again shocked at the size of this animal. He was huge, just the size of his head blew my mind. Everyone was ecstatic and a round of handshaking and back slapping ensued.


9/19: This morning found us headed back to Seradza looking for that giant croc that wouldn’t leave me alone. We took along a hindquarter from the previous days hippo to make a bait and set it up on a point where Walter and I had seen the very first crocs our first day. I was impatient as I wanted to get back to the horseshoe in the sloughs where we had seen the big croc the first day. We decided to walk the sloughs back to the horseshoe to see what was between here and there instead of going straight to the place. We walked and checked every opening only to find smaller crocs laying on the banks sunning themselves. We finally made it back to the horseshoe to find it empty and the big old croc nowhere to be found. We did finally find a big male down in the grass mat but he wouldn’t come out to let us have a look. Finally the heat of the day set in and we headed back to camp.
9/20: Woke up early anxious to go back to Seradza to check the bait and begin working the sloughs again looking for a dinosaur. We arrived to find 3 females sunning themselves on the bank across from the bait but nothing touched the bait. We drove around to the other side and decided to check the mouth of the bay before heading back into the thicket choked sloughs where we had seen the monster. Upon glassing the banks at the mouth we spotted what appeared to be a big single croc laying on a sand bank but he was just to far to tell and there was nothing but flat farmland between us and him, making it very difficult to get closer. We worked up and down the field trying to find a ditch or termite mound we could put between us and him allowing us to get closer and finally found a small dirt mound to try. Hennie and I crouched down and began our approach to the shore line.

We made it up to the dirt mound without alerting the croc and began inspecting him through the glasses. He looked interesting but the angle we were at only showed the top half of his body and he was facing away. We spotted another dirt mound we thought we could make it to and continued our approach. About halfway there the shore birds spotted us and began sounding the warning and the croc quickly disappeared, busted again. We got up and dusted ourselves off and began making our way back to my wife and Arosh. We decided it was time to head back to the sloughs and made the treck that direction. We arrived and began picking our way through the thicket, quietly breaking through and looking down at the grass mat where we could. You have to understand these sloughs are probably 50 yards across the banks at the top and 30 yards down the bank to the grass mat, you cannot see any water because there is this mat of dense vegetation on top of it. Under the vegetation the water is somewhere between 20’ and 30’ deep and by the amount of crocs that are sunning themselves on the banks, there must be a sea of crocs under that grass mat. Walter told me that his concession has approximately 60 miles of shore on Cahora Bassa and last year the villages lost 50-60 people to the man eating crocs of Cahora Bassa. The entire time we are working these sloughs; our game scout Arosh has eyes the size of tea cups and is sweating like a whore in church. We found a series of smaller crocs sunning themselves before we got to the mouth of the slough that opens into the horseshoe. We could see one female by herself laying on the bank with her mouth partially open at the end of a point and decided if we could get to that point we could see out into the horseshoe. We walked back into the bush and Hennie and I began making our way through the thicket that covered the point quietly not trying to alert the female as we were worried she would alert any crocs laying further out where we were trying to look. We finally made it out onto the point and could see the female laying in the same position with her head up and her mouth open. We began glassing out into the horseshoe and before long the female began making a “purring” noise like a giant cat. We looked down at her and you could see that on the other side of her there was another croc with just its head sticking out of the grass mat rubbing its huge head against her neck. Every time he would raise up and begin rubbing her neck she would start making this purring sound. Hennie was so excited I thought he was going to wet his pants. He started talking about how this was mating behavior and he had read about it but didn’t know anyone who had ever seen it. This ritual carried on for probably 30 minutes as we sat like stone statues watching through our glasses. The male never came out of the water and the female quit purring and Hennie said the male must have moved on. I kept looking through the glasses and realized that I could still see the scales on the males back when I looked through the females partially opened mouth. I alerted Hennie and we decided to sit still and see what happened. After about ten minutes of silence the female hissed and dove into the grass mat over the male and the males back slowly sank into the water, Hennie and I turned and looked at each other smiling ear to ear about the behavior we had just witnessed. No sooner had we done that than we looked down and where the female had dove in, this monster was silently crawling out of the grass mat. If Hennie would come out of the bush and get on AR he would testify that watching this monster standing up off of the ground pulling himself onto the shore took my breath away, this thing was HUGE, just his mass was breath taking, the bottom of his massive belly was probably 24” off of the ground and huge legs with huge feet and a massive head that was a maze of curved lines and indentations. I have hunted buffalo and leopard and stood next to wild elephants and Rhino, this croc was the scariest thing I have witnessed in Africa, something out of the most horrific nightmare you ever had. He turned broadside and silently laid down in the exact spot the female had been laying in. Hennie looked at me and said “that is an old croc; I don’t think he has tooth in his head”. I said back, “That old bastard needs to die”, it was one of those times that you don’t need your guide to tell you it is a good one, I made my mind up when I saw him crawl out from under the grass. We looked at him a little more and noticed that he was missing a fairly large section of his tail, I didn’t care, this was the biggest croc we had seen, he was old and dominant, and there was no doubt when I saw him that he was the boss back in this dark place. We did not have a shot from the Mopani trees we were behind so I said I was going to try to crawl up to a set of trees in front of us. I did the buffalo scoot on my ass with my gun in my lap, I would take one length then look at the croc through my glasses making sure his eyes were closed, and then take another. Every time I would step on a twig or have to break a piece of the thicket to get through it the giant would open his eye, I would sit frozen and after a few seconds he would close it again. I began playing a game, every time I would have to break a piece of thorn bush to get through it I would have my glasses up with the other hand looking at him sleeping on the mud bank. As soon as the twig snapped his eye would snap open and I would freeze until he closed it again. This game continued until I made it to the trees, I slowly stood up behind the pair of Mopani trees and immediately saw I still didn’t have the shot. I turned around to Hennie and shook my head. I looked out at the end of the point and say a big tree that I thought would put me at the right angle if I could get to it, the problem; the base of this tree was surrounded by the thickest nastiest part of the thorn bush thicket. I pointed to it and Hennie just shook his head frustrated. I continued the game for another length that seemed like an eternity, I was convinced every time he opened his eye that he was going to slip into the grass mat and be gone. Our saving grace was the wind was blowing in our faces fairly steadily, blowing our scent and most sound behind us. After about 20 minutes of picking through the thorn bush I found myself at the base of the big tree and the croc was still laying with his eyes closed. I turned around to Hennie and signaled to him to follow the trail I had left through the thorn bush. The next twenty minutes was a series of tense moments with me starting and stopping Hennie with hand signals every time the croc opened or closed his eye. It was intense, wondering when the crocs ancient brain was finally going to throw up the red flag that pushed him back into hiding. Finally, Hennie was behind me and the croc still lay in the mud with his eyes closed. I slowly stood up behind the tree and Hennie stood up behind me, the angle was still questionable, the giant laid quartering towards us 20’-30’ below and 50-60 yards away. The only hope was a standing shot against the side of the tree and I would have to hit him in the corner of his left eye. I raised the gun and pressed it against the side of the tree and began seeing how steady I could hold it. I put the crosshairs on the corner of his eye and took three deep silent breaths then held it. Man, I could still see the crosshairs moving the tiniest amount; I was only going to have one shot at this and didn’t want to mess it up. I took my breaths again and backed away from the gun a step spreading my legs and held the crosshairs on the corner of his closed eye, finally, steady. I told Hennie, “this is it brother”, took two deep breaths holding the third and gently squeezed my right hand like I was making a fist, just the way my dad taught me when I was 12. The explosion came on its own and the croc did not move, not even a twitch, that moment froze and it was like nothing had happened. In a fraction of a second my eyes scanned the entire monster through the scope, wasn’t his head supposed to be pitching or his tail instinctively beating back and forth? Nothing, dead silence, suddenly Walter was in my head, “Don’t be a golfer, standing there admiring your shot. Put a second in his shoulder blade and a third in his hips.” Like lightening the action on the Kimber chambered another 300 grains that flew through the beasts shoulder, and another was sent blowing through his hips, still nothing. I turned and looked at Hennie and could tell by the look on his face the job was done. Arosh came running through the thicket with my wife behind him, one look over the side of the bank and a violent hand shake followed with a “thank you, thank you sir, this is a fucked up place” In his broken accent. I will never forget the look on his face or those words coming out of his mouth as they were not what I expected and I feel sure they spoke of many lifetimes of people he knew being victimized by these ancient beasts before crawling back into the dark thicket covered sloughs only to re-emerge when they were hungry again. We ran down and around the point to the croc and tied him up just in case he came back to life (not much chance of that). It took about three hours of sweat and a smoking winch to get the beast across the slough and loaded in the truck, I was pumped to say the least.




9/21: The day was spent hunting for Kudu, we sat on a salt pan / water hole for the first half of the day saw all kinds of plains game but no big Kudu. The evening was spent walking the riverbeds, once again seeing lots of nice plains game, two mature “shooter kudu, but none larger than I already had taken, still enjoyed the walk and watching all of the game. We got to watch a herd of elephant with two young bulls throwing down. Being here was like living in an episode of Natural Geographic Explorer.





9/22: Spent the morning looking for Kudu, walking 3 different riverbeds. We saw lots of bushbuck, kudu cows with young bulls, warthog and impala. The heat was starting to set in and I told Hennie we should head back to the camp (he would have hiked the rest of the day; I think he was mad at the Kudu). We got back to Camp about 1:30 and ate lunch, Walter and Jerry were already there and Walter said he had planned a sunset cruise for the last night on the lake and we would leave about 4:00, maybe we would luck out and hook into a tiger fish. The time arrived and everyone began throwing beer and whiskey and waters in the cooler to prepare for our last night on Cahora Bassa. I could say that the mood was somber, but it wasn’t, everyone had such a wonderful time we were still telling stories about all we had seen and done. As we loaded in the truck to go down to the barge Walter told me to grab my 505 Gibbs just in case. “Just in case what? We’re going tiger fishing man”. He replied “It’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it”. I grabbed the Gibbs and threw it in the truck. We loaded the boat and set out, the water was like glass, we cruised along in the cool breeze drinking 2M beer (Jerry had his Johnny Walker) and watching the bushbucks and bush pigs on the shoreline. After cruising for 20-30 minutes Walter pointed out a pod of hippos and asked if I wanted to blast one out of the boat with the Gibbs. I looked at my wife and she just smiled that “your gonna do what you want anyways” smile. I thought about it and thought again, “Walter, I appreciate the offer but I have had such a wonderful time, I am scared I would screw it up somehow.” Walter replied, “let me re-phrase that, the elections are coming and Frelimo has said they want 2 meat hippos to give the villagers and I am dying to see what that Gibbs will do to a hippo.” Then he said words that have never passed over the lips of a safari operator “I didn’t say I was going to charge you”. I almost pissed my pants, I turned to look at my wife and she had already gotten out of her chair to grab my gun, as she knew he was speaking a language I understood. Before I go any further let me say, I tell this part of the story because I realize how blessed I was with the opportunity, I hope I am not throwing Walter under the bus by building up people’s expectations for future hunts (Jerry had a saying he said several times during the hunt, it went something like “Expectations breed resentment”). I understand this will never happen again and the Gods smiled on me as I stood at the bow of that barge. Before I knew it I was standing at the front of the barge 505 in hand and we were silently gliding into the pod of hippos. Walter stood next to me with his 450 Rigby and told me to pick a big one and he would follow up the shot. As we got to the hippos they all went under and would re-surface all around us then immediately resubmerge, this went on until two big cows came up about 50 yards in front of us, I raised the rifle just in time for them to go back under. I kept the rifle up and they came back up in the same place, I put the bead on the big cows head and squeezed the trigger. The water exploded with the big cow thrashing around, spraying gallons of blood out of her nose, I felt Walters 450 go off beside me. I chambered another round and hit her again, and again, and again. I turned around and Hennie was standing there with my shells I quickly reloaded and shouldered the rifle again, she began to roll and I started pumping 600 grain Woodleigh solids into her body. The boat was turning and I moved to the back with Walter, she surfaced one more time at about 80 yards moving away from us and I sent one final bullet into the back of her head, silence, and the water was glass again. My wife got the whole thing on video and if I can figure out how to post it I will. We dropped off Hennie on shore and he went to get the truck while we went fishing as we waited for her to float. Right about sundown she floated to the surface and Hennie pulled up with a bunch of skinners and trackers ready to process the cow to be distributed to those planned.



Guys, I have been working on this report for 5 hours now and could go for another 5 and still miss some of the amazing things we saw and did. I will never forget this trip and would tell anyone with absolute confidence that if you go with Kwan you will not be disappointed. Walter was a true gentleman, Hennie was a great PH, days were filled with adventure and lots of game, evenings were filled with beautiful views, delicious food, cold beverages and great conversation around the Mopani fire. Despite the fact that this was a discounted/cancellation hunt, there was nothing discounted from the experience. I met people that I hope will be my friends for a long time to come. Good job Walter & Hennie, and I feel confident Jerry feels the same way.

Tomorrow?

I now hate you!



I'm enjoying it immensely, so far.

more please

Hi Brad- sitting in Joburg airport getting ready to start home. glad you made it home OK. will post a report in a few days. had a great time in RSA. Jerry

by the way, guys, Brad, his wife( a real trooper), and I had a wailing good time!!!!!

Waiting with great anxiety for more. . . .

Cool neat to see pix of Walter's outfit! Congratulations!

A couple of really nice river monsters!

Congrats and welcome home.

Thank you for the pictures and the report. It is always nice to hear about up and up services like Kwan Safaris.

Tim

Nice croc!!!

great hunt, that croc is sweet.

Last report (Zim leopard) featured pre and post goatee pictures. What is the difference in a goatee shaving worthy trip and a not goatee shaving worthy trip?

Nice report

Congrats on the trophies

Super report!
Well written and with great photos.
Thanks for sharing.
You've just added fuel to my dream of stalking a big croc..

Great report and pictures. Thank you for telling your story to us!

Here is the video of the 505 wacking a hippo.

View My Video

Bloody good show . . . emphasis on bloody.

Cool video!

Looks like a great hunt & video.

Great trip and trophies! An amazing place.

Hi Brad, my video looks pretty much the same, just a little different camera angle. God, it makes me wish i was back there now!!!!

quote:

God, it makes me wish i was back there now!!!!

no doubt

Hello Brad, Jerry

Eat yoru heart out boys, I am on my way there tommorrow,

I will post pictures when I am back

Regards too all

Brad, that 505 Rocks

Walter,do you have hunters? If so, what for? Just curious, tell Hennie I said howdy.

Brad,

Yes 1 Croc Hippo,
1 Elephant ,Croc
1 Buffalo

Will let you know how it turned out, It is going too be hotter than hell though

All the best